More Church teaching on sex education...

Assistance for Parents

145. There are various way of helping and supporting parents in fulfilling their fundamental right and duty to educate their children for love. Such assistance never means taking from parents or diminishing their formative right and duty, because they remain "original and primary", "irreplaceable and inalienable". Therefore, the role which others can carry out in helping parents is always (a) subsidiary, because the formative role of the family is always preferable, and (b) subordinate, that is, subject to the parents' attentive guidance and control. Everyone must observe the right order of cooperation and collaboration between parents and those who can help them in their task. It is clear that the assistance of others must be given first and foremost to parents rather than to their children.

146. Those who are called to help parents in educating their children for love must be disposed and prepared to teach in conformity with the authentic moral doctrine of the Catholic Church. Moreover, they must be mature persons, of a good moral reputation, faithful to their own Christian state of life, married or single, laity, religious or priests. They must not only be prepared in the details of moral and sexual information but they must also be sensitive to the rights and role of parents and the family, as well as the needs and problems of children and young people. In this way, in the light of the principles and content of this guide, they must enter "into the same spirit that animates parents". But if parents believe themselves to be capable of providing an adequate education for love, they are not bound to accept assistance.

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Once again we see the polar opposite of what actually happens in England and Wales. Here, Catholic Bishops approve courses directed at children in schools and offer zero assistence "first and foremost to parents rather than to their children".

Schools should first offer to help parents to educate their children in love and only then offer to assistance in educating children directly and even then it should be done "subject to the parents' attentive guidance and control".

Is that even close to how things work at the moment?

This is what the Church says about Sex Education (you wouldn't know it)...

Recommended Methods

129. The normal and fundamental method, already proposed in this guide, is personal dialogue between parents and their children, that is, individual formation within the family circle. In fact there is no substitute for a dialogue of trust and openness between parents and their children, a dialogue which respects not only their stages of development but also the young persons as individuals. However, when parents seek help from others, there are various useful methods which can be recommended in the light of parental experience and in conformity with Christian prudence.

130. 1. As couples or as individuals, parents can meet with others who are prepared for education for love to draw on their experience and competence. These people can offer explanations and provide parents with books and other resources approved by the ecclesiastical authorities.

131. 2. Parents who are not always prepared to face up to the problematic side of education for love can take part in meetings with their children, guided by expert persons who are worthy of trust, for example, doctors, priests, educators. In some cases, in the interest of greater freedom of expression, meetings where only daughters or sons are present seem preferable.

132. 3. In certain situations, parents can entrust part of education for love to another trustworthy person, if there are matters which require a specific competence or pastoral care in particular cases.

133. 4. Catechesis on morality may be provided by other trustworthy persons, with particular emphasis on sexual ethics at puberty and adolescence. Parents should take an interest in the moral catechesis which is given to their own children outside the home and use it as a support for their own educational work. Such catechesis must not include the more intimate aspects of sexual information, whether biological or affective, which belong to individual formation within the family.

134. 5. The religious formation of the parents themselves, in particular solid catechetical preparation of adults in the truth of love, builds the foundations of a mature faith that can guide them in the formation of their own children. This adult catechesis enables them not only to deepen their understanding of the community of life and love in marriage, but also helps them learn how to communicate better with their own children. Furthermore, in the very process of forming their children in love, parents will find that they benefit much, because they will discover that this ministry of love helps them to "maintain a living awareness of the 'gift' they continually receive from their children". To make parents capable of carrying out their educational work, special formation courses with the help of experts can be promoted.

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Notice that "personal dialogue between parents and their children, that is, individual formation within the family circle" is "the normal and fundamental method".

At this point you are supposed to say "but James - not all parents are happy talking to their children about sex!" which is fine because the Church has backup plans: 1) For parents to receive help in for the form of meetings, books or other resources. 2) For parents to go along with their children to meet with somebody who might be able to help and only 3) For parents "in particular cases" to entrust part of education for love to a trustworthy person "if there are matters which require a specific competence".

Nowhere does it say - "The diocese should put together or choose a sex education programme which should be routinely presented to all children in a school unless parents go out of their way to get involved" but it does say "To make parents capable of carrying out their educational work, special formation courses with the help of experts can be promoted". No doubt I've just missed the posters?

Is it that the Catholic education people don't read these documents or do they ignore them on purpose?

After discovering that a government minister had intervened to remove the sex education programme "Living and Growing" from the shelves, I decided to ask the Diocese of Middlesbrough if they had been using the programme...

Dear Mr Preece

Responses to your questions about Channel 4 sex education programme "living and growing"

1) Has this programme been used in any diocesan primary schools?

Not in an Middlesbrough Diocesan Primary Schools and its use has been actively discouraged because any material used for teaching in a Catholic School must be in accordance with the Church’s teaching.

2) Does this programme continue to be used in diocesan primary schools?

My researches indicate that it has not been used in any Middlesbrough Diocesan Primary School.

3) Is there a Diocesan policy relating to the use and selection of sex education (PSHE) materials for primary schools?

Currently a process organised nationally by CES and NIBRIA to review the Relationship and Sex Education guidelines last issued by the Bishop’s Conference in the 1990s is taking place and a Middlesbrough Diocesan Working Party has been established to implement those revised guidelines locally. In the meantime the Diocese recommends to the Governors of Diocesan primary schools the current scheme of the Diocese of Brentwood called ‘Journey in Love’ and the current scheme of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

I hope the above information answers your questions.

Yours sincerely

Father Derek Turnham

So the good news is no living and growing. I don't know much about the Diocese of Brentwood scheme, but I'm not fantastically pleased to hear they are recommending the current scheme of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

The following video from "All That I Am" contains graphic full frontal nudity approved by Archbishop Vincent Nichols and recommended to Primary Schools by the Diocese of Middlesbrough.

This video is aimed at nine year olds but you should only watch this video if there are no children around, you certainly shouldn't watch it at work...

The nude bodies flying at the screen. What are they for? There is absolutely nothing educational about them at all. I am quite sure that if a man on the street were found showing such pictures to nine year old girls he would be arrested.

Time for another email to the Diocese...

I am very happy to see that the Channel 4 sex education programme "Living and Growing" has been withdrawn from sale.

The programme included video clips of a naked cartoon couple chasing each other around a bedroom with a feather before having sex. The cartoon sex porn is being shown to eight year olds.

Now, let me remind you what the Irish Government's Comission to Inquire into Child Abuse had to say...

male witnesses reported different forms of non-contact sexual abuse including being shown pornographic photographs

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Reports of non-contact sexual abuse included [...] shown pornographic pictures.

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Priests who show pornographic images to children are guilty of sexual abuse.

So are teachers. Yes, even when they have the approval of Channel 4 and the state.

Unfortunately we know that this programme has been used in Catholic primary schools, which raises the question of who on earth approved it and how come they still have a job?

My question for any Priests, Bishops who might be reading - are you going to be a part of the cover up? Doesn't every Catholic have a duty to do what they can to protect children? Or are you going to demonstrate once again that the only kind of abuse you are concerned about is the kind that costs lots of money in lawyers?

I'm a parent. I want my children to be safe in your schools.

What are you going to do about it?

Here is the material currently being promoted by some local councils and the BBC as being appropriate for five year olds. My eldest daughter will be four tomorrow.

This is not compulsory... yet. For now it's up to individual schools to decide which I'm supposed to find reassuring but basically all it means it that my child's teacher might decide to use these materials.

Russian roulette it is then...

As a parent, I don't want these materials to be "not compulsory", I want them to be illegal. I want anybody who shows my little girl explicit pictures of sexual intercourse to be prosecuted for sexual grooming of children - not justified by the local council.

h/t Creative Minority Report

Many thanks to all the people who have drawn my attention to this excellent TV appearance by Patricia Wocial. We need more Catholic parents willing to clearly and articulately defend their rights without coming across like nutters. Well done Patricia!

View the video on the Channel 4 website here.

I wonder how many English Catholics are familiar with the sad tale of Roger Joseph Vangheluwe, formerly Bishop Vangheluwe of the Diocese of Bruges.

The reason he is formerly the Bishop of Bruges is that he resigned in April when he finally admitted to having abused his teenage nephew in the late seventies.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

From 1985 through 2010 for fifteen years we had a Bishop who had abused a child. The abuse continued after he became a Bishop. The boy's family knew about it but were allegedly pressured in to silence.

Fifteen years...

If a Bishop in Belgium can cover that sort of thing up for fifteen years, we need to ask some serious questions. Questions like "Vincent Nichols, why should we trust you?"

The answer "Because I'm a Bishop" just doesn't cut it any more.

We will respect your office and we may even respect you but we find it very difficult to trust you. Especially when you have such a spectacular track record.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Bishops were defending a "catechism textbook" that included a picture of a naked baby girl with bubbles reading "Stroking my pussy makes me feel groovy" and "I like to take my knickers off with friends".

A Belgian MP wrote to Cardinal Danneels saying...

When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation. In this way one breeds pedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is ‘groovy’, while the opposite is the case.

I insist – yes, the days of meekly asking are over – that you forbid the use of this 'catechism book' in our children's classrooms.

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That was 1997. For some reason the Belgian Bishops didn't have a problem with the textbook in question.

What about the English Bishops? When parents raise concerns with them about dubious sex education programmes, how do the English Bishops respond? They respond in exactly the same way as the Belgian Bishops. What else do they have in common? Is that a skeleton in your closet or are you just pleased to see me?

I have no evidence to suggest that any of the English Bishops have done anything illegal of course, but plenty of evidence that they haven't been doing their jobs.

They say that the Catholic Bishop's Conference of England and Wales leads the world in Child safeguarding measures. It doesn't. It leads the world in carefully crafted legal procedures designed to make sure that if a child does get hurt, nobody can pin the blame on them and it won't cost them any money.

If they actually cared about safeguarding children, they would do something about the government agency they have in their schools that refers young girls for abortions.

But they don't.

The full story about the Belgian Bishops includes images some readers may find disturbing. No, images all readers should find disturbing. You can read it here.

Remember hearing about penal times when Roman Catholics were given heavy fines by the government for not going along with the state religion?

Well..

At least eight Russo-German families in Salzkotten, Germany, have suffered heavy fines and now their fathers have been sentenced to prison, because they have refused to send their elementary school-age children to mandatory sexual education classes.

...

With fines having failed to force the families into compliance, government officials have now sentenced each of the families' respective fathers to spend a brief time in prison. One father has already spent seven days in jail and was released Friday.

...

"This type of persecution from German government officials against the Salzkotten 8 shows how committed the German system is to punishing home school families and others who do not comply with the compulsory education laws," said IHRG President Joel Thornton, "even when they are only removing their children from a single clearly objectionable class."

...

The Youth Welfare Office or Jugendamt - an institution similar to Child Protective Services - acts as the government's chief intervening instrument, and when prison and fines do not bend Christian families into compliance, they recommend that these Christians lose parental custody of their children.

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That's not England in the 1600's, that's Germany right now. Of course here in England things are different...

Parents will face fines if they remove 15-year-old children from sex education lessons as they become part of the national curriculum for the first time.

Lessons in relationships and sex will begin at five, with prescribed content for each age group.

...

Mothers and fathers risk being fined and prosecuted under anti-truancy laws.

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The biggest kick in the teeth at the moment is the Catholic Education Service who said merely that they are "dissapointed". That's great. A law is passed making it illegal for me to exercise my rights as a parent and they are dissapointed.

Not as dissapointed as I am.

Three weeks ago the website administrator for Cardinal Newman's Canonisation at Birmingham Oratory sent me an email asking me to draw attention to an article on the Newman Cause website. I meant to blog about it, but unfortunately it got buried in my email and was forgotten.

Ella reminded me about it today and it occurs to me that this is quite relevant right now what with the whole government forcing sex education on fifteen year olds thing...

Without intellectual integrity, education will degenerate into social engineering. Without conscience and the Faith, in Professor MacIntyre’s words, ‘even the best university education may result in a peculiarly dangerous form of bad character, that in which the cultivation of the mind, independently of religion’ makes conscience degenerate into ‘mere self-respect’.

These twin dangers have an obvious bearing on contemporary educational dogmas, especially perhaps on the State’s vision of education in human relationships and sexuality. Both intellectually and morally the Church’s vocation in education is to oppose such distortions.

Intellectually, as MacIntyre shows, Newman’s understanding of education departs radically from the politically-motivated model currently in vogue. For Newman, MacIntyre explains, ‘the aim of … education is not to fit students for this or that particular profession or career, to equip them with theory that will later on find useful applications to this or that form of practice. It is to transform their minds, so that the student becomes a different kind of individual, one able to engage fruitfully in conversation and debate, one who has a capacity for exercising judgement, for bringing insights and arguments from a variety of disciplines to bear on particular complex issues’ (pp. 147-48). Independence of mind, rather than compliance with socio-economic expectations, is the goal of education.

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I'm not entirely sure why more isn't being made of this.

The government are at least pretending to be interested in our views on it's plans to extend sex education down to five year olds. We don't have to take time off work to get on a train and go to a meeting or speak in front of a room full of people or anything like that, we just need to visit a website and fill in a form.

The deadline is 4pm this Friday. It would be a bit on a hypocritical side to not fill in the form and then spend the next few years complaining about the new law and saying (as Joanna puts it) "Ugh! How shocking!!"

So come on guys, spend a few minutes this lunchtime or this evening to let them know what you think.

It can't be any more pointless than writing to a Bishop.

Update: Oh yes it can.

Did anybody out there manage to understand what in the world was going on with that survey? I think maybe it would make sense if I had spent the last few weeks poring over several tedious documents... maybe.