An abbreviated Answer

Spring 1992

After reading Cardinal Law’s February 4, 1992 letter, I submitted an abbreviated answer to his questions. At that time I promised to critique more programs in the Archdiocese and deliver an in-depth review of sex education. It was not until February of 1993, that I actually sent Cardinal Law the longer answer, which I called Catholic Classroom Sex Education Is An Oxymoron.

Mrs. Alice Ann Grayson
33 Audubon Lane
Belmont, MA 02178

April, 1992 (Updated February 1993)

Cardinal Bernard Law
2121 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02135

Catholic Classroom Education is an Oxymoron

Dear Cardinal Law:

Your letter of February 4, 1992, asks:

Question:
Are you opposed to any type of education on human sexuality in classrooms of Catholic schools or in religious education programs for students not attending Catholic schools?

Answer:
Yes, indeed.

Why?
The intrinsic evil of a so-called sexuality education program is that it seeks to make open and public that which is by nature intimate and personal, thereby killing “holy bashfulness, decency, and modesty” (von Hildebrand). This violates the basic parental imperative to protect children from unnecessary sexual information and older youth from provocative or erotic stimuli. In fact, a child must learn that many aspects of human life comprise an intimate secret realm which should not be shared with or exhibited to all. We parents believe it is a form of professional elitism to assume that academia can replace the home in imparting sacred sexuality education to our children, which must be done individually and personally, with discernment and reverence for the sacred and divine.

… sex education is a crime committed against the soul of any youth…
(von Hildebrand, Sex Education: The Basic Issues, 1969, p. 22)

… It is a great travesty of justice when the State falls prey to totalitarianism by mandating sex education in the public schools, but it is even a greater tragedy when the representatives of the Church, who should be the great protectors of the sacred rights of the individual and of the family, act in a totalitarian way (and thereby exhibit the worst type of clericalism). It is simply treason and a denial of the Spirit of Christ. It is a complete abdication in front of the spirit of the world. (von Hildebrand, Sex Education: The Basic Issues, 1969, p. 24)

Definition

I am not opposed, of course, to the Church’s long-standing, traditional moral catechesis in matters related to sex. I am opposed to the false classroom sex misinformation and amoral conditioning programs such as those promoted by the Office of Religious Education. Succinctly, in obedience to the Magisterium, I am opposed to all programs everywhere that promote the teaching:

. . . of explicit sexual matters in an open, public group setting or as part of formal classroom instruction, apart from the family, either as a separate curriculum or as an integrated part of a legitimate course of study at the elementary and/or secondary level. It has a long and tortuous history deeply rooted in Malthusian, Eugenic, and Sexual Reform movements of the last century and the sexual revolution of this century.

It is important that Christians know that the drive for explicit classroom sex education did not originate with either the Holy Spirit or the Church.

We can safely say that it largely owes its momentum to Planned Parenthood and to those who sympathize with its philosophy of life.

When former president of Planned Parenthood, Allan Guttmacher was asked after the Roe vs. Wade decision how abortion could be made secure in America, he responded with two words: “SEX EDUCATION.”

The renowned atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, is certainly correct when she states, “The issue of abortion is a red herring. Until it dawns on the combatants that the fight is over sex education, including information on birth control, the battle will continue until enabling or prohibitive legislation is won by those most aggressive in their cause.
(Quotations were taken from publications of Coalition of Clergy and Laity.)

Your question to me is similar to the question the faithful asked. On March 21, 1931, the Holy Office (now the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a decree that contained a response to a question pertaining to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical, Christian Education of Youth.

Question:
May the method called “sex education” or even “sex initiation” be approved?

Answer:
No. In the education of youth the method to be followed is that hitherto observed by the Church and the Saints as recommended by His Holiness the Pope in the encyclical dealing with the Christian education of youth, promulgated on December 31, 1929. The first place is to be given to the full, sound and continuous instruction in religion of both sexes. Esteem, desire and love of the angelic virtue must be instilled into their minds and hearts. They must be made fully alive to the necessity of constant prayer, and assiduous frequenting of the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist; they must be directed to foster a filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin as Mother of holy purity, to whose protection they must entirely commit themselves. Precautions must be taken to see that they avoid dangerous reading, indecent shows, conversations of the wicked, and all other occasions of sin.

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 traditional norms established in 1929 by Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri have never been nullified or abrogated, and therefore remain in effect to the present day” (Engel, Sex Education: The Final Plague, 1989, p. 55). This encyclical condemns public, explicit, and naturalistic instruction in human sexuality. All subsequent papal teachings (Magisterium) refer and respect the following landmark document.

Divini Illius Magistri -1929

The 1929 encyclical letter of Pope Pius XI on Christian Education of Youth (Divini Illius Magistri) was the first official condemnation of sex education in this century. Excerpts are listed below:

. . . every form of pedagogic naturalism which in any way excludes or weakens supernatural Christian formation in the teaching of youth, is false. Every method of education if founded, wholly or in part, on the denial or forgetfulness of original sin and of grace, and relying on the sole powers of human nature, is unsound. . .

. . .so today we see, strange sights indeed, educators and philosophers who spend their lives in searching for a universal moral code of education, as if there existed no Decalogue, no Gospel law, no law even of nature stamped by God on the heart of man, promulgated by right reason, and codified in positive Revelation by God Himself in the Ten Commandments. . .

Another very grave danger is that of naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under and 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 worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers. . .

Such men are miserably deluded in their claim to emancipate, as they say, the child, while in reality, they are making him the slave of his own blind pride and of his own blind disorderly affections.

On the matter of sex instruction

Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.
In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, 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, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:

Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. 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 and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. 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.
(From the encyclical Christian Education of Youth, promulgated by Pope Pius XI, December 31, 1929)

Documents of Vatican II 1963-1965

Vatican II’s Declaration on Christian Education

“Since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators Divini Illius Magistri, loc. cit. p.p. 59 f.f.).

Documents of Vatican II also state

As they grow older, they should receive a positive and prudent eduction in matters related to sex. (Flannery, O.P., Documents of Vatican II, published by Costello Publishing, NY, 1981 edition, p. 727)

The Abbott translation of the same text reads

As they advance in years, they should be given positive and prudent sexual education.
(Abbott, S.J., American Press, 1966, p. 639)

It should be noted that the Council document has 13 footnote references to Pius XI encyclical on Christian Education of Youth. The Council document makes a singular and curt reference to “sexual education” or “matters related to sex” depending on which commentary one uses.

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World states:

Especially in the heart of their own families, young people should be aptly and reasonably instructed in the dignity and duty and work of married love. Trained thus in the cultivation of chastity they will be able at a suitable age to enter a marriage of their own after an honorable courtship. (emphasis added) …The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life. Hence the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honored with great reverence…
(Engel, Sex Education: The Final Plague, 1989, pp. 61 & 62) (Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965)

Comment

The Council Fathers’ use of the word “positive” certainly indicates an understanding of the mystery and beauty of God’s gift of human sexuality, and the need to communicate this understanding to children reverently. Their choice of the word “prudent” was itself prudent because “prudence” suggests a need to use practical wisdom in order to effect proper results while avoiding pitfalls. The pitfall, of course, in education in “matters relating to sex” is that:

. . . Sex has two aspects, one positive and one negative. On the positive side is the unique charm of sex, its intimacy, its deep connection with spousal love, its granting the spouses an unmatched union in an irrevocable self-donation. On the negative side is the evil of sex detached from real love and the irrevocable self-donation, an intoxicating charm which draws man down to the animal level, a desecration of the great gift of sex — in short, a mystery of iniquity.”
(von Hildebrand, Sex Education the Basic Issues, 1969, p. 19)

“Prudent” reflects an understanding of the warning of Pius XI:

Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. 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 and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. 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.
(From the encyclical Christian Education of Youth, promulgated by Pope Pius XI, December 31, 1929)

1981 — Familiaris Consortio — John Paul II

Familiaris Consortio, signed by John Paul II November 22, 1981, in articles 36 and No. 37, contains an inexhaustible treasure of “positive and prudent” advice on education in matters related to sex. Articles 36 and 37 are really a doctrinal and moral treatise on the sacred nuptial meaning of the body — which, veiled in privacy and modesty, precludes entry without purification and permission. Familiaris Consortio is an invitation to all to discover at the core of each person the secret self that belongs exclusively to the Divine and is not for self-fulfillment

Articles 36 and 37 provide the faithful with the sacred reasons underlying Pope Pius XI Encyclical Illius Divini Magistri of 1929 and the March 21, 1931 condemnation of sex education. It must be kept in mind, however, that although John Paul II uses the popular phrase “sex education,” his intended meaning is obviously quite different. John Paul II defines sex education to mean a beautiful and holy formation in redemptive self-giving. One has to do mental gymnastics, trying to allow classroom sex education to mean something beautiful, when we know from the beginning, from its Malthusian, eugenic, and sex reformists’ roots, that “sex education” is a lie about sex promoted by the authors of an alien philosophy.

The phrase “sex education” was condemned by Pius XI and Pius XII because they understood that “sex education” (understood as a programmized sexual conditioning) placed children in the occasion of sin. Clearly, John Paul II does not wish to place children in the occasion of sin and nothing in articles 36 and 37 would suggest it.

Familiaris Consortio, numbers 36 and 37 needs to be read slowly, prayerfully, and in full.

36. The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married couples to participate in God’s creative activity: by begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled, “since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs.”

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or unsurped by others.

In addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents’ love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love.

37. Even amid the difficulties of the work of education, difficulties which are often greater today, parents must trustingly and courageously train their children in the essential values of human life. Children must grow up with a correct attitude of freedom with regard to material goods, by adopting a simple and austere life style and being fully convinced that “man is more precious for what he is than for what he has.100”

In a society shaken and split by tensions and conflicts caused by violent clash of various kinds of individualism and selfishness, children must be enriched not only with a sense of true justice, which alone leads to respect for the personal dignity of each individual, but also and more powerfully by a sense of true love, understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested service with regard to others, especially the poorest and those in most need. The family is the first and fundamental school of social living: as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters and the different generations living together in the family. And the communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society.

Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable premise for parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education. Faced with a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of something commonplace, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person — body, emotions and soul — and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love.

Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents.

In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential, for it is a virtue that develops a person’s authentic maturity and makes him or her capable of respecting and fostering the “nuptial meaning” of the body. Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of God’s call, will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality.

In view of the close links between the sexual dimension of the person and his or her ethical values, education must bring the children to a knowledge of and respect for the moral norms as the necessary and highly valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in human sexuality.

For this reason the Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information disassociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity — while still in the years of innocence — by opening the way to vice.
(John Paul II, The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World Familiaris Consortio, Articles 36 & 37, 1981)

Comment

One can see from this reading, that John Paul II recognizes the essential truths of the vocation of sacramental marriage. Children are begotten by personal love and as such, the family, as the domestic Church, is where God designs persons to be formed in holiness. This entrusting of children to parents as “original,” “primary,” “irreplaceable,” and “inalienable” is based on the concept of trust and the veil of privacy guarding the soul of each individual person. The family is God’s graced garden where the child discovers his inner self — his soul — because the child trusts his parents and siblings, and thus, reveals and risks. Home is safe. The child discovers the layers of his personality. Some things are private. Some things are not to be known, and must remain in mystery. Discretion must be employed as one establishes a relationship and opens up in trust.

In this holy garden of the inner self, the child discovers the inner law of God. He finds even within his own body that his person is not “mine” but rather “thine.” He is not free to proceed at will, but rather to conform his will to obedience.

In the home alone, in trust, he will discover that personal modesty, both physical and spiritual, which covers the secret self. The depth of one’s personhood is not to be shared with or exhibited to all. In fact, the innermost chamber belongs exclusively and entirely to God. It is spousal, and all human marriages should mirror that spousal relationship with God. That’s why marriage is sacramental – a sign of God’s presence and love – irrevocable, irreplaceable, faithful, and fruitful.

Therefore, it is in the family that the child comes to realize that one’s inner person, is given in freedom and with freedom from Another – an infinite Lover – Who, Revelation teaches, ransomed Himself in agony for each of us. He discovers the need to respond to that infinite Lover by grace, with self-mastery – not to own oneself for oneself but to own oneself so that one may completely give oneself – to service, to Love.

In this context of discovering, owning, and surrendering one’s personal depth, sacramental marriage takes on its dignity as the vocation of “safe keeping” for God. Only then can consecrated celibacy, incidentally, be understood as a supreme form of self-giving.

Moreover, within the context of the family, as the child’s self-awareness grows, parents are in the unique position of teaching from Revelation that ever since sin has entered the human condition, love, sin, and suffering are inextricably related. Because God loved us, He surrendered himself in agony. When persons love, they are willing to “die for that person.” A little dying to self occurs everyday – in the laundry, in the cooking, in the blowing of noses, in the cleaning house for Daddy – or in labor at the field, or in the factory, or the office – in order to nourish those at home.

In the home, when one suffers, everyone does. When one rejoices, a cake is baked. Home is the place where children form parents and parents form children, with love as its animating principle, and forgiveness the norm, where “all concrete educational activity is enriched with kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice which are the most precious fruit of love.”

Home is where the child learns that the suffering Figure on the crucifix is infinitely more desirable than the smiling face of Buddha. Essential to education for marital chastity is that love does not necessarily bring a feeling of happiness, but rather that love is a commitment of the will, which will entail redemptive suffering with and for the beloved, and will in turn, through Christ, be gifted with peace and joy.

In the concluding paragraphs of No. 37, John Paul II repeats again the need for children to know and respect the moral norms “for responsible personal growth in human sexuality.” For this reason he then condemns “the widespread form of imparting sex information disassociated from moral principles that would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus teaching to the loss of serenity – while still in the years of innocence – by opening the way to vice.”

In this last paragraph, we see that John Paul II makes a distinction between the preceding paragraphs’ description of what constitutes a clear and delicate education in chastity and what he observes happening in programs – which focus on imparting detailed sex information – a pedagogy which he unequivocally condemns.

It is also understandable now, why John Paul II recognized that others – the school and the church – can and should be helpful to parents in formation in self-giving – of teaching moral norms, of teaching theology (inclusive of the virtues, the sacraments, and the commandments), and teaching stories of heroes from the classics and the lives of the saints, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it is a consummate lie to fail to recognize and respect the private secret realm of the individual person – as all these programmized sex-ed courses do.

A scriptural reflection

In conjunction with a reflection on the “theology of the body,” it is indeed my personal belief that a condemnation of sex education can be found by reflection upon the scriptural events of Genesis and the Crucifixion. In Genesis, before Original Sin we find Adam and Eve, husband and wife, naked before each other and God. Adam and Eve exist in perfect harmony and tranquility, surrendering themselves to each other for safekeeping and in fidelity to the understanding of their spousal convenental relationship to God. Then, they sinned. They chose to replace fidelity to God with another – Satan. The big lie is that they claimed as God, that which was not God. At that moment, they felt naked. Why? It is because their symbol of fidelity (their inner selves, their secret realms, their naked bodies) was made open and public to the world and it’s Prince. Of course they were ashamed and tried to hide themselves. The fig leaf is a recognition that their inner selves belonged only to God, and thus, after the fall, symbolically and concretely, Adam and Eve veiled themselves, I think, in repentance – to tell God – that He alone has dominion over man’s soul. This veil (fig leaf) remains in place today – except in sex-ed, for instance, when the private and sacred is made public and mundane. Purity of the soul is intimately and inextricably linked to purity of the body.

Continuing with this theme, at the Crucifixion when Christ “assumed” unto Himself our sins, He assumed our primordial sin — our nakedness before the world. He was stripped and hung naked on the cros- in the most profound humiliation. In terms of the world, this act symbolized the sin, of replacing spousal fidelity to God, with worship of the creature. In terms of a deeper truth, this act is a complete and total surrender of Christ for those He loved. Symbolically and concretely Christ held nothing back. Not to those who love Christ, but only for those of “the world” was Christ’s nakedness a humiliation. To His Bride, The Church, it was His consummate nuptial gift, whereby our Bridegroom “assumed humiliation” – symbolizing the sin – for the sake of His Bride.

Therefore, we again receive the message. Our sexuality belongs to God, according to His laws. It symbolizes the whole person. It must not be invaded or robbed or made public. Sex-ed, rape, and prostitution make sex public, and as such, are lies and sins.

Your second question:
Could you give me specific references as to titles of texts used in Catholic schools of this Archdiocese THAT you find to be questionable, as well as specific references within those texts to materials which you find objectionable:

My Answer:
Yes, indeed. The following is a sample from the text that accompanies The New Creation Series. The book is called Understanding Sex and Sexuality by Nancy Hennessy Cooney. It is the basis of classwork and group discussion at St. Sebastian’s. Cardinal Law, you of course, are Chairman of the board at St. Sebastian’s. I have complained about this book to you for three years.

My question to you:
What does the anus have to do with sex?

My question to you:
Why is the signer of the famous New York Times Pro-Abortion ad (March 2, 1986) writing a “Catholic” book to teach sex to Catholic children?

My question to you:
Wouldn’t Mary have been psychologically raped by this? Wouldn’t she regretfully have “known too much of some ‘generic’ man?”

Accompanying text to this picture reads:

… The mound of Venus, mons veneris (Mons VEN-e-ris), is the padded area mound underneath the inverted triangle of hair over the genitals. The mound contains nerve endings that add to sexual excitement when rubbed or pressed.

Beneath the mound and surrounding the vaginal opening are two sets of folds that resemble lips. In fact, they are called by the Latin name for lips, labia (LAY-bee-a)…

The outer lips, labia majora (LAY-bee-a ma-JOR-a), are covered with hair around the edges and, in younger girls, are usually larger than the inner lips, labia minora (min-OR-a). The labia serves as protection for the internal sex organs.

The highly sensitive organ located in front of the vaginal opening is the clitoris (KLIT-or-is), a fold of flesh about an inch long. Only the top part of the clitoris shows above the folds of the labia minora. When the clitoris is stimulated, it fills with blood and becomes very sensitive. This stimulation is sexually pleasurable for most woman and can trigger an orgasm (OR-gasm)…

… Normally a narrow tube three to four inches long, the vagina [(va-JI-na)] is made of elastic muscle tissue that can stretch to receive a penis during sexual intercourse or to allow a baby to pass from the womb. When a female becomes sexually excited, she might have a slight discharge from her vagina. This discharge lubricates the vagina to make it easier for a penis to enter the vagina. …

A thin layer of tissue called the hymen (HI-men) partly covers the opening of the vagina. Once it was thought that the hymen remained in place until a woman had sexual intercourse for the first time (that is, until a man’s penis entered vagina). As a result, the unbroken hymen was considered a sign that the woman was a virgin (someone who had not experienced sexual intercourse). Modern medical discoveries, however, have shown that the hymen can stretch away or break from strenuous exercise, sudden fall, or other occurrences… (Cooney, Understanding Sex and Sexuality, 1987, pp. 14 & 15)

Comment

Imagine this text and picture accompanied by classroom discussion. Reflect that this text is being used at St. Sebastian’s even as I write.

Wouldn’t Mary have been psychologically raped by this? Wouldn’t she regretfully have “known too much of some ‘generic’ man”? Would she have questioned the Catholic identity of “Nazareth Catholic” in subscribing to texts written by an abortion advocate?

Wouldn’t some young boy, not conceived immaculately, have wondered, as a curiosity factor, what the anus has to do with sex? Wouldn’t it follow that this boy will be led to mentally “flesh-out” the relationship between the filthy, verbal text and diagram, and his own girlfriend’s sacred body? Would that not induce venereal pleasure? But doesn’t education normally proceed from thought or idea to experience? Wouldn’t a young girl be tempted to experiment with the ways that sexual excitement is induced, as the text suggests? Aren’t they both encouraged not to place value on the hymen — the classical mark of virginity, which isn’t broken nearly so easily as the text describes? And might not their parents wonder about the political agenda of “a brave new world” where bodies are separated from faces and personhood? This kind of formation of children accomplishes a world of sex without reproduction, and reproduction without sex.

It is a world of making the private public (resulting in immodesty), and the public private (resulting in the privatization and relativity of morals [values clarification]). In classic teaching there is nothing private about morality (i.e., the Ten Commandments were given for public instruction). In traditional classrooms of the past one would never expect that a child should be exposed to the intimacies of the bedroom or probed to answer questions which should never be asked. It is not complicated to see the difference between classroom sex education and Catholic sexual morality.

The programs to which I am opposed are all programs of sex education as in contradistinction from traditional Catholic religious education in sexual morality. Richard J. Lloyd, Executive Vice President of National Coalition of Clergy and Laity, is particularly accurate in defining what is acceptable and good and what is unacceptable and bad in this area. He writes:

However, sexual morality, imparted in any group setting, must be in complete conformity to the teachings of the Magisterium. This means that all information related to sexual/venereal matters must be defined in abstract rather than descriptive language, or conversely, that any vivid, imaginative knowledge must not be provided in public. For example, fornication should be defined as a sexual sin between two people, neither of whom is married. Questions or themes in the classroom taking discussion beyond the abstract must be referred to parents, confessors or those designated by parents, but always in private. (Letter by Richard Lloyd, Coalition of Clergy and Laity, 1992)

Conformance to the Magisterium, in addition, means adherence to objective moral standards and the avoidance of the isolation of the virtue of chastity from the other virtues. Moreover, due to the individuality of the maturing child under the protection of his parents, I am opposed to “precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately,” to quote Pius XI.

Programs currently operating in the Archdiocese of Boston, which fall into the objectionable categories described above are:

W.C. Brown, The New Creation Series

Coleen Mast, Sex Respect and Love & Life

Patricia Miller, In God’s Image: Male and Female

Benziger Family Life Program (both editions)

Molly Kelly, Teens and Chastity, (Lectures/Videos) and
Let’s Talk To Teens About Chastity (Teacher’s Resource Manual) St. Mary’s Family Life

Kiernan Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions

Sadlier Youth Ministry Series: Human Sexuality

Richard Reichert, Sexuality and Dating — A Christian Perspective
Carl Koch, Creating a Christian Life Style

McBride & Gallagher, Love and Creation

McBride’s and Father Gallagher, S.J.’s Love and Creation program is a stand-alone parent guide and as such is not a classroom sex-ed program. It contains some objectionable material and some useful material if handled properly. Likewise, Carl Koch’s Creating a Christian Life Style is a twelfth grade text book with some areas dealing with human sexuality. It too contains some objectionable material and some useful material, and of the useful material some of it is suitable for classroom discussion and some most definitely is not.

Most of these programs override laws of parental subsidiarity. All use values clarification methodology (Koch’s values clarification is exceptionally modest, and in most places noticeably absent). Most (Koch and McBride’s and Fr. Gallagher’s excepted) are designed to be used as stand-alone courses in human sexuality — which is strictly forbidden. The sheer number of texts alone indicate a red flag of overemphasis of sex. Moreover, it is difficult to keep up with additions, especially in local parishes.

Other programs listed in the Archdiocese’s most recent book AIDS & Adolescents by Linda Thayer, which, regretfully, I believe, have received your endorsement incorrectly are:

Adolescent Pregnancy Care and Prevention Program
Postponing Sexual Involvement
Rainbows
Values and Choice?

I have not personally reviewed these programs, but some of my friends have. However, if they qualify as stand-alone, graded, “chastity programs,” they are forbidden. Judging from their names, they also fall into all the classic problems with regard to these programs. Moreover, the American bishops have published an AIDS education program that really constitutes a sex-education program as defined, and, therefore, is objectionable. Any catechesis in sexual morality — at home, or church, or lecture must proceed from the truth that

Purity is that virtue which keeps the sexual secret hidden as a dominion whose disposition lies in the hand of God. (von Hildebrand, Purity — The Mystery of Christian Sexuality, 1970, Part III, Ch. II)

Most recently, warnings of condemnation of programs of education in human sexuality came from Msgr. Caffarra of John Paul II Institute and also from the Ukrainian Bishops. These letters are reproduced and are attached on the following two pages. The documents contained in this paper “Catholic Classroom Education is an Oxymoron” are sufficient for Catholics to conclude that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church forbids formalized programs of sex education (as defined) in the classroom. Your letter to me regarding human sexuality education asked for my personal response. In refutation of values clarification, my personal response can be no other than that of the Magisterium.

Sincerely and with respect,
Alice Ann Grayson

References

Abbott, W.M., & Gallagher J. (1966). The Documents of Vatican II. Guild Press: New York.

Engel, R. (1989). Sex Education: The Final Plague. Human Life International: Gaithersburg, MD.

Hennessy Cooney, N. & Bingham, A. (1987) Understanding Sex and Sexuality. Religious Education Division Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, Dubuque, IA.

John Paul II. (1981). The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World Familiaris Consortio. Daughters of St. Paul: Boston, MA.

Kelly, M. (1991). Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity. The Center for Learning Religion Department: Rocky River, OH

Mast Kelly, C. (1986). Love and Life — A Christian Sexual Morality Guide for Teens. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA.

Mast Kelly, C. (1986). Sex Respect — The Option of True Sexual Freedom (2nd ed.). Project Respect Publishers: Golf, IL.

Miller, P.F. (1989-1990). In God’s Image: Male and Female A Catholic View of Human Sexuality. Franciscan Commutations: Los Angeles, CA.

Thayer, L. (Introduction by Bernard Cardinal Law) (1992). AIDS & Adolescents. St. Paul Books & Media: Boston, MA.

The New Creation Series. (1984). Wm. C. Brown Company: Dubuque, IA. [original edition (1984); Revised 14 Lesson Edition (1987); and revised 7 Lesson Edition (1988).]

von Hildebrand, D. (1989). Purity — The Mystery of Christian Sexuality. Franciscan University Press: Steubenville, OH.

von Hildebrand, D., & Marra W.A. (1974). Sex Education: The Basic Issues. The Wanderer Press: St. Paul, MN.