Forgiveness, healing and reconciliation are important features of the Catholic perspective on sexual and relationship health. This is so for two simple reasons: First, God is love and we are created and called to be images of God; and second, we are all sinners, and that means we all almost inevitably find ourselves doing things that we know are not good for our own flourishing, or that we know hamper the flourishing of others. Our sinful actions damage the high quality of relationships characterised by love, justice, and chastity that God intended for human beings and indeed for human beings' relationship with God. Since God is love and God loves us so much that Jesus was prepared to die for us and for the truth that God wants us to live in a world of justice, peace and joy, God will forgive our sins. But, as free and rational beings, this forgiveness requires that we take responsibility for our sinful actions by sincerely acknowledging that what we did was morally wrong. Moreover, because we are free and created in the image of God who is just and merciful, we are also called to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed and in our turn forgive those who have harmed us. This is why, in the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples, 'the Lord's Prayer' or the 'Our Father', we ask God to forgive our sins (debts or trespasses) as we forgive those who sin against us (Matthew 6: 9-13). As Pope Francis has said, Listen carefully to this: each of us is capable of doing the same thing that that man or that woman in prison did. All of us have the capacity to sin and to do the same, to make mistakes in life... Mercy overcomes every wall, every barrier... And it is mercy which changes the heart and the life, which can regenerate a person and allow him or her to integrate into society in a new way (Pope Francis, 2014). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (1991) makes a similar point and contextualises it in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church: 'We are aware of our own frailty and sin as well as God's abiding presence and promise of forgiveness. As members of the Church, we draw strength, comfort, and renewed challenge from the Word of God, the Eucharist, and the healing and strengthening power of the sacrament of reconciliation.' Central to Jesus' message was that God unconditionally loved every human being and that this love is not conditional on 'being good'. This love cannot be earned, and no matter what human beings do, they cannot prevent God's love being available to them. Jesus taught that God would unconditionally forgive anyone who showed any sign of wanting to come to him and that real love always forgives... In many cases, the weakest and most vulnerable human beings are those who have difficulty in accepting themselves and their sexuality, and these are the people to whom the Church, if it is following Christ, should show the most love, commitment and understanding... None of us can or should condemn others (Vardy 1998, pp. 224-225). Though we might help others to see the truth of the moral wrongness of their actions, we cannot condemn them as human beings, who, like us, are seeking to live a meaningful life in a morally complex world. If we condemned people as human beings because of their sinful actions then forgiveness would be impossible. Forgiveness and healing are possible precisely because the Catholic tradition emphasizes an essential difference between the person, eternally loved by God, and the moral behaviour of that person. Our moral behaviour may change the way we relate to God, but it never changes how God loves us. As Vardy (1998, p. 225) points out, our task is to strive daily to align our moral behaviour with the belief that we, all human beings, and all of creation, are created and loved by God, who desires only our flourishing and happiness. Our task is to progress on our life's journey and, as we do so, to help our fellow travellers with care, compassion and understanding.

Now, when we talk about what is truly good and what 'freedom for' means in the Catholic sense, we are referring to the freedom to choose to direct one's actions towards the fostering of one's relationship with God and towards the flourishing of the community as a whole. This outwardly focused, altruistic understanding of freedom does not preclude one's own flourishing. Rather, it affirms that as beings made in the image of God, and hence as social and relational creatures, human beings flourish with others. Our flourishing is intimately tied up with the flourishing of others. When we use our freedom in this way, we respect not only the dignity of all human beings, but come closer to realizing the kind of just, peaceful and joyful community that God wants for humanity. What is truly good, in Catholic terms, is that which God wills. How do we know what God wills? Through revelation and through the use of our human reason to understand the order of the universe the way God has made it so that we can cooperate with God in making judgements and choices. Using these two sources of revelation and reason, we have already seen how we can affirm the good of every human being, their human dignity. We have seen how we can affirm the good of the body and the positive value of human sexuality expressed through procreation and conjugal love. We have seen how we can affirm the good of love, of intimacy, of being free of shame and of living whole-heartedly in a community of love, peace and justice with others. Thus, when it comes to moral reasoning about human sexuality and relationships, being able to answer basic questions about what is truly good means that our consciences are already well-informed about the starting point of our moral reflection. We come to understand such questions have answers both on the authority of God and the evidence of our own critical thought, reflection and feelings. What is said above constitutes the focus for what we should ultimately wish to achieve in all our moral decisions and use our freedom to work towards through our moral-decision making. What is discussed here provides a framework for helping us to think through what the right thing to do is in any given moral situation, especially in the context of human sexuality and relationships.

Above we defined chastity as a 'virtue of self-possession. It is about integrating one's sexuality into one's whole life as a human person. Being chaste means not being controlled by biological urges. Rather these urges or 'passions' are integrated into one's self-understanding as a sexual being made in the image of God who engages with other sexual beings who are themselves made in the image of God. Being chaste means taking control of one's desires and energies and directing them to those goods that are most rewarding, most meaningful, and that most support one's own flourishing and the flourishing of others.' Consequently, the Catholic perspective also highlights a number of so-called 'sins against chastity'. In other words, these are actions and their associated intentions which involve choosing not to direct one's sexuality, including its emotional and physical components, to those goals or ends that are most good for human flourishing, both of oneself and of others. In addition to masturbation and fornication (sex before marriage), these include lust, prostitution, incest and rape. What follows quotes directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 2351–2356) and should be seen in light of the foregoing discussions on chastity and what is truly good. Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes. Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials. Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of scandal). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure. Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.