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Pope Alexander VII, Various Errors on Moral Matters #40, September 24, 1665 and March 18, 1666: “It is a probable opinion which states that a kiss is only venial when performed for the sake of the carnal and sensible delight which arises from the kiss, if danger of further consent and pollution is excluded.” – Condemned statement by Pope Alexander VII. (Denz. 1140)

Nine, spouses should always remain chaste during the woman’s infertile periods and perform as few marital acts as possible each month in order to nurture virtue and perfection. The virtuous fruit and glory that such spouses give to Our Lord are undoubtedly very great, for those who have access to pleasure yet mortifies themselves can in a sense truly be called martyrs. These mortifications and sacrifices will also help make the power and influence of the devil grow less powerful in their life, and as a direct consequence to this, make the power and influence of God and His Holy Spirit grow stronger in their life—in those good spouses who abstain from performing the marital except for the procreation of children for the love of Our Lord. This will also make the home of these spouses more loving and free from those troubles and demons that most worldly couples are plagued with.

A woman’s menstrual cycle is about 28 days long, and the menstrual phase is about 5 days. Adding 7 days after the menstrual phase in accordance with God’s word in the Bible would mean that men and women should remain chaste for 12 days out of every 28 days during the woman’s natural menstrual cycle.

St. Finnian of Clonard, The Penitential of Finnian #46: “We advise and exhort that there be continence in marriage, since marriage without continence is not lawful, but sin, and [marriage] is permitted by the authority of God not for lust but for the sake of children, as it is written, ‘And the two shall be in one flesh,’ that is, in unity of the flesh for the generation of children, not for the lustful concupiscence of the flesh. Married people, then, must mutually abstain during three forty-day periods in each single year, by consent for a time, that they may be able to have time for prayer for the salvation of their souls; and after the wife has conceived he shall not have intercourse with her until she has borne her child, and they shall come together again for this purpose, as saith the Apostle. But if they shall fulfill this instruction, then they are worthy of the body of Christ… and there they shall receive the thirty-fold fruit which as the Savior relates in the Gospel, he has also plucked for married people.” (Medieval Handbooks of Penance by John T. McNeil and Helen Gamer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938)

Ten, spouses should always abstain from marital relations after the woman have become pregnant since during pregnancy, the primary end or purpose of procreation is not possible to be fulfilled, and thus, it is a defective action to have marital relations during this time period. We see this distinction being made in the Church’s teachings in these words: “Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children” (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, # 54). Athenagoras the Athenian (c. 133-190), an early Christian author, explains it thus: “After throwing the seed into the ground, the farmer awaits the harvest. He does not sow more seed on top of it. Likewise, to us the procreation of children is the limit of our indulgence in appetite.” (A Plea For the Christians, Chapter XXXIII.--Chastity of the Christians with Respect to Marriage). In truth, it is not natural to sow one’s seed when one “awaits the harvest.”

The virtue of chastity is sexual purity according to one’s state of life. For married persons, this does not refer merely to refraining from adultery. Every kind of sexual immorality must be driven out of the holy matrimonial bond, so that not even any unchaste thoughts enter the mind of the husband or the wife. The chastity of husband and wife should extend to their entire selves, body and soul, even reaching to the inner thoughts of the heart and mind. There are no exceptions to chastity. No one is exempt from chastity according to their state of life. Even when a husband and wife have marital relations, the conjugal act cannot be lustful in heart or mind, nor can it be morally disordered in the particulars of the act itself. “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

St. Clement of Alexandria, On Marriage and Self-Control (c. 198 A.D.): “In general all the epistles of the apostle teach self-control and continence and contain numerous instructions about [virtuous] marriage, begetting children, and domestic life. But they nowhere rule out self-controlled marriage [or give license to lasciviousness]. Rather they preserve the harmony of the law and the gospel and approve both the man who with thanks to God enters upon marriage with sobriety and the man who in accordance with the Lord’s will lives as a celibate, even as each individual is called, making his choice without blemish and in perfection.” (The Stromata or Miscellanies, Book III, Chapter XII, Section 86)

The idea that unnatural sexual acts can be used in the service of natural marital relations open to life is fundamentally incompatible with the holiness and chastity required of all married couples. Unnatural sexual acts are intrinsically evil, and so they cannot be used as the servants of natural marital relations open to life. No good employer would knowingly choose to hire employees entirely lacking in what is good and necessary to the task at hand. No holy king and queen would choose advisers or assistants who were fundamentally opposed to every good upon which their kingdom depends. No married Christian couple can morally choose to use unnatural sexual acts, partial or completed, even if the intention is to use these acts in the service of natural marital relations open to life. Evil cannot be used in the service of good, because good and evil are fundamentally incompatible. This is also why the Church teaches “that those marriages will have an unhappy end which are entered upon... because of concupiscence alone, with no thought of the sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it” since those kinds of selfish, lustful and impious “marriages” in effect are nothing but fornication in disguise of a marriage (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos #12). Indeed, “... [since] men do not reap the full fruit of the Sacraments which they receive after acquiring the use of reason unless they cooperate with grace, the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field unless the parties exercise these supernatural powers and cultivate and develop the seeds of grace they have received.” (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii #41)

St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church, On Marriage and Family Life: “To this end every marriage should be set up so that it may work together with us for chastity. This will be the case if we marry such brides as are able to bring great piety, chastity, and goodness to us. The beauty of the body, if it is not joined with virtue of the soul, will be able to hold the husband for twenty or thirty days, but will go no farther before it shows its wickedness and destroys all its attractiveness. As for those who radiate the beauty of the soul, the longer time goes by and tests their proper nobility, the warmer they make their husband’s love and the more they strengthen their affection for him. Since this is so, and since a warm and genuine friendship holds between them, every kind of immorality is driven out. Not even any thought of wantonness ever enters the mind of the man who truly loves his own wife, but he continues always content with her. By his chastity he attracts the good will and protection of God for his whole household.” (St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: 1986, trans. Roth and Anderson, p. 100)

Ask God to eliminate or minimize sexual pleasure

Even though a husband must consummate the marital act for conception to occur, this does not mean he must have much pleasure to his flesh when doing so. He can pray to God to remove the pleasure and turn it to a strange, despised, and hated sensation or at least to a neutral sensation. To try to suppress or minimize the sensual pleasure in the marital act is surely a most pious and good thing to ask God for if one wish to become perfect. If this goal was achieved, then concupiscence would be conquered and the marital act would only occur with the intention of procreation and with no other motive, and the act itself would produce no particular pleasure to the flesh but only a strange and unwanted sensation caused by the venom of original sin in the flesh. “But continence doing this, that is, moderating, and in a certain way limiting in married persons the lust of the flesh, and ordering in a certain way within fixed limits its unquiet and inordinate motion, uses well the evil of man, whom it makes and wills to make perfect good: as God uses even evil men, for their sake whom He perfects in goodness.” (St. Augustine, On Continence, Section 27) Thus, “Our will is to be directed only towards that which is necessary. For we are children not of desire but of will. A man who marries for the sake of begetting children must practice continence so that it is not desire he feels for his wife, whom he ought to love, and so that he may beget children with a chaste and controlled will.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata or Miscellanies, Book III, Chapter VII, Section 58)

The Blessed Virgin Mary revealed to St. Bridget that her virtuous parents, St. Anna and St. Joachim, were united in the marital act in a perfect way and without any lust or will to please their own flesh, and the consequence of this virtuous act was that it produced the most perfect human that have ever lived after our Lord: Our Blessed Lady.