Spring 1991, Critique of Sex Education Guidelines

Winter 1990

Without the assistance from the Archdiocese, I was objecting to the sex education program in the public schools of Belmont, Massachusetts. At the same time, the Family Life Office published a pamphlet opposed to a Parents’ Petition (based on Church teachings) which I had drafted. The contrast between my Petition and the Archdiocesan Guidelines provoked me to write a of review the “Guidelines” and send it to the Archdiocese in the Spring of 1991.

Critique of Sex Education Guidelines of the Archdiocese of Boston

by Alice A. Grayson

Sex Education in the Schools:
What Parents should Ask.
What Parents Should know.

A Publication of The Family Life Office of The Archdiocese of Boston

Presented below is a “model” petition drafted by this author for use by parents to remove and ban sexuality education in the public schools of Belmont, Massachusetts. The contrast between the petition drafted for parents’ use and the Guidelines of the Boston Archdiocese are radically opposed and gives pause to wonder where the Archdiocesan officials are receiving their Catholic educations.

Sample Petition

We, the undersigned, request that the Belmont Schools remove from the curriculum the course of Human Sexuality which is currently being taught at the Belmont Middle School. We understand that Belmont is concerned about societal problems such as AIDS, unwanted pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, but we believe that these problems are not caused by ignorance but because of weakness of the will and poverty of the spirit.

Even at the practical level, to justify any program, it should be cost effective. Current literature points to the failure of sex education in Sweden and Soviet Russia. William J. Bennett, in 1987, reported that “70% of all high school seniors had taken courses in sex education… yet when we look at what is happening in the sexual lives of American students, we can only conclude that it is doubtful that much of sex education is doing any good at all.”

The override in Belmont was passed with hard work; expenditures should result in measured competency in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Sexuality education is not a topic of academic pursuit; one cannot objectify it and teach it like other subjects. What we have in Belmont is a confusion between formal schooling and education whereas the churches have always understood that education is a much broader thing that involves parents and role modeling in the home.

“Education in the first place, is the duty of the family, which is the school of richest humanity. It is, in fact, the best environment to accomplish the obligation of securing a gradual education in sexual life. The family has an affective dignity which is suited to making acceptable without trauma the most delicate realities and to integrating them harmoniously in a balanced and rich personality.” (#48, Educational Guidance and Human Love)

The intrinsic evil of so-called sexuality education is that it seeks to make open and public that which is by nature intimate and personal, thereby killing bashfulness, decency, and modesty. 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.

Public sex education is therefore a perversion and a crime against the soul of any youth. We respectfully request its removal from the Belmont Schools.

In principle this petition stands in marked contrast to the booklet currently being used by the Family Life Office of the Archdiocese of Boston, entitled “Sex Education in the School — What Parents Should Ask; What Parents Should Know,” written by The Archdiocesan Task Force (Rev. Peter Casey, Barbara Thorp, Linda Thayer, and Mary Conroy). Even in its title, this booklet implicitly accepts, on a philosophical basis the endorsement of public, mixed sexes, and biologically explicit classroom sex education in the pluralistic setting. Acceptance of this possibility even dressed up with a multitude of qualifications violates the privacy of the family and is known to be proven spiritually damaging. This Family Life pamphlet blurs the Church’s distinction between the Church’s doctrine of human procreation and the public school’s curriculum of human reproduction. It offers no clear definition of sex education, and, absent any refinement, sex education as set forth above is accepted.

Proceeding with the concept that sex education can be made acceptable, this booklet adds certain criteria to enhance the program’s desirability. The authors insist on the need for parental information and permission, (and in fact most of their objections fall into the category of non-parental input). They call for a pro-life message on abortion, and describe other important things for children to understand. However, the whole booklet is flawed by the authors’ seeming oblivion to the need for the supra-virtue of reverence called forth by the very nature of human sexuality. This call for reverence in fact forms the basis of Belmont’s petition to ban sex education.

For instance, the Family Life booklet endorses chastity education as a competing ideology, rather than a sacred duty (that is, chastity becomes a positive choice rather than an absolute obligation). It addresses contraception only from the viewpoint of failure and risks — not even its immorality! It never discusses the total lack of control of classroom discussion due to teacher and student variables. Nor does it approach sexuality from the perspective of sacred sacramental marriage or take cognizance of the fallen state of man… sin and forgiveness… grace and virtue… prayer and the Eucharist. Chastity seems far too narrowly defined as “one not engaging in premarital intercourse,” rather than its true nature as a virtue embracing all of the times of our lives including for some consecrated celibacy. This booklet describes the “values” the course is supposed to endorse as parental personal values, not objective Judeo-Christian morality.

Knowledge for the authors seems to take on a supremacy of all its own. The authors don’t realize that with regard to human sexuality too much knowledge imposes a false uniformity; an overload of “information” takes away the poetry of a single, married couples’ sacred discovery of each other. The booklet gives carte blanche license to teaching explicit biological sex — as well as “accurate information on AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, which anyone knows constitutes the “primer course on condom instruction.”

Even when the authors discuss abortion, and insist on its being presented from a pro-life perspective, they include it with a host of problems concerning single-parenting and responsibilities of parenthood which would make a teenager think twice about carrying a baby to term; nor does the pamphlet allude to the existence of pregnancy centers which help pregnant teenagers by attacking problems surrounding pregnancy.

Furthermore, this booklet ignores and omits discussion of the Planned Parenthood agenda and strategy for sex-education based on secular humanism. In fact, it even employs Planned Parenthood buzzwords such as “persons are sexual beings” and the need to “act responsibly.”

The strategy of the New Age secular humanism is as follows:

1. Desensitization of children by invading the latency period, in many cases, and pulling away the veil of modesty and reverence for what is sacred in themselves and their friends. Its focus is biological and invasive in group settings of both sexes. Sexually explicit language, as well as pictures can cause trauma through desensitization. In Ms. Grisby’s class at Chenery Middle School in Belmont is a poster of a nine-month pregnant man! The caption alludes to a suggestion that if he looked like that for nine months, he might act more responsibly. Do not let glossy words of “respect” confuse the issue of non-respect this kind of graphics represents.

2. Values Clarification — This concept, in the pluralistic setting teaches that everybody’s values are personal and that they must be “discovered.” Everyone’s values must be respected. Again, it sounds sweet but underlying this concept is moral relativism and humanistic self-autonomy. This is an unlimited freedom concept which in the name of a personal conscience seeks to create the truth. Our faith teaches that we may not create the truth, but that in freedom and by grace we are to detect and obey the truth which God has created. With regard to sexuality education, the root truth is that within the human person, there is something sacred, intimate and secret and must not be entered without permission and purification. The realm of the inner person belongs to the Divine.

3. Information and Tools — By values clarification and a systematic desensitization process, the child learns to develop a growing, inappropriate curiosity. Curiosity, public condoning of “choice,” and contraceptive devices entice the child to try what has been given lip service to avoid. After all, “we only truly know what we experience” goes the humanistic slogan. And, of course, if a mistake happens, i.e. a pregnancy, there is always the option of abortion. Only “you” can decide, and truly there is debate going on…

Therefore, in this third step “curiosity” unnecessarily aroused leads to the sinful act of fornication. Ultimately, what is at stake here are the immortal souls of our children.

The authors of this Family Life Booklet never issue a warning to parents of the afore-mentioned spiritual dangers, and also assume that most parents will farm-out this sacred parental duty, rather than believe in themselves and the sacramental grace with which they are equipped. No encouragement is offered to them.

The Florida Bishops in a united statement on public school programs of human sexuality note the following defects in such programs in their state:

1. They do not adequately respect the rights and obligations of parents.

2. These programs do not present the ethical moral dimensions of human sexuality.

3. They do not integrate sexual development into total personal development, nor in the context of our faith.

4. These programs are an expression of a secular philosophy which in effect becomes a sectarian religion.

5. The root defect in these programs is that they present a world view which ignores the presence of God. It is a philosophy that ignores a world order. It overlooks mutual love and mutual responsibility… the values of chastity and permanent commitment. Resources such as prayer, the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the existence of final judgment, the forgiveness of sin, and a final destiny with a God of love are untouched. Its focus is on information rather than formation. These programs minimize the parents’ role of guidance and subvert the authority of parents. They discount moral law, as personal values <<not universal>> and as such a sense of responsibility to God, to others, and to society. They do not promote the virtue of chastity (it is only an option), nor of piety. Their only sanctions are pragmatic and personal; disease or pregnancy prevention… “getting caught.” A sense of responsibility is diluted by an exaggerated sense of freedom. Instead of developing moral discipline and self-control, they offer contraceptives, and referrals for abortion. For fifteen years programs based on this secular philosophy have failed. The numbers of teenage pregnancies and incidents of venereal disease and abortion have increased significantly. We are concerned that after all these years and all this evidence, it is now proposed to add more funding and more governmental involvement in such programs — especially distributing contraceptives on school premises and establishing health clinics in schools.

It is sad that the Family Life booklet did not cite the Florida Bishops letter and raised only a few of the several issues contained therein. Sex Education in the School — What Parents Should Ask, What Parents Should Know, promoted by the Archdiocese of Boston, is troublesome because policies similar to this are published and endorsed in many dioceses. The difficulty is they endorse a pedagogy and approach to sexuality that is intrinsically evil.

I agree that some programs in chastity education contain valuable information, pamphlets and teaching techniques which would be useful to parents in fulfilling their sacred obligations to educate children in virtue and warn them of spiritual dangers.

It is worthwhile to identify what constitutes a “positive and prudent eduction in matters related to sex” (Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., American Press, Associated Press, 1966) and to take special note of Pope Paul VI’s instruction to parents in 1970 on the topic of “Spiritually of Marriage.” He writes:

“Parents need to foster an education to help the child and adolescent, without inhibiting or repressing them:

1. Become gradually aware of the power of developing drives awakening within them;

2. Make these drives an integral part of their developing personality;

3. Control the increasing strength of these drives;

4. So as to achieve and feel affective and sexual maturity to Prepare for the Gift of Self;

5. Through a love that will give to that gift its true dimension in an exclusive and definitive manner.”

I underline the concepts of role modeling — and the warnings of inhibition and repression contained in the gradual understanding of the gift of self.

Pope John Paul II mirrors Pope Paul VI. He expounds:

“Education in the first place, is the duty of the family, which is the school of richest humanity. It is, in fact, the best environment to accomplish the obligation of securing a gradual education in sexual life. The family has an affective dignity which is suited to

making acceptable without trauma the most delicate realities and to integrating them harmoniously in a balanced and rich personality. (#48, Education Guidance and Human Love)

By clarifying what is positive and prudent, teachers and clergy can also assist parents by their own respective disciplines with regard to education and spiritual formation. In some cases this could necessitate one-to-one communication and carefully chosen small group formation.

Catholic dioceses must direct their efforts to put these tools in the hands of the parents — through seminars, lectures, and written materials, and remind parents of their obligation (fortified by sacramental grace) which no one else can fulfill both in role modeling and delicate teaching. Above all, The Church needs to condemn explicit sex education in principle and insist that what is private and sacred must be reserved to the sanctuary of the home, where virtue is nurtured with reverence for what belongs to the Divine.*

For a Catholic bishop to issue a pastoral letter banning all classroom sex education, public and parochial, with clear definition, will take courage and humility, because to my knowledge, all dioceses have these programs operating with Catholic funding. What our bishops need to do beyond sifting through the many good parts of various chastity programs is to focus on parents not only as educators but also as the hearts of families which need renewal and spiritual formation. With regard to schools, especially Catholic ones, bishops should insist that the virtue of chastity be taught in the context of the other moral virtues, the Ten Commandments, and great historical figures, including the saints, should be considered role models.

It is reasonable that our Catholic schools offer another voice endorsing traditional morality — as an echo and backup for parents who all too often feel isolated and alone in the face of an increasingly secular society. Parents appreciate the schools’ warnings of the various strains of the New Age religion which calls children to follow a path alien to the Gospel. The subjects could include the strategies of values clarification, the methodologies of cults, astrology and yoga, crystal balls, and even the pantheistic underpinnings of the ecology movements. But the schools must realize that sex education classes inclusive of the irreverence and lack of teacher-student control which accompanies them, is not the solution to family breakdowns. In fact, it is one of its major problems.

* The platform of a call to ban sex education in schools should not be confused with the recognized positive role that natural family planning information and formation has contributed to sacramental marriage. Distinction must be made between the goal of teaching youngsters uniform, explicit, technical knowledge of sex in an irreverent and spiritually damaging manner and the goal of providing married couples and young adults considering the vocation of marriage with a useful, methodological tool to assist them in living God’s plan for love and life. The heart of these programs is self-sacrifice. The biological information considered does not invade privacy or shed modesty. In fact, in the best of these programs, reverence for the sacredness of marriage and the great gift of procreation with God is so central that the actual study of natural family planning becomes a tool of evangelization and those involved in teaching are truly working in a lay apostolate.