“The one who, with God’s grace and mercy, tries his or her best to be pure and chaste is often thought of not as a hero, not a saint, but as a freak in our culture today,” said Archbishop Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral Jan. 15, according to the New York Daily News.

“The biblical teaching on sexual responsibility is countercultural,” he continued. “Anyone who tries his or her best to live it can expect a lot of temptation and even ridicule and criticism.”

In his homily about immorality, he linked it to broken families and crime. He also encouraged priests to preach on virtue.

“The Church has at times in the past, sadly, come across as some naysaying, puritanical nag, always giving a big ‘No, no, no’ to one of life’s greatest joys,” he said. “Truth be told, it is chastity and purity that liberates us, while immorality enslaves us.”

And as Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her.”