Moments of Love with Mary
– The Spiritual Letter Box –
The Anguish of Parents
Words cannot be found to express the distress of parents who would like to lead their children along the straight road of life, but that path has become so difficult and full of obstacles that the majority of parents have quit fighting. At the very most, a few rare exceptions spread out here and there are still working, but their voices are lost in the present chaos.
The teaching of catechism, as it is recommended in certain manuals, is not in conformity with sound doctrine and with the aspirations of parents who are really concerned with the welfare of their children. Will we let our young people attend those courses and run the risk of losing their faith?
We have read through the pages of those catechism manuals. How pitiful! “Giving meaning to a trip”, “Reflections on the corporal existence, on human activity, on break-ups”, “The power of meetings”, etc. are books that categorically contradict God’s word on several points and that abandon the essential truths, for example, love, freedom, friendship, openness, one’s relationship with God, sexuality and so many others.
Why the Hammer and the Sickle?
They even go so far as to refer to the signs of the “Kingdom” by using the Communist emblem of the hammer and the sickle, doing so from the first to the last page of the book “La Force des rencontres”. What satanical casualness!
And now, they want to present us with something new…: slides on sexuality. We have looked at this slide show entitled “Judith and Peter”. We have looked at it, watched it again and listened to it with the greatest possible objectiveness. We have studied the teacher’s guide. We have heard the spontaneous thoughts of students who watched it attentively, and who very harshly criticized its nature.
The text had the young student, Peter, saying: “I would like to make love with Judith; if she isn’t taking the pill, I will have to consider another means, etc.” That’s unbelievable!
Young people and adults have evaluated the presentation “Judith and Peter”, considering it to be provocation, incitement to free love, unacceptable in a Catholic school.
It is clear that this film, with its teacher’s guide, undermines and cleverly destroys the fundamental principles of Catholic morals.
It is not that kind of program that forms our young people physically and morally, or that ensures their real happiness.
People are astonished over and concerned about the depravity of morals; unfortunately, we must face up to the fact that the teaching comes from our so-called Catholic schools.
Have we reached the point where we should withdraw our children from these courses? That is the thinking of numerous parents, on the alert not only because of the courses being recommended but also because a good many of the teachers have not received the doctrinal formation to offer indispensable moral guarantees.
We would like to bring to your attention the following text, the copy of a resolution put forth by the Catholic Parents’ Association of Lac-Etchemin, Dorchester, including the parishes of Saint-Odilon, Sainte-Germaine and Sainte-Rose.
A committee of concerned parents
RESOLUTION:
GIVEN THAT:
The Minister of Education is currently preparing a program of sex education in schools.
The Catholic Committee of the Advisory Board of Education has just approved for distribution in the high schools of Quebec seven audio-visual presentations destined to be a part of the sex education program of adolescents.
Sexuality is not a subject to be taught in the same way the other subjects are. It is supremely important to understand that sex education, which must be proportionate to the development of each child, cannot be taught collectively. Therefore, it cannot be done in schools. Collective sex education is an aberration, because it is devoid of the indispensable conditions for it to be a real teaching. In this sense, it constitutes a very serious attack on the natural right of parents, as it is on that of the children.
The best sex education is that given by loving parents to trusting children.
A knowledge of all that concerns sexuality is not sex education; but the perfect mastery of the body by the mind, there you have the essential element of authentic sex education.
Numerous psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians (and among them the most renowned) are against sex education in schools. FREUD’s daughter, Doctor Anna Freud, is among these latter.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Great Britain proclaimed the complete failure of sex instruction courses in the prevention of premarital sex and illegitimate births.
In Sweden, the program of sex education appeared to be morally acceptable. Here are the results it produced: an increase in the level of venereal diseases especially among adolescents, an increase in the level and the number of illegitimate pregnancies, a lowering of the average age at which there was a first coitus, an increase of 200 percent in marriages among adolescents. Marriage and the family are in danger. After ten years of a methodical teaching of sexuality, 140 Swedish doctors begged their Parliament to stop this abomination for humanity’s sake, for the results, they said, were terrible.
In the United States, where the harmful effects of sex education in schools have been noted, medical associations and others have clearly officially made known their opposition. Let us simply mention: the Scientific Information and Educational Council of Physicians which is fighting everywhere against the introduction of sex education courses in schools; the solemn resolution taken by the Association of American Physicians in 1969, a resolution that has been renewed every year since then; the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry; the American Association of Child Psychoanalysts, etc.
As for the so-called scientific authorities that advocate sex education in schools, the large majority of them are persons and groups actively involved in the fight for abortion, that consider sex education as a means of making abortion on demand accepted by the population.
A serious study of the results obtained from sex education in schools shows that the result has been a disaster from the moral, social, and especially religious, point of view, in all cases and in all countries where it was established.
The Church condemns everything that tends to make of sexuality a value of prime importance in the human complex and in the human existence.
The Church considers the parents to be the natural and exclusive agents of the sex education of their children, except in exceptional cases. This right of parents, no one can take it away from them without there being injustice, not even public powers.
In its declarations of human rights, the U.N. acknowledged that parents have the right to choose the kind of education to be given their children. In the natural law, it is a sure obligation for every man to remain chaste until such time as he commits himself to the state of marriage. Any so-called sex education that would come into conflict with this order established by God is to be absolutely condemned.
In our Catholic schools, we cannot tolerate any sex information that would be an initiation to committing acts which are reproved by both natural morals and Catholic morals.
In that area, the majority of sexologists and teachers have not received a doctrinal formation that is sufficient to provide us with indispensable moral guarantees.
We, the parents, in all conscience and responsibility, make the following recommendations:
We are opposed to sexuality becoming a regular subject included in the program of studies at the primary, secondary and collegial levels.
If the subject is occasionally dealt with, as it needs to be, within another subject, we demand that the objective, the contents and the pedagogical material be, in all respects, in conformity with the teaching of the Catholic Church.
We are also opposed to the Minister of Education and the Catholic Committee of the Advisory Board of Education authorizing the presentation of audio-visual documents initiating students in sexuality.
As a consequence, we will fight until we have won our case or we will withdraw our children from these courses if a program of sexuality is established.
A copy of this resolution is being sent to Mr. Raymond Garneau, the Minister of Education, to Father Paul Tremblay, the President of the Catholic Committee of the Advisory Board of Education, to His Eminence Cardinal Maurice Roy and to Mrs. Adeline Mathieu, President of the A.P.C.Q.
A copy of this same resolution is also being sent to the Executive Directors of the School Boards on our territory.
Adopted unanimously.
Laval Labrie, Pres.
Mrs. B. Dionne, Sec.
The distress of numerous parents echoes painfully in the hearts of all those who have but one concern, that of the welfare of souls for the glory of God and of the Church founded by Jesus Christ at the cost of His blood which He shed for all the members of the Mystical Body. For a few years now, we have been hearing the same cry of alarm. Sincere religious and honest parents are upset – and with good reason –, over the tendentious ideology which has infiltrated itself everywhere, and especially in the area of religious education, thus attacking the most delicate stem, the most sensitive one of the promise, of the future of the Church, that are our children who, from their youth, are poisoned by a sex education that distorts true values.
Neutral Schools
Let us go back to the days when, under the fallacious pretext of a freedom that would favor those who did not share our religious beliefs, neutral schools were permitted by eliminating courses in religion.
This decision attacked Catholics at a time when the attack became more violent and vicious against the Church, at a time when there were a great many teachers qualified to provide a balanced education to our developing youth.
Before the danger threatening us, it would have been necessary to work with twice as much ardor to keep our rights and our principles so as to preserve this divine inheritance which is the happiness of peoples and the peace of nations.
Were we justified to sacrifice religious teaching, a necessary base that ensures the maintenance and the vitality of the spiritual life, because the students of another religious belief could not attend it? No, not any more, besides, than a mother would be justified in not preparing meals for her family because one of its members cannot eat.
Unhealthy Nourishment
After having done away with the courses in religion, they hastened to present a new catechetics focussing on the cult of the personality, a seeking of self, in “a body that is seething because a whole lot of rubbish has been going through its head” (La force des rencontres, p. 22).
Of course, the force of temptation is present in man, but this man is made up of a body and a soul.
Now, the catechetics is focussed mainly on the human, without an adequate reference to the life of the soul which, when it is given appropriate spiritual nourishment, becomes increasingly stronger to fight against the opposing powers being unleashed and which render man like a beast. On the other hand, the life of the soul, well understood and lived, divinizes, ennobles and pacifies.
This teaching dilutes the poison of ambiguity and limits itself, all too often, to the human dimension while drawing its inspiration from the very words of the Bible which must be studied, explained and understood in the beauty of the spiritual meaning, that is to say, of the relationship of the soul with God, which is spirit and Life, and not through the expression of the body which is only the human, vegetative and sensitive life.
Of course, the human development resulting from a shared love without any concern for God’s laws, may appear alluring for a while, but it quickly becomes a source of complications by binding in the chains of all kinds of passions its victim, destroying his freedom, his strength, his serenity and his peace. On the other hand, the person who is able to refuse fleeting pleasures that are not permitted, strengthens his will, becomes increasingly free, unfettered, serene and peaceful; he controls his instincts and wards off, through the strength of his soul bound to God, all the dangers that could contribute to stealing his true happiness from him.
The obvious proof that those courses are deceitfully dangerous is the loss of faith among our young people and the depravity of morals. Unconsciously, they absorb the subtle poison and their soul becomes weakened, sick, and all too often dies to the true Life.
What would one say of a mother who sets out tasty dishes, but hides in them a detergent that would cause nausea in her children to the point of affecting their health and even leading to death? She would quickly be held accountable for her reprehensible actions.
The Task of Educating
Now, the task of educating has a much loftier goal, a much broader scope than the mere earthly perspective. It has repercussions on the spiritual future, the eternal destiny of the child.
Thus, the educational responsibility of parents, when seen in its true perspective, plunges in anguish the men and women who wish to collaborate in God’s PLAN, according to His laws and His projects of love for each one of us.
However, the divine projects of love do not rest on data of a purely humanistic nature, their import and their dimension prompt us precisely to self-transcendence, to the forgetting of self, to a love of God first of all that places us above all selfishness and rivalry.
“The True Power of Meetings”
Every soul that progresses in this manner towards God, experiences such a deep love that it would like to see the Lord being loved by everyone else. The more we love Him, the more we rejoice with those who love Him.
This very fulfilling love becomes a source of blessings and fruitfulness, for the nobleness of man awakens a very great and very pure concern for others. And that is how the true “power of meetings” comes about, for we consider the reactions of those around us and the events that arise from the perspective of a spiritual love.
Who will ever repeat often enough the beauty of those meetings in which souls are so closely bound that they have the impression of experiencing heaven on earth? The more they advance in their love of Christ, the more the gift of the Catholic faith appears to them to be precious and privileged.
Oh, how sad it is to see our young people weighed down before having been able to grasp the fulfilling truth. How can our Christian heart remain insensitive to such distress?
The Origin?…
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Is it necessary to discourse at great length on the origin of the ideology prevailing in the current teaching of catechetics when the Communist symbol of THE HAMMER AND THE SICKLE is found in all the illustrations? A coincidence???…
Congratulations
Congratulations to you, Christian parents, who have the courage to remain UPRIGHT and to demand your most cherished rights, in spite of the strong current of desacralizaiton that is destroying everything at this time.
In the name of that same FREEDOM that prevailed in favor of the students of another religious belief, you have the right to withdraw your children from AN UNGODLY INFLUENCE in order to protect them and direct them towards a loftier ideal.
Marie-Paule
(The paper “Marie”, volume I, no. 1)