Sexual Morality "Opt-out"

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Unless your diocese requires an opt-out process for this part of Confirmation prep., no pastor is obligated to waive this part of the course for candidates. Indeed, missing part of the program could become a readiness issue leading to a delay in receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. Most likely, however, your administrator/pastor will cave in and let the parents rule the roost.
 
And this is what is so maddening, to my poor priest and to me.
He knows and actually encouraged me to post here to see how others might be dealing with it. Neither of us think it is isolated to our parish or diocese.
 
Did you ask the bishop or is the goal to - as we say in the military - handle this at the lowest level in the chain?
 
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We have shared the information with the Bishop. The head of the program, myself, our Pastoral administrator, the Department head of the dept. of catechesis for the diocese and the Bishop all met earlier this week.
We are trying, at his request, to keep this at the parish level. Not sure exactly what our next move will/should be, which is just I came soliciting thoughts and ideas.

Sadly, the one of the things I have learned is that the state.of catechesis in my region is a lot worse than I thought it was, and it has been for at least 4 generations.
 
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I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a parent refusing religious/moral education outright in the way you describe.

I see a lot more passive resistance–parents telling their kids at home that they basically like the Church, but don’t see the need to agree with everything.
Or they allow their children to watch TV that undermines or mocks Catholicism and its sexual mores.
Or they allow the kiddos to go on unsupervised coed slumber parties.
Or they buy condoms for their kids.
 
CilladeRoma said:
Not sure exactly what our next move will/should be, which is just I came soliciting thoughts and ideas.
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I would suggest that you talk to the parents who have requested to opt out, and try to understand what their concerns are. (Or quite likely you have already done this.) If they support the church’s teachings, but just don’t want this information to be shared with their child in a classroom-type setting for whatever reason, then maybe you can provide some catechetical materials to them, and ask them what is their plan for their children to learn this information. If they don’t support the church’s teachings, and if that is why they want to opt out, then I think you should turn that situation over to your pastor, as that may indicate larger pastoral problems that go beyond this opt-out question.

I would also suggest that you implement a program of adult catechesis in your parish, if you don’t have one already. (But I know, that’s much easier for me to say than for you to do.) Schedule the adult classes at the same time as the classes for the kids, so that parents can attend while waiting for their kids. An adult catechesis program would help parents to be better prepared for their responsibility to instruct their children in the faith, especially if the parents’ own catechesis has been lacking.

And if you find that many of the parents are opting out their kids from the sexual morality class because they don’t support the church’s teaching, then this program of adult catechesis becomes that much more important.
 
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Thank you @Paul71.
We have a few of these things on our radar. We just had a leadership change, and it is not (yet, anyway) a permanent situation.
Our priest says it will take 11-13 years to change the “culture” of our diocese.
I hope I can make it through.
 
Keep the focus on forming these kids as disciples. When they have a real, honest relationship with Christ and His Church, they will hunger to learn everything. When you love someone, obeying even the “hard stuff” is a joy.

As a Catholic writer once said, St JP II called us to the “New Evangelization” NOT to the “New Catechesis”.

Evangelize the parents, meet them where they are. Many parishes are having amazing results running ALPHA for parents of their Sacramental Prep kids.
 
109 posts and no one has mentioned the elephant in the room. There is a good reason why many parents would feel extremely uncomfortable about clergy, church employees or church volunteers discussing sex in any way whatsoever with their children. Period. And that, of course, is the long and extensive history of abuse.

Trust has been lost, and it’s going to take a lot of work and time to earn it back.

Also, you are under the impression that your opinion counts for something here. It doesn’t. Neither does the pastor’s or the bishop’s. The only person whose opinion counts here is the diocesan risk management attorney, and I can guarantee you that he will order you to shut up, back off and butt out.

Sorry, but that’s how reality works in the post-abuse-scandal world. Your primary responsibility as a catechist is to keep this one person happy at all costs, and preferably blissfully unaware of the fact that you exist at all. Everything else will fall into place as long as you do that and look at things from their point of view.

You’re playing with fire and don’t realize that the room is packed with high explosives.
 
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Teaching sexual morality poses no risk from a legal standpoint. It is not analogous to teaching sex ed.

Further, any putative risk would be easily and readily mitigated by asking that a parent be present during the class.
 
You do realize, @AndrewAxland, that we’re talking about the Sixth Commandment teachings of the Catholic Church, correct? And not the mechanics and physiology of sex or sexual development?

111 posts and you’ve not read the thread. There’s no elephant in the room because what you’re citing isn’t the question.
 
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Calling it “sexual morality” is not going to go far to allay the feeling of mistrust that many parents have vis a vis church personal and their children.

My boys are now in their twenties, and there was absolutely no discussion about sex (or “sexual morality”) in their preparation classes. Nor in mine forty-five years ago. I agree that this is best left to the parents, and if they would rather not have their children present when this is discussed by a catechist, I would have to agree that this is their right.

I’m sorry, but the impression I get from the OP is that he wants to be granted a “captive audience” to preach to. Kind of like the evangelists who preach to the line of people waiting at the DMV, knowing that they can’t step way without losing their place in line. He’s also aggrandizing his role, his authority and his mandate, which, as others have said, is to assist the parents. If the parents don’t require or desire his assistance, for whatever reason, he should humbly accept it and butt out.

If the bishop has a problem with this, he can refuse to confirm the children. That his right, and his decision.

Oh, and I read every single post very carefully before I answered.
 
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AndrewAxland said:
My boys are now in their twenties, and there was absolutely no discussion about sex (or “sexual morality”) in their preparation classes. Nor in mine forty-five years ago. I agree that this is best left to the parents, and if they would rather not have their children present when this is discussed by a catechist, I would have to agree that this is their right.
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I was not raised in the church, but came in through RCIA, so I don’t have personal experience of how confirmation preparation used to be handled. I can say, however, that I have never heard anyone praise the catechetical preparation of previous generations - including those who received it - so I’m not sure why people keep relying on what they received as a shining example.

The teaching of the past is what has brought us to our present situation, where we have scores of Catholics who think that the church just shouldn’t get involved in issues of sexual morality. Not sure that is a glowing recommendation for its continued use.
 
AndrewAxland said:
Oh, and I read every single post very carefully before I answered.
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Then you know that
  1. The parents were shown exactly what would be taught.
  2. They were given the option to teach their children and the children would then take a test.
 
what if their parents could be there for the sixth-commandment-related content?
All open and above board?
 
Paul71 said:
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?
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If you have never heard of a topic by the time you are confirmed, where are you going to hear it? If it is not appropriate for small children, it can hardly be talked about in a homily.
Paul71 said:
And I believe that this duty falls primarily on the parents, and only secondarily on the pastor or the catechist…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.)
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No, the bishop has to take the trouble to make sure the person to be confirmed is prepared, which includes suitable instruction. The pastor is normally the person who vouches for the preparedness of each candidate.
Canon law specifically cites danger of death as a reason that a person might be licitly confirmed without being properly instructed first, so that is a special case, not a norm. Likewise, someone confirmed before reaching the age of reason is in a different category.
Paul71 said:
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
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As I said above, I think it is reasonable for bishops to allow for substituting testing for teaching. If the candidate can show he or she has been instructed, it isn’t necessary that the pastor or his deputy did the instruction.
 
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Sexual morality?
Most of our catechumens and candidates for sacraments have little understanding of morality in general. And it might be a wise idea to remove the emphasis on “sexual” from this sort of catechesis.

The teaching on marriage for instance is not expressed in explicitly physical sexual terms. It has to do with human nature, sexual differentiation, vocation. mutual sacrifice, etc…

I’ll guaratee you the parents griping about sexual morality don’t even know what morality is.
They probably see it as bible thumping prohibitions, rather than the full Catholic context of human flourishing and dignity.
Morality is a good thing. it’s not controversial in the least.
 
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Wow, not sure how you got that impression at all. I would rather not have to teach this. We never did before, it is what my Bishop has asked or me and all the confirmation catechists when he revamped the program a few years ago.

Thanks for the insight though, and the analysis. I’ll make sure my priest knows you think i am overstepping my bounds.

Oh, and by the way, he is a she.
 
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