Jason Evert’s message is chastity. The young, San Diego-based Catholic has talked to more than 1 million students around the country, in religious, private and public-school settings and others at more than 1,000 assemblies.

In all those cases, Evert said the teens are eager to hear the chastity message. He delivers a message of abstinence, faith and love, delivered with doses of humor and candor.

He is the author of nine books, including “If You Really Loved Me,” “Pure Love” and “Theology of the Body for Teens.”

From Sept. 14-17, Evert carried his message to Catholic teens around the archdiocese through the Respect Life Office’s Chastity Education Initiative.

While here, Evert spoke with editor Joyce Duriga.

Catholic New World: How do you answer the inevitable questions from teens and young people of “How far can we go?”

Jason Evert: First I point out that it’s really the wrong question to ask because you wouldn’t ask “How close can I get in my car to hitting ongoing traffic,” or “How close can I get to the edge of a cliff?”

If you’re with someone you love you want to ask “How far can I go to do what’s best for this person to take care of them?”

When it comes to issues of sin, if we’re really that concerned with how close we can get to sin then we need to change the way we approach relationships. Some people think of it as “If it is a mortal sin then I don’t want to do it and if it’s a venial sin then I don’t want to miss it.” That’s really the wrong approach to have toward immorality.

Instead of going for a laundry list of potential sins, I think it’s much better to give them a tool to use for their conscience to say, “How far would you want someone to go with your future husband or wife?” “How far would you want someone to go with your daughter or your little sister?”

When people start to think in those terms then boundaries seem to become a lot clearer and then you just need to encourage them not to live by a double standard where you expect someone to treat your daughter someday or your future wife today if you can treat people a different way. That’s what chastity is about, living with integrity.

CNW: In your talks you often tell the teens to think in terms of their future spouse. Do you find this is a new way of thinking to them or are they already thinking of it?

Evert: A lot of them have not thought about it. It’s really a new way of thinking to a lot of teenagers because the part of the brain of a teenager that weighs the consequences and risks and judges the future outcomes of behaviors does not fully mature until their mid-20s, and that’s understandable because they didn’t make any life-changing decisions when they were 10 years old or 12 years old and so they don’t really see how what they do today impacts their life 10 years from now.

If you can start to point out to them the way they live today will impact who they will become — and especially this concept of a future spouse. It really clicks with the teens because you’re not just waiting for an event or for a sacrament, you’re waiting for a person — a husband or a wife — and it makes it much more personal.

CNW: You quote a study that says 34 percent of high school teens are sexually active. That seems low.

Evert: The numbers that I got were from the 2008 Centers for Disease Control Youth Behavior Surveillance System Survey (www.cdc.gov). It shows that 34 percent of high school students in America are currently sexually active, meaning having had sex in the last three months, and 45.9 percent have ever had intercourse, meaning the majority of American high school students are virgins.

This is not a new trend. Sexual activity rates have been going down since about 1990. You can say ever since the government started giving federal grant money to abstinence education, sexual activity rates have been going down.

The reason you don’t hear more about it amongst the teens themselves is because nobody gossips about chastity.

CNW: In your talks you also say that we’ve been lied to about what it means to be man and woman.

Evert: Pope John Paul II said in his theology of the body that the balance and the dignity between the sexes depends upon who man will be for woman and who she will be for man. It’s so true that so much of humanity depends upon what a guy will be for a woman. Is he going to be a protector a defender — saying a woman is a treasure or is he going to be like a predator and a destroyer seeing a woman as just a target.

You can just see the fallout of the sexual revolution of men that have this contorted concept of manhood that by sexual conquest with women I establish my manhood. When, in reality, that is the complete inversion of what it means to be masculine.

When you throw these thoughts out there to teenagers it resonates with them. The truth is within their hearts. You can see them nodding their heads. You can hear a pin drop in an auditorium for an hour and a half with a bunch of teenagers talking about sex.

People in the media wouldn’t believe that they are capable of paying attention that long. When you’re just honest with them and you speak the truth and they know that you’re genuine then they respect you and they listen. Pope John Paul II said that Christ has the answers to our deepest questions. Even if they are the most demanding answers the young are not afraid of it. More to the point, they even await them.

I think that’s so true. The young people are literally waiting to hear this message and they don’t even realize it. But once they hear it they know it.