Let’s Talk to Teens about Chastity

A Teacher’s Resource Manual for Classroom Courses
written by sex-ed author, Molly Kelly

Alice Grayson’s Review of the Sex Education Program

Introduction

Inasmuch as it has the same author, Molly Kelly’s teacher’s manual reflects the same flaws and humanist orientation as her lectures. Narrowly defining chastity as sexual self-control and saving sexual intercourse for marriage, Kelly believes that “control comes from within, using our intellect, our reasoning power, and our ability to make decisions ourselves” (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 19).

In selecting samples and critical comments for the resource manual, I am using Human Life International’s critique of Kelly. H.L.I. staff must be credited and congratulated on the excellent critiques they have produced on several sex-ed programs, inclusive of Kelly.

In Molly Kelly’s manual, therefore, we discover the expected omission and the expected repetition:

We find no mention of God’s authority or laws, or the danger to one’s soul that comes from disobedience. The words sin and sinful each appear only twice, regarding sexual intercourse outside of marriage and regarding abortion (pp. 17 and 21). Purity and modesty are mentioned only once and are not defined (p. 31). The book says nothing about occasions of sin, the Sacraments, grace, the Blessed Mother of the saints.

Chastity appears repeatedly, but Kelly defines it almost exclusively as “saving sexual intercourse for marriage” (pp. 7, 9, 11, etc.). Some form of sex or sexual intercourse dots just about every page of the text. On the first page of Chapter Four (interestingly entitled, “More About the Right Words”), sex or a variation appears 19 times and sexual intercourse appears nine times. Such words crop up more than 175 times in the text. Repetition like this is used in advertising — so what is Kelly selling?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 3)

Parent Put-down

One questions why God’s authority and parents’ authority are so blatantly missing throughout all the programs I have thus far reviewed. The programs stress “honesty,” and then hide the most fundamental truths. Thus, in Chapter Five of Kelly’s manual “Message-Givers: People Who Make a Difference,” we find her telling teachers that parents are people who:

…[love] teens the most and talk the least about sexuality…are uncomfortable about the subject of sex…are insecure about their own sexuality…are not practicing chastity themselves…[are] reluctant to preach it…abdicate responsibility…do not know how to communicate about this important topic. [p. 23]

When teachers make these statements in front of teens, they reinforce the PP dogma that parents are unable to communicate with today’s child. On the other hand, when trusting mothers and fathers hear such “messages” from the “expert” educators, the parents are made to feel incapable of teaching their children. This reinforces the contrived myth of the all-knowing sex educator that not only renders the parents unequal to the task in their own eyes, but also in the eyes of their children.

The experts (Kelly included) do not seem to understand that many parents feel no need to give their children a great deal of explicit sex information, nor do they want them desensitized about sex in a classroom forum.

Too much knowledge piques curiosity unnecessarily. (Ed. note and dangerously!)

Kelly says that at 16, teens are beginning to break away from their parents. She cites an incident when her own son was going out of the house. He did not answer her when she asked where he was going, with whom, and for how long. She tells the teachers this is natural and healthy (p. 43). Many parents would call it disrespectful, inconsiderate, and unsafe. Today it is more important than ever for parents to know where their child is, whom he is with, and when he is coming home. This parent-child communication is essential.
(H.L.I. review, Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 3 & 4)

Values Clarification Desensitization

Family and Faith separation occurs in Kelly by Values Clarification — Methodology and Desensitization Techniques. H.L.I. comments:

…Kelly’s books tells teachers that:

…you are not there to pass a judgment but to share the truth in a non-judgmental, non-threatening manner. Make the teens aware that you cannot force chastity—or anything else—on them and you wouldn’t even if you could! The chastity message is based on your respect and esteem for them. [p. 44] (emphasis added)

Why not a chastity message based on the Lord’s teachings? … (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 10)

The manual begins the lesson by insisting that the teachers “stick firmly to the stance that you are issuing an invitation. Your goal is not to force them to do or think anything” (p. 9). How many mathematics or chemistry teachers would tell their students that they were issuing an invitation to learn, without mentioning the consequences of not learning?

Brainstorming, role playing and endless discussions about anything sexual are all part of the values clarification process; they keep the students preoccupied with and talking about sex. There is no more effective way to break down modesty than by talking about sex openly in a mixed class. Once modesty is broken down, chastity is defenseless.

… Kelly’s manual instructs teachers to “Use a brainstorming approach with any and all responses being acceptable. Try to get starting attitudes and beliefs `on the table’…” Students are expected to communicate their thoughts and feelings (p. 9).

Group discussion, also referred to as “communicating” or “sharing,” is vital to the process. A certain closeness and excitement grow within the groups. As a result, two things happen: (1) the student discovers a variety of other attitudes and beliefs and may begin to doubt the validity of what he has been taught to believe; and (2) the student feels that in order to “belong,” he must accept what the group accepts.

Someone out there does try to “force” chastity. Who? The Church? Parents? The Church’s 2,000 years of teaching experience proves that obedience produces not only a clear conscience, but a healthy and nurturing home for children. The rewards of obeying God are unceasing. (H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 9 & 10)

Occasion of Sin

Despite the fact that Christ taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” Kelly’s guide, like her video, and like the several other sex-ed programs, leads the children into temptation by immersing their captive students in samples gleaned from the media, the songs, and the movies.

… Kelly refers to teens’ music as their “first language” (p. 5), and says they usually do their homework “while plugged into a Walkman” (p. 6). This may be true for some, but many parents know that rock music contains dangerous messages such as fornication, perversion, satanism, death and violence, among others.

No good can come from making innocent children curious about evils they may not have seen or heard. Even for students who know about these movies or songs, to rehash the “juicy” or “gross” parts in class is embarrassing or frightening and only serves to desensitize or traumatize them. (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 9)

What is so ironic and irrational about “sample immersion” is that sex-educators usually justify their programs as a defense, against our promiscuous culture. Then, instead of withdrawal and prayer, they plunge the children into this alien-culture with endless discussion, journaling, sharing and singing. Innocence is not a valued word, and is not even comprehended by the sex-educator.

There is always a certain number of young people who quietly practice chastity and keep themselves pure by praying, receiving the Sacraments, practicing devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and avoiding sex talk. Will these boys and girls be drawn from their path or holiness to take part in follies in which they make up songs about “hormones?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teen About Chastity, 1992, p. 15)

To H.L.I.’s everlasting credit, the Kelly critique prints excerpts from Pope Pius XI’s 1936 Encyclical entitled “Motion Pictures” in which he warned about the power of film: which the mind takes in with enjoyment and without fatigue…In place of the effort which reading or listening demands, there is the continued pleasure of a succession of concrete and, so to speak, living pictures.

… Moreover the acting out of the plot is done by men and women selected for their artistic ability and for all those natural gifts and the employment of those expedients which can become, for youth particularly, instruments of seduction. Further, the motion picture has enlisted in its service luxurious appointments, pleasing music, the vigor of realism, every form of whim and fancy. For this very reason, it attracts and fascinates particularly the young, the adolescent and even the child. Thus at the very age when the moral sense is being formed and when the notions and sentiments of justice and rectitude, of duty and obligation and of ideals of life are being developed, the motion picture with its direct propaganda assumes a position of commanding influence.

It is unfortunate that, in the present state of affairs, this influence is frequently exerted for evil. So much so that when one thinks of the havoc wrought in the souls of youth and of childhood, of the loss of innocence so often suffered in the motion picture theaters, there comes to mind the terrible condemnation pronounced by Our Lord upon the corruptors of little ones: “whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill stone be hanged about his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Pope Pius XI, 1936 Encyclical entitled “Motion Pictures”)

Abortion Agenda

One of the major themes I have tried to communicate in this letter is that sex education is intimately and inextricably linked with abortions. Of course the choice language running throughout is the same name pro-abortionists use to identify themselves — “Pro-Choice.” (Some pro-aborts — death advocators/death defenders — even have the nerve to sport bumper stickers saying “Pro-Choice, Pro-Child.”) Of course, “choice” language or philosophy implicitly contains within it the right to lie, to twist the language in order to make the unacceptable appear acceptable. It is the right to name things any way one desires to do so as Joyce Little so articulately explained.

Thus, in Benziger, we find “life,” “family,” and “sharing” redefined. We find the unborn baby being referred to as “cell division” and human/God procreation being called human reproduction. In In God’s Image we discover that Ms. Miller uses the same slogans as Planned Parenthood, and that referrals to abortion/contraceptive clinics are provided. A study of the sex educators reveals that they are simply not very pro-life, and that they are helpful to the agenda of Planned Parenthood. Molly Kelly’s resource manual follows suit. H.L.I. comments:

Kelly’s teen pregnancy message is the secular message against having children. She talks about “children bearing children [a PP cliche]…despite increasing ease of access to contraception and abortion!” (p. 35-6). She provides the routine list of horrors wrought by teen pregnancy, including “family upheaval, abandoned educational and career goals, shotgun weddings…the burden of single parenthood, assimilation into the welfare system, unfair parenthood, [and] difficult decision about abortion or adoption…” (p. 36). These and other consequences affect the new father, as well: “disrupted families, disappointed parents…serious decisions about parenting and marriage, financial responsibility, children having children, interrupted social life, and terminated youth” (p. 39).

Kelly does point out the dangers of abortion (pp. 36, 40), but her litany of teen birth horrors may lead a frightened pregnant girl to see only the destruction of her dreams and to consider the open door of the abortion mill her only way out. Even chastity educator Mary Beth Bonacci cautions that “If the narrow-minded approach is, be chaste to avoid pregnancy, then the message youth will get is that pregnancy is evil.” Then, she says, pregnant teens will go straight to the abortionist (The Catholic Register, Toronto, February 15, 1992). What about the other students? Will they, too, get the message that babies are mainly burdens and threats to their educational or financial status and social life? Will students retain these notions even after they are married?

The entire chapter is depressing and disturbing, and not just because of the “messages” about teen pregnancy. There is a statement that the children who are born of teen fornication are “…not part of the parents’ `plan.’” They are accidental results of sexual intercourse (p. 39). Won’t some students take this to mean that children should be “planned”? Why doesn’t Kelly say that children are a gift from God, as the Bible does? Her manual says sexuality is “a gift from God” (pp. 55, 59). Why not babies?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 12)

It also should be noted, that although Molly Kelly’s lectures teach that the pill acts as an abortifacient, Kelly’s resource manual does not. This is not exactly the honesty, integrity, and respect with which Kelly likes to dress herself and her teaching.

Kelly’s Teachers

Perhaps the most shocking part of Molly Kelly is not the carry over from lecture to program guide, but rather, how the guide differs from lectures.

In her lectures, Molly Kelly is convincing in her belief that: (1) she believes in the virtue of chastity (even narrowly defined); (2) that she is against contraception; and (3) that she desires that her students come to agree with her.

In her resource manual for teachers, however, we find that Molly Kelly doesn’t even insist that her teachers (i.e., those who teach the children?) believe in any of the above. H.L.I. queries:

If Kelly’s message to teachers is to promote chastity, why does she wait until Chapter Four to ask the teachers how “wholeheartedly” they believe that “sexual intercourse belongs in marriage”? And if she opposes contraception, as she says she does, why does she ask teachers whether they think “schools and/or parents” should “provide contraception” if students “refuse to choose chastity” (Chapter Six)? Kelly’s book may be a teacher’s manual, but much depends on the teacher’s own knowledge and beliefs. The teacher will be the curriculum.
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 6)

Obviously, Molly Kelly is either hypocritical or deep down she really values the right to choose far more than any particular truth. Her resource manual is so irrational that it advocates students forming groups and teaching themselves — calling for both panel discussions and chastity “cheering groups.” Her teaching is also open ended for the teachers to allow space for made up questions, thought, and feelings for class discussion. Does the impression “Pandora’s box” sound ý propos?

Kelly’s Publisher

If Molly Kelly isn’t hypocritical, then she is indeed incredibly “sloppy.” H.L.I. reveals that the publisher of her resource manual — which is properly called Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity — is the Center for Learning.

Kelly’s book describes the Center as a “non-profit publishing corporation founded in 1970 by the Sisters of Humility of Mary and an ecumenical group of business and professional men and women.” Its funding comes from grants and other sources. According to the Center’s brochure, the George Gund Foundation of Ohio helps to fund teacher training for the Center’s materials. This foundation is one of the 12 biggest sources of funds for depopulation and abortion industry groups. Gund grants, always earmarked for abortion in the past, have gone to the so-called Catholics for a Free Choice, the Religious Coalition for Abortion Right (RCAR), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Population Council and PP, to name only a few. Gund has also bankrolled the Association for Voluntary Sterilization for the purpose of developing technology for surgical “contraception,” including the abortifacient Norplant.

The Center also receives funds from the Cleveland Foundation, another lavish and consistent support of Planned Parenthood…
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 29)

… The Center’s catalog gives more detailed descriptions of the materials the publisher advertises in the back of Kelly’s book. Any schools or parents who order Kelly’s book will be on the mailing list for all of the Center’s products.

Perusing the catalog and brochures gives one the impression that the Center sees the Church as more social than spiritual: buzzwords such as celebrating, responding, experiencing and choosing dot the pages. The blurb on “Growing in Peace and Justice” does not mention the preborn millions who are being killed. “Reverencing Faith Traditions” explores the traditions and rituals of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and the Chinese Yin and Yang. The study of world religions, often found in “global” curricula, is of grave concern, because too often it persuades students that all religions are equally valid.

The Center’s brochures suggest that its products are more in tune with the New age secular world than with timeless Catholic teaching. It is interesting that William C. Brown Publishers, producer of the immoral and heretical New Creation sex ed series, is a close associate of the Center and a distributor of its materials…
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 30)

Is this wholesome literature?

literature courses. The books studied in these lessons happen to be novels that have upset parents of children in both public and Catholic schools, e.g., The Learning Tree, Catcher in the Rye, A Day No Pigs Would Die and Lord of the Flies. The titles may be familiar, but many parents are not aware of their content. We apologize sincerely for quoting passages from these texts, but they are part of the school curricula throughout our country. Parents need to know just how objectionable they are, because many trusting parents still find it hard to believe that a “Catholic” publisher would inflict these materials on Catholic school children.

The Learning Tree

With its blasphemy, foul language and sex scenes, Gordon Parks’ The Learning Tree is an insult to Our Lord and a threat to children’s souls. Yet it is not only available to children in both Catholic and public schools, it is often required reading, and/or read aloud in the classroom.

The Center makes available 10 lesson plans and 25 handouts for classroom use. Again, we apologize for quoting this novel. But remember, our children have been exposed to it for years:

… “Git yore little black a__ over!” [p. 10] “You oughta be feelin’ better soon now,” she said, fixing the quilt over them and, at the same time, pulling Newt [a 12-year-old] hard against her naked body. “Come closer, boy, if you want to git warm.” Her voice was husky and low — so low that he could hardly understand her words.

And soon the warmth of Big Mabel brought a glow to his own body, and a hardness to his groin — one he had never felt before. Big Mabel felt the hardness too. She rolled over on her back, pulled him on top of her…[p. 11]

The Center’s material makes no apology for this. It matter-of-factly says Newt’s first sexual encounter is part of “why and how a town becomes a `learning tree’” (p. iv). The students are assigned to read this chapter twice and spend much time on it. Ten questions accompany the first reading and eight questions the second; most of them probe the children’s personal feelings about the content ..
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 30 & 31)

Then H.L.I.’s critique of Molly Kelly goes on to provide additional samples and additional commentary on the other books with such familiar titles. It should be read by every parent. In fact, if parents would only read the H.L.I. critiques of the sex education programs, there would be no need to write this letter, because the educators in Catholic schools would not have students left in their classrooms! I pray for that day.

Conclusion of Kelly

If anything, Molly Kelly’s popularity points the finger at all educators and all parents who have simply been too lax and too trusting of an educational system and a cultural milieu that has captured the attention and the souls of our youth.

I stand as one of those parents who didn’t examine their assigned books closely enough, and I let the kids rent those videos (with the all too familiar titles) without close enough attention. The millstone is around my neck as well as yours. It is time to repent and make reparation.

When Molly Kelly went to Rome, she spoke thus to 6,000 priests.

It is interesting to note what Kelly told approximately 6,000 priests in Rome:

Pleasure has become the primary goal of so many people…You and I know that Heaven must be our final goal and we must teach our young people that, and the way to get to Heaven is through good works and prayer…I find our teenagers, our young people today, hungry for the truth and hungry for the challenge to live that truth. Our young people today need you to give them spiritual direction on how to live chaste lives. They need to be encouraged to practice purity and modesty, two of the main ingredients of chastity. And they need to be encouraged to avoid the occasions of sin. Words that we have to take off the shelf, dust off and start using again.
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 18 & 19)

Molly Kelly is indeed gifted. In this speech, she espoused true formation in the virtue of purity. It is mind boggling to me, how she can tell those priests one thing, and then set out and do exactly the opposite.

H.L.I. closes its critique of Molly Kelly by quoting Pope Pius X, and then commenting on that quotation:

What about “knowledge of divine things”?

Pope St. Pius X was concerned about those who “have no conception of the malice and baseness of sin; and hence they show no anxiety to avoid sin or to renounce it.” Therefore, he wrote an encyclical entitled On the Teaching of Christian Doctrine in which he emphasized the need for a “knowledge of divine things” to hold in check evil desires. He also said, “…if we cannot expect to reap a harvest when no seed has been planted, how can we hope to have a people with sound morals if Christian doctrine has not been imparted to them.” (April 15, 1905)

The teachings of the Church are ageless. They apply today just as they did in the First Century. Mathematicians would never discard the ancient Pythagorean Theorem, because it is a foundation of mathematics and will never change. Yet we see Catholics putting aside Church teachings that are basic to understanding and controlling one’s procreative nature. For this we can thank the sex education movement. To restore Catholic spirituality in the hearts and souls of our children, sex education — by any name — must be banned. It cannot be fixed. (H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 27)

My sentiments reflect those of Pope Pius X and H.L.I. Because sex education is contrary to true teaching of Christian doctrine, nothing good can come from it. It cannot be fixed, it must be purged from our schools, and replaced with classic Catholic teachings of holy truths and holy people.

Alice Grayson’s Review of the Sex Education Program

Let’s Talk to Teens about Chastity
A Teacher’s Resource Manual for Classroom Courses
written by sex-ed author, Molly Kelly

Introduction

Inasmuch as it has the same author, Molly Kelly’s teacher’s manual reflects the same flaws and humanist orientation as her lectures. Narrowly defining chastity as sexual self-control and saving sexual intercourse for marriage, Kelly believes that “control comes from within, using our intellect, our reasoning power, and our ability to make decisions ourselves” (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 19).

In selecting samples and critical comments for the resource manual, I am using Human Life International’s critique of Kelly. H.L.I. staff must be credited and congratulated on the excellent critiques they have produced on several sex-ed programs, inclusive of Kelly.

In Molly Kelly’s manual, therefore, we discover the expected omission and the expected repetition:

We find no mention of God’s authority or laws, or the danger to one’s soul that comes from disobedience. The words sin and sinful each appear only twice, regarding sexual intercourse outside of marriage and regarding abortion (pp. 17 and 21). Purity and modesty are mentioned only once and are not defined (p. 31). The book says nothing about occasions of sin, the Sacraments, grace, the Blessed Mother of the saints.

Chastity appears repeatedly, but Kelly defines it almost exclusively as “saving sexual intercourse for marriage” (pp. 7, 9, 11, etc.). Some form of sex or sexual intercourse dots just about every page of the text. On the first page of Chapter Four (interestingly entitled, “More About the Right Words”), sex or a variation appears 19 times and sexual intercourse appears nine times. Such words crop up more than 175 times in the text. Repetition like this is used in advertising — so what is Kelly selling?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 3)

Parent Put-down

One questions why God’s authority and parents’ authority are so blatantly missing throughout all the programs I have thus far reviewed. The programs stress “honesty,” and then hide the most fundamental truths. Thus, in Chapter Five of Kelly’s manual “Message-Givers: People Who Make a Difference,” we find her telling teachers that parents are people who:

…[love] teens the most and talk the least about sexuality…are uncomfortable about the subject of sex…are insecure about their own sexuality…are not practicing chastity themselves…[are] reluctant to preach it…abdicate responsibility…do not know how to communicate about this important topic. [p. 23]

When teachers make these statements in front of teens, they reinforce the PP dogma that parents are unable to communicate with today’s child. On the other hand, when trusting mothers and fathers hear such “messages” from the “expert” educators, the parents are made to feel incapable of teaching their children. This reinforces the contrived myth of the all-knowing sex educator that not only renders the parents unequal to the task in their own eyes, but also in the eyes of their children.

The experts (Kelly included) do not seem to understand that many parents feel no need to give their children a great deal of explicit sex information, nor do they want them desensitized about sex in a classroom forum.

Too much knowledge piques curiosity unnecessarily. (Ed. note and dangerously!)

Kelly says that at 16, teens are beginning to break away from their parents. She cites an incident when her own son was going out of the house. He did not answer her when she asked where he was going, with whom, and for how long. She tells the teachers this is natural and healthy (p. 43). Many parents would call it disrespectful, inconsiderate, and unsafe. Today it is more important than ever for parents to know where their child is, whom he is with, and when he is coming home. This parent-child communication is essential.
(H.L.I. review, Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 3 & 4)

Values Clarification Desensitization

Family and Faith separation occurs in Kelly by Values Clarification — Methodology and Desensitization Techniques. H.L.I. comments:

…Kelly’s books tells teachers that:

…you are not there to pass a judgment but to share the truth in a non-judgmental, non-threatening manner. Make the teens aware that you cannot force chastity—or anything else—on them and you wouldn’t even if you could! The chastity message is based on your respect and esteem for them. [p. 44] (emphasis added)

Why not a chastity message based on the Lord’s teachings? … (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 10)

The manual begins the lesson by insisting that the teachers “stick firmly to the stance that you are issuing an invitation. Your goal is not to force them to do or think anything” (p. 9). How many mathematics or chemistry teachers would tell their students that they were issuing an invitation to learn, without mentioning the consequences of not learning?

Brainstorming, role playing and endless discussions about anything sexual are all part of the values clarification process; they keep the students preoccupied with and talking about sex. There is no more effective way to break down modesty than by talking about sex openly in a mixed class. Once modesty is broken down, chastity is defenseless.

… Kelly’s manual instructs teachers to “Use a brainstorming approach with any and all responses being acceptable. Try to get starting attitudes and beliefs `on the table’…” Students are expected to communicate their thoughts and feelings (p. 9).

Group discussion, also referred to as “communicating” or “sharing,” is vital to the process. A certain closeness and excitement grow within the groups. As a result, two things happen: (1) the student discovers a variety of other attitudes and beliefs and may begin to doubt the validity of what he has been taught to believe; and (2) the student feels that in order to “belong,” he must accept what the group accepts.

Someone out there does try to “force” chastity. Who? The Church? Parents? The Church’s 2,000 years of teaching experience proves that obedience produces not only a clear conscience, but a healthy and nurturing home for children. The rewards of obeying God are unceasing. (H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 9 & 10)

Occasion of Sin

Despite the fact that Christ taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” Kelly’s guide, like her video, and like the several other sex-ed programs, leads the children into temptation by immersing their captive students in samples gleaned from the media, the songs, and the movies.

… Kelly refers to teens’ music as their “first language” (p. 5), and says they usually do their homework “while plugged into a Walkman” (p. 6). This may be true for some, but many parents know that rock music contains dangerous messages such as fornication, perversion, satanism, death and violence, among others.

No good can come from making innocent children curious about evils they may not have seen or heard. Even for students who know about these movies or songs, to rehash the “juicy” or “gross” parts in class is embarrassing or frightening and only serves to desensitize or traumatize them. (H.L.I. critique, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 9)

What is so ironic and irrational about “sample immersion” is that sex-educators usually justify their programs as a defense, against our promiscuous culture. Then, instead of withdrawal and prayer, they plunge the children into this alien-culture with endless discussion, journaling, sharing and singing. Innocence is not a valued word, and is not even comprehended by the sex-educator.

There is always a certain number of young people who quietly practice chastity and keep themselves pure by praying, receiving the Sacraments, practicing devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and avoiding sex talk. Will these boys and girls be drawn from their path or holiness to take part in follies in which they make up songs about “hormones?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teen About Chastity, 1992, p. 15)

To H.L.I.’s everlasting credit, the Kelly critique prints excerpts from Pope Pius XI’s 1936 Encyclical entitled “Motion Pictures” in which he warned about the power of film: which the mind takes in with enjoyment and without fatigue…In place of the effort which reading or listening demands, there is the continued pleasure of a succession of concrete and, so to speak, living pictures.

… Moreover the acting out of the plot is done by men and women selected for their artistic ability and for all those natural gifts and the employment of those expedients which can become, for youth particularly, instruments of seduction. Further, the motion picture has enlisted in its service luxurious appointments, pleasing music, the vigor of realism, every form of whim and fancy. For this very reason, it attracts and fascinates particularly the young, the adolescent and even the child. Thus at the very age when the moral sense is being formed and when the notions and sentiments of justice and rectitude, of duty and obligation and of ideals of life are being developed, the motion picture with its direct propaganda assumes a position of commanding influence.

It is unfortunate that, in the present state of affairs, this influence is frequently exerted for evil. So much so that when one thinks of the havoc wrought in the souls of youth and of childhood, of the loss of innocence so often suffered in the motion picture theaters, there comes to mind the terrible condemnation pronounced by Our Lord upon the corruptors of little ones: “whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill stone be hanged about his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Pope Pius XI, 1936 Encyclical entitled “Motion Pictures”)

Abortion Agenda

One of the major themes I have tried to communicate in this letter is that sex education is intimately and inextricably linked with abortions. Of course the choice language running throughout is the same name pro-abortionists use to identify themselves — “Pro-Choice.” (Some pro-aborts — death advocators/death defenders — even have the nerve to sport bumper stickers saying “Pro-Choice, Pro-Child.”) Of course, “choice” language or philosophy implicitly contains within it the right to lie, to twist the language in order to make the unacceptable appear acceptable. It is the right to name things any way one desires to do so as Joyce Little so articulately explained.

Thus, in Benziger, we find “life,” “family,” and “sharing” redefined. We find the unborn baby being referred to as “cell division” and human/God procreation being called human reproduction. In In God’s Image we discover that Ms. Miller uses the same slogans as Planned Parenthood, and that referrals to abortion/contraceptive clinics are provided. A study of the sex educators reveals that they are simply not very pro-life, and that they are helpful to the agenda of Planned Parenthood. Molly Kelly’s resource manual follows suit. H.L.I. comments:

Kelly’s teen pregnancy message is the secular message against having children. She talks about “children bearing children [a PP cliche]…despite increasing ease of access to contraception and abortion!” (p. 35-6). She provides the routine list of horrors wrought by teen pregnancy, including “family upheaval, abandoned educational and career goals, shotgun weddings…the burden of single parenthood, assimilation into the welfare system, unfair parenthood, [and] difficult decision about abortion or adoption…” (p. 36). These and other consequences affect the new father, as well: “disrupted families, disappointed parents…serious decisions about parenting and marriage, financial responsibility, children having children, interrupted social life, and terminated youth” (p. 39).

Kelly does point out the dangers of abortion (pp. 36, 40), but her litany of teen birth horrors may lead a frightened pregnant girl to see only the destruction of her dreams and to consider the open door of the abortion mill her only way out. Even chastity educator Mary Beth Bonacci cautions that “If the narrow-minded approach is, be chaste to avoid pregnancy, then the message youth will get is that pregnancy is evil.” Then, she says, pregnant teens will go straight to the abortionist (The Catholic Register, Toronto, February 15, 1992). What about the other students? Will they, too, get the message that babies are mainly burdens and threats to their educational or financial status and social life? Will students retain these notions even after they are married?

The entire chapter is depressing and disturbing, and not just because of the “messages” about teen pregnancy. There is a statement that the children who are born of teen fornication are “…not part of the parents’ `plan.’” They are accidental results of sexual intercourse (p. 39). Won’t some students take this to mean that children should be “planned”? Why doesn’t Kelly say that children are a gift from God, as the Bible does? Her manual says sexuality is “a gift from God” (pp. 55, 59). Why not babies?
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 12)

It also should be noted, that although Molly Kelly’s lectures teach that the pill acts as an abortifacient, Kelly’s resource manual does not. This is not exactly the honesty, integrity, and respect with which Kelly likes to dress herself and her teaching.

Kelly’s Teachers

Perhaps the most shocking part of Molly Kelly is not the carry over from lecture to program guide, but rather, how the guide differs from lectures.

In her lectures, Molly Kelly is convincing in her belief that: (1) she believes in the virtue of chastity (even narrowly defined); (2) that she is against contraception; and (3) that she desires that her students come to agree with her.

In her resource manual for teachers, however, we find that Molly Kelly doesn’t even insist that her teachers (i.e., those who teach the children?) believe in any of the above. H.L.I. queries:

If Kelly’s message to teachers is to promote chastity, why does she wait until Chapter Four to ask the teachers how “wholeheartedly” they believe that “sexual intercourse belongs in marriage”? And if she opposes contraception, as she says she does, why does she ask teachers whether they think “schools and/or parents” should “provide contraception” if students “refuse to choose chastity” (Chapter Six)? Kelly’s book may be a teacher’s manual, but much depends on the teacher’s own knowledge and beliefs. The teacher will be the curriculum.
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 6)

Obviously, Molly Kelly is either hypocritical or deep down she really values the right to choose far more than any particular truth. Her resource manual is so irrational that it advocates students forming groups and teaching themselves — calling for both panel discussions and chastity “cheering groups.” Her teaching is also open ended for the teachers to allow space for made up questions, thought, and feelings for class discussion. Does the impression “Pandora’s box” sound ý propos?

Kelly’s Publisher

If Molly Kelly isn’t hypocritical, then she is indeed incredibly “sloppy.” H.L.I. reveals that the publisher of her resource manual — which is properly called Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity — is the Center for Learning.

Kelly’s book describes the Center as a “non-profit publishing corporation founded in 1970 by the Sisters of Humility of Mary and an ecumenical group of business and professional men and women.” Its funding comes from grants and other sources. According to the Center’s brochure, the George Gund Foundation of Ohio helps to fund teacher training for the Center’s materials. This foundation is one of the 12 biggest sources of funds for depopulation and abortion industry groups. Gund grants, always earmarked for abortion in the past, have gone to the so-called Catholics for a Free Choice, the Religious Coalition for Abortion Right (RCAR), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Population Council and PP, to name only a few. Gund has also bankrolled the Association for Voluntary Sterilization for the purpose of developing technology for surgical “contraception,” including the abortifacient Norplant.

The Center also receives funds from the Cleveland Foundation, another lavish and consistent support of Planned Parenthood…
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 29)

… The Center’s catalog gives more detailed descriptions of the materials the publisher advertises in the back of Kelly’s book. Any schools or parents who order Kelly’s book will be on the mailing list for all of the Center’s products.

Perusing the catalog and brochures gives one the impression that the Center sees the Church as more social than spiritual: buzzwords such as celebrating, responding, experiencing and choosing dot the pages. The blurb on “Growing in Peace and Justice” does not mention the preborn millions who are being killed. “Reverencing Faith Traditions” explores the traditions and rituals of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and the Chinese Yin and Yang. The study of world religions, often found in “global” curricula, is of grave concern, because too often it persuades students that all religions are equally valid.

The Center’s brochures suggest that its products are more in tune with the New age secular world than with timeless Catholic teaching. It is interesting that William C. Brown Publishers, producer of the immoral and heretical New Creation sex ed series, is a close associate of the Center and a distributor of its materials…
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 30)

Is this wholesome literature?

literature courses. The books studied in these lessons happen to be novels that have upset parents of children in both public and Catholic schools, e.g., The Learning Tree, Catcher in the Rye, A Day No Pigs Would Die and Lord of the Flies. The titles may be familiar, but many parents are not aware of their content. We apologize sincerely for quoting passages from these texts, but they are part of the school curricula throughout our country. Parents need to know just how objectionable they are, because many trusting parents still find it hard to believe that a “Catholic” publisher would inflict these materials on Catholic school children.

The Learning Tree

With its blasphemy, foul language and sex scenes, Gordon Parks’ The Learning Tree is an insult to Our Lord and a threat to children’s souls. Yet it is not only available to children in both Catholic and public schools, it is often required reading, and/or read aloud in the classroom.

The Center makes available 10 lesson plans and 25 handouts for classroom use. Again, we apologize for quoting this novel. But remember, our children have been exposed to it for years:

… “Git yore little black a__ over!” [p. 10] “You oughta be feelin’ better soon now,” she said, fixing the quilt over them and, at the same time, pulling Newt [a 12-year-old] hard against her naked body. “Come closer, boy, if you want to git warm.” Her voice was husky and low — so low that he could hardly understand her words.

And soon the warmth of Big Mabel brought a glow to his own body, and a hardness to his groin — one he had never felt before. Big Mabel felt the hardness too. She rolled over on her back, pulled him on top of her…[p. 11]

The Center’s material makes no apology for this. It matter-of-factly says Newt’s first sexual encounter is part of “why and how a town becomes a `learning tree’” (p. iv). The students are assigned to read this chapter twice and spend much time on it. Ten questions accompany the first reading and eight questions the second; most of them probe the children’s personal feelings about the content ..
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 30 & 31)

Then H.L.I.’s critique of Molly Kelly goes on to provide additional samples and additional commentary on the other books with such familiar titles. It should be read by every parent. In fact, if parents would only read the H.L.I. critiques of the sex education programs, there would be no need to write this letter, because the educators in Catholic schools would not have students left in their classrooms! I pray for that day.

Conclusion of Kelly

If anything, Molly Kelly’s popularity points the finger at all educators and all parents who have simply been too lax and too trusting of an educational system and a cultural milieu that has captured the attention and the souls of our youth.

I stand as one of those parents who didn’t examine their assigned books closely enough, and I let the kids rent those videos (with the all too familiar titles) without close enough attention. The millstone is around my neck as well as yours. It is time to repent and make reparation.

When Molly Kelly went to Rome, she spoke thus to 6,000 priests.

It is interesting to note what Kelly told approximately 6,000 priests in Rome:

Pleasure has become the primary goal of so many people…You and I know that Heaven must be our final goal and we must teach our young people that, and the way to get to Heaven is through good works and prayer…I find our teenagers, our young people today, hungry for the truth and hungry for the challenge to live that truth. Our young people today need you to give them spiritual direction on how to live chaste lives. They need to be encouraged to practice purity and modesty, two of the main ingredients of chastity. And they need to be encouraged to avoid the occasions of sin. Words that we have to take off the shelf, dust off and start using again.
(H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, pp. 18 & 19)

Molly Kelly is indeed gifted. In this speech, she espoused true formation in the virtue of purity. It is mind boggling to me, how she can tell those priests one thing, and then set out and do exactly the opposite.

H.L.I. closes its critique of Molly Kelly by quoting Pope Pius X, and then commenting on that quotation:

What about “knowledge of divine things”?

Pope St. Pius X was concerned about those who “have no conception of the malice and baseness of sin; and hence they show no anxiety to avoid sin or to renounce it.” Therefore, he wrote an encyclical entitled On the Teaching of Christian Doctrine in which he emphasized the need for a “knowledge of divine things” to hold in check evil desires. He also said, “…if we cannot expect to reap a harvest when no seed has been planted, how can we hope to have a people with sound morals if Christian doctrine has not been imparted to them.” (April 15, 1905)

The teachings of the Church are ageless. They apply today just as they did in the First Century. Mathematicians would never discard the ancient Pythagorean Theorem, because it is a foundation of mathematics and will never change. Yet we see Catholics putting aside Church teachings that are basic to understanding and controlling one’s procreative nature. For this we can thank the sex education movement. To restore Catholic spirituality in the hearts and souls of our children, sex education — by any name — must be banned. It cannot be fixed. (H.L.I. review, Molly Kelly’s Let’s Talk to Teens About Chastity, 1992, p. 27)

My sentiments reflect those of Pope Pius X and H.L.I. Because sex education is contrary to true teaching of Christian doctrine, nothing good can come from it. It cannot be fixed, it must be purged from our schools, and replaced with classic Catholic teachings of holy truths and holy people.