Morals of the Church
Library › Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology › Volume I › Book II. On the Exercise of the Christian Life, or on the Cultivation of the Virtues › Treatise II. On the Cultivation of the Moral Virtues › Dissertation III. On the Precepts or Duties of the States of Life › Part III. On the Duties of Religious › Section II. On the Duties of Religious › Chapter I. On the Substantial Duties of Religious › Article II. On the Observance of Vows

Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

§ II. On the Vow of Chastity

1249.

I. Notion. The vow of chastity is a promise made to God of excluding the appetite and use of venereal things.

The remote material object is the appetite and use of venereal things; the proximate object is acts of excluding the aforesaid.

The formal object is the honesty which shines forth both in the said exclusion and in the vowing of it.

Chastity (Sixth and Ninth Commandments)Vow of Chastity

1250.

II. Effects. 1. A simple vow prohibits contracting marriage (can. 1058, § 1); a solemn vow, and likewise a simple vow to which this force has been added by a special prescription of the Apostolic See, dissolves a marriage contracted and not consummated between baptized persons or between a baptized party and a non-baptized party (can. 1119).

  1. Concerning the manner in which both a simple and a solemn vow extinguish betrothals, see in the treatise on Matrimony.

Chastity (Sixth and Ninth Commandments)Vow of Chastity

1251.

III. Obligation. One who violates the vow of chastity sins: 1st, against religion, as is clear; moreover he commits the sin of personal sacrilege (n. 614); 2nd, against the virtue of chastity, at least if he perpetrates an act illicit in itself. It is disputed if he exercises an act licit in itself, as if a husband who has become a religious were again to use his wife.

Chastity (Sixth and Ninth Commandments)Vow of Chastity

1252.

IV. Penalties against violators of the vow; cf. our little work De virtute castitatis, 3rd ed., n. 60.

Chastity (Sixth and Ninth Commandments)Vow of Chastity