Teachings of the Catholic Church Regarding Sex Education
Summary (1566-1997)
Parents should keep this summary of the Catholic Church’s teachings regarding classroom sex education in their hip pocket. This proves what you already know- to anyone who might challenge you. Parents know best. The church says so. And the real, teaching, Mother, Church-the Magisterium prohibits Classroom Sex Education. It is a long scroll down but well worth knowing your facts!
1566 -Catechism of the Council of Trent
English Translation, Rev. Francis Spirago, Edited by Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., 1899
The Catechism of the Council of Trent does not explicitly prohibit classroom sex education, since there was no classroom sex education as we know it in the 16th century. But the section on the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” is devoted to teaching pastors the proper matter and method of public instruction in sexual morality. It states clearly and succinctly under the heading: Importance of Careful Instruction In This Commandment:
In the explanation of this Commandment, however, the pastor has need of great caution and prudence, and should treat with great delicacy a subject which requires brevity* rather than copiousness of exposition. For it is to be feared that if he explained in too great detail or at length the ways in which this Commandment is violated, he might unintentionally speak of subjects which, instead of extinguishing, usually serve rather to inflame corrupt passion.
Then, after taking its own advice, the catechism explains as follows:
These are the points which we have deemed proper matter for public instruction of the faithful. The pastor, however, should add the decrees of the Council of Trent against adulterers, and those who keep harlots and concubines, omitting many other species of immodesty and lust, of which each individual is to be admonished privately, as circumstances of time and person may require.
The first (remedy of lust) is studiously to avoid idleness. … In the next place intemperance is carefully to be avoided. … The eyes in particular, are the inlets to criminal passion. … Too much display in dress (is) an occasion of sin. … Obscene language is a torch which lights up the worst passions of the young mind. … Immodest and passionate songs and dances are…cautiously to be avoided (as also) soft and obscene books…no less than indecent pictures.
But the most efficacious means for subduing (lust’s) violence are frequent use of Confession and Communion, as also unceasing and devout prayer to God, accompanied by fasting and almsdeeds.
In the section on the Sacrament of Matrimony the same catechism instructs:
Finally, the use of marriage is a subject which pastors should so treat as to avoid any expression that may be unfit to meet the ears of the faithful, that may be calculated to offend the piety of some, or excite the laughter of others. The words of the Lord are chaste words (Psalm 11:7) and the teacher of a Christian people should make use of the same kind of language, one that is characterized by singular gravity and purity of soul.
The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (5:27-28) records the very words of Our Lord.
You have heard that it as said to the ancients, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that anyone who so much as looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
1917 – The Blessed Virgin Mary, at Fatima prophesized
Wars are a punishment from God for sin. Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much. More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.
1929 – Pope Pius XI Divini Illius Magistri (Christian Education of Youth)
Another very grave danger today is naturalism invading the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who propagate a so-called sex-education. They falsely imagine they can forearm youth against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural. They offer a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all, indiscriminately, even in public. Worse still, they expose children at an early age to the occasions to attempt to harden them against such dangers. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize theinborn weakness of human nature. (Romans 7:23)
If some private instruction is found necessary from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the state of grace, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano, 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 enkindles 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. (Silvio Antonio, Dell’educazione cristiana dei figliuoli, lib. II, c. 88)
Hence 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 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…
But alas! It is clear from the obvious meaning of the words and from experience, that what is intended by not a few, is the withdrawal of education from every sort of dependence of the divine law. So today we see, strange sight 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. These innovators are wont to refer contemptuously to Christian education as “heteronomous,” “passive,” “obsolete,” because founded upon the Authority of God and his Holy Law.
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 disorderly affections, which, as a logical consequence of this false system, come to be justified as legitimate demands of a so-called autonomous nature….
These principles, with due regard to time and place, must in accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and divisive period of formation, that, namely, of adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment, special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls, which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public….
The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to co-operate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism, according to the emphatic expression of the Apostle: “My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you.” 63 For the true Christian must live a supernatural life in Christ: “Christ who is your life,” 64 and display it in all his actions: “That the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” 65…
“By nature parents have a right to the training of their children, but with this added duty that the education and instruction of the child be in accord with the end for which by God’s blessing it was begotten. Therefore, it is the duly of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights in this matter, and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their control in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety.”
(Pope Leo XIII< Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890 as quoted in Divini Illius Magistri).
1930 Casti Connubii – Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical On Chaste Wedlock
Casti Connubii instructs very clearly that any strategy which proposes to foster a love of chastity is doomed for failure unless it focuses first on the supernatural order of grace and only after that priority is operative, can any teacher – parents included – address the natural means.*
…since man cannot hold in check his passions, unless he first subject himself to God, this must be his primary endeavor, in accordance with the plan divinely ordained. For it is a sacred ordinance that whoever shall have first subjected himself to God will, by the aid of divine grace, be glad to subject to himself his own passions and concupiscence; while he who is a rebel against God, will, to his sorrow, experience within himself the violent rebellion of his worst passions.
… in accordance with the defined norm of Christian sentiment … urge them to perform their duty and exercise their religion so that they should give themselves to God, continually ask His divine assistance, frequent the sacraments, and always nourish and preserve a loyal a thoroughly sincere devotion to God.
They are greatly deceived who … think that they can induce men by the use and discovery of the natural sciences … to curb their natural desires. We do not say this in order to belittle those natural means which are not dishonest; for God is the author of nature as well as of grace, and He has disposed the good things of both orders for the beneficial use of men. But they are mistaken who think that these means are able to establish chastity in the nuptial union, or that they are more effective than supernatural grace.
1931 – The Holy Office
On March 21, 1931, the Holy Office (now the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a Decree. The Holy Office had proposed to it for solution a question pertaining to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical, Divini Illius Magistri. The Decree’s question and answer about sex-education read:
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.
Pius XII, in his address of April 13, 1953, states that personal sex instruction of children and youth in the home would place special stress “upon self-mastery and religious training.” He reminded his audience that “The Holy See published certain rules in this connection shortly after the encyclical of Pius XI on Christian Marriage. These rules have not been rescinded, either expressly of via facti.” (emphasis added) (Engel, Sex Education; The Final Plague, 1989, p. 60)
1955 – Pope Pius XII writes to the Cardinal of Malines about Divini Illius Magistri:
The inviolable principles which this document (Divini Illius Magistri) lays down regarding the Church, family and State in the matter of education, are based on the very nature of things and on revealed truth. They cannot be shaken by the ebb and flow of events. As for the fundamental rules which it prescribes, there too are not subject to the wear and tear of time, since they are only the faithful echo of the Divine Master, Whose words shall never pass away. The encyclical is a real Magna Carta of Christian education, ‘outside of which no education is complete and perfect.’
1963 – 1965 Documents of Vatican II
December 7, 1965 – Gaudium et Spes – Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World
Authentic conjugal love will be more highly prized, and wholesome public opinion created about it if Christian couples give outstanding witness to faithfulness and harmony in their love, and to their concern for educating their children; also, if they do their part in bringing about the needed cultural, psychological and social renewal on behalf of marriage and the family. Especially in the heart of their own families, young people should be aptly and seasonably instructed in the dignity, 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. (Section 49)
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. (Section 51)
Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love. Thus they will fulfill their task with human and Christian responsibility, and, with docile reverence toward God, will make decisions by common counsel and effort. (Section 50)
The family is a kind of school of deeper humanity … Parents or guardians should by prudent advice provide guidance to their young with respect to founding a family, and the young ought to listen gladly (Section 52)
October 28, 1965 – Gravissimum Educationis – Declaration On Christian Education
As they grow older, they should receive a positive and prudent education in matters related to sex. (section 1)
Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.[11] This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched e and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church. Finally, it is through the family that they are gradually led to a companionship with their fellowmen and with the people of God. Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God’s own people.[12]
11. Cf. Pius XI’s encyclical letter Divini Illius Magistri, 1, p. 59 ff.- encyclical letter Mit Brennender Sorge, March 14, 1937: A.A.S. 29- Pius XII’s allocution to the first national congress of the Italian Catholic Teachers’ Association, Sept. 8, 1946: Discourses and Radio Messages, vol. 8, p. 218.
12. Cf. Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, nos. 11 and 35: A.A.S. 57 (1965) pp. 16, 40 ff.
1970 – Paul VI defines true moral Catechesis on matters related to sex in Spirituality of Marriage
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 to achieve affective sexual maturity. This prepares for the Gift of Self through a love giving true dimension in an exclusive and definitive manner.
(Lecture of Paul VI, 1970)
1971-1972 – Paul VI condemns sex education programs
Paul VI issues an explicit public condemnation of aberrations in classroom sex education programs.
This condemnation is repeated in his address of September 13, 1972, condemning contemporary sexual errors:
On the scientific plane, psychoanalysis; on the pedagogical plane, sex education; on the literary plane, obligatory eroticism; on the plane of entertainment, indecent exhibition, straining toward the obscene…
(Engel, Sex Education: The Final Plague, 1989, p. 73)
1979 – 1990 Anthology of Pope John Paul II on Education in Chastity
Collection of Teachings
Edited by James Likoudis, Social Justice Review January/February 1991
Editorial comments in blue typeface.
January 3, 1979 Address of Pope John Paul II
The Pope Elevates The Family
. . . the family is irreplaceable and, as such, must be defended with might and main. Everything must be done in order that the family will not be replaced. That is necessary not only for the “private” good of every person, but also for the common good of every society, nation and state.
April 1979 address of Pope John Paul II quoted in IMMACULTA
The family, as “the domestic church,” is called upon to resist the secularization of society with its accompanying forms of immorality, including programs of “sex education” indifferent to or hostile to Christian morality. Such programs, interestingly, were denounced by the Pope when he was still Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow. In a sermon at the Church of “Mary, Queen of Poland” in Nowa Huta, he declared:
On the threshold of the last quarter of our century, we wish that the cross may be fixed even more firmly in our souls and consciences. For the condition of many souls fills us with sorrow. We are disturbed by the program for the education of youth, especially sexual education. It is not an education program but a way to immorality, because it allows and even recommends such things as cohabitation outside of marriage and still seeks to achieve responsible parenthood by means of abortion, which have already destroyed millions of Polish lives.
November 3, 1979 address of Pope John Paul II to International Groups of Researchers in Natural Family Planning
In decrying the spread of contraception (fostered by “sex education programs” in many countries), Pope John Paul II has observed:
And what are we to think of an education in regard to sexuality which would not put (youth] on their guard against pursuit of immediate and selfish pleasure, disassociated from the responsibilities of conjugal love and procreation?
It is necessary to educate to true love in many ways, in order to prevent the moral and spiritual fabric of the human community from deteriorating, on this essential point, as a result of hazy or false ideas
December 22, 1980 address of Pope John Paul II to the College of Cardinals
The Pope speaks of his own commitment to the defense of the moral law of God and the defense of the family against the ravages wrought by an unbridles sexuality:
…. God’s law does not mortify, but exalts man, and calls him to extraordinary cooperation with Him in the mission and in the joy of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. In the face of the disintegration of family unity, the only guarantee for the complete formation of children and young people is … to recall emphatically the holiness of marriage, the value of the family, the inviolability of human life. I will never tire of carrying out this mission, which I consider cannot be deferred, taking advantage of journeys, meetings, audiences, messages to persons, institutions, associations, advisory bureaus which are concerned about the future of the family and dedicate study and action to it.
1981 – Pope John Paul II on the Authentic Catholic School — The Whole Truth About Man
(A Catholic School is) a place and a special community for the education and maturation of faith. … A Catholic school would no longer deserve this title ‘if, no matter how much it shone for its high level of teaching in non-religious matters, there were justification for reproaching it for negligence or deviation in strictly religious education.
Let it not be said that such education will always be given implicity and indirectly. The special character of the Catholic school, the underlying reason for it, the reason why Catholic parents should prefer it, is precisely the quality of the religious instruction integrated into the education of the pupils’… And this religious teaching must be entire in its content, because every disciple of Christ has the right to receive the word of faith in a form that is not mutilated, not distorted, not reduced, but complete and whole, in all its rigor and vigor.
February 4, 1981 address of Pope John Paul II to U. S. Bishops in Dallas, Texas
In developing in many addresses his profound theology of the “nuptial meaning of the body” (already partially set forth in his remarkable work, Love and Responsibility (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981), Pope John Paul has insisted that:
The subject of human sexuality cannot be brought into proper focus without reference to the human person. And likewise, if we were to study the human person with reference to sexuality, we would be overlooking a fundamental truth revealed to us in the Book of Genesis, overlooking the fact that ‘God created them male and female’ (Gn. 1:27).
Human sexuality and personhood can be fully understood only when studied within the framework of creation and the mystery of redemption. Following the example of Jesus (cf. Mt 19:4), we need to look at what God the Creator intended from the beginning. Thus, in the Book of Genesis we read: “In the beginning. . . God created man in the image of Himself, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Gn 1:1, 17).
Examining the plan of God as it existed in the beginning, we discover the nuptial meaning of the body; we see that, in the mystery of creation, man and woman are made to be a gift to each other and for each other. In their very existence, as male and female, by their sexuality and freedom as persons, man and woman are capable of mirroring the creative activity of God. And in the mystery of redemption, through the grace won by the Savior on the cross, man and woman receive, not the power to return to the state of original innocence prior to the fall of Adam, but the strength to live in Christ, a new ethos of redemptive love.
February 19, 1981 address of Pope John Paul II to the Cebu City Families in the Philippines
The Pope repeatedly emphasizes the role of parents as educators in human sexuality education:
I encourage all Catholic educators, but especially parents themselves, to devote great attention to the proper formation of the young in regard to human sexuality, placing in proper perspective the purpose of the Creator from the beginning, the redemptive power of Christ, and the influence of a true sacramental life. The delicate responsibility for sex education belongs principally to the families, where an atmosphere of loving reverence will be conducive to the fully human and Christian understanding of the meaning of love and life.
April 28, 1981 General Audience of Pope John Paul II
The Pope has repeated the censure of his predecessors on the Chair of Peter against the naturalistic idea of sex education that has become so widespread in our time — and indiscriminately presented to millions of school children:
Purely “biological” knowledge of the functions of the body as an organism, connected with the masculinity and femininity of the human person, is capable of helping to discover the true nuptial meaning of the body, only if it is accompanied by an adequate spiritual maturity of the human person. Otherwise, such knowledge can have quite the opposite effect; and this is confirmed by many experiences of our time.
March 26, 1981 address of Pope John Paul II to the Assemble of the Congregation for Catholic Education
The continued complaints of parents in many nations at the violation of their rights in the matter of sex education and the introduction of objectionable sex education programs in their Catholic schools (under the guise of “catechesis”) resulted in yet another admonition by the Holy Father:
It is to be hoped that the presence of excellent fathers and mothers of families among the teachers of Catholic schools will remove the cause of the complaints that are sometimes heard among parents, concerned because of certain questionable forms of expression on delicate subjects such as religion of sexual education.
November 10, 1981 address of Pope John Paul II to the French Catholic Family Associations
The Pope has been forthright in declaring “decadent” any sex education that is amoral (i.e., divorced from the ethical norms of the natural and revealed law of God):
Sexual information, for example, is wide of the mark if it is not completed by a concrete and persevering pedagogy of the harmonious development of the whole person, of the art of being at once the subject and object of love. This love requires the stability and indissolubility of the home.
November 22, 1981, Pope John Paul II, the Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Section 37
Such complaints were, unfortunately, to multiply in number in following years, but in his magnificent Apostolic Exhortation on the Family (Familiaris Consortio), the Pope provided the entire Church with an impressive synthesis of the Church’s understanding of love and marriage and the respective roles to be played by family, Church, and school in the moral and spiritual training of youth and in “sex education”:
Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable premise for persons 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 Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which 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. This 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.
September 24, 1983 address of Pope John Paul II to U. S. Bishops in their Ad Limina visit
The Pope defines teaching that “sexuality transcends the biological sphere”
In order to avoid any trivialization or desecration of sexuality, we must teach that sexuality transcends the purely biological sphere and concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. Sexual love is truly human only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death. This full self-giving is possible only in marriage.
It is this teaching, based on the Church’s understanding of the dignity of the human person and the fact that sex is a gift of God, that must be communicated to both married and engaged couples, and indeed to the whole Church. This teaching must be at the basis of all education in sexuality and chastity. It must be communicated to parents, who have the primary responsibility for the education of their children and also to pastors and religious teachers who collaborate with parents in the fulfillment of their responsibility.
November 7, 1983 address of Pope John Paul II to Members of the International Congress of the Family
The Pope never fails to highlight the principle of subsidiarity in safeguarding the primacy of the family with regards to the educational activities of other organs of society (such as schools which have threatened increasingly the legitimate autonomy and educational responsibilities of parents):
Society is at the service of the family, which it must respect and promote as a “society which enjoys primordial rights of its own”, without trying to substitute itself for the family, without encroaching upon its responsibilities nor upon the initiatives of family associations. In this realm, even more than in others, it must fulfill a subsidiary role … With regard to education: parents – who remain the first and principal educators of their children – have the right to educate them in accordance with their moral and religious convictions, and thus have the right to choose freely the schools or other means necessary to this end.
They ought to receive necessary help and assistance from society by means of a just distribution of public subsidies. Religious and moral education and sex education, always ought to be given under their careful supervision.
November 24, 1983 Approval of John Paul II on the Charter of the Rights of the Family
Efforts to provide sex education cannot by-pass the rights of parents. This was underscored by Pope John Paul II’s approving the Charter of the Rights of the Family issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family on November 24, 1983. The following excerpts have direct bearing on the problems caused by classroom sex education.
The family, a natural society, exists prior to the state or any other community and possesses inherent rights which are inalienable.
(Preamble D)
Since they have conferred life on their children, parents have the original, primary and inalienable right to educate them; hence, they must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children.
(Art. 5 a)
Parents have the right to educate their children in conformity with their moral and religious convictions.
(Art. 5 a)
Parents have the right to freely choose schools, or other means, necessary to educate their children in keeping with their convictions.
(Art. 5 b)
Parents have the right to ensure that their children are not compelled to attend classes which are not in agreement with their own moral and religious convictions. In particular, sex education is a basic right of the parents and must always be carried on under their close supervision, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.
(Art. 5 c)
The primary right of parents to educate their children must be upheld in all forms of collaboration between parents, teachers and school authorities.
(Art. 5 e)
Families have the right to form associations with other families and institutions, in order to fulfill the family’s rolesuitable and effectively, as well as to protect the rights, foster the good and represent the interests of the family
(Art. 8 a)
September 9, 1984 address of Pope John Paul II to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
The stakes in providing a “proper and prudent sex education are high, the Pope pointed out in a stirring address to Canadian Bishops:
You observe the breakdown of the family and the crisis in marriage. How many children and parents suffer from broken homes, separations, or divorces? You have sought to improve the legislation on this point. You also see the many “free unions” which refuse or delay a total and exclusive commitment of the two partners in the Sacrament of Marriage.
You know that abortion is very widespread. And many have recourse to contraceptive means instead of respecting, in self-control and a mutually agreed effort, the double finality of the conjugal act: love and openness to life. Among the causes of these evils, there is a generalized tendency to hedonism; there is a forgetting of God; there is without doubt an ignorance of the theology of the body, of the magnificent plan of God for conjugal union, of the necessity of an asceticism in order to deepen a love which is truly worthy of man and woman and to correspond to the life of the spirit present in the couple.
September 16, 1987 address of Pope John Paul II in Los Angeles
That schools, even Catholic schools, are prohibited from imposing programs in human sexuality over the objections of parents opposed to such in conscience (as involving a loss of parental choice and control) was assuredly the burden of Pope John Paul II’s remarks in a major address to the Samerican hierarchy during his last visit to the U.S.
The question of sex education, especially as regards programs being used in schools, becomes a matter of concern to Catholic parents. The principles governing this area have been succinctly, but clearly, enunciated in Familiaris Consortio. First among these principles is the need to recognize that sex education is a basic right and duty of parents themselves. They have to be helped to become increasingly more effective in fulfilling this task. Other educational agencies have an important role. But always in a subsidiary manner. With due subordination to the rights of parents.
September 2, 1988 address of Pope John Paul II to U.S. Bishops of Regions XII and XIII
If there were still a need to insist upon the obligation of all schools – government schools or Church affiliated – to observe the principle of subsidiarity vis-ý-vis the family in the delicate area of sex education, the Pope did so in speaking to American bishops once again:
A major area of human rights in need of constant defense is that concerned with the family and its members, both parents and children. The Charter of the Rights of the Family presented five years ago by the Holy See, has spelled out these rights and deserves renewed attention at this time. One of the fundamental principles enunciated in this document is “the original, primary and inalienable right” of parents to educate their children (Art. 5) according to their moral and religious convictions and to supervise closely and to control their sex education. The Church must continue to present human sexuality as linked to God’s plan of creation and constantly proclaim the finality and dignity of sex.
January 16, 1990 address of Pope John Paul II to German Bishops
Modern ideologies attempt to destroy the traditional family as “a covenant of love and of life”. Misguided attempts at “sex education”, which are divorced from the ethical imperatives of the Gospel can only be regarded as immoral. (Bishops must) be especially vigilant when, even within the Church, moral rules for behavior are propagated or widely diffused, which correspond to a great extent to people’s spontaneous inclinations, but which betray the true freedom of a Christian. Self-denial and patience, maturity and steadfastness must not become foreign words in our own every day life, especially in the education of human sexuality.
May 13, 1990 address of Pope John Paul II
Since the beginning of his reign as successor to Peter, and visible head of the Church, Pope John Paul II has repeatedly upheld the value of chastity as understood in the Christian tradition and the need for an authentic education in chastity for children and youth. As he noted in an address to the youth of Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles.
During my pontificate I have given much time to a detailed analysis of the great gift of sexuality which God has impressed in the very structure of the body. I have explained how man and woman carry on in the “language of the body” that dialogue, which according to Genesis 2:24-25, had its beginning on the date of creation (cf. General Audience, August 22, 1984). The “language of the body” as language of human beings, individual persons, is subject to the demands of truth, that is, to the objective norm (*cf. Ibid.).
I am sure that your parents and those who help them in your formation, especially your priests and catechists, will try to explain in more detail the richness of Catholic doctrine regarding marriage and the family. I exhort you to have the highest esteem for the ideals of chastity, marital fidelity, and self control, so that in every way you will uphold the very great value of human love as God has wished it from the beginning.
1994 – CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Chastity
ß2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man’s in his bodily and spiritual being…the virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
ß2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has “put on Christ,” (Galatians 3:27) the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.
The Love of Husband and Wife
ß2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.
ß2363 …The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
Conjugal Fidelity
ß2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. (Ephesians 3:14, Matthew 23:9)”Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility.” (GS 50 ß 2)
ß2364 The married couple forms “the intimate partnership of life and love established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent.” (GS 48 ß 1)
The Fecundity of Marriage
ß2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. (Ephesians 3:14, Matthew 23:9)”Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility.” (GS 50 ß 2)
The Domestic Church
ß1666 The Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. For this reason the family home is rightly called “the domestic church”, a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity.
Purification of the Heart
ß2517 The heart is the seat of moral personality: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication. . . . ” (Matthew 15:19) The struggle against carnal covetousness entails purifying the heart and practicing temperance: “remain simple and innocent and you will be like little children who do not know the evil that destroys man’s life”. (305) (Pastor Homer Hermae, Mandate #2, 1:PG2,916)
ß2518 The sixth beatitude proclaims, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) “Pure in heart” refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; (1 Timothy 4:3-9, 2 Timothy 2:22) chastity or sexual rectitude; (1 Timothy 4:7, Colossians 3:5, Ephesians 4:19) love of truth and orthodoxy of faith. There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith.
Battle for Purity
ß2520 Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires. With God’s grace he will prevail
– by the virtue and gift of chastity, for chastity lets us love with upright and undivided heart;
– by purity of intention which consists in seeking the true end of man: with simplicity of vision, the baptized person seeks to find and to fulfill God’s will in everything; (Romans 12:2, Colossians 1:10)
– by purity of vision, external and internal; by discipline of feelings and imagination; by refusing all complicity in impure thoughts that incline us to turn aside from the path of God’s commandments: “Appearance arouses yearning in fools.” (Wis 15:5)
– by prayer:
“I thought that continence arose from one’s own powers, which I did not recognize in myself. I was foolish enough not to know … that no one can be continent unless You grant it. For You would surely have granted it if my inner groaning had reached your ears and I with firm faith had cast my cares on You.” (Saint Augustine,Confessions 6, 11, 20:PL32, 729-730)
ß2521 Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.
ß2522 Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.
ß2526 So called moral permissiveness rests on an erroneous conception of human freedom; the necessary precondition for the development of true freedom is to let oneself be educated in the moral law. Those in charge of education can reasonably be expected to give young people instruction respectful of the truth, the qualities of the heart, and the moral and spiritual dignity of man.
The Duty of Parents
ß2221 The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.” (G. E. 3) The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. (F. C. 36)
ß2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones”. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them.
ß2224 The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.
ß2225 Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the “first heralds” for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. (L.G.ß2) A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one’s life.
ß2226 Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God. (L.G. 11) The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents.
ß2227 Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents. (G.S. 48 ß4) Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. Mutual affection suggests this. The charity of Christ demands it. (Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 17:4)
ß2228 Parents’ respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.
ß2229 As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. (G.E. 6) Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.
1990 – 1997 Letters from Distinguished Catholic Authorities
Letters by Msgr. Carlo Caffarra and Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky, deserve attention because both are distinguished authorities who confirm constant teaching traditions on this matter of sex education programs.
31 May 1990
Mr. Richard J. Lloyd, NCCL
NATIONAL COALITION OF CLERGY AND LAITY
621 Jordan Circle
Whitehall, PA 18052
Dear Mr. Lloyd,
This letter will serve as a follow-up to our meeting in Rome in connection with the topic of sex education. According to constant Catholic Church’s teaching, sexual education is a right of family and everybody must educate children according to their parents.
It is important that a sound doctrinal catechesis be given to all children in order that they completely understand and be able to live the faith. Naturally, within this sound doctrinal catechesis authentic sexual morality should be taught. It is important to note; however, that the Church when educating children at the elementary and secondary school levels with regard to sexual morality has constantly done so within the framework of the regular religion class, and has not attempted to isolate the teaching of sexual morality or “chastity education” in separate programs not related to the other virtues.
Sincerely in Christ,
Msgr. Carlo Caffarra
Director
John Paul II Institute For Studies of Marriage and Family
Vatican City State
19 February 1990
Mr. Richard J. Lloyd
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity
1929 Tilghman Street, Suite B
Allentown, PA 18104
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Lloyd:
I was happy to meet with you in Rome to discuss the ban on classroom sex education, and want to relate the following facts to you:
1. Consistent with the traditional teaching of the Magisterium, I am in favor of a universal ban on classroom sex education.
2. Please continue to work with Archbishop Sulyk, Bishop Lotocky, Bishop Losten and Bishop Moskal, who as you well know, are also totally in agreement with the teaching of the Church on this vital subject.
NCCL should continue to protect the innocence of children by working for a universal ban on classroom sex education.
Sincerely in Christ,
Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky
Archbishop Major & Metropolitan
Sedes Sapientiae Study Center
Via Concordia, 1
00183 Rome Italy
1 March 1996
Mr. Richard J. Lloyd
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity
1929 Tilghman Street, Suite B
Allentown, PA 18104
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Lloyd:
I have read the news release, dated 22 January 1996, published by the National Coalition of Clergy and Laity, regarding the recent document of the Pontifical Council for the Family entitled The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.
I believe that what you state in this news release is completely in keeping with the letter and the spirit of this new document of the Holy See, especially; as regards the exclusion by this document of classroom “sex-education.”
With every best wish I remain,
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Msgr. John F. McCarthy
Director of the Society of
The Oblates of Wisdom
Sedes Sapientiae Study Center
Via Concordia, 1 – Rome 00183 Italy
30 July 1996
Mrs. Alice A. Grayson
Veil of Innocence
P.O. Box 131
West Falmouth, MA 02574
U.S.A.
Dear Mrs. Grayson:
Thank you for your mailing to me dated 15 July 1996.
The greatest source of confusion is the ambiguous use of the term “sex-education” in some recent church documents. Of course, “sex-education” in the sense condemned by Pope Pius XI (its original and common sense) remains always forbidden in the classroom setting.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Msgr. John F. McCarthy
Pontificum Consilium Pro Familia
Vatican City State
22 April 1997
Prot. N. 27/96
Mr. Robert J. Delery
Our Lady’s Crusaders for Life
P.O. Box 102
Medford, MA 02153
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Delery:
Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding matters of sex education.
The document, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality issued by this Pontifical Council for the Family presents the teaching of the Church on the rights as well as duties of parents in this area.
It states, “The Church has always affirmed that parents have the duty and the right to be the first and the principal educators of their children” (n.5). At the same time, rather than excluding all chastity education from the school, the document states, “In their turn, parents should remember that the family is not the only or exclusive formative community: (n. 148).
It is our hope that, in accordance with Chapter VIII of the same document, courses can be developed which will assist parents to carry out their duties to be the primary educators of their children while maintaining a cordial and active relationship with those who can help them.
We trust that concerns which arise in this area will be addressed in the spirit of mutual charity and of sincere fidelity to the Church, which always has the best interests of both children and their parents at heart.
With every prayerful wish, I remain
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo,
President,
Pontifical Council for the Family
Vatican City State
1995 – TRUTH AND MEANING OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
ISSUED BY THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY
SEXUAL EDUCATION REMAINS
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS
On December 8, 1995 The Pontifical Council for the Family in Rome published The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality — Guidelines for Education within the Family. Catholic families are urged to read this very important document. It is reproduced in its entirety on another page on the Veil of Innocence web site.
Parents need to be aware of current threats to children, which come under the guise of “sex education”, “family life” or “health education” in the schools. At times, parental and Church authority are undermined, and courses are laced with political and/or societal agendas which are not in keeping with our Catholic heritage.
As The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality states, the subject of sexuality education is the duty of parents first and foremost. This sacred duty to educate in love calls for delicacy and reverence for the mystery of sexual union, whereby, from generation to generation, God creates the human soul. Parents must be mindful of their God-given role to educate in matters of love and sexuality. Don’t let anyone else – nor assume it is to be left to experts – take this responsibility from your hands. The Questions and Answers below were compiled from TMHS by Mothers’ Watch in their Summer 1996 publication.
Questions and Answers
1. According to The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality , who is to teach children about sexuality?
Para. 5
..parents cooperate with the creative power of God and receive the gift of a new responsibility…above all to pass on to them the lived truth of the faith and to educate them… This is the parents’ first duty…
Para. 23
…education is the parents’ domain insofar as their educational task continues the generation of life…
Para. 24
…parents should provide this education within their own autonomous responsibility.
Para. 27
…In the family, children and young people can learn to live human sexuality within the solid context of Christian life. They can gradually discover…
Para. 37
…husband and wife…share the duty to educate their children.
2. What about single parents? What about children from single parent or broken homes?
Para. 38
…God sustains single parents with a special love and calls them to take on this task…
Para. 67
…parents who are alone will have to act with great sensitivity when speaking with a child of the opposite sex…
3. How important is this right and duty of parents to educate their own children in matters related to sex?
Para. 7
…the educative work of parents is indispensable…
Para. 23
The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to find an adequate substitute…they are solemnly bound in the very moment of celebrating their marriage.
Para. 41
…it is extremely important for parents to be aware of their rights and duties, particularly in the face of a state or a school that tends to take up the initiative in the area of sex education…
The right and duty of parents to give education is essential…it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others…and it is irreplaceable and inalienable…
4. What does the Church say?
Para. 5
…the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: ‘It is imperative to give suitable and timely instruction to young people, above all in the heart of their own families… (see also Para. 94)
Para. 23
Other educators can assist in this task, but they can only take the place of parents for serious reasons of physical or moral incapacity. On this point the Magisterium of the Church has expressed itself clearly…
Para. 24
…based on the teaching of the Church and with her support, parents must reclaim their own task.
Para. 25
…the Church states that the family must remain the main protagonist in this educational work.
Para. 40
Parents must never feel alone in this task. The Church supports and encourages them, confident that they can carry out this function better than anyone else.
Para. 42
This doctrine is based on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and is also proclaimed by the Charter of the Rights of the Family. ‘Since they have conferred life on their children, parents have the original, primary and inalienable right to educate them…
Para. 43
The Pope insists upon the fact that this holds especially with regard to sexuality…
Para. 46
The Holy Father stresses this parental task…
Para. 94
In a positive and prudent way, parents will carry out what the fathers of the Second Vatican Council requested: ‘It is important to give suitable and timely instruction to young people, above all in the hear of their own families…’
5. Why does God and the Church insist that sexuality be taught within the family?
Para. 7
…parents are rich in an educative potential which no one else possesses. In a unique way they know their own children; they know them in their unrepeatable identity and by experience they possess the secrets and the resources of true love.
Para. 23
…they possess a fundamental competency in this area: They are educators because they are parents.
Para. 40
The family environment is thus the normal and usual place for forming children and young people….This is particularly true for the moral and spiritual education on such a delicate matter as chastity.
Para. 52
The Christian family is capable of offering an atmosphere permeated with that love for God that makes an authentic reciprocal gift possible. Children who have this experience are better disposed to live according to those moral truths that they see practiced in their parents’ life…In this way, the bond of mutual love to which parents bear witness before their children, will safeguard their affective serenity.
Para. 59
The good example and leadership of parents is essential in strengthening the formation of young people in chastity.
Para. 63
…parents penetrate the innermost depths of their children’s hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface.
Para. 64
…the family is, in fact, the best environment to accomplish the obligation of securing a gradual education in sexual life…without trauma the most delicate realities…
6. Who gave parents this right to educate their children about sexual matters?
Para. 7
…{quoting] Pope St. Clement…{parents] may exercise…the sovereignty that You have given them.:
Para. 28
…husband and wife….collaborate with God in the generation and education of new lives.
Para. 32
…timely education…finds its place in God’s plan…
Para. 37
In granting married persons the privilege and great responsibility of becoming parents, God gives them the grace to carry out their mission adequately…thy Sacrament of marriage…consecrates the…{and] calls upon them to share in the very authority and love of God the Father and Christ the Shepherd, and in the motherly love of the Church.
7. But didn’t other Church documents before give schools a right to teach sex education in the classroom?
Para. 5
…The Church has always affirmed that parents have the duty and the right to be the first and the principal educators of their children.
8. What objectionable content and methods condemned in this Vatican document are ingrained in the sex programs that have been routinely approved and mandated by American bishops?
Para. 126
No material of an erotic nature should be presented to children or young people of any age, individually or in a group.
This principle of decency must safeguard the virtue of Christian chastity…instruction must always be ‘positive and prudent ‘and ‘clear and delicate’. These four words used by the Catholic Church exclude every form of unacceptable content in sexual education.
Para. 127
(4) No one should ever be invited, let alone obliged, to act in any way that could objectively offend against modesty or which could subjectively offend against his or her own delicacy or sense of privacy.
This principle of respect for the child excludes all improper forms of involving children and young people. In this regard, among other things, this can include the following methods that abuse sex education: (a) every ‘dramatized’ representation, mime or ‘role playing’ which depict genital or erotic matters; (b) making drawings, charts or models etc. of this nature; (c) seeking personal information about sexual questions or asking that family information be divulged (d) oral or written exams about genital or erotic questions.
Para. 139
Another abuse occurs whenever sex education is given to children by teaching the mall the intimate details of genital relationships, even in a graphic way. Today this is often motivated by wanting to provide education for ‘safe sex’ above all in relation to the spread of AIDS.
Para. 140
One widely used but possible harmful approach goes by the name of ‘values clarification’…Young people are given the idea that a moral code is something which they create themselves, as if man were the source and norm of morality.
Para. 143
…explicit and premature sex education can never be justified in the name of a prevailing secularized culture.
9. What is such instruction were given in the context of other subjects, especially religious education?
Para. 141
Parents should also be attentive to ways in which sexual instruction can be inserted in the context of other subjects which are otherwise useful (for example, health and hygiene, personal development, family life, children’s literature, social and cultural studies, etc.)…catechesis would also be distorted if the inseparable links between religion and morality were to be used as a pretext for introducing into religious instruction the biological and affective sexual information which the parents should give according to their prudent decision in their own home.
