Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Buenos Aires (Agenzia Fides) – The Bishops’ Committee for Catholic Education (of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina) has published a statement in response to the approved use of “Curriculum Guidelines for Integral Sexual Education” in schools. The message is addressed to all parents, education authorities in general, school directors and teachers, students, and all people of good will who are concerned about education, as a means of clarifying some important aspects regarding the contents of the approved Guidelines.
Over the course of the Guidelines’ drafting, the Church has taken an active role to see “that the final document may contribute to a balanced and integral formation of the person, in such a delicate topic as sexual education.” However, as the Bishops point out, “the fact that human sexuality is ordained towards love is omitted, masking the meaning behind the physical, spiritual, and moral complementarity between the man and the woman and the concept of marriage as a life choice is avoided.” In addition, “the role of the family as a natural and primary agent in the education of children and their corresponding rights is also omitted.”
The approved document “presents access to contraceptives as a fundamental right of children and adolescents and contains lessons that encourage minors to demand it as such.” Furthermore, it “trivializes the ethical dimension of a sexuality that is centered in values and moral virtues.”
The Bishops continue, explaining that the document “encourages the exclusive and obligatory use of prevention means for avoiding contraction of HIV/AIDS which are not only morally objectionable, but have produced negative and insufficient results worldwide” and then “completely omits an education in abstinence and in mutual fidelidad.”
They also mention that the document “presents sexual identity as a social-historical-cultural construction, ignoring the fact that from the moment of their biological conception, a person has a gender – male or female.”
With all this in mind, the Bishops “exhort all Christians and men of good will, especially parents and educators, to take up the responsibility they have in these regards, knowing that they are accompanied by the Church who is Mother and Teacher.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 18/6/2008)
