Seattle Archdiocese mandating Talking About Touching program

  • Thread starter Thread starter pfoos
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

pfoos

Guest
The Seattle Archdiocese is requiring all Catholic Schools to begin the Talking About Touching program Fall 2007, K thru 4th grade; Since I have been reading and studying about this horrible “Safety Course/sex ed course” for the last three years as it has hit other dioceses, I was wondering what other faithful Catholic parents have done. Opt out? Storm the chancery? Clearly the video and workbooks go against what our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II has taught us regarding preserving the innocence of our children.
 
To Poofoos: I would guess how it was presented - the sexually presented part. I would first look at the material myself and then decide whether or not it was for my kids. I certainly would not go against the Pope! Amen.🙂

p.s. whatare our Catholic schools teaching our kids anyways??
 
Well, I’m not going to judge a bishop, but the whole thing does ring wrong.
 
I’ve heard that this program is bad. Some have described it as “evil.” The Crisis article has a pretty good description of it.
 
I am going to say this about Arch Bishop Brunette:

He has had a “no tolerance” policy for so long that he should be proud that his arch-diocese has the fewest allegations… much-less proven documentated cases of priest abuse in the country.

Good for him.

About the teaching? Uhm. What’s wrong with our kids knowing WHEN to tell? NOT JUST from us, but from the CHURCH as well?

What I find even more frustrating? Is stuff like this questioning ethics. As far as every level of the church is concerned. I am reading things in bulletins from non-cath’s about “Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers” it just fuels what outsiders think of us and our clergy.

Don’t send your kids if you are not happy about it, but don’t blame our church for trying to repair a very serious problem. And doing so wih educating children on what is “wrong.” Infallibility belongs to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, as well as Pope Benedict XVI acting as Jesus’ representative on Earth…not us, not our priests, not our bishops. Educating your children about impromper touching and improper behavior: it only serves to help our church…and at this point, restore some reputation.

I would send MY kids in a heart-beat.
 
Kindergarten to grade 4! That is sick! These children havent even reached the age of reason and they are already being taught about such things. This is purely disgusting to ruin a child’s innocence with this filth.
 
KCtheMommy said:
I am going to say this about Arch Bishop Brunette:

He has had a “no tolerance” policy for so long that he should be proud that his arch-diocese has the fewest allegations… much-less proven documentated cases of priest abuse in the country.

Good for him.

About the teaching? Uhm. What’s wrong with our kids knowing WHEN to tell? NOT JUST from us, but from the CHURCH as well?

What I find even more frustrating? Is stuff like this questioning ethics. As far as every level of the church is concerned. I am reading things in bulletins from non-cath’s about “Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers” it just fuels what outsiders think of us and our clergy.

Don’t send your kids if you are not happy about it, but don’t blame our church for trying to repair a very serious problem. And doing so wih educating children on what is “wrong.” Infallibility belongs to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, as well as Pope Benedict XVI acting as Jesus’ representative on Earth…not us, not our priests, not our bishops. Educating your children about impromper touching and improper behavior: it only serves to help our church…and at this point, restore some reputation.

I would send MY kids in a heart-beat.
Click to expand...
So you are comfortable with this?
The parents who reviewed the introductory TAT video last spring were stunned. In one scene, a kindergartener asks his mother, “Mommy, what is sex?,” to which the celluloid mom responds, “Sex is when two people get undressed and rub their private parts together.”
Click to expand...
John Bettinelli, a father of three boys at St. Catherine of Sienna school, reported his reaction to the video preview in Catholic World Report: “There was no mention of chastity or love, or that the two people should be married, or even that they should be of the opposite sex.”
Click to expand...
The Talking about Touching curriculum was produced by the Washington State group Committee for Children. The Committee was originally called Judicial Advocates for Women and was formed in the 1970’s “to work for the repeal of the prostitution laws and an end to the stigma associated with sexual work.”
Click to expand...
You may also be interested in reading this before you’re so quick to involve your children in this program.
The Catholic Medical Association has asked the U.S. bishops to stop using controversial sexual abuse education programs, aimed at teaching young children to protect themselves from abusers, in their dioceses.
During the association’s annual conference in Boston last month, the CMA released a 55-page study that condemned programs such as “Talking About Touching” as ineffective, out-of-step with child development, and not in keeping with the Church’s teaching on the appropriate sex education of children, the National Catholic Register reported last week.
The report, entitled To Prevent and to Protect: Report of the Catholic Medical Association Task Force on the Sexual Abuse of Children and Its Prevention, echoes complaints from parents and pro-family groups against the safety programs implemented at the bishops’ 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Click to expand...
lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112802.html
 
This same sort of program exists in our diocese, known as Virtus. It has two levels. One for adult volunteers, and one for the kids which is the teaching safe touch. I have no problem with the adult course, but like the other poster, I feel that it’s a bit much for kids. I pulled my (homeschooled) kid out of the kindergarden CCD program because of it. The entire reason I’d put him in the class was for socialization. I figured that a church run class would be a good place for that, but I was disappointed. If I had no other choice for getting my kids catechized, I would have to stick it out. My pastor, however knows that we’re homeschoolers, knows that we do religion every day, so he authorized me to prepare them for their sacraments separately.

To answer the original question, the choices given to me were to opt him out or preview the materials and have him attend. I obviously had, to my mind, a better idea. If my pastor wasn’t friendly to me preparing my own child for the sacraments, I don’t know what I would have done. At the very least, I would have opted my children out.
 
The Catholic Medical Association recently put out a report titled To Protect & To Prevent: The Sexual Abuse of Children and its Prevention. Biship Vasa of Baker, Oregon diocese is part of this association. The type of program Seattle is mandating is one that this report criticizes. Seattle had all chaperones view a movie re: abuse involved w/ World Youth Day Denver in the 1980’s and I remember clearly some chaperone’s walked out. It was disgusting.
 
I’ve seen the adult Virtus program and have no problem with it, except that it downplayed the extent to which the Church’s own problems in that regard were mostly with homosexual abuse.

The Virtus program has never generated the complaints that one finds with the Talking about Touching program. However, I can’t comment on the child Virtus program because I haven’t seen it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top