Sexual Morality "Opt-out"

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No–the issue is that the parents are opting out because they don’t want their kids taught Catholic morality
 
1ke said:
Parents are the primary educators of their children. This is their right. The Church is there to help, not replace.
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It is the duty of the bishop to confirm that candidates for confirmation are properly disposed. The parents have the right to educate their children, but they do not have the right to define for themselves what it means to be “suitably instructed” and “properly disposed” in preparation for the sacrament.
 
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Your program may be excellent, but I believe that parents should have the choice as to how to present information about sexual morality to their children. I probably would not opt my child out of this program, if I were convinced that the program and the teachers were good. But I have opted my children out of safe environment training that I believe is not always age-appropriate, and I would support the right of parents to opt their children out of the program that you have described.
 
This is not what we are doing! AT ALL!!!
We are teaching sexual morality- ya know, no sex outside of marriage, marriage is between a man and a woman, for life, artificial birth control is contrary to Church teaching and why, that life should be respected from conception until natural death.

THIS IS NOT SEX ED!!!
 
CilladeRoma said:
Sorry that you don’t think I have any obligation in this at all.
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You’ve met your obligation. You will be teaching 20 of the 30 students the lessons. The 10 whose parents opted out are responsible for their formation. If you read the Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality it is framed as inalienable as absolute.

It’s neither your call nor your responsibility if they exempt their children from these lessons. You offer help. You offer resources. You work to guide the parents. Your pastor can talk with them. But ultimately, you simply cannot “do” anything more than that. You can’t require it, if that’s what you are wanting to have someone tell you.

The sacrament of confirmation does not hinge on whether or not they have attended these lessons taught by you.

Whether they receive the sacrament of confirmation is not a catechetical decision at all. It’s a pastoral one, through interview between pastor and candidate. Calling to mind that the sacrament cannot be refused to one who is properly disposed and asks for it at the appropriate time.
 
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Paul71 said:
Your program may be excellent, but I believe that parents should have the choice as to how to present information about sexual morality to their children. I probably would not opt my child out of this program, if I were convinced that the program and the teachers were good. But I have opted my children out of safe environment training that I believe is not always age-appropriate, and I would support the right of parents to opt their children out of the program that you have described.
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In our times, if someone is not old enough to learn and consent to Church teaching with regards to sexual morality, how can it be presumed that they will receive this instruction later? You can’t require confirmandi to learn everything, but there is a duty to ensure they receive the rudiments of instruction that are necessary to practice the faith in adulthood. You cannot leave out a topic that is one of the greatest points of departure between Catholic teaching and conteporary societal mores and just hope they are properly instructed in Church teaching at some point along the way.
 
Paul71 said:
Your program may be excellent, but I believe that parents should have the choice as to how to present information about sexual morality to their children.
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It’s in the CCC. The Church presents it to all of us.

As Cilla has pointed out many times, this is not SEX ED.

Looks like there are a lot of folks who can’t differentiate the terms - not just the others I was talking about.

Sexual morality is not mechanics nor form nor function. THAT is sex education in the school sense.

Furthermore, if they go to public school, these kids had ACTUAL sex ed about two years ago, possibly earlier (I had it in seventh grade, but that was back in the mid 1980s). That’s not what this is.
 
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If the parents choose to deny their children the proper catechism because of the parent’s heretical beliefs, then I think the pastor should be informed of this. It does deny the children proper disposal.
 
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I guess it all depends.

Were the people dropping out because they have heretical or erroneous beliefs on Catholic morality? Another words they use and promote homosexuality, contraception, unnatural sex acts, in marriage?

Is the language used in the books and in the classroom appropriate?

Christopher West promotes many many erroneous errors on Catholic Marriage and Sexual Morality. If his false ideas were promoted, I would drop my kids out as well.
 
You need to be careful when saying that the church’s role is simply to aid the parents.
 
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You have good and proper points about responsibility.
The larger problem remains though, that in reality most of these are not taking responsibility at home but simply avoiding things they don’t like or agree with.
 
PetraG said:
In our times, if someone is not old enough to learn and consent to Church teaching with regards to sexual morality, how can it be presumed that they will receive this instruction later?
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I’m not sure that I understand the question. What does the person’s age have to do with the likelihood of the person receiving instruction later?
You can’t require confirmandi to learn everything, but there is a duty to ensure they receive the rudiments of instruction that are necessary to practice the faith in adulthood.
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And I believe that this duty falls primarily on the parents, and only secondarily on the pastor or the catechist. Also, Confirmation is not equivalent to a graduation into an adult faith, where everything must be learned before a person is confirmed. For example, in some dioceses, Confirmation happens before First Communion, so that children are confirmed around the age of 7 or 8. In some of the Eastern Catholic churches, infants are confirmed, if I am not mistaken. And I have been present at a (Latin-rite) Confirmation of a one-year-old or two-year-old child. (The child was terminally ill, and would not likely live long enough to receive Confirmation in the 9th grade.)
You cannot leave out a topic that is one of the greatest points of departure between Catholic teaching and conteporary societal mores and just hope they are properly instructed in Church teaching at some point along the way.
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I have no desire to leave this topic out. This is a very important topic. I am a catechist myself, and I cover church teaching on sexual morality on a regular basis. But I think that the duty to instruct children in the faith is a duty that primarily belongs to the parents rather than the catechist. I see my role as helping the parents to do their job, not as doing their job for them, or dictating to them how to do their job.
 
1ke said:
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Daisy:
You need to be careful when saying that the church’s role is simply to aid the parents.
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The Church itself says that. Repeatedly.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...c_family_doc_08121995_human-sexuality_en.html
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Tho document discusses the importance of the parent’s role in discussing the MEANING of sexuality. Not the morality of sexual teaching. These are two different things. The meaning of sexuality is a much more private and complex subject.

If the children are not aware that homosexual union is a mortal sin, and they are committing these acts themselves, they will not be properly disposed to receive a sacrament.
 
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Pup7 said:
It’s in the CCC. The Church presents it to all of us.

As Cilla has pointed out many times, this is not SEX ED.
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I understand the difference between Catholic teaching on sexual morality and “sex ed.” I support the teachings that are in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and I think that this is an important topic to teach. As I said above, I don’t think that I would opt my child out of this program. But if I were teaching this program, and if a parent wanted to opt their child out, I would respect their decision to do so.
 
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CilladeRoma said:
Kids have more access to information now than at any other time in history. Sorry, that is just a fact and we cannot continue to discount it.
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This is why I took the bull by the horns and started “early” but with age appropriate materials, because I wanted my kiddo to get facts in a way that she could understand them and it grew from there into an open relationship where any and all questions can be asked and answered.

I agree that some are confusing sex ed with the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.
 
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There is still a foundational problem underlying this, and this paragraph broaches it:
  1. We cannot forget, however, that we are dealing with a right and duty to educate which, in the past, Christian parents carried out or exercised little. Perhaps this was because the problem was not as acute as it is today, or because the parents’ task was in part fulfilled by the strength of prevailing social models and the role played by the Church and the Catholic school in this area. It is not easy for parents to take on this educational commitment because today it appears to be rather complex, and greater than what the family could offer, also because, in most cases, it is not possible to refer to what one’s own parents did in this regard.
Therefore, through this document, the Church holds that it is her duty to give parents back confidence in their own capabilities and help them to carry out their task.
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As with anything Catholic, the document is not addressing parental responsibility in an exclusive sense, but well integrated with the mind of the Church.
 
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