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Voices Online Edition

Sex Education:
The Catholic Scene

by Margaret M. Whitehead

Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapters 2 & 3
Chapters 4 & 5
Appendix & Conclusion

Appendix-

A Framework of Education in Human Sexuality: Some Principles and Recommendations

The appendix of the Guidelines gives a condensed version of some of the principles that were discussed in the first five chapters in such a confusing way. It also includes guidelines for teaching about human sexuality at five stages of development: Early Childhood, Childhood, Early Adolescence, Adolescence and Adulthood. The ultimate goal of this education in human sexuality is again said to be:

a personal realization of sexual identity, as well as spiritual, moral, and affective maturation. This includes a holistic perception concerning self, interpersonal relationships, and the human and Christian values involved as well as mastering data related to human anatomy and physiology.... This blending of moral and values-based formation with clear and factual information is the best approach to sexuality education (p. 86).

In this section, Respect for Persons, the reader who expects to find something about respect for life and the abortion issue will be disappointed, as it deals only with the "need to affirm the equality and mutuality of men and women in attitudes, language and behavior" (p. 87). In fact, none of the "General Principles" summarized at the beginning of the Appendix deals with abortion or other life issues. Neither is there a "preferential option" for the father-mother-children norm for the family. All family "models" are evaluated as equal. There are no "General Principles" dealing with salvation, the Savior, the soul (although we do have a "Principle" describing the goodness of the body). Principles dealing with eternal life, the Magisterium, the saints, virtues (other than chastity), prayer, sacraments, free will, and commandments are also missing. The authentic "Catholic Perspective" is not adequately presented.

 

Specific Guidelines
The specific guidelines for each developmental level contain many of the same deficiencies found throughout the document but they are so condensed that the secular focus becomes even clearer.

The section on Early Childhood deals almost entirely with physical information, self-esteem, decision-making and gender stereotyping -- the "four basics" of all secular sex education programs. The patronizing attitude toward parents continues to be evident. For example: "educators need to assist parents/guardians in creating a wholesome environment that will foster children's growth and development in human sexuality"; and "educators need to enable parents/guardians to recognize and respect the uniqueness of each child" (p. 97).

There are three other aspects of the specific guidelines given in the Appendix that should be noted. One aspect is the doctrinally questionable view of the child as totally good and, implicitly, not in need of a Savior: "helping children to distinguish between persons who by nature are good and behavior that may be undesirable" (p. 98, emphasis added).

A second aspect deals with conscience formation/decision-making. "Because making choices is the basis for moral decision-making and the formation of conscience, educators need to support parents/guardians as they provide situations that ask for choices" (p. 98, emphasis added). The Human Sexuality guidelines miss an opportunity to stress that truth and goodness are the basis for making moral choices. Instead, children are asked to choose choice itself, rather than that which is true or good. For the writers of the Guidelines, the act of choosing is apparently deemed more important than what is chosen.

This kind of decision-making process was the basis for the now discredited values-clarification programs that flourished in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Although the term "values-clarification" is now rarely used, the same subjective decision-making programs are widespread in the public schools, particularly in sex education programs. In this type of decision-making process, it is the act of choosing that is considered good and moral. What is chosen is incidental because there are said to be no right or wrong answers.63

In the Guidelines, it is not always clear what type of decision-making is being recommended. Although the guidelines allude to objective right and wrong, they also contain a strong emphasis on the subjective, personal process of applying these principles using multiple sources of information with no basis for evaluating their relative merits. Also, as mentioned earlier, Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium are often used "in a way that is partial, reductive and inadequate".64 Statements such as the one above, from the section on Early Childhood, indicate that the secular process of decision-making will be used.

 

"Gender Stereotyping"
The third aspect is gender stereotyping: "fostering appropriate use of inclusive language [sic] ... accepting children without stereotyped role and gender expectations" (p. 98). This is a theme that pervades the guidelines in the Appendix. However, some of these roles are so basic to human beings that they are found in almost all cultures -- especially those roles connected with families. In families women and men must carry out the work of motherhood and fatherhood. In society families are needed to procreate, nurture and teach the children who will be society's future. In the Church, there are definite and indelible distinctions between male and female roles based on revealed truth. Both are indispensable to the mission of the Church.

There is certainly no basis for devaluing or eliminating all traditional roles as ideological feminism demands. It is a matter of deep concern that this view, in fact, pervades the very heart of the Guidelines.

When we read that "The ultimate objective of education in human sexuality is the personal realization of total sexual identity and affective maturation of the learner" (p. 75), we are not reassured. This "ultimate objective" would seem to be at odds with Pope John Paul II' s teaching that "Sexuality ... manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love" (FC, #37).

While adolescents often have identity problems that include establishing vocational goals and learning how to deal morally with members of the opposite sex and with sexual desires, their problems are not ordinarily with sexual identity as such. Boys generally hope for a girlfriend and girls for a boyfriend. However, many homosexual and feminist activists have problems with essential male-female roles in the family, in the Church and in society. This special-interest group should not set the agenda for human sexuality by forcing their divergent concept of sexual identity and roles on others -- and especially not on Catholics.

 

Guidelines -- Not a Firm Catholic Foundation

Unfortunately the guidelines are too equivocal to provide a firm foundation upon which Catholics (or others, for that matter) can build a strong moral life.

When he presented the Human Sexuality Guidelines to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in November, 1990, Bishop Newman said that it was a "consensus" document, and that the task force voted unanimously to pass it on to the full Conference. Consensus politics is well-known in our country, and compromise is usually necessary to achieve consensus. The final result, however, is not necessarily sound, consistent or coherent. The Guidelines evidence an attempt to compromise conflicting agendas. While the secular agenda regarding sex-education may not be fully endorsed, Catholic principles are considerably diminished. This should not be the case in Guidelines approved by the bishops for implementation in Catholic schools.

The confused and vague style of writing in the Guidelines, the secretiveness of the process, and the limited time available to the bishops to study it perhaps offer some explanations for why this document was approved. The desire of many bishops to make some official statement that might help to end the Catholic sex education controversy, which has been going on for at least twenty-five years, undoubtedly influenced the vote.

However, it is possible that the main reason why we have such an unsatisfactory document goes back to the 1960s, when some people in positions of leadership within the Church were overly influenced by the permissive atmosphere so idealistically described in the Guidelines on pages 11 and 12 (partially quoted above). The bishops have been relying on some of the same people to advise them on sex education for twenty-five years. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that they have been getting the same kinds of programs (without, however, evidence of any really positive results), the same controversies and the same parental reactions throughout this period. But the era of the 1960s, noted for rebellion against virtually all authority, and for the "sexual revolution" following the popularization of "The Pill", is surely not the historical context within which one could expect to find balanced and authentic moral advice on human sexuality.

 

Some Recommendations

The problems of raising Catholic children in a culture that has become very hostile to sexual morality are severe, and parents truly need the support of the Catholic leadership and the Catholic community. Some of the bishops and diocesan leaders may think they are providing that help through documents and classroom programs such as those we have discussed here. However, we have seen that some are based on confused (at best) and often harmful philosophies and methods. The response of some Catholics has been to call for a boycott of all current attempts to provide any kind of classroom instruction or Catholic formation in sexual matters and to leave it in the hands of the parents. Others believe that we need to utilize a variety of approaches to the current classroom sex education crisis and that some beneficial formation in chastity is possible in a classroom situation.

In spite of the serious defects in most "morality education" programs in our Catholic schools, we believe it is a mistake to condemn all classroom sex-education in principle. There are several reason for this, not the least of which is the pope's own teaching about the need for authentic, limited sex education which must not be dissociated from ethical and moral principles of the Catholic faith, in the schools as well as in the home.

The Church is the teacher of moral and ethical norms:

the Church knows that she has received the special mission of guarding and protecting the lofty dignity of marriage and the most serious responsibility of the transmission of human life. (FC #29)

The Church is teacher and mother and acts as such. As teacher she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm that must guide the responsible transmission of life. (FC #33)

 

The mission of the Church is precisely to teach the truth about human life, including the meaning of human sexuality. Morality and ethics cannot be separated from the whole project of religious education. Schools operated by the Church are obliged to give this education in cooperation with parents. Authentic morality (including sex) education is the Church's business.

Even the grim fact that many Catholic schools have become hotbeds of false or misleading teachings does not change this principle, nor does it free us from our responsibility to do what must be done to correct it. When sex education in a Catholic school is bad, false, or harmful, we must work to make it good, true, and beautiful, just as we try to do in the matter of bad catechetics. The challenge to believing Catholics -- parents, teacher and especially bishops -- is to make these programs in our schools good, rather than eliminating classroom teaching entirely. Even if this proves impossible in a particular situation, we must not abandon the field. The consequences are too grave.

The problem for many Catholic parents is deciding on a course of action. Usually complaints from parents to authorities are ignored -- or worse. Relatively few parents ever do complain, for a variety of reasons (including a sense of isolation and futility, or genuine fear of retaliation against their children) and those parents who voice objections are usually easily intimidated. Most bishops, again for a variety of reasons, never even hear the parents' complaints. But that does not relieve parents of the obligation to continue to try to communicate serious problems to authorities. Even bishops cannot act effectively to correct a situation without information.

Even if the circumstances in a given instance may require that parents remove their own children from a particular school or program (and these circumstances certainly exist), believing Catholics will not lightly excuse themselves from their obligation to work for the moral and spiritual well-being of others -- especially other Catholic children -- nor will they dispense themselves from the mission of all Christians to bring truth to the world.

It is part of Catholic parents' responsibility for the sound and wholesome moral formation of their own children to concern themselves actively with the health of the larger society in which their children must live.

Formation in chastity is possible in certain group situations and thus some specific recommendations for action are given, but we certainly do not have all the answers. Parents, teachers and pastors who are trying to deal with this problem should consider sharing their ideas and networking so that we can all help one another for the sake of our children and the faith.

 

Speaking to Bishops...
In communication with bishops on these sensitive and extremely important matters, we need to point out respectfully that, just as they are deeply concerned when their proper authority is disregarded, so are parents when their proper authority and rights are verbally acknowledged but practically ignored. We need to point out that the problems and controversies in Catholic sex education have come from a consistent approach traceable to the theories and attitudes of the 1960s that have clear flaws and dangers, as has been demonstrated and documented above.

Even in the secular world, new approaches to education in sexuality that emphasize teaching pre-marital abstinence within a context that is genuinely family-oriented and age-appropriate are showing much more success than the sex education programs based on the now widely discredited Kinseyan philosophy, "Encounter-group" methods, and a decision-making process akin to the relativistic "values clarification" process popularized in the 1960s -- a method that taught children to rely mainly on subjective criteria, alternatives and consequences.65 There is a big difference between conscience formation, which teaches children to make decisions and to choose behavior based on objective teaching, and the "decision-making processes", which teach children to choose values based on their desires and their own subjective criteria.

What we must aim at, however, is more than just a good secular approach to sexuality. A program for authentic moral guidance must be our goal -- a program based explicitly and definitively on Catholic principles and on respect for the privacy and modesty of the student; one that puts sexuality in the proper context of the self-giving love, of vocations, of family building and within God's plan for the person and for the world.

Parents want the bishops to understand these problems and to take them seriously. Infusing dubious sex education programs into regular religion classes and other classroom curricula severely limits parents in exercising their rights and responsibilities in the area of chastity formation (ref. FC #36, 37, 38). Any Catholic school currently using any of these defective sex education programs should stop them and offer acceptable programs outside of regular school time, either before school, during lunch hour or after school. This would allow parents to decide to place their children in these classes in chastity formation -- or to remove them -- without embarrassment to the child. It is unfair that conscientious Catholic parents are required to accede to the wishes of other people, even if they are "experts" in sex education, in the moral formation of their own children.

The main effort of the Church should no longer be directed toward a massive expansion of classroom sex education. Rather, the Church should help parents to guide their own children. Bishops should seek assistance in this effort from a new set of advisors who are unequivocally committed to Catholic truth and Catholic moral teaching contained in such magisterial documents as Humanae Vitae, Educational Guidance in Human Love and Familiaris Consortio, and who truly understand and support the role of parents in guiding children, as well as the need for children to have this personal guidance. The time has come to move beyond the kinds of educators and advisors who slavishly adhere to teaching methods and curricula based on those used by secular schools -- programs that have been notoriously unsuccessful in instilling the principles of authentic sexual morality and truly healthy sexual behavior in American youngsters.

True Christian maturity comes from internalizing true moral norms and from developing habits of self-control, generosity, and prayer. It does not come from secular philosophies and methodologies that focus the child totally inward to his own emotions and desires. The latter is what is being done in public schools. The role of the Catholic community should be to oppose the errors of the public schools (and few institutions in our society have been failing more dramatically than the public schools in recent years). It is never appropriate to import these secular distortions of the meaning of human sexuality into Catholic schools.

What is done in a Catholic classroom should always be accomplished within a context of God's plan for each person and for His world; within the context of self-giving, sacrificial love; of marriage and family; of commandments and objective and knowable right and wrong; of the body serving the whole person, not the whole person held in thrall by the desires of the body; of personal prayer and sacrifices; of the example of the Blessed Mother and the saints; of the saving grace offered by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through His Church, Word and Sacraments; and within the context of understanding sexual powers to be directed toward the ultimate sanctification of the person.

 

Some Suggestions for Parental Action
1. Read Familiaris Consortio, Humanae Vitae, Educational Guidance in Human Love and other Church documents to inform yourself of Church teaching in these areas.
2. Network with other families to provide support for one another in any action that you may decide to take and to provide a community of support for your children.
3. Inform yourself and others about the issues involved in Catholic sex education. Talk to friends, share tapes and other materials to inform them about the problems and the alternatives.
4. Respectfully inform your bishop of your concerns and the reasons for them. Suggest alternative approaches and offer to help implement them. Express concern about the current Human Sexuality Guidelines and the need for a truly clear and authentically Catholic teaching, not a document as confused as the present one about what Catholic moral teaching is and what it entails.
5. Insist that any classroom sex education programs already in the school be identified and separated from the regular classes so that parents may clearly and confidently remove their children. Sex education programs should never be automatically administered to any child, and pressure must not be exerted on the children or the parents to participate in them.
6. If possible, work within your local parish and/or diocese for Catholic programs for parents that do not employ either secular philosophies or the psychological techniques and manipulation that are often part of small group methodologies.
7. Use "teachable moments" to form your own children. Tell them about God's plan for them in this life and the next; about vocations; about the priesthood and consecrated life; about marriage and family life; about the wonder of children; about commitment and joy. Place sex in the context of one vocation -- marriage -- as part of God's plan to increase love and build up His Kingdom. Other vocations increase love and accomplish His mission to the world in other ways.
8. Recognize that the media, although exerting a powerful influence, are seldom helpful to your children. Provide other sources of entertainment for your children, carefully supervise and limit their television viewing time.
9. Teach your children the purpose of dating and socializing with the opposite sex, how to plan wholesome activities and to avoid sexual temptation. Be present at parties and exercise some supervision over other social gatherings and recreational activities.
10. Pray with and for your children.
11. Join with WFF (and/or other groups) to develop books, ideas, and programs that can be offered to parents to use in their own families and communities. Communicate your ideas on teaching children chaste habits and values; on handling specific sex instruction; on supervising dating, media and recreation; on helpful books and programs.

 

NOTES:
64. Evans, Pearl. Hidden Danger in the Classroom, Disclosures Based on Ideas of W. R. Coulson, Small Helm Press, Petaluma, Ca., 1990.
65. Op. cit, Origins, Feb. 13, 1992, p. 577.
66. Op. cit., Whitehead and McGraw, pp. 27-46., and Op. cit.,. Evans.
67. Alvaro de Silva, ed., Brave New Family: G. K. Chesterton on Men & Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage & the Family, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1990, p. 188: "Sex is an instinct that produces an institution; and it is positive and not negative, noble and not base, creative and not destructive because it produces that institution. That institution is the family; a small state or commonwealth which has hundreds of aspects, when it is once started, that are sexual at all. It includes worship, justice, festivity, decoration, instruction, comradeship, repose. Sex is the gate of that house; and romantic and imaginative people naturally like looking through a gateway. But the house is very much larger than the gate. There are indeed a certain number of people who like to hang about in the gate and never get any further".

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Margaret M. Whitehead is Director of Religious Education at Holy Spirit Church in Annandale, Virginia. For a number of years she conducted morality-based, family-centered, age-appropriate chastity programs in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. She is married to Kenneth D. Whitehead, and the mother of grown children as well as a lifelong teacher. She is also a member of the editorial board of Voices.

WFF originally published this piece in booklet form in 1993.

Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapters 2 & 3
Chapters 4 & 5
Appendix & Conclusion

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