By Pete Baklinski
Analysis
"More souls go to hell because
of sins of the flesh than for any other reason," Our Lady of Fatima warned
the three young seers in 1917. But this message, unfortunately, is entirely
absent from the Vatican’s newly released sex-ed programme for teens. Instead,
sexual sins are not mentioned at all. The 6th and 9th commandments are ignored
while sexually explicit images and immoral videos are used as springboards for
discussion.
The programme titled “The Meeting Point: Course of Affective Sexual Education
for Young People” was released last week by
the Pontifical Council for the Family to be presented this week to young people
at World Youth Day in Poland.
While the programme has been in the
process of development by married couples in Spain for a number of years, it
appears to have received impetus to be completed by Francis’ April
Exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia. In
the exhortation, Francis speaks about the “need for sex education” to be
addressed by “educational institutions,” a move that alarmed global
life-and-family leaders since the Catholic Church has always recognized and
taught — often in the face of opposition from world powers — that sex education
is the “basic right and duty of parents.”
The Vatican’s sex-ed is broken down
into six units that are to be taught over a period of four years (grades 9-12)
to male and female students in mixed classes.
The new programme being put forward by
the Pontifical Council for the Family appears to be a departure from what the
Church's magisterium has long taught on sex education. For example:
- Pope Pius XI, in his 1929 encyclical on
Christian education, Divini Illius Magistri, speaks about sex instruction in a private setting by
parents, not in classrooms, stating that if “some private instruction is
found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission
to teach and have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such
precautions are well known in traditional Christian education. ... Hence
it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with
his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard not to descend
to details." He adds: “Speaking generally, during the period of
childhood, it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double
effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door
upon vice."
- Pope Pius XII, in his 1951 address to fathers of
families, warns against propaganda, even from
"Catholic sources," which "exaggerates out of all
proportion the importance and significance of the sexual element. ... Their
manner of explaining sexual life is such that it acquires in the mind and
conscience of the average reader the idea and value of an end in itself,
making him lose sight of the true primordial purpose of matrimony, which
is the procreation and upbringing of children, and the grave duty of
married couples as regards this purpose—something which the literature of
which We are speaking leaves too much in the background."
- Pope John Paul II, in his 1981
apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, calls sex
education a “basic right and duty of parents” which “must always be
carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in
educational centres chosen and controlled by them." He
adds: “Christian parents, discerning the signs of God’s Will, will
devote special attention and care to educate in virginity or celibacy as
the supreme form of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of
human sexuality."
- The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, in its 1983 Educational Guidelines in Human Love, writes that the “fact remains ever valid that in regard to the
more intimate aspects [of sexual education], whether biological or
affective, an individual education should be bestowed, preferably within
the sphere of the family.”
While the new Vatican programme has
many positive qualities, its defects cannot be underestimated. These
include:
- Handing the
sexual formation of children over to educators while leaving parents out
of the equation.
- Failing to name
and condemn sexual behaviors, such as fornication, prostitution, adultery,
contracepted-sex, homosexual activity, and masturbation, as objectively
sinful actions that destroy charity in the heart and turn one away from
God.
- Failing to warn
youths about the possibility of eternal separation from God (damnation)
for committing grave sexual sins. Hell is not mentioned once.
- Failing to
distinguish between mortal and venial sin.
- Failing to
speak about the 6th and 9th commandment, or any other commandment.
- Failing to
teach about the sacrament of confession as a way of restoring relationship
with God after committing grave sin.
- Not mentioning
a healthy sense of shame when it comes to the body and sexuality.
- Teaching boys
and girls together in the same class.
- Having boys and
girls share together in class their understanding of
phrases such as: “What does the word sex suggest to
you?”
- Asking a mixed class to “point out
where sexuality is located in boys and girls.”
- Speaking about the “process of
arousal.”
- Using sexually
explicit and suggestive images in activity workbooks (here, here, and here).
- Recommending
various sexually explicit movies as springboards for discussion (see below
for links).
- Failing to
speak about abortion as gravely wrong, but only that it causes “strong
psychological damage.”
- Confusing
youths by using phrases such as “sexual
relationship” to indicate not the sexual act, but a relationship focused
on the whole person.
- Speaking of
“heterosexuality” as something to be “discover[ed].”
- Using gay icon Elton John (while not
mentioning his activism) as an example of a gifted and famous
person.
- Endorsing the
“dating” paradigm as a step towards marriage.
- Not stressing
celibacy as the supreme form of self-giving that constitutes the very
meaning of human sexuality.
- Failing to
mention Christ’s teaching on marriage.
- Treating
sexuality as a separate subject instead of as something integrated into
the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church.
Positive qualities include:
- Drawing from John Paul II’s teachings in Theology of the Body and Love and
Responsibility for an understanding of personhood, the language of the
body, the spousal dimension of the body, and the body/soul unity of the
person.
- Teaching that
the human person is either male or female. No gender theory here.
- Teaching that
men and women complement each other through sexual difference.
- Teaching that
men and woman are equal in dignity, but are different physically and
emotionally. No radical feminism here.
- Teaching about
modesty and chastity as virtues, but not until later units. Chastity is
defined as the “light which guides us to give an inviolate love.”
- Teaching the
importance of freedom in the moral life. Freedom is defined as the
“capacity to do what is good.”
- Speaking about
“concupiscence” as a “darkness prevent[ing] us from seeing the fullness of
the person in a proper and complete way.”
- Briefly
mentioning how love can be separated from procreation, but not explaining
the specific evil.
- Teaching about
the importance of “self-control” and “self-mastery” in order to truly give
yourself to another person.
- Speaking about
“misplaced love” which manifests itself as “narcissism” and
“masturbation,” but no mention of sin.
- Speaking about
purity as the “virtue that disposes us to treat our body with ‘holiness
and honour.’”
- Briefly
mentioning the “sanctity of life.”
- Speaking about
virginity as a way to “respond to the call to love.”
- Promoting
chastity before marriage.
Of urgent concern with the programme is
the number of films recommended by the programme as a springboard for discussion
that cannot be construed as anything but sexually immoral. For example:
- Unit 4 recommends the 2013
R-rated film “To the Wonder” to discuss the “call to the donation of
oneself.” Focus on the Family describes the sexual content in this way
[WARNING–EXPLICIT]: “So while love is the primary focus of To the Wonder,
sex becomes an integral part of its expression. Both Neil and Jane, and
Neil and Marina, engage in explicitly rendered intercourse. Nudity stops
just short of full; motions and sounds are passionate, erotic, titillating
and extended—the blending of bodies to suggest complete intimacy. There's
the visual suggestion that Neil and Marina have sex in the coach
compartment on a train. An (almost) oral sex scene is used to express
distance and dissatisfaction.”
- Unit 6 recommends the 2010
R-rated film “Love & other Drugs” to “reflect[]
on the part of the formula with which a man and a woman express their
mutual consent to contract marriage.” Focus on the Family describes the
sexual content in this way [WARNING–EXPLICIT]: "For a good chunk of
the film, Jamie and Maggie seem to be in a constant state of lovemaking.
They smash into cabinets, writhe on the floor, pant and moan, engage in
oral sex and loudly express their orgasmic responses. Audiences see both
of them completely naked. (Only their pubic regions escape the frame.) It's
pretty explicit stuff…Later, after Maggie and Jamie tape one of their
sexual escapades, Josh finds it and watches it. It's implied that he
masturbates while doing so. And he spends the rest of the film making
crude comments about his brother's anatomy.”
- Unit 2 recommends the 2013
film "Stockholm" to raise
the question, “Is it really worth it to give myself to the first person
that approaches me?” Hollywood Reporter describes the film as a
“cat-and-mouse” game where the man “expertly dresses up his desire for sex
with her as real feeling” while “quizzes him about his real motives for
his interest in her.” After the “commitment of sex has happened,”
which appears to be graphically depicted based on previews, the couple
starts to find out “who they really are and that they’re seeking entirely
different things.”
The film selection reveals a
startling lack of moral compass in the programme creators, something that should
alarm any parent thinking of allowing their child to be formed by this
programme.
One pro-family campaigner against
Planned Parenthood’s explicit version of sex-ed gave this comment, under
condition of anonymity, about the Vatican’s sex-ed programme: “I had a hard time
deciding if the authors were trying to cleverly disguise a bad programme or if
they were just thoroughly incompetent. They tried to interweave modern day
movies to support the vague concepts they were trying to get across, but, how
they did that was not very effective. Why the erotic pictures that bordered on
porn? I thought the whole thing would be confusing to youth and frankly a large
waste of time.”
In one activity, youths are asked to look at a picture of an older couple who are
sitting in front of an image of a “young man and woman, joining their
half-naked bodies in a hug.” They are asked: “Which of the two couples is
having a sexual relationship?” The teaching guide states: “The objective is for
the young person to feel ‘provoked’ in front of these two images, or even
confused by the title of the topic and the image presented.” And that is the essential
problem with this program: Young people will simply be confused by the
conflicting messages, the explicit images and films, and the lack of moral
directives.
In the end, the Vatican’s sex-ed
programme might at best be described as a mixed bag and at worst as a misguided
effort that falls very much short of the mark. While the casual reader can
point to various texts that suggest that the programme is aimed at promoting
modesty, abstinence, and saving sexual relations for marriage, there is
nevertheless something quite disturbing happening between the lines.
Because of the programme's failure to honour
the God-given role of parents as primary educator, its utter failure to name
and condemn various sexual sins, and its use of sexual explicit materials and
films, the programme not only fails to achieve its goal, but it could arguably
have the opposite effect of awakening in youths disordered sexual desire and
giving them the impetus to act out sexual fantasies. The programme attempts to
instruct young people about the importance of modesty, chastity, and intimacy
and does so by violating the very values it is trying to instil. In this way it
is self-defeating. In short, the programme could lead youths not closer to God,
but further away from him.
One might go as far as conjecturing
that had the sainted Maria Goretti been formed by the Vatican’s sex-ed programme,
it is unlikely that she would have had any heroic words of virtue to say to her
sexual attacker. She would not have been formed to say: “No! It is a sin! God
does not want it!" She would not have learned that what her attacker
wanted was an offense against God. Nor would have Saint Dominic Savio, in the
same vein, been able to say: “Death rather than sin,” because he would not have
learned about the horror of sin. A programme in sexual morality that fails to
teach young people to live the Gospel without compromise is unworthy of being
taught.
Pete
Baklinski has a B.A. in Liberal Arts and a Masters in Theology with a
Specialization on Marriage and the Family (STM). He is married to Erin.
Together they have six children.
Contact
information:
Editor's Note: The
Pontifical Council for the Family is asking for feedback about its program. Please be
respectful in communications.
The PCF may be contacted
using its online platform here (scroll to bottom of page) or by using the information
below:
Production Pontificium Consilium pro Familia
Piazza di San Calisto
16 00153 Roma
Phone: +39 0669887243
E-mail: pcf@family.va
Piazza di San Calisto
16 00153 Roma
Phone: +39 0669887243
E-mail: pcf@family.va
Source: LifeSiteNews
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