A Critique by William R. Marra
INTRODUCTION
This short article is designed to point out, in the briefest way possible, some of the more glaring inadequacies of the book by the above title. That the book includes a glowing endorsement by a conservative bishop (Bishop Myers of Peoria) and is published by Ignatius Press, an outfit noted for its conservative outlook and doctrinally sound material, should come as no surprise to the observer of our day.
Such an observer will have already been witness to the pitfalls of trying to preserve part of Church teaching, without understanding the context and underpinning that every other aspect of the Church provided 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 which nourishes it. The plant cannot grow outside the garden.
I will return to this point later. It is sufficient to say at this point that this book was selected for review not because it is the newest example of its kind, or the worst. It was simply that the book landed on my desk one day, and I was subsequently asked to comment.
It is difficult to know exactly where or how to begin, in considering a book such as Our Power to Love. Not that it is hard to discover pitfalls — but because if one does not get some sense of how this book was conceived, or at least a quick sketch of the basic logic behind it, it is difficult to combat the evil effects which it is bound to have.
There is a certain paradox here. On the one hand, there is a long list of serious departures from Catholic teaching and practice that could be enumerated in reviewing this book. And on the other hand, there is the apparently contradictory yet stated desire to promote the teaching of the Church, and appeal is made more than once to the Church’s authority as guide in preparing this text.
This leads to several problems on the practical level. One is that with a “coating” of apparent Catholicism, and reference to God and His law, the unsuspecting may be led into a false sense of security as they entrust their little ones to the “professionals” in the school system. They may be tempted to say “Well, at least they’re talking about God and morality – this series must be OK!”
This brings up the second and related problem of scandal, even — or especially — for those who see through this religious “sugar-coating” of the sex-ed programs; that is to say, these fortunate few have seen the evil of these programs, but it now appears that the Catholic Church actually sanctions them! This presents us with an obligation in justice as Catholic apologists to clear the name of the Church on this matter, and I will return to this last point also when I quote from relevant passages of the Magisterium.
THE AUTHORS
Since we cannot fairly presume to “read the minds” of the authors, one of whom is a Catholic priest, we will limit ourselves to reading their words, to begin to see what their ideas on the Church, holiness and the formation of youth really are.
I will begin with what I consider to be an astounding assertion, stated in a note that occurs on page 7 in the book, and which reads as follows: “Some readers may be surprised that there are almost no references to original sin, the redemption, and the sacraments in this book. The omission of these topics was a conscious decision by the authors.” (My emphasis)
The reasons for this omission are then given:
1) [It] “would have made the book much longer.”
2) “There are many other good tools which present these teachings of the Church.”
3) [the authors] “wanted to present the theology of the body as a rationale for following the teachings of the Church in regard to sexuality.”
Rather than going deeply into an analysis of these reasons, perhaps we should try to fit each of them to a more mundane parallel and see how we fare.
1. How would the public react to a new offering by a pharmaceutical firm, in which the company touted supposed benefits of a new drug, but left out mention of dangerous side effects on the grounds that this would make the accompanying literature too long?
2. Or again, would a manufacturer of dangerous power tools dare to leave out warning messages about possible injury due to misuse, because after all, “there is plenty of good safety literature out there from OSHA, and all anyone has to do is get hold of it and read it”
3. And finally, imagine a fast-food service that served hot liquids, such as coffee or tea, but made no mention of possible burn injuries — but only made references to a table etiquette that would provide a “rationale” for not spilling hot coffee on ourselves! One can just see the liability attorneys holding their sides!
Another puzzling tidbit can be found on the inside front cover, again quoting directly: “Parents and adolescents, you are invited to share an experience of learning to appreciate yourself as a sexual person.”
Now it is an axiom of Catholicism that the teaching and practice of the Church have never changed to accommodate the times, the customs, etc. Even the external expressions of Church teaching have developed only so as to express better some aspect of God’s law, or our obligation in the face of that law. Any tampering with established custom has always been strongly condemned in the official Magisterium of the Church. It bears repeating again that only to achieve a manifestly greater good may a person propose to change even the manner in which a doctrine has been conveyed previously.
Applying this test to the last reference above, can we say that, up until now, a great failure in the education received from the Church was a failure to “appreciate [ourselves] as sexual persons”? Is this new program therefore going to address a long-standing deficiency? Somehow I have trouble imagining Saint John Bosco, Saint Theresa of Lisieux, or any of the thousands of saints in ancient or modern times, bewailing the fact that the people of their age failed to appreciate themselves as sexual persons. And somehow I suspect that it is even less true now than ever before — seeing themselves as sexual persons is the one thing most young people seem to do just fine nowadays!
From just the few points mentioned so far, it appears that we have gotten off to a bad start. But there is more to cover – the “nitty-gritty” of the latter.
THE MATERIAL
It is not actually stated in the book what age the intended reader might have achieved, but this much is clear: it is not meant only for adults. The numerous references to “young people” and “adolescents” show that this is intended, at least in part, for consumption by highly impressionable, excitable, confused, and often scared teenagers who, by definition, have not yet matured emotionally. Actually, if the bishop’s endorsement on the back cover is any indication, this material would actually be shown to junior high students, who might not even be physically at the stage where these discussions are relevant!
Consider the trauma of a young male high school student hearing about his own physical development as if it were some experiment in a petri dish, and in the presence of equally embarrassed teenage girls, and you have just a small inkling of the emotional damage and shock to the system that is taking place. One could well argue that exposing high schoolers and junior high schoolers to this material is a form of severe emotional abuse. (People have been convicted and imprisoned for showing less than this to minor children!)
Exactly what material am I talking about? We can start with a “quiz” on page 15 of the booklet – a series of true-or-false questions that would have either baffled or humiliated any decent boy or girl I knew in high school
e.g. Question 4: “True or False: Sperm needs cervical mucus to survive more than two or three hours?” The basic problem here is not the “morality” or the lack of it that is being taught; it is simply that we are discussing a point that would not be — or should not be — of concern to any young man at this time in his life. Or take Question 8: “True or False: Usually, only one ovum (egg) will ovulate during a woman’s menstrual cycle?” Again, would you like to imagine how your thirteen-year old daughter would react to this question, especially if posed in front of the thirteen-year old boy next to her?
It seems that the authors are missing the forest for the trees: they are so busy declaring that in all discussions of human sexuality, they will assume the context of “God’s love” and thereby avoid the accusation of paganism, that they have completely missed the fact that it is precisely the public discussion of these topics that engenders the charge of paganism in the first place.
Here we turn to the Magisterium (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri): “Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youth against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; “ And again: (Holy Office, March 21, 1931): “Hence no approbation whatever can be given to the advocacy of the new method even as taken up recently by some Catholic authors and set before the public in printed publications.”
The Church simply does not encourage, or even permit, such “forearming” or initiating of young people into the sexual mystery!
Besides the explicit references, there is also an implicit message of materialism and naturalism, repeated many times but quoted in just a few instances here for brevity: “To discover yourself as sexual is to come to know yourself more fully.” (Pg. 20 — emphasis in original) And again: “By getting to know your sexual powers, you — whether you are a boy or a girl — can awaken to yourself and others as maturing persons.” (pg. 20-21) And back on page 6, we read that this book “is our gift to young people throughout the world who so eagerly and necessarily search to know themselves.” Apparently there is no possible way for these teenagers to “discover who they are,” or to “awaken to themselves,” without an extensive sexual knowledge.
This has simply never been a component of Catholic teaching. What a far cry from the traditional teaching: that we find our true identity both as humans and as Christians in Christ, and in following His laws!
ANALYSIS
What happened? How is it that a series whose stated aim is to help the reader to “better understand who we are in relation to God” (pg. 6) — and presumably to better conform our lives to His will — ends up looking at best like material for use in a fertility clinic, and at worst something that thirty years ago would have gotten you arrested for showing it to minors?
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 therefore without fully understanding the enemies of the value, either. 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.
In this case, for example, the entire arena of sexual morality has been reduced to external physical activity, and some of its consequences. In other words, one should not engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, and one should not frustrate the reproductive faculties within marriage.
All well and good. But 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)
It is no surprise, therefore, that the word “purity” does not appear in the text, nor does it appear in the “Sexuality Dictionary,” which lists “Important Words” and which starts at page 89 in the back of the book. There are, however, numerous explicit entries for parts of the male and female anatomy. Apparently, either “purity” is not such an important word as “puberty” and “pubic” (both of which are listed), or else it is assumed that the “young people” in question already know sufficiently what purity means. What do you think?
There is actually a whole pattern of theological ambiguity lurking behind this. It was noted earlier that the authors admitted having almost no reference to original sin, among other things. In point of fact, there is scarcely mention of any sin at all. This ambivalence about declaring the moral code fearlessly, and substitution of equivocal terminology has an uncanny resemblance to what we have long ago come to expect in the notorious Modernist catechisms. Perhaps unknowingly, the authors have adopted some of the very same stock phrases and vagaries.
For example, although there are scattered references to “respect” for ourselves and others, nowhere is it outlined what this respect entails. Then there is the reference to the human body as a “sacrament” of our person, which means (according to the authors) a “visible sign of something real but invisible.” (pg. 61). The counsel against what the authors call “full sexual expression” (?) outside of marriage is yet another monument to conviction (I speak ironically, of course!), cf. pg. 76: “Outside of marriage, the potential for pain, misunderstanding, and disappointment is more than a loving, self-respecting person would want to risk.” (!)
What we have here is a wholesale adoption of words with Catholic sounds to them, but with watered-down, incomplete or less-than-Catholic meanings. When the authors speak of “respect,” it is left to the reader to discern what that would mean in the context of sexual morality, or (that word again!) purity. When they speak of “sacrament,” their definition leaves out entirely the traditional phrase “instituted by Christ to give grace.” Are they suggesting that the human body gives grace in and of itself? If not, then a word with a very specific meaning has again been altered. On page 12 we are told that when Christ told the young man (Luke 18:18) who wanted to achieve perfection that he must follow the commandments, He was telling him to “be a loving person.” The specifics of being a “loving person” are never clarified, nor is Christ’s admonition repeated: “He who loves me keeps my commandments.” (John 14:15, 21 and John 15:10)
SOLUTIONS
If we are to begin to address this problem, which grows more insidious with the proliferation of “Catholic” “chastity programs,” as they are called, we must examine the context in which Christian civilization, and Catholic saints, developed and flourished in the first place. We need to look at what today’s Catholic youth need, and what they don’t need.The Church developed at a time when to be a Catholic might well cost you your life. There was no shortage of martyrs in the early Church, including many young men and women, who showed by example just how important purity and holiness are. We need to teach young people that some things are worth dying for.
These saints not only showed how important holiness and purity are, however; they showed us what holiness and purity are. They lived these virtues, and we need to teach our students about their example.
In later centuries, the Church, through her schools, her art, her music, and especially her liturgy provided a living, ongoing education and formation on the road to holiness. This was accessible to people of all ages, from infants to the sick and infirm, and ensured that the virtues outlined in the Gospel would have a living expression in day-to-day existence.
In more recent times, too, with saints like Don Bosco, Dominic Savio, and Maria Goretti, we have examples of a personal holiness that was willing to experience death rather than compromise.
So, how to restore and promote innocence among our youth? They need the basics. They need to study the lives of the saints; they need to know what the martyrs were willing to risk rather than offend God. They need a culture which fosters holiness. They need music, whether in the home or in the Church, which is uplifting and inspiring, not boring or degrading like so much of what passes for popular entertainment today. They need the sacraments (the seven instituted by Christ, that is!). After all, was it Mass, Holy Communion, and prayer, or was it some K-12 program that prepared St. Maria Goretti for the sacrifice she would have to make? A little common sense goes a long way here.
Finally, our youth (and the rest of us!) need to regain the sense of what is “proper,” and what is shameful. Can we really imagine any of the saints being preoccupied with an “experience of themselves as sexual persons”? Or was their growth stunted because they did not have this experience? If you were teaching this material to children in the presence of Saint John Bosco, could you look him in the eye? Would you dare attempt to teach this to Saint Dominic Savio?
As mentioned before, you cannot have part of Christian civilization; you cannot claim to build up the Kingdom of God on one front, and allow material that contradicts His holiness on another. Today’s children need the saints; they need the sacraments. They do not need this book.
– end –
Author can be reached through Veil of Innocence
copies of this critique can be obtained from:
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