The Proper Role of the Catholic School in Education for Chaste Love

“Rough handling spoils the fair lily and causes it to wither, so the man who lives chastely suffers from indiscriminate intercourse with those around him.”

The Catechism Explained, Fr. Francis Spirago, 1889
Alice Ann Grayson, M. Ed.

Introduction

Pope Pius XI in his 1929 encyclical, Divini Illius Magistri, Christian Education of Youth, placed a ban on all classroom sex education, even calling it an ugly term. This ban has never been rescinded, nor can it be as it pertains to the Natural Law.

Subsequent Vatican documents dating from the 1931 Decree of The Holy Office through the 1995 letter from the Pontifical Council for the Family by order of The Holy See, Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family , affirm the truth that formation in chaste love belongs fundamentally and primarily to the family, the school of humanity. As to be expected, each Papal teaching enunciates certain ethical and theological truths, and gives practical advice, responding to relevant issues of the times. (there is a selected list of Church documents at the end of this article.)

What emerges from these teachings is a Catholic aversion to numerous sex education programs which are hurting our children in both public and private schools – inclusive of our Catholic institutions. All of the harmful elements of these courses are identified. The Pontiffs have warned the faithful against naturalism, moral relativism, Palagianism, and dualism. They point out the intrusive pedagogy which distorts the truth about the sacrament of marriage, the mystery of chaste love, and the needs of the individual child.

What also emerges from these documents is that parents should not feel abandoned in their sacred mission of educating and bringing up their children. They may rightfully seek out help, most especially with regard to the Church School, whose very mission is to be of assistance to parents in their sacred task, which includes formation in chaste love.

Regarding this issue, the present situation is very sad. Numerous authors have created what they call chastity programs or family life values, and the like. They claim that their programs are suited for forming children in chaste love. Many of these programs have the approval of local bishops. Other groups, representing parents, such as Mother’s Watch (Maryland), National Council of Clergy and Laity (Pennsylvania), Our Lady’s Crusaders for Life (Massachusetts), The Family Life Center (Florida), and Veil of Innocence (Massachusetts) assert that these programs are at stark variance with formation in chaste love.
Parental groups object that:

The child is exposed to information that focuses on and stimulates the sexual function – while at the same time he is being told to be chaste, i.e. pure in thought, word, or deed. his causes a tremendous psychological and moral conflict in the young, especially considering that such stimulation, which is cumulative, seeks a way to express itself. (NCCL Brochure)

William Marra, Jr. speaks well for parents when he writes that even the more objective chastity programs manifest:

…the pitfalls of trying to preserve part of Church teaching, without understanding the context and underpinning that every other aspect of the Church provided which is in support of that teaching. In this case I claim that the `plant’ of chastity is advocated, or some part thereof, without the `garden’ of modesty and holiness that nourishes it. The plant cannot grow outside the garden.

There are several fundamental flaws in the approach taken by the authors, and these have resulted from a classic case of trying to defend a value or system of values without fully understanding the value in the first place – and also without fully understanding the enemies of the value. It is rather like a homeowner believing that his valuable estate is well-protected and invulnerable because he has recently placed a thick deadbolt on the front door, with no regard for the windows, basement, etc.

…the entire arena of sexual morality has been reduced to external physical activity, and some of its consequences.

…the implication is that if we keep to this minimal prescription, we have satisfied our duty towards the virtue of purity. This is what I called earlier the `plant’ of chastity. The problem is that an entire area of sexual morality has been ignored altogether – the arena of the mind, where most sexual sins are born in the first place. This is the `garden’ of modesty and holiness in the earlier analogy. Between the immodest fashions of our day and the complete lack of formation of our youth, the worst sins most young people may be exposed to do not even involve getting near another person. Their environment has been poisoned, and their virtue will be stunted or killed off soon after. The authors are simply not taking seriously enough the counsel of Christ when He stated that the man who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28) (William Marra, Jr., Our Power to Love – A Critique, July 1996)

Parental groups agree with the National Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Guilds:

It is the position of the National Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Guilds that sex resides as much in the affective as in the cognitive domain: that adult sexuality is a personal response, not merely an intellectual function; that a child learns about sex primarily by responding affectively to his parent’s affective behavior; and therefore that healthy sexuality cannot be taught in the classroom, it cannot be taught by strangers, it cannot be taught apart from the family. When parents fail in their responsibility to their children, it is they who must be educated for, for better or for worse, it is they who will educate their children in these matters. (National Federation of Catholic Physicians Guild)

Indeed, parental groups have published critiques that identify the serious errors in the so-called chastity programs. They identify them as sex education, which has been consistently and constantly forbidden by the Magisterium because sex education present a danger to the soul. These organizations assist parents, empowering them to object to the programs and to protect the innocence of their own children.

Sadly little real communication takes place between the chastity educators and parents. This is mostly so because of the uncompromising nature of the root material, that is, the distinction between sex education and formation in chaste love. This situation is further distressed because, for the most part, the episcopal offices of Catholic dioceses have not been responsive to the criticisms of parents nor to those groups that represent them in the endeavor to protect the children from sexualization in the classroom.

If the bishops and chastity educators would really listen to parents, they would come to appreciate the privacy/sacred/Faith issues in a new light. Then perhaps parents would be more willing to work collaboratively with educators. Then our children could receive a single message: at school, at church, and at home. Together they could resist the actions of Planned Parenthood, and the like.

The Veil of Innocence is a group dedicated to helping parents with the problems of classroom sex education programs. It offers to parents and teachers, as well as to bishops and chastity educators the following Charter. The Charter appreciates the role of those who assist parents while it preserves parental rights and respects the true nature of human sexuality based on the Church’s documents. The Veil of Innocence believes that this framework allows the use of some very good educational material while excluding elements at odds with the Teachings of Faith.