THE TRUTH
AND MEANING OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY
Guidelines for Education within the Family
INTRODUCTION
The Situation and the Problem
1. Among the many difficulties parents
encounter today, despite different social contexts, one
certainly stands out: giving children an adequate preparation
for adult life, particularly with regard to education in the
true meaning of sexuality. There are many reasons for this
difficulty and not all of them are new.
In the past, even when the family did
not provide specific sexual education, the general culture was
permeated by respect for fundamental values and hence served to
protect and maintain them. In the greater part of society, both
in developed and developing countries, the decline of
traditional models has left children deprived of consistent and
positive guidance, while parents find themselves unprepared to
provide adequate answers. This new context is made worse by what
we observe: an eclipse of the truth about man which, among other
things, exerts pressure to reduce sex to something commonplace.
In this area, society and the mass media most of the time
provide depersonalized, recreational and often pessimistic
information. Moreover, this information does not take into
account the different stages of formation and development of
children and young people, and it is influenced by a distorted
individualistic concept of freedom, in an ambience lacking the
basic values of life, human love and the family.
Then the school, making itself
available to carry out programmes of sex education, has often
done this by taking the place of the family and, most of the
time, with the aim of only providing information. Sometimes this
really leads to the deformation of consciences. In many cases
parents have given up their duty in this field or agreed to
delegate it to others, because of the difficulty and their own
lack of preparation.
In such a situation, many Catholic
parents turn to the Church to take up the task of providing
guidance and suggestions for educating their children,
especially in the phase of childhood and adolescence. At times,
parents themselves have brought up their difficulties when they
are confronted by teaching given at school and thus brought into
the home by their children. The Pontifical Council for the
Family has received repeated and pressing requests to provide
guidelines in support of parents in this delicate area of
education.
2. Aware of this family dimension of
education for love and for living one's own sexuality properly
and conscious of the unique "experience of humanity" of the
community of believers, our Council wishes to put forward
pastoral guidelines, drawing on the wisdom which comes from the
Word of the Lord and the values which illuminate the teaching of
the Church.
Therefore, above all, we wish to tie
this help for parents to fundamental content about the truth and
meaning of sex, within the framework of a genuine and rich
anthropology. In offering this truth, we are aware that "every
one who is of the truth" (John 18: 37) hears the word of
the One who is the Truth in Person (cf. John 14: 6).
This guide is meant to be neither a
treatise of moral theology nor a compendium of psychology. But
it does owe much to the gains of science, to the socio-cultural
conditions of the family, and to the proclamation of gospel
values which are always new and can be incarnated in a concrete
way in every age.
3. In this field, the Church is
strengthened by some unquestionable certainties that have also
guided the preparation of this document.
Love is a gift of God, nourished by and
expressed in the encounter of man and woman. Love is thus a
positive force directed towards their growth in maturity as
persons. In the plan of life which represents each person's
vocation, love is also a precious source for the self-giving
which all men and women are called to make for their own
self-realization and happiness. In fact, man is called to love
as an incarnate spirit, that is soul and body in the unity of
the person. Human love hence embraces the body, and the body
also expresses spiritual love. Therefore, sexuality is not
something purely biological, rather it concerns the intimate
nucleus of the person. The use of sexuality as physical giving
has its own truth and reaches its full meaning when it expresses
the personal giving of man and woman even unto death. As with
the whole of the person's life, love is exposed to the frailty
brought about by original sin, a frailty experienced today in
many socio-cultural contexts marked by strong negative
influences, at times deviant and traumatic. Nevertheless, the
Lord's Redemption has made the positive practice of chastity
into something that is really possible and a motive for joy,
both for those who have the vocation to marriage (before, in the
time of preparation, and afterwards, in the course of married
life) as well as for those who have the gift of a special
calling to the consecrated life.
4. In the light of the Redemption and
how adolescents and young people are formed, the virtue of
chastity is found within temperance a cardinal virtue elevated
and enriched by grace in baptism. So chastity is not to be
understood as a repressive attitude. On the contrary, chastity
should be understood rather as the purity and temporary
stewardship of a precious and rich gift of love, in view of the
self-giving realized in each person's specific vocation.
Chastity is thus that "spiritual energy capable of defending
love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able
to advance it towards its full realization".
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
describes and in a sense defines chastity in this way:
"Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within
the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and
spiritual being".
5. In the framework of educating the
young person for self-realization and self- giving, formation
for chastity implies the collaboration first and foremost of the
parents, as is the case with formation for the other virtues
such as temperance, fortitude and prudence. Chastity cannot
exist as a virtue without the capacity to renounce self, to make
sacrifices and to wait.
In giving life, parents cooperate with
the creative power of God and receive the gift of a new
responsibility not only to feed their children and satisfy
their material and cultural needs, but above all to pass on to
them the lived truth of the faith and to educate them in love of
God and neighbour. This is the parents' first duty in the heart
of the "domestic church".
The Church has always affirmed that
parents have the duty and the right to be the first and the
principal educators of their children.
Taking up the teaching of the Second
Vatican Council, the Catechism of the Catholic Church
says: "It is imperative to give suitable and timely instruction
to young people, above all in the heart of their own families,
about the dignity of married love, its role and its exercise".
6. The challenges raised today by the
mentality and social environment should not discourage parents.
In fact it is worth recalling that Christians have had to face
up to similar challenges of materialistic hedonism from the time
of the first evangelization. Moreover, "This kind of critical
reflection should lead our society, which certainly contains
many positive aspects on the material and cultural level, to
realize that, from various points of view, it is a society
which is sick and is creating profound distortions in man.
Why is this happening? The reason is that our society has broken
away from the full truth about man, from the truth about what
man and woman really are as persons. Thus it cannot adequately
comprehend the real meaning of the gift of persons in marriage,
responsible love at the service of fatherhood and motherhood,
and the true grandeur of procreation and education".
7. Therefore, the educative work of
parents is indispensable for, "If it is true that by giving life
parents share in God's creative work, it is also true
that by raising their children they become sharers in his
paternal and at the same time maternal way of
teaching......Through Christ all education, within the
family, and outside of it, becomes part of God's own saving
pedagogy, which is addressed to individuals and families and
culminates in the Paschal Mystery of the Lord's Death and
Resurrection".
In their at times delicate and arduous
task, parents must not let themselves become discouraged, rather
they should place their trust in the help of God the Creator and
Christ the Redeemer. They should remember that the Church prays
for them with the words that Pope Saint Clement I raised to the
Lord for all who bear authority in his name: "Grant to them,
Lord, health, peace, concord and stability, so that they may
exercise without offence the sovereignty that you have given
them. Master, heavenly King of the ages, you give glory, honour
and power over the things of the earth to the sons of men.
Direct, Lord, their counsel, following what is pleasing and
acceptable in your sight, so that by exercising with devotion
and in peace and gentleness the power that you have given to
them, they may find favour with you".
On the other hand, having given and
welcomed life in an atmosphere of love, parents are rich in an
educative potential which no one else possesses. In a unique way
they know their own children; they know them in their
unrepeatable identity and by experience they possess the secrets
and the resources of true love.
I
CALLED TO TRUE LOVE
8. As the image of God, man is
created for love. This truth was fully revealed to us in the
New Testament, together with the mystery of the inner life of
the Trinity: "God is love (1 John 4: 8) and in himself he
lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human
race in his own image... God inscribed in the humanity of man
and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the
fundamental and innate vocation of every human being". The whole
meaning of true freedom, and self-control which follows from it,
is thus directed towards self-giving in communion and friendship
with God and with others.
Human Love as Self-Giving
9. The person is thus capable of a
higher kind of love than concupiscence, which only sees objects
as a means to satisfy one's appetites; the person is capable
rather of friendship and self-giving, with the capacity to
recognize and love persons for themselves. Like the love of God,
this is a love capable of generosity. One desires the good of
the other because he or she is recognized as worthy of being
loved. This is a love which generates communion between persons,
because each considers the good of the other as his or her own
good. This is a self-giving made to one who loves us, a
self-giving whose inherent goodness is discovered and activated
in the communion of persons and where one learns the value of
loving and of being loved.
Each person is called to love as
friendship and self-giving. Each person is freed from the
tendency to selfishness by the love of others, in the first
place by parents or those who take their place and,
definitively, by God, from whom all true love proceeds and in
whose love alone does man discover to what extent he is loved.
Here we find the root of the educative power of Christianity: "Humanity
is loved by God! This very simple yet profound proclamation
is owed to humanity by the Church". In this way Christ has
revealed his true identity to man: "Christ the new Adam, in the
very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love,
fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high
calling".
The love revealed by Christ "which the
Apostle Paul celebrates in the First Letter to the
Corinthians...is certainly a demanding love. But this is
precisely the source of its beauty: by the very fact that it is
demanding, it builds up the true good of man and allows it to
radiate to others". Therefore it is a love which respects and
builds up the person because "Love is true when it creates
the good of persons and of communities; it creates that good
and gives it to others".
Love and Human Sexuality
10. Man is called to love and to
self-giving in the unity of body and spirit. Femininity and
masculinity are complementary gifts, through which human
sexuality is an integrating part of the concrete capacity for
love which God has inscribed in man and woman. "Sexuality is a
fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being,
of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of
expressing and of living human love". This capacity for love as
self-giving is thus "incarnated" in the nuptial meaning of
the body, which bears the imprint of the person's
masculinity and femininity. "The human body, with its sex, and
its masculinity and femininity, seen in the very mystery of
creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation,
as in the whole natural order, but includes right ?from the
beginning' the ?nuptial' attribute, that is, the capacity of
expressing love: that love precisely in which the man-person
becomes a gift and by means of this gift fulfils the
very meaning of his being and existence". Every form of love
will always bear this masculine and feminine character.
11. Human sexuality is thus a good,
part of that created gift which God saw as being "very
good", when he created the human person in his image and
likeness, and "male and female he created them" (Genesis
1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to
others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely,
love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving.
The relationship between a man and a woman is essentially a
relationship of love: "Sexuality, oriented, elevated and
integrated by love acquires truly human quality". When such love
exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the body, the
complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus
becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and,
at the same time, it contributes to building up the civilization
of love. But when the sense and meaning of gift is lacking in
sexuality, a "civilization of things and not of persons" takes
over, "a civilization in which persons are used in the same way
as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use,
woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to
parents...".
12. The gift of God: this great
truth and basic fact stands at the centre of the Christian
conscience of parents and their children. Here we refer to the
gift which God has given us in calling us to life, to exist as
man or woman in an unrepeatable existence, full of endless
possibilities for growing spiritually and morally: "human
life is a gift received in order then to be given as a gift".
"In fact the gift reveals, so to speak, a particular
characteristic of human existence, or rather, of the very
essence of the person. When God Yahweh says that ?it is not good
that man should be alone' (Genesis 2:18), he affirms that
?alone', man does not completely realize his existence.
He realizes it only by existing ?with
some one' and even more deeply and completely: by existing
?for some one '". Married love is fulfilled in openness
to the other person and in self-giving, taking the form of a
total gift that belongs to this state of life. Moreover, the
vocation to the consecrated life always finds its meaning in
self-giving, sustained by a special grace, the gift of oneself
"to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner" in
order to serve him more fully in the Church. Therefore, in every
condition and state of life, this gift comes to be ever more
wondrous by redeeming grace, through which we become "partakers
of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) and are called to
live the supernatural communion of love together with God and
with our brothers and sisters. Even in the most delicate
situations, Christian parents cannot forget that the gift of God
is there, at the very basis of all personal and family history.
13. "As an incarnate spirit, that is, a
soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an
immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality.
Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in
spiritual love". The meaning of sexuality itself is to be
understood in the light of Christian Revelation: "Sexuality
characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but
also on the psychological and spiritual, making its mark on each
of their expressions. Such diversity, linked to the
complementarity of the two sexes, allows thorough response to
the design of God according to the vocation to which each one is
called".
Married Love
14. When love is lived out in marriage,
it includes and surpasses friendship. Love between a man and
woman is achieved when they give themselves totally, each in
turn according to their own masculinity and femininity, founding
on the marriage covenant that communion of persons where God has
willed that human life be conceived, grow and develop. To this
married love, and to this love alone, belongs sexual giving,
"realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of
the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to
one another until death". The Catechism of the Catholic
Church recalls: "In marriage the physical intimacy of the
spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion.
Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the
sacrament".
Love Open to Life
15. The revealing sign of authentic
married love is openness to life: "In its most profound reality,
love is essentially a gift; and conjugal love, while leading the
spouses to the reciprocal ?knowledge'....does not end with the
couple, because it makes them capable of the greatest possible
gift, the gift by which they become cooperators with God for
giving life to a new human person. Thus the couple, while giving
themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the
reality of children, who are a living reflection of their love,
a permanent sign of conjugal unity and a living and inseparable
synthesis of their being a father and a mother". From this
communion of love and life spouses draw that human and spiritual
richness and that positive atmosphere for offering their
children the support of education for love and chastity.
II
TRUE LOVE AND CHASTITY
16. As we will later observe, virginal
and married love are the two forms in which the person's call to
love is fulfilled. In order for both to develop, they require
the commitment to live chastity, in conformity with each
person's own state of life. As the Catechism of the Catholic
Church says, sexuality "becomes personal and truly human
when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to
another, in the complete and mutual lifelong gift of a man and a
woman". Insofar as it entails sincere self-giving, it is obvious
that growth in love is helped by that discipline of the
feelings, passions and emotions which leads us to self-mastery.
One cannot give what one does not possess. If the person is not
master of self through the virtues and, in a concrete way,
through chastity he or she lacks that self-possession which
makes self-giving possible. Chastity is the spiritual power
which frees love from selfishness and aggression. To the
degree that a person weakens chastity, his or her love becomes
more and more selfish, that is, satisfying a desire for pleasure
and no longer self-giving.
Chastity as Self-Giving
17. Chastity is the joyous affirmation
of someone who knows how to live self-giving, free from any form
of self-centred slavery. This presupposes that the person has
learnt how to accept other people, to relate with them, while
respecting their dignity in diversity. The chaste person is not
self-centred, not involved in selfish relationships with other
people. Chastity makes the personality harmonious. It matures it
and fills it with inner peace. This purity of mind and body
helps develop true self-respect and at the same time makes one
capable of respecting others, because it makes one see in them
persons to reverence, insofar as they are created in the image
of God and through grace are children of God, re-created by
Christ who "called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light" (1 Peter 2:9).
Self-Mastery
18. "Chastity includes an
apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human
freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his
passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by
them and becomes unhappy". Every person knows, by experience,
that chastity requires rejecting certain thoughts, words and
sinful actions, as Saint Paul was careful to clarify and point
out (cf. Romans 1:18; 6: 12-14; 1 Corinthians 6:
9-11; 2 Corinthians 7: 1; Galatians 5: 16-23;
Ephesians 4: 17-24; 5: 3-13; Colossians 3: 5-8; 1
Thessalonians 4: 1-18; 1 Timothy 1: 8-11; 4: 12). To
achieve this requires ability and an attitude of self-mastery
which are signs of inner freedom, of responsibility towards
oneself and others. At the same time, these signs bear witness
to a faithful conscience. Such self-mastery involves both
avoiding occasions which might provoke or encourage sin as well
as knowing how to overcome one's own natural instinctive
impulses.
19. When the family is providing real
educational support and encouraging the exercise of all the
virtues, education for chastity is made easy and lacks inner
conflicts, even if at certain times young people can
experience particularly delicate situations.
For some who find themselves in
situations where chastity is offended against and not valued,
living in a chaste way can demand a hard or even a heroic
struggle. Nonetheless, with the grace of Christ, flowing from
his spousal love for the Church, everyone can live chastely even
if they find themselves in unfavourable circumstances.
The very fact that all are called to
holiness, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, makes it easier
to understand that everyone can be in situations where heroic
acts of virtue are indispensable, whether in celibate life or
marriage, and that in fact in one way or another this happens to
everyone for shorter or longer periods of time. Therefore,
married life also entails a joyous and demanding path to
holiness.
Chastity in Marriage
20. "Married people are called to live
conjugal chastity; others practise chastity in continence".
Parents are well aware that living conjugal chastity
themselves is the most valid premise for educating their
children in chaste love and in holiness of life. This means that
parents should be aware that God's love is present in their
love, and hence that their sexual giving should also be lived
out in respect for God and for his plan of love, with fidelity,
honour and generosity towards one's spouse and towards the life
which can arise from their act of love. Only in this way can
their love be an expression of charity. Therefore, in
marriage Christians are called to live this selfgiving in a
right personal relationship with God. This relationship is thus
an expression of their faith and love for God with the fidelity
and generous fruitfulness which distinguishes divine love. Only
in this way do they respond to the love of God and fulfil his
will, which the Commandments help us to know. There is no
legitimate love, at its highest level, which is not also love
for God. To love the Lord implies responding positively to his
commandments: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John
14:15).
21. In order to live chastely, man and
woman need the continuous illumination of the Holy Spirit. "At
the centre of the spirituality of marriage...lies chastity, not
only as a moral virtue (formed by love), but likewise as a
virtue connected with the gifts of the Holy Spirit above
all the gift of respect for what comes from God (donum
pietatis)... So therefore, the interior order of married
life, which enables the ?manifestations of affection' to develop
according to their right proportion and meaning, is a fruit not
only of the virtue which the couple practise, but also
of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which they cooperate".
On the other hand, convinced that their
own chaste life and the daily effort of bearing witness are the
premise and condition for their educational task, parents should
also consider any attack on the virtue and chastity of their
children as an offence against the life of faith itself that
threatens and impoverishes their own communion of life and grace
(cf. Ephesians 6:12).
Education for Chastity
22. Educating children for chastity
strives to achieve three objectives: (a) to maintain in the
family a positive atmosphere of love, virtue and respect for
the gifts of God, in particular the gift of life; (a) to
help children to understand the value of sexuality and chastity
in stages, sustaining their growth through enlightening word,
example and prayer; (c) to help them understand and discover
their own vocation to marriage or to consecrated virginity for
the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven in harmony with and
respecting their attitudes and inclinations and the gifts of the
Spirit.
23. Other educators can assist in this
task, but they can only take the place of parents for serious
reasons of physical or moral incapacity. On this point the
Magisterium of the Church has expressed itself clearly, in
relation to the whole educative process of children: "The role
of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost
impossible to find an adequate substitute. It is therefore the
duty of parents to create a family atmosphere inspired by love
and devotion to God and their fellow-men which will promote an
integrated, personal and social education of their children. The
family is therefore the principal school of the social virtues
which are necessary to every society". In fact education is the
parents' domain insofar as their educational task continues the
generation of life; moreover, it is an offering of their
humanity to their children to which they are solemnly bound
in the very moment of celebrating their marriage. "Parents
are the first and most important educators of their
children, and they also possess a fundamental competency
in this area: they are educators because they are parents.
They share their individual mission with other individuals
or institutions, such as the Church and the State. But the
mission of education must always be carried out in accordance
with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity.
This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving
assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute
limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities.
The principle of subsidiarity is thus at the service of parental
love, meeting the good of the family unit. For parents by
themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of
the whole process of raising children, especially in matters
concerning their schooling and the entire gamut of
socialization. Subsidiarity thus complements paternal and
maternal love and confirms its fundamental nature, inasmuch as
all other participants in the process of education are only able
to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the
parents, with their consent and, to a certain degree,
with their authorization".
24. In particular, the project of
education in sexuality and true love, open to self- giving, is
confronted today by a culture guided by positivism, as the Holy
Father notes in the Letter to Families: "..the
development of contemporary civilization is linked to a
scientific and technological progress which is often achieved in
a onesided way, and thus appears purely positivistic.
Positivism, as we know, results in agnosticism in theory and
utilitarianism in practice and in ethics... Utilitarianism
is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization
of things and not of persons, a civilization in which persons
are used in the same way as things are used... To be convinced
that this is the case, one need only to look at certain
sexual education programmes introduced into the schools,
often notwithstanding the disagreement and even the protests of
many parents...".
In this context, based on the teaching
of the Church and with her support, parents must reclaim their
own task. By associating together, wherever this is necessary or
useful, they should put into action an educational project
marked by the true values of the person and Christian love and
taking a clear position that surpasses ethical utilitarianism.
For education to correspond to the objective needs of true love,
parents should provide this education within their own
autonomous responsibility.
25. Moreover, in relation to
preparation for marriage the teaching of the Church states that
the family must remain the main protagonist in this educational
work.
Certainly "the changes that have taken
place within almost all modern societies demand that not only
the family but also society and the Church should be involved in
the effort of properly preparing young people for their future
responsibilities". It is precisely with this end in view that
the educational task of the family takes on greater importance
from the earliest years: "Remote preparation begins in early
childhood in that wise family training which leads children to
discover themselves as being endowed with a rich and complex
psychology and with a particular personality with its own
strengths and weaknesses".
III
IN THE LIGHT OF VOCATION
26. The family carries out a
decisive role in cultivating and developing all vocations,
as the Second Vatican Council taught: "From the marriage of
Christians there comes the family in which new citizens of human
society are born and, by the grace of the Holy Spirit in
Baptism, those are made children of God so that the People of
God may be perpetuated throughout the centuries. In what might
be regarded as the domestic church, the parents by word and
example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their
children. They must foster the vocation which is proper to each
child, and this with special care if it be to religion". Yet the
very fact that vocations flourish is the sign of adequate
pastoral care of the family: "where there is an effective and
enlightened family apostolate, just as it becomes normal
to accept life as a gift from God, so it is easier for God's
voice to resound and to find a more generous hearing".
Here we are dealing with vocations to
marriage or to virginity or celibacy, but these are always
vocations to holiness. Indeed, the document Lumen Gentium
presents the Second Vatican Council's teaching on the
universal call to holiness: "Strengthened by so many and
such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their
condition or state though each in his own way are called by
the Lord to that perfection of sanctity by which the Father
himself is perfect".
1. The Vocation to Marriage
27. Formation for true love is always
the best preparation for the vocation to marriage. In the
family, children and young people can learn to live human
sexuality within the solid context of Christian life. They can
gradually discover that a stable Christian marriage cannot be
regarded as a matter of convenience or mere sexual attraction.
By the fact that it is a vocation, marriage must involve a
carefully considered choice, a mutual commitment before God and
the constant seeking of his help in prayer.
Called to Married Love
28. Committed to the task of educating
their children for love, Christian parents first of all can take
awareness of their married love as a reference point. As the
Encyclical Humanae Vitae states, such love "reveals its
true nature and nobility when it is considered in its supreme
origin, God, who is love (cf. 1 John 4: 8), ?the Father
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named' (Ephesians
3: 15). Marriage is not, then, the effect of chance or the
product of evolution of unconscious natural forces; it is the
wise institution of the Creator to realize in mankind his design
of love. By means of the reciprocal personal gift of self,
proper and exclusive to them, husband and wife tend towards the
communion of their beings in view of mutual personal perfection,
to collaborate with God in the generation and education of new
lives. For baptized persons, moreover, marriage invests the
dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, inasmuch as it
represents the union of Christ and of the Church".
The Holy Father's Letter to Families
recalls that: "The family is in fact a community of persons
whose proper way of existing and living together is communion:
communio personarum". Going back to the teaching of the
Second Vatican Council, the Holy Father teaches that such a
communion involves "a certain similarity between the union of
the divine Persons and union of God's children in truth and
love". "This rich and meaningful formulation first of all
confirms what is central to the identity of every man and every
woman. This identity consists in the capacity to live in
truth and love; even more, it consists in the need of truth
and love as an essential dimension of the life of the person.
Man's need for truth and love opens him both to God and to
creatures: it opens him to other people, to life in communion,
and in particular to marriage and to the family".
29. As the Encyclical Humanae Vitae
affirms, married love has four characteristics: it is
human love (physical and spiritual), it is total,
faithful and fruitful love.
These characteristics are founded on
the fact that "In marriage man and woman are so firmly united as
to become, to use the words of the Book of Genesis one flesh (Genesis
2:24). Male and female in their physical constitution, the
two human subjects, even though physically different, share
equally in the capacity to live in truth and love. This
capacity, characteristic of the human being as a person, has at
the same time both a spiritual and a bodily dimension... The
family which results from this union draws its inner solidity
from the covenant between the spouses, which Christ raised to a
Sacrament. The family draws its proper character as a community,
its traits of communion, from that fundamental communion of the
spouses which is prolonged in their children. Will you accept
children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the
law of Christ and his Church?, the celebrant asks during the
Rite of Marriage. The answer given by the spouses reflects the
most profound truth of the love which unites them". With the
same formula, spouses commit themselves and promise to be
"faithful forever" because their fidelity really flows from this
communion of persons which is rooted in the plan of the Creator,
in Trinitarian Love and in the Sacrament which expresses the
faithful union between Christ and the Church.
30. Christian marriage is a
sacrament whereby sexuality is integrated into a path to
holiness, through a bond reinforced by the indissoluble unity of
the sacrament: "The gift of the sacrament is at the same time a
vocation and commandment for the Christian spouses, that they
may remain faithful to each other forever, beyond every trial
and difficulty, in generous obedience to the holy will of the
Lord: ?What therefore God has joined together, let not man put
asunder' ".
Parents Face a Current Concern
31. Unfortunately, even in Christian
societies today, parents have reason to be concerned about
the stability of their children's future marriages.
Nevertheless, in spite of the rising number of divorces and the
growing crisis of the family, they should respond with optimism,
committing themselves to give their children a deep Christian
formation to make them able to overcome various difficulties.
Actually, the love for chastity, which parents help to form,
favours mutual respect between man and woman and provides a
capacity for compassion, tolerance, generosity, and above all, a
spirit of sacrifice, without which love cannot endure. Children
will thus come to marriage with that realistic wisdom about
which Saint Paul speaks when he teaches that husband and wife
must continually give way to one another in love, cherishing one
another with mutual patience and affection (cf. 1 Corinthians
7: 3-6; Ephesians 5: 21-23).
32. Through this remote formation
for chastity in the family, adolescents and young people
learn to live sexuality in its personal dimension, rejecting any
kind of separation of sexuality from love understood as
self-giving and any separation of the love between husband and
wife from the family.
Parental respect for life and the
mystery of procreation will spare the child or young person from
the false idea that the two dimensions of the conjugal act,
unitive and procreative, can be separated at will. Thus the
family comes to be recognized as an inseparable part of the
vocation to marriage.
A Christian education for chastity
within the family cannot remain silent about the moral gravity
involved in separating the unitive dimension from the
procreative dimension within married life. This happens above
all in contraception and artificial procreation. In the first
case, one intends to seek sexual pleasure, intervening in the
conjugal act to avoid conception; in the second case conception
is sought by substituting the conjugal act with a technique.
These are actions contrary to the truth of married love and
contrary to full communion between husband and wife.
Forming young people for chastity
should thus become a preparation for responsible fatherhood and
motherhood, which "directly concern the moment in which a man
and a woman, uniting themselves in one flesh, can become
parents. This is a moment of special value both for their
interpersonal relationship and for their service to life: they
can become parents father and mother by communicating life
to a new human being. The two dimensions of conjugal union,
the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially
separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal
act itself".
It is also necessary to put before
young people the consequences, which are always very serious, of
separating sexuality from procreation when someone reaches the
stage of practising sterilization and abortion or pursuing
sexual activity dissociated from married love, before and
outside of marriage.
Much of the moral order and marital
harmony of the family, hence also the true good of society,
depends on this timely education, which finds its place in God's
plan, in the very structure of sexuality and the intimate nature
of marriage.
33. Parents who carry out their own
right and duty to form their children for chastity can be
certain that they are helping them in turn to build stable and
united families, thus anticipating, insofar as this is possible,
the joys of paradise: "How can I ever express the happiness of
the marriage that is joined together by the Church, strengthened
by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and
ratified by the Father....They are both brethren and both fellow
servants; there is no separation between them in spirit or
flesh....Christ rejoices in them and he sends them his peace;
where the couple is, there he is also to be found, and where he
is, evil can no longer abide".
2. The Vocation to Virginity and
Celibacy
34. Christian revelation presents the
two vocations to love: marriage and virginity. In some
societies today, not only marriage and the family, but also
vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, are often in
a state of crisis. The two situations are inseparable: "When
marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or
celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great
value given by the Creator, the renunciation of it for the sake
of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning". A lack of vocations
follows from the breakdown of the family, yet where parents are
generous in welcoming life, children will be more likely to be
generous when it comes to the question of offering themselves to
God: "Families must once again express a generous love for
life and place themselves at its service above all by
accepting the children which the Lord wants to give them with a
sense of responsibility not detached from peaceful trust", and
they may bring this acceptance to fulfilment not only "through a
continuing educational effort but also through an obligatory
commitment, at times perhaps neglected, to help teenagers
especially and young people to accept the vocational
dimension of every living being, within God's plan... Human
life acquires fullness when it becomes a self-gift: a
gift which can express itself in matrimony, in
consecrated virginity, in self-dedication to one's
neighbour towards an ideal, or in the choice of priestly
ministry. Parents will truly serve the life of their
children if they help them make their own lives a gift,
respecting their mature choices and fostering joyfully each
vocation, including the religious and priestly one".
When he deals with sexual education in
Familiaris Consortio, this is why Pope John Paul II
affirms: "Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of
God's call, will devote special attention and care to education
in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving
that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality".
Parents and Priestly or Religious
Vocations
35. Parents should therefore rejoice if
they see in any of their children the signs of God's call to the
higher vocation of virginity or celibacy for the love of the
Kingdom of Heaven. They should accordingly adapt formation for
chaste love to the needs of those children, encouraging them on
their own path up to the time of entering the seminary or house
of formation, or until this specific call to self-giving with an
undivided heart matures. They must respect and appreciate the
freedom of each of their children, encouraging their personal
vocation and without trying to impose a predetermined vocation
on them.
The Second Vatican Council clearly set
out this distinct and honourable task of parents, who are
supported in their work by teachers and priests: "Parents should
nurture and protect religious vocations in their children by
educating them in Christian virtues". "The duty of fostering
vocations falls on the whole Christian community....The greatest
contribution is made by families which are animated by a spirit
of faith, charity and piety and which provide, as it were, a
first seminary, and by parishes in whose abundant life the young
people themselves take an active part". "Parents, teachers and
all who are in any way concerned in the education of boys and
young men ought to train them in such a way that they will know
the solicitude of the Lord for his flock and be alive to the
needs of the Church. In this way they will be prepared when the
Lord calls to answer generously with the prophet: ?Here am I!
send me' (Isaiah 6:8)".
This necessary family context for
maturing religious and priestly vocations brings to mind the
serious situation of many families, especially in certain
countries, families with an impoverished life because they have
chosen to deprive themselves of children or where they have only
one child, a situation in which it is very difficult for
vocations to arise and even difficult to develop a full social
education.
36. The truly Christian family will
also be able to communicate an understanding of the value of
celibacy to unmarried children or those who are incapable of
marriage for reasons apart from their own will. If they are
formed well from childhood and during their youth, they will be
equipped to face their own situation more easily. Likewise, they
will be able to discover the will of God in such a situation and
so find a sense of vocation and peace in their own lives. These
persons, especially if they have some kind of physical
disability, need to be shown the great possibilities for
self-realization and spiritual fruitfulness which are open to
those who make a commitment to help their poorest and most needy
brothers and sisters, sustained by faith and the love of God.
IV
FATHER AND MOTHER AS EDUCATORS
37. In granting married persons the
privilege and great responsibility of becoming parents, God
gives them the grace to carry out their mission adequately.
Moreover, in the task of educating their children, parents are
enlightened by "two fundamental truths...: first, that man is
called to live in truth and love; and second, that everyone
finds fulfillment through the sincere gift of self". As spouses,
parents and ministers of the sacramental grace of marriage, they
are sustained from day to day by special spiritual energies,
received from Jesus Christ who loves and nurtures his Bride, the
Church.
As husband and wife who have become
"one flesh" through the bond of marriage, they share the duty to
educate their children through willing collaboration nourished
by vigorous mutual dialogue that "has a new specific source in
the sacrament of marriage, which consecrates them for the
strictly Christian education of their children: that is to say,
it calls upon them to share in the very authority and love of
God the Father and Christ the shepherd, and in the motherly love
of the Church, and it enriches them with wisdom, counsel,
fortitude and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to
help the children in their growth as human beings and as
Christians".
38. In the context of formation in
chastity, "fatherhood-motherhood" also includes one parent
who is left alone and adoptive parents. The task of a single
parent is certainly not easy because the support of the other
spouse and the role and example of a parent of the other sex is
lacking. But God sustains single parents with a special love and
calls them to take on this task with the same generosity and
sensitivity with which they love and care for their children in
other areas of family life.
39. Some other persons are called upon
in certain cases to take the place of parents: those who take on
the parental role in a permanent way, for instance, for orphans
or abandoned children. They, too, have the task of educating
children and young people in an overall sense, as well as in
chastity, and they will receive the grace of their state of life
to do this according to the same principles that guide Christian
parents.
40. Parents must never feel alone in
this task. The Church supports and encourages them, confident
that they can carry out this function better than anyone else.
She also encourages those men or women who, often with great
sacrifice, give children without parents a form of parental love
and family life. In any case, all of them must approach this
duty in a spirit of prayer, open and obedient to the moral
truths of faith and reason that integrate the teaching of the
Church, and always seeing children and young people as persons,
children of God and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Rights and Duties of Parents
41. Before going into the practical
details of young people's formation in chastity, it is extremely
important for parents to be aware of their rights and duties,
particularly in the face of a State or a school that tends
to take up the initiative in the area of sex education.
The Holy Father John Paul II reaffirms
this in Familiaris Consortio: "The right and duty of
parents to give education is essential, since it is
connected with the transmission of human life; it is original
and primary with regard to the educational role of others,
on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between
parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and
inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely
delegated to others or usurped by others", except in the case,
as mentioned at the beginning, of physical or psychological
impossibility.
42. This doctrine is based on the
teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and is also proclaimed
by the Charter of the Rights of the Family: "Since they
have conferred life on their children, parents have the
original, primary and inalienable right to educate them; hence
they ...have the right to educate their children in conformity
with their moral and religious convictions, taking into account
the cultural traditions of the family which favour the good and
the dignity of the child; they should also receive from society
the necessary aid and assistance to perform their educational
role properly".
43. The Pope insists upon the fact that
this holds especially with regard to sexuality: "Sex education,
which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be
carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or
in educational centres chosen and controlled by them. In this
regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the
school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education,
by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents".
The Holy Father adds, "In view of the
close links between the sexual dimension of the person and his
or her ethical values, education must bring the children to a
knowledge of and respect for the moral norms as the necessary
and highly valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in
human sexuality". No one is capable of giving moral education in
this delicate area better than duly prepared parents.
The Meaning of the Parents' Duty
44. This right also implies an
educational duty. If in fact parents do not give adequate
formation in chastity, they are failing in their precise duty.
Likewise, they would also be guilty were they to tolerate
immoral or inadequate formation being given to their children
outside the home.
45. Today this task encounters a
particular difficulty with regard to the dissemination of
pornography, through the means of social communication,
instigated by commercial motives and breaking down adolescent
sensitivity. This must call for two forms of concerned action on
the part of parents: preventive and critical education with
regard to their children, and courageous denunciation to the
appropriate authorities. Parents, as individuals or in
associations, have the right and duty to promote the good of
their children and demand from the authorities laws that prevent
and eliminate the exploitation of the sensitivity of children
and adolescents.
46. The Holy Father stresses this
parental task and outlines guidelines and the objective in this
regard: "Faced with a culture that largely reduces human
sexuality to the level of something commonplace, since it
interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by
linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure, the
educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in
the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality
is an enrichment of the whole person body, emotions and soul
and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the
gift of self in love".
47. 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.
V
PATHS OF FORMATION WITHIN THE FAMILY
48. The family environment is thus
the normal and usual place for forming children and young
people to consolidate and exercise the virtues of charity,
temperance, fortitude and chastity. As the domestic church, the
family is the school of the richest humanity. This is
particularly true for the moral and spiritual education on such
a delicate matter as chastity. Physical, psychological and
spiritual aspects are involved in chastity, as well as the first
signs of freedom, the influence of social models, natural
modesty and strong tendencies inherent in a human being's bodily
nature. All of these aspects are connected to an awareness,
albeit implicit, of the dignity of the human person, called to
collaborate with God and, at the same time, marked by fragility.
In a Christian home, parents have the strength to lead their
children to a real Christian maturation of their personalities,
according to the measure of Christ, in his Mystical Body, the
Church.
While the family is rich in these
strengths, it also needs the support of the State and society,
according to the principle of subsidiarity: "It can
happen...that when a family does decide to live up fully to its
vocation, it finds itself without the necessary support from the
State and without sufficient resources. It is urgent therefore
to promote not only family policies, but also those social
policies which have the family as their principle object,
policies which assist the family by providing adequate resources
and efficient means of support, both for bringing up children
and for looking after the elderly...".
49. Aware of this and of the real
difficulties that exist for young people in many countries
today, especially when social and moral deterioration is
present, parents are urged to dare to ask for more and to
propose more. They cannot be satisfied with avoiding the
worst that their children do not take drugs or commit crimes.
They will have to be committed to educating them in the true
values of the person, renewed by the virtues of faith, hope and
love: the values of freedom, responsibility, fatherhood and
motherhood, service, professional work, solidarity, honesty,
art, sport, the joy of knowing they are children of God, hence
brothers and sisters of all human beings, etc.
The Essential Value of the Home
50. In their most recent findings, the
psychological and pedagogical sciences come together with human
experience in emphasizing the decisive importance of the
affective atmosphere that reigns in the family for a
harmonious and valid sexual education, especially during the
first years of infancy and childhood, and perhaps also during
the prenatal stage, because children's deep emotional patterns
are established in these phases. The importance of the couple's
balance, acceptance and understanding is stressed. Furthermore,
emphasis is placed on the value of a serene relationship between
husband and wife, on the value of their positive presence (both
father and mother) during these important years for the
processes of identification, and on the value of a relationship
of reassuring affection toward their children.
51. Certain serious privations or
imbalances between parents (for example, one or both parents'
absence from family life, a lack of interest in the children's
education or excessive severity) are factors that can cause
emotional and affective disturbances in children. These factors
can seriously upset their adolescence and sometimes mark them
for life. Parents must find time to be with their children
and take time to talk with them. As a gift and a commitment,
children are their most important task, although seemingly not
always a very profitable one. Children are more important than
work, entertainment and social position. In these conversations
more and more as the years pass parents should learn how to
listen carefully to their children, how to make the effort to
understand them, and how to recognize the fragment of truth that
may be present in some forms of rebellion. At the same time,
parents will have to be able to help their children to channel
their anxieties and aspirations correctly, and teach them to
reflect on the reality of things and how to reason. This does
not mean imposing a certain line of behaviour, but rather
showing both the supernatural and human motives that recommend
such behaviour. Parents will succeed better if they are able to
dedicate time to their children and really place themselves at
their level with love.
Formation in the Community of
Life and Love
52. The Christian family is capable of
offering an atmosphere permeated with that love for God that
makes an authentic reciprocal gift possible. Children who have
this experience are better disposed to live according to those
moral truths that they see practiced in their parents' life.
They will have confidence in them and will learn about the love
that overcomes fears and nothing moves us to love more than
knowing that we are loved. In this way, the bond of mutual love,
to which parents bear witness before their children, will
safeguard their affective serenity. This bond will refine the
intellect, the will and the emotions by rejecting everything
that could degrade or devalue the gift of human sexuality. In a
family where love reigns, this gift is always understood as
part of the call to self-giving in love for God and for others.
"The family is the first and fundamental school of social
living: as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law
that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires
the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and
norm for the self-giving that must be practised in the
relationships between brothers and sisters and the different
generations living together in the family. And the communion and
sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of
joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and
effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful
inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society".
53. Basically, education for authentic
love, authentic only if it becomes kind, welldisposed love,
involves accepting the person who is loved and considering his
or her good as one's own; hence this implies educating in right
relationships with others. Children, adolescents and young
people should be taught how to enter into healthy relationships
with God, with their parents, their brothers and sisters, with
their companions of the same or the opposite sex, and with
adults.
54. It must also not be forgotten that
education in love is an overall reality. There will be no
progress in setting up proper relationships with one person if
at the same time there are no proper relationships with other
people. As we have already mentioned, education in chastity, as
education in love, is at the same time education of one's
spirit, one's sensitivity, and one's feelings. The attitude
toward other persons depends largely on the way spontaneous
feelings for them are handled, the way some feelings are
cultivated and others are controlled. Chastity as a virtue is
never reduced to merely being able to perform acts conforming to
a norm of external behaviour. Chastity requires activating and
developing the dynamisms of nature and grace which make up the
principal and immanent element of our discovery of God's law as
a guarantee of growth and freedom.
55. Therefore, it must be stressed that
education for chastity is inseparable from efforts to cultivate
all the other virtues and, in a particular way,
Christian love, characterized by respect, altruism and
service, which after all is called charity. Sexuality is
such an important good that it must be protected by following
the order of reason enlightened by faith: "The greater a good,
the more the order of reason must be observed in it". From this
it follows that in order to educate in chastity, "self-control
is necessary, which presupposes such virtues as modesty,
temperance, respect for self and for others, openness to one's
neighbour".
Also of importance are what Christian
tradition has called the younger sisters of chastity (modesty,
an attitude of sacrifice with regard to one's whims), nourished
by the faith and a life of prayer.
Decency and Modesty
56. The practice of decency and
modesty in speech, action and dress is very important for
creating an atmosphere suitable to the growth of chastity, but
this must be well motivated by respect for one's own body and
the dignity of others. Parents, as we have said, should be
watchful so that certain immoral fashions and attitudes do not
violate the integrity of the home, especially through misuse of
the mass media. In this regard, the Holy Father stressed
the need "to promote closer collaboration between
parents, who have primary responsibility for education, those in
charge of the mass media at various levels and the public
authorities, so that families are not left without guidance in
such an important sector of their educational mission... In fact
the presentations, content and programmes of healthy
entertainment, information and education to complement that of
the family and the school must be recognized. Unfortunately this
does not change the fact that in some countries especially there
are many shows and publications abounding in all sorts of
violence with a kind of bombardment of messages that undermine
moral principles and make it impossible to achieve a serious
climate in which values worthy of the human person may be
transmitted".
In particular, with regard to use of
television, the Holy Father specified: "The life-style
especially in the more industrialised nations all too often
causes families to abandon their responsibility to educate their
children. Evasion of this duty is made easy by the presence of
television and of printed materials in the home. These occupy
the time for children and young people. No one can deny the
justification for this when the means are lacking, to develop
and use to advantage the free time of the young and to direct
their energies". Another circumstance that facilitates this is
the fact that both parents are busy with their work, in and
outside the home. "The result is that these young people are in
most need of help in developing their responsible freedom. There
is the duty especially for believers, for men and women who
love freedom, to protect the young from the aggressions they are
subjected to by the media. May no one shirk from this duty by
using the excuse that he or she is not involved". "Parents as
recipients must actively ensure the moderate, critical, watchful
and prudent use of the media".
Legitimate Privacy
57. Respect for privacy must be
considered in close connection with decency and modesty, which
spontaneously defend a person who refuses to be considered and
treated like an object of pleasure instead of being respected
and loved for himself or herself. If children or young people
see that their legitimate privacy is respected, then they will
know that they are expected to show the same attitude towards
others. This is how they learn to cultivate the proper sense of
responsibility before God by developing their interior life and
a taste for personal freedom, that makes them capable of loving
God and others better.
Self-Control
58. All of this reminds us more
generally of self-control, a necessary condition for
being capable of self-giving. Children and young people should
be encouraged to have esteem for, and to practise self-control
and restraint, to live in an orderly way, to make personal
sacrifices in a spirit of love for God, self-respect, and
generosity towards others, without stifling feelings and
tendencies, but channeling them into a virtuous life.
Parents as Models for Their
Children
59. The good example and leadership
of parents is essential in strengthening the formation of
young people in chastity. A mother who values her maternal
vocation and her place in the home greatly helps develop the
qualities of femininity and motherhood in her daughters, and
sets a clear, strong and noble example of womanhood for her
sons. A father, whose behaviour is inspired by masculine dignity
without "machismo", will be an attractive model for his sons,
and inspire respect, admiration and security in his daughters.
60. This is also true for education in
a spirit of sacrifice in families, subject more than ever today
to the pressures of materialism and consumerism. Only in this
way will children grow up "with a correct attitude of freedom
with regard to material goods, by adopting a simple and austere
life style and being fully convinced that ?man is more precious
for what he is than for what he has'. In a society shaken and
split by tensions and conflicts caused by the violent clash of
various kinds of individualism and selfishness, children must be
enriched not only with a sense of true justice, which alone
leads to respect for the personal dignity of each individual,
but also and more powerfully by a sense of true love, understood
as sincere solicitude and disinterested service with regard to
others, especially the poorest and those in most need". "This
education is fully a part of the ?civilization of love'. It
depends on the civilization of love and, in great measure,
contributes to its upbuilding".
A Sanctuary of Life and Faith
61. No one can deny that the first
example and the greatest help that parents can give their
children is their generosity in accepting life, without
forgetting that this is how parents help their children to have
a simpler lifestyle. Moreover, "...it is certainly less serious
to deny their children certain comforts or material advantages
than to deprive them of the presence of brothers and sisters,
who could help them to grow in humanity and to realize the
beauty of life at all its ages and in all its variety".
62. Lastly, we recall that in order to
achieve these objectives, the family first of all should be a
home of faith and prayer, in which God the Father's presence
is sensed, the Word of Jesus is accepted, the Spirit's bond of
love is felt, and where the most pure Mother of God is loved and
invoked. This life of faith and "Family prayer has for its very
own object family life itself, which in all its varying
circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a filial
response to his call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and
disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding
anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and
home-comings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of
those who are dear, etc. all of these mark God's loving
intervention in the family's history. They should be seen as
suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting
abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father
in heaven".
63. In this atmosphere of prayer and
awareness of the presence and fatherhood of God, the truths of
faith and morals should be taught, understood and deeply studied
with reverence, and the Word of God should be read and lived
with love. In this way Christ's truth will build up a family
community based on the example and guidance of parents who
"penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and
leave an impression that the future events in their lives will
not be able to efface".
VI
LEARNING STAGES
64. Parents in particular have the duty
to let their children know about the mysteries of human life,
because the family "is, in fact, the best environment to
accomplish the obligation of securing a gradual education in
sexual life. The family has an affective dignity which is suited
to making acceptable without trauma the most delicate realities
and to integrating them harmoniously in a balanced and rich
personality". As we have recalled, this primary task of the
family includes the parents' right that their children should
not be obliged to attend courses in school on this subject which
are not in harmony with their religious and moral convictions.
The school's task is not to substitute for the family, rather it
is "assisting and completing the work of parents, furnishing
children and adolescents with an evaluation of sexuality as
value and task of the whole person, created male and female in
the image of God".
In this regard, we recall what the Holy
Father teaches in Familiaris Consortio: "The Church is
firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex
information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely
be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus
leading to the loss of serenity while still in the years of
innocence by opening the way to vice".
Therefore, four general principles
will be proposed and afterwards the various stages in a
child's development will be examined.
Four Principles Regarding
Information about Sexuality
65. 1. Each child is a unique and
unrepeatable person and must receive individualized formation.
Since parents know, understand and love each of their children
in their uniqueness, they are in the best position to decide
what the appropriate time is for providing a variety of
information, according to their children's physical and
spiritual growth. No one can take this capacity for discernment
away from conscientious parents.
66. Each child's process of maturation
as a person is different. Therefore, the most intimate aspects,
whether biological or emotional, should be communicated in a
personalized dialogue. In their dialogue with each child,
with love and trust, parents communicate something about their
own self-giving which makes them capable of giving witness to
aspects of the emotional dimension of sexuality that could not
be transmitted in other ways.
67. Experience shows that this dialogue
works out better when the parent who communicates the
biological, emotional, moral and spiritual information is of the
same sex as the child or young person. Being aware of the role,
emotions and problems of their own sex, mothers have a special
bond with their daughters, and fathers with their sons. This
natural bond should be respected. Therefore, parents who are
alone will have to act with great sensitivity when speaking with
a child of the opposite sex, and they may choose to entrust
communicating the most intimate details to a trustworthy person
of the same sex as the child. Through this collaboration of a
subsidiary nature, parents can take advantage of expert,
well-formed educators in the school or parish community, or from
Catholic associations.
68. 2. The moral dimension must always
be part of their explanations. Parents should stress that
Christians are called to live the gift of sexuality according to
the plan of God who is Love, i.e., in the context of marriage or
of consecrated virginity and also celibacy. They must insist on
the positive value of chastity and its capacity to generate true
love for other persons. This is the most radical and important
moral aspect of chastity. Only a person who knows how to be
chaste will know how to love in marriage or in virginity.
69. From the earliest age, parents may
observe the beginning of instinctive genital activity in their
child. It should not be considered repressive to correct such
habits gently that could become sinful later, and, when
necessary, to teach modesty as the child grows. It is always
important to justify the judgement of morally rejecting certain
attitudes contrary to the dignity of the person and chastity on
adequate, valid and convincing grounds, both at the level of
reason and faith, hence in a positive framework with a high
concept of personal dignity. Many parental admonitions are
merely reproofs or recommendations which the children perceive
more as the result of fear of certain social consequences, or
related to one's public reputation, rather than arising out of a
love that seeks their true good. "I exhort you to correct, with
the greatest commitment, the vices and passions that assail us
in every age. For if in some stage of our life we sail on,
deprecating the values of virtue and thereby suffer continuous
shipwreck, we risk arriving in port devoid of all spiritual
charge".
70. 3. Formation in chastity and timely
information regarding sexuality must be provided in the broadest
context of education for love. It is not sufficient, therefore,
to provide information about sex together with objective moral
principles. Constant help is also required for the growth of
children's spiritual life, so that the biological
development and impulses they begin to experience will always be
accompanied by a growing love of God, the Creator and Redeemer,
and an ever greater awareness of the dignity of each human
person and his or her body. In the light of the mystery of
Christ and the Church, parents can illustrate the positive
values of human sexuality in the context of the person's
original vocation to love and the universal call to holiness.
71. Therefore, in talks with children,
suitable advice should always be given regarding how to grow in
the love of God and one's neighbour, and how to overcome any
difficulties: "These means are: discipline of the senses and the
mind, watchfulness and prudence in avoiding occasions of sin,
the observance of modesty, moderation in recreation, wholesome
pursuits, assiduous prayer and frequent reception of the
Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Young people especially
should foster devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God".
72. To teach children how to evaluate
the environments they frequent with a critical sense and true
autonomy, as well as to accustom them to detachment in using the
mass media, parents should always present positive models and
suitable ways of using their vital energies, the meaning of
friendship and solidarity in the overall area of society and of
the Church.
When deviant tendencies and attitudes
are present, which require great prudence and caution so as to
recognize and evaluate situations properly, parents should also
have recourse to specialists with solid scientific and moral
formation in order to identify the causes over and above the
symptoms, and help the subjects to overcome difficulties in a
serious and clear way. Pedagogic action should be directed more
to the causes rather than to directly repressing the phenomenon,
and, if necessary, they should seek the help of qualified
persons, such as doctors, educational experts and psychologists
with an upright Christian sensitivity.
73. The objective of the parents'
educational task is to pass on to their children the conviction
that chastity in one's state in life is possible and that
chastity brings joy. Joy springs from an awareness of
maturation and harmony in one's emotional life, a gift of God
and a gift of love that makes self-giving possible in the
framework of one's vocation. Man is in fact the only creature on
earth whom God wanted for its own sake, and "man can fully
discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself".
"Christ gave laws for everyone...I do not prohibit you from
marrying, nor am I against your enjoying yourself. I only want
you to do this with temperance, without indecency, guilt and
sin. I do not make a law that you should flee to the mountains
and deserts, rather that you should be good, modest and chaste,
as you live in the midst of the cities".
74. God's help is never lacking if each
person makes the necessary commitment to respond to his grace.
In helping, forming and respecting their children's conscience,
parents should see that they receive the sacraments with
awareness, guiding them by their own example. If children and
young people experience the effects of God's grace and mercy in
the sacraments, they will be capable of living chastity well, as
a gift of God, for his glory and in order to love him and other
people. Necessary and supernaturally effective help is provided
by the Sacrament of Reconciliation, especially if a regular
confessor is available. Although it does not necessarily
coincide with the role of confessor, spiritual guidance or
direction is a valuable aid in progressively enlightening the
stages of growth and as moral support.
Reading well-chosen and recommended
books of formation is also of great help both in offering a
wider and deeper formation and in providing examples and
testimonies of virtue.
75. Once the objectives of the
information to be provided have been identified, the time and
ways must be specified, starting from childhood.
4. Parents should provide this
information with great delicacy, but clearly and at the
appropriate time. Parents are well aware that their children
must be treated in a personalized way, according to the personal
conditions of their physiological and psychological development,
and taking into due consideration the cultural environment of
life and the adolescent's daily experience. In order to evaluate
properly what they should say to each child, it is very
important that parents first of all seek light from the Lord in
prayer and that they discuss this together so that their words
will be neither too explicit nor too vague. Giving too many
details to children is counterproductive. But delaying the first
information for too long is imprudent, because every human
person has natural curiosity in this regard and, sooner or
later, everyone begins to ask themselves questions, especially
in cultures where too much can be seen, even in public.
76. In general, the first sexual
information to be given to a small child does not deal with
genital sexuality, but rather with pregnancy and the birth of a
brother or sister. The child's natural curiosity is stimulated,
for example, when it sees the signs of pregnancy in its mother
and experiences waiting for a baby. Parents can take advantage
of this happy experience in order to communicate some simple
facts about pregnancy, but always in the deepest context of
wonder at the creative work of God, who wants the new life he
has given to be cared for in the mother's body, near her heart.
Children's Principal Stages of
Development
77. It is important for parents to take
their children's needs into consideration during the different
stages of development. Keeping in mind that each child should
receive individualized formation, parents can adapt the stages
of education in love to the particular requirements of each
child.
1. The Years of Innocence
78. It can be said that a child is in
the stage described in John Paul II's words as "the years of
innocence" from about five years of age until puberty the
beginning of which can be set at the first signs of changes in
the boy or girl's body (the visible effect of an increased
production of sexual hormones). This period of tranquility and
serenity must never be disturbed by unnecessary information
about sex. During those years, before any physical sexual
development is evident, it is normal for the child's interests
to turn to other aspects of life. The rudimentary instinctive
sexuality of very small children has disappeared. Boys and girls
of this age are not particularly interested in sexual problems,
and they prefer to associate with children of their own sex. So
as not to disturb this important natural phase of growth,
parents will recognize that prudent formation in chaste love
during this period should be indirect, in preparation for
puberty, when direct information will be necessary.
79. During this stage of development,
children are normally at ease with their body and its functions.
They accept the need for modesty in dress and behaviour.
Although they are aware of the physical differences between the
two sexes, the growing child generally shows little interest in
genital functions. The discovery of the wonders of creation
which accompanies this phase and the experiences in this regard
at home and in school should also be oriented towards the stages
of catechesis and preparation for the sacraments which takes
place within the ecclesial community.
80. Nonetheless, this period of
childhood is not without its own significance in terms of
psycho-sexual development. A growing boy or girl is learning
from adult example and family experience what it means to be
a woman or a man. Certainly, expressions of natural
tenderness and sensitivity should not be discouraged among boys,
nor should girls be excluded from vigorous physical activities.
On the other hand, in some societies subjected to ideological
pressures, parents should also protect themselves from an
exaggerated opposition to what is defined as a "stereotyping of
roles". The real differences between the two sexes should not be
ignored or minimized, and in a healthy family environment
children will learn that it is natural for a certain difference
to exist between the usual family and domestic roles of men and
women.
81. During this stage, girls will
generally be developing a maternal interest in babies,
motherhood and homemaking. By constantly taking the Motherhood
of the most holy Virgin Mary as a model, they should be
encouraged to value their femininity.
82. In this period, a boy is at a
relatively tranquil stage of development. This is often the
easiest time for him to set up a good relationship with his
father. At this time, he should learn that, although it must be
considered as a divine gift, his masculinity is not a sign of
superiority with regard to women, but a call from God to take on
certain roles and responsibilities. Boys should be discouraged
from becoming overly aggressive or too concerned about physical
prowess as proof of their virility.
83. Nonetheless, in the context of
moral and sexual information, various problems can arise in this
stage of childhood. In some societies today, there are planned
and determined attempts to impose premature sex information
on children. But, at this stage of development, children are
still not capable of fully understanding the value of the
affective dimension of sexuality. They cannot understand and
control sexual imagery within the proper context of moral
principles and, for this reason, they cannot integrate premature
sexual information with moral responsibility. Such information
tends to shatter their emotional and educational development and
to disturb the natural serenity of this period of life. Parents
should politely but firmly exclude any attempts to violate
children's innocence because such attempts compromise the
spiritual, moral and emotional development of growing persons
who have a right to their innocence.
84. A further problem arises when
children receive premature sex information from the mass media
or from their peers who have been led astray or received
premature sex education. In this case, parents will have to
begin to give carefully limited sexual information, usually to
correct immoral and erroneous information or to control obscene
language.
85. Sexual violence with regard to
children is not infrequent. Parents must protect their children,
first by teaching them a form of modesty and reserve with regard
to strangers, as well as by giving suitable sexual information,
but without going into details and particulars that might upset
or frighten them.
86. As in the first years of life also
during childhood, parents should encourage a spirit of
collaboration, obedience, generosity and self-denial in their
children, as well as a capacity for self-reflection and
sublimation. In fact, a characteristic of this period of
development is an attraction toward intellectual activities.
Using the intellect makes it possible to acquire the strength
and ability to control the surrounding situation and, before
long, to control bodily instincts, so as to transform them into
intellectual and rational activities.
An undisciplined or spoilt child is
inclined toward a certain immaturity and moral weakness in
future years because chastity is difficult to maintain if a
person develops selfish or disordered habits and cannot behave
with proper concern and respect for others. Parents should
present objective standards of what is right and wrong, thereby
creating a sure moral framework for life.
2. Puberty
87. Puberty, which constitutes the
initial phase of adolescence, is a time in which parents are
called to be particularly attentive to the Christian
education of their children. This is a time of
self-discovery and "of one's own inner world, the time of
generous plans, the time when the feeling of love awakens, with
the biological impulses of sexuality, the time of the desire to
be together, the time of particularly intense joy connected with
the exhilarating discovery of life. But often it is also the age
of deeper questioning, of anguished or even frustrating
searching, of a certain mistrust of others and dangerous
introspection, and the age sometimes of the first experiences of
setbacks and of disappointments".
88. Parents should pay particular
attention to their children's gradual development and to their
physical and psychological changes, which are decisive in the
maturing of the personality. Without showing anxiety, fear or
obsessive concern, parents will not let cowardice or convenience
hinder their work. This is naturally an important moment for
teaching the value of chastity, which will also be expressed in
the way sexual information is given. In this phase, educational
needs also concern the genital aspects, hence requiring a
presentation both on the level of values and the reality as a
whole. Moreover, this implies an understanding of the context of
procreation, marriage and the family, a context which must be
kept present in an authentic task of sexual education.
89. Beginning with the changes which
their sons and daughters experience in their bodies, parents are
thus bound to give more detailed explanations about sexuality
(in an on-going relationship of trust and friendship) each
time girls confide in their mothers and boys in their fathers.
This relationship of trust and friendship should have already
started in the first years of life.
90. Another important task for parents
is following the gradual physiological development of their
daughters and helping them joyfully to accept the development
of their femininity in a bodily, psychological and spiritual
sense. Therefore, normally, one should discuss the cycles of
fertility and their meaning. But it is still not necessary to
give detailed explanations about sexual union, unless this is
explicitly requested.
91. It is very important for adolescent
boys to be helped to understand the stages of physical and
physiological development of the genital organs before they get
this information from their companions or from persons who are
not well-intentioned. The physiological facts about male puberty
should be presented in an atmosphere of serenity, positively and
with reserve, in the framework of marriage, family and
fatherhood. Instructing both adolescent girls and boys should
also include detailed and sufficient information about the
bodily and psychological characteristics of the opposite sex,
about whom their curiosity is growing.
In this area, the additional supportive
information of a conscientious doctor or even a psychologist can
help parents, without separating this information from what
pertains to the faith and the educational work of the priest.
92. Through a trusting and open
dialogue, parents can guide their daughters in facing
any emotional perplexity, and support the value of Christian
chastity out of consideration for the other sex. Instruction for
both girls and boys should aim at pointing out the beauty of
motherhood and the wonderful reality of procreation, as well as
the deep meaning of virginity. In this way they will be helped
to go against the hedonistic mentality which is very widespread
today and particularly, at such a decisive stage, in preventing
the "contraceptive mentality", which unfortunately is
very common and which girls will have to face later in marriage.
93. During puberty, the
psychological and emotional development of boys can make
them vulnerable to erotic fantasies and they may be tempted to
try sexual experiences. Parents should be close to their sons
and correct the tendency to use sexuality in a hedonistic and
materialistic way. Therefore, they should remind boys about
God's gift, received in order to cooperate with him "to
actualize in history the original blessing of the Creator that
of transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to
person..."; and this will strengthen their awareness that,
"Fecundity is the fruit and the sign of conjugal love, the
living testimony of the full reciprocal self-giving of the
spouses". In this way sons will also learn the respect due to
women. The parents' task of informing and instructing is
necessary, not because their sons would not know about sexual
reality in other ways, but so that they will know about it in
the right light.
94. In a positive and prudent
way, parents will carry out what the Fathers of the Second
Vatican Council requested: "It is important to give suitable and
timely instruction to young people, above all in the heart of
their own families, about the dignity of married love, its role
and its exercise; in this way they will be able to engage in
honourable courtship and enter upon marriage of their own".
Positive information about sexuality
should always be part of a formation plan so as to create the
Christian context in which all information about life, sexual
activity, anatomy and hygiene is given. Therefore, the spiritual
and moral dimensions must always be predominant so as to have
two special purposes: presenting God's commandments as a way of
life, and the formation of a right conscience.
To the young man who asked him what he
had to do in order to attain eternal life, Jesus replied: "If
you would enter life, keep the commandments" (Matthew
19:17). After listing the ones that concern love for one's
neighbour, Jesus summed them up in this positive formulation:
"You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew
19:19). In order to present the commandments as God's gift
(written by his hand, cf. Exodus 31: 18), expressing the
Covenant with him, confirmed by Jesus' own example, it is very
important for the adolescent not to separate the commandments
from their relationship with a rich interior life, free from
selfishness.
95. As its departure point, the
formation of conscience requires being enlightened about: God's
project of love for every single person, the positive and
liberating value of the moral law, and awareness both of the
weakness caused by sin and the means of grace which strengthen
us on our path towards the good and towards salvation.
"Moral conscience, present at the heart
of the person" which is "man's most secret core and
sanctuary", as the Second Vatican Council affirms, "enjoins him
at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also
judges particular choices, approving those that are good and
denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the
authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the
human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments".
In fact, "conscience is a judgement of
reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of
a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of
performing, or has already completed". Therefore, the formation
of conscience requires being enlightened about the truth and
God's plan and must not be confused with a vague subjective
feeling or with personal opinion.
96. In answering children's
questions, parents should offer well-reasoned arguments
about the great value of chastity and show the intellectual and
human weakness of theories that inspire permissive and
hedonistic behaviour. They will answer clearly, without giving
excessive importance to pathological sexual problems. Nor will
they give the false impression that sex is something shameful or
dirty, because it is a great gift of God who placed the ability
to generate life in the human body, thereby sharing his creative
power with us. Indeed, both in the Scriptures (cf. Song of
Songs 1-8; Hosea 2; Jeremiah 3: 1-3;
Ezekial 23, etc.) and in the Christian mystical tradition,
conjugal love has always been considered a symbol and image of
God's love for us.
97. Since boys and girls at puberty are
particularly vulnerable to emotional influences, through
dialogue and the way they live, parents have the duty to help
their children resist negative outside influences that may lead
them to have little regard for Christian formation in love and
chastity. Especially in societies overwhelmed by consumer
pressures, parents should sometimes watch out for their
children's relations with young people of the opposite sex
without making it too obvious. Even if they are socially
acceptable, some habits of speech and conduct are not morally
correct and represent a way of trivializing sexuality, reducing
it to a consumer object. Parents should therefore teach their
children the value of Christian modesty, moderate dress, and,
when it comes to trends, the necessary autonomy characteristic
of a man or woman with a mature personality.
3. Adolescence in One's Plan in Life
98. In terms of personal development,
adolescence represents the period of self- projection and
therefore the discovery of one's vocation. Both for
physiological, social and cultural reasons, this period tends to
be longer today than in the past. Christian parents should
"educate the children for life in such a way that each one may
fully perform his or her role according to the vocation
received from God". This is an extremely important task
which basically constitutes the culmination of the parents'
mission. Although this task is always important, it becomes
especially so in this period of their children's life:
"Therefore, in the life of each member of the lay faithful there
are particularly significant and decisive moments for
discerning God's call...Among these are the periods of
adolescence and young adulthood".
99. It is very important for young
people not to find themselves alone in discerning their
personal vocation. Parental advice is relevant, at times
decisive, as well as the support of a priest or other properly
formed persons (in parishes, associations or in the new fruitful
ecclesial movements, etc.) who are capable of helping them
discover the vocational meaning of life and the various forms of
the universal call to holiness. "Christ's ?Follow me'
makes itself heard on the different paths taken by the disciples
and confessors of the divine Redeemer".
100. For centuries, the concept of
vocation was reserved exclusively for the priesthood and
religious life. In recalling the Lord's teaching, "You,
therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"
(Matthew 5:48), the Second Vatican Council renewed the
universal call to holiness. As Pope Paul VI wrote shortly after
the Council: "This strong invitation to holiness could be
regarded as the most characteristic element in the whole
Magisterium of the Council, and so to say, its ultimate
purpose". This was reiterated by Pope John Paul II: "The Second
Vatican Council has significantly spoken on the universal call
to holiness. It is possible to say that this call to holiness is
precisely the basic charge entrusted to all the sons and
daughters of the Church by a Council which intended to bring a
renewal of Christian life based on the gospel. This charge is
not a simple moral exhortation, but an undeniable requirement
arising from the mystery of the Church".
God calls everyone to holiness. He has
very precise plans for each person, a personal vocation
which each must recognize, accept and develop. To all Christians
priests, laity, married people or celibates the words of the
Apostle of the Nations apply: "God's chosen ones, holy and
beloved" (Colossians 3:12).
101. Therefore, in catechesis and the
formation given both within and outside of the family, the
Church's teaching on the sublime value of virginity and celibacy
must never be lacking, but also the vocational meaning of
marriage, which a Christian can never regard as only a human
venture. As St. Paul says "This is a great mystery, and I mean
in reference to Christ and the church." (Ephesians 5:32).
Giving young people this firm conviction is of supreme
importance for the good both of the Church and humanity which
"depend in great part on parents and on the family life that
they build in their homes".
102. Parents should always strive to
give example and witness with their own lives to fidelity
to God and one another in the marriage covenant. Their example
is especially decisive in adolescence, the phase when young
people are looking for lived and attractive behaviour models.
Since sexual problems become more evident at this time,
parents should also help them to love the beauty and strength of
chastity through prudent advice, highlighting the inestimable
value of prayer and frequent fruitful recourse to the sacraments
for a chaste life, especially personal confession. Furthermore,
parents should be capable of giving their children, when
necessary, a positive and serene explanation of the solid points
of Christian morality such as, for example, the indissolubility
of marriage and the relationship between love and procreation,
as well as the immorality of premarital relations, abortion,
contraception and masturbation. With regard to these immoral
situations that contradict the meaning of giving in marriage, it
is also good to recall that: "The two dimensions of conjugal
union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be
artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of
the conjugal act itself". In this regard, an in-depth and
reflective knowledge of the documents of the Church dealing with
these problems will be of valuable assistance to parents.
103. Masturbation particularly
constitutes a very serious disorder that is illicit in itself
and cannot be morally justified, although "the immaturity of
adolescence (which can sometimes persist after that age),
psychological imbalance or habit can influence behaviour,
diminishing the deliberate character of the act and bringing
about a situation whereby subjectively there may not always be
serious fault". Therefore, adolescents should be helped to
overcome manifestations of this disorder, which often express
the inner conflicts of their age and, in many cases, a selfish
vision of sexuality.
104. A particular problem that can
appear during the process of sexual maturation is
homosexuality, which is also spreading more and more in
urbanized societies. This phenomenon must be presented with
balanced judgement, in the light of the documents of the Church.
Young people need to be helped to distinguish between the
concepts of what is normal and abnormal, between subjective
guilt and objective disorder, avoiding what would arouse
hostility. On the other hand, the structural and complementary
orientation of sexuality must be well clarified in relation to
marriage, procreation and Christian chastity. "Homosexuality
refers to relations between men or between women who experience
an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of
the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the
centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis
remains largely unexplained". A distinction must be made between
a tendency that can be innate and acts of homosexuality that
"are intrinsically disordered" and contrary to Natural Law.
Especially when the practice of
homosexual acts has not become a habit, many cases can benefit
from appropriate therapy. In any case, persons in this situation
must be accepted with respect, dignity and delicacy, and all
forms of unjust discrimination must be avoided. If parents
notice the appearance of this tendency or of related behaviour
in their children, during childhood or adolescence, they should
seek help from expert qualified persons in order to obtain all
possible assistance.
For most homosexual persons, this
condition constitutes a trial. "They must be accepted with
respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust
discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons
are called to fulfil God's will in their lives and, if they are
Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the
difficulties they may encounter from their condition".
"Homosexual persons are called to chastity".
105. Awareness of the positive
significance of sexuality for personal harmony and development,
as well as the person's vocation in the family, society and the
Church, always represents the educational horizon to be
presented during the stages of adolescent growth. It must never
be forgotten that the disordered use of sex tends progressively
to destroy the person's capacity to love by making
pleasure, instead of sincere self-giving, the end of sexuality
and by reducing other persons to objects of one's own
gratification. In this way the meaning of true love between a
man and a woman (love always open to life) is weakened as well
as the family itself. Moreover, this subsequently leads to
disdain for the human life which could be conceived, which, in
some situations, is then regarded as an evil that threatens
personal pleasure. "The trivialization of sexuality is among the
principal factors which have led to contempt for new life. Only
a true love is able to protect life".
106. We must also remember how
adolescents in industrialized societies are preoccupied and at
times disturbed not only by the problems of self-identity,
discovering their plan in life and difficulties in
successfully integrating sexuality in a mature and well-oriented
personality. They also have problems in accepting themselves and
their bodies. In this regard, out-patient and specialized
centres for adolescents have now sprung up, often characterized
by purely hedonistic purposes. On the other hand, a healthy
culture of the body leads to accepting oneself as a gift and as
an incarnated spirit, called to be open to God and society. A
healthy culture of the body should accompany formation in this
very constructive period, which is also not without its risks.
In the face of what hedonistic groups
propose, especially in affluent societies, it is very important
to present young people with the ideals of human and Christian
solidarity and concrete ways of being committed in Church
associations, movements and voluntary Catholic and missionary
activities.
107. Friendships are very
important in this period. According to local social conditions
and customs, adolescence is a time when young people enjoy more
autonomy in their relations with others and in the hours they
keep in family life. Without taking away their rightful
autonomy, when necessary, parents should know how to say "no" to
their children and, at the same time, they should know how to
cultivate a taste in their children for what is beautiful, noble
and true. Parents should also be sensitive to adolescents'
self-esteem, which may pass through a confused phase when they
are not clear about what personal dignity means and requires.
108. Through loving and patient advice,
parents will help young people to avoid an excessive closing
in on themselves. When necessary, they will also teach them
to go against social trends that tend to stifle true love and an
appreciation for spiritual realities: "Be sober, be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion,
seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith,
knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of
your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have
suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called
you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore,
establish, and strengthen you" (1 Peter 5:8-10).
4. Towards Adulthood
109. It is not within the scope of this
document to deal with the subject of proximate and immediate
preparation for marriage, required for Christian formation and
particularly recommended by the needs of the times and Church
teaching. Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that the
parents' mission does not end when their children come of legal
age which, in any case, varies according to different cultures
and laws. Some particularly significant moments for young people
are also when they enter the working world or higher education,
moments when they come into contact with different behaviour
models and occasions that represent a real personal challenge
a brusque contact at times, but a potentially beneficial one.
110. By keeping open a confident
dialogue that encourages a sense of responsibility and respects
their children's legitimate and necessary autonomy, parents will
always be their reference point, through both advice and
example, so that the process of broader socialization will make
it possible for them to achieve a mature and integrated
personality, internally and socially. In a special way, care
should be taken that children do not discontinue their faith
relationship with the Church and her activities which, on the
contrary, should be intensified. They should learn how to choose
models of thought and life for their future and how to become
committed in the cultural and social area as Christians, without
fear of professing that they are Christians and without losing a
sense of vocation and the search for their own vocation.
In the period leading to engagement
and the choice of that prefered attachment which can lead to
forming a family, the role of parents should not consist merely
in prohibitions, much less in imposing the choice of a fiancι or
fiancιe. On the contrary, they should help their children to
define the necessary conditions for a serious, honorable and
promising union, and support them on a path of clear and
coherent Christian witness in relating with the person of the
other sex.
111. Parents should avoid adopting the
widespread mentality whereby girls are given every
recommendation regarding virtue and the value of virginity,
while the same is not required for boys, as if everything were
licit for them.
For a Christian conscience and a vision
of marriage and the family, St. Paul's recommendation to the
Philippians holds for every type of vocation: "...whatever is
true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any
excellency, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about
these things" (Philippians 4:8).
VII
PRACTICAL GUIDELINES
112. In the context of education in the
virtues, parents thus have the task of making themselves the
promoters of their children's authentic education for love.
Through its very nature, the primary generation of a
human life in the procreative act must be followed by the
secondary generation, whereby parents help their child to
develop his or her own personality.
Therefore, summing up what has been
said so far and putting it on a practical level, whatever is set
out in the following paragraphs is recommended.
Recommendations for Parents and
Educators
113. It is recommended that parents
be aware of their own educational role and defend and carry out
this primary right and duty. It follows that any educative
activity, related to education for love and carried out by
persons outside the family, must be subject to the parents'
acceptance of it and must be seen not as a substitute but as a
support for their work. In fact, "Sex education, which is a
basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out
under their attentive guidance whether at home or in educational
centres chosen and controlled by them". Frequently parents are
not lacking in awareness and effort, but they are quite alone,
defenceless and often made to feel they are wrong. They need
understanding, but also support and help by groups, associations
and institutions.
1. Recommendations for Parents
114. 1. It is recommended that
parents associate with other parents, not only in order to
protect, maintain or fill out their own role as the primary
educators of their children, especially in the area of education
for love, but also to fight against damaging forms of sex
education and to ensure that their children will be educated
according to Christian principles and in a way that is consonant
with their personal development.
115. 2. In the case where parents are
helped by others in educating their own children for love, it is
recommended that they keep themselves precisely informed on
the content and methodology with which such supplementary
education is imparted. No one can bind children or young
people to secrecy about the content and method of instruction
provided outside the family.
116. 3. We are aware of the difficulty
and often the impossibility for parents to participate fully
in all supplementary instruction provided outside the home.
Nevertheless, they have the right to be informed about the
structure and content of the programme. In all cases, their
right to be present during classes cannot be denied.
117. 4. It is recommended that parents
attentively follow every form of sex education that is given to
their children outside the home, removing their children
whenever this education does not correspond to their own
principles. However, such a decision of the parents must not
become grounds for discrimination against their children. On the
other hand, parents who remove their children from such
instruction have the duty to give them an adequate formation,
appropriate to each child or young person's stage of
development.
2. Recommendations for All Educators
118. 1. Since each child or young
person must be able to live his or her own sexuality in
conformity with Christian principles, and hence be able to
exercise the virtue of chastity, no educator not even
parents can interfere with this right to chastity (cf.
Matthew 18: 4-7).
119. 2. It is recommended that respect
be given to the right of the child and the young person to be
adequately informed by their own parents on moral and sexual
questions in a way that complies with his or her desire to be
chaste and to be formed in chastity. This right is further
qualified by a child's stage of development, his or her capacity
to integrate moral truth with sexual information, and by respect
for his or her innocence and tranquility.
120. 3. It is recommended that respect
be given to the right of the child or young person to
withdraw from any form of sexual instruction imparted outside
the home. Neither the children nor other members of their
family should ever be penalized or discriminated against for
this decision.
Four Working Principles and Their
Particular Norms
121. In the light of these
recommendations, education for love can take concrete form in
four working principles.
122. 1. Human sexuality is a sacred
mystery and must be presented according to the doctrinal and
moral teaching of the Church, always bearing in mind the effects
of original sin.
Informed by Christian reverence and
realism, this doctrinal principle must guide every moment
of education for love. In an age when the mystery has been taken
from human sexuality, parents must take care to avoid
trivializing human sexuality, in their teaching and in the help
offered by others. In particular, profound respect must be
maintained for the difference between man and woman which
reflects the love and fruitfulness of God himself.
123. At the same time, when teaching
Catholic doctrine and morality about sexuality, the lasting
effects of original sin must be taken into account, that is
to say, human weakness and the need for the grace of God to
overcome temptations and avoid sin. In this regard, the
conscience of every individual must be formed
clearly, precisely and in accord with spiritual values. But
Catholic morality is never limited to teaching about avoiding
sin. It also deals with growth in the Christian virtues and
developing the capacity for self-giving in the vocation of one's
own life.
124. 2. Only information proportionate
to each phase of their individual development should be
presented to children and young people.
This principle of timing has already
been presented in the study of the various phases of the
development of children and young people. Parents and all who
help them should be sensitive: (a) to the different
phases of development, in particular, the "years of innocence"
and puberty, (b) to the way each child or young person
experiences the various stages of life, (c) to particular
problems associated with these stages.
125. In the light of this principle,
the relevance of timing in relation to specific problems can
also be indicated.
(a) In later adolescence, young
people can first be introduced to the knowledge of the signs of
fertility and then to the natural regulation of fertility,
but only in the context of education for love, fidelity in
marriage, God's plan for procreation and respect for human life.
(b) Homosexuality should
not be discussed before adolescence unless a specific serious
problem has arisen in a particular situation. This subject must
be presented only in terms of chastity, health and "the truth
about human sexuality in its relationship to the family as
taught by the Church".
(c) Sexual perversions
that are relatively rare should not be dealt with except through
individual counselling, as the parents' response to genuine
problems.
126. 3. No material of an erotic nature
should be presented to children or young people of any age,
individually or in a group.
This principle of decency must
safeguard the virtue of Christian chastity.
Therefore, in passing on sexual
information in the context of education for love, the
instruction must always be "positive and prudent" and "clear
and delicate". These four words used by the Catholic Church
exclude every form of unacceptable content in sexual
education.
Moreover, even if they are not erotic,
graphic and realistic representations of childbirth, for example
in a film, should be made known gradually, so as not to create
fear and negative attitudes towards procreation in girls and
young women.
127. 4. No one should ever be invited,
let alone obliged, to act in any way that could objectively
offend against modesty or which could subjectively offend
against his or her own delicacy or sense of privacy.
This principle of respect for the
child excludes all improper forms of involving children and
young people. In this regard, among other things, this can
include the following methods that abuse sex education: (a)
every "dramatized" representation, mime or "role playing" which
depict genital or erotic matters, (b) making drawings,
charts or models etc. of this nature, (c) seeking
personal information about sexual questions or asking that
family information be divulged, (d) oral or written exams
about genital or erotic questions.
Particular Methods
128. Parents and all who help them
should keep these principles and norms in mind when they take up
various methods which seem suitable in the light of parental and
expert experience. We will now go on to single out these
recommended methods. The main methods to avoid will also be
indicated, together with the ideologies that promote and inspire
them.
Recommended Methods
129. The normal and fundamental method,
already proposed in this guide, is personal dialogue between
parents and their children, that is, individual formation
within the family circle. In fact there is no substitute for
a dialogue of trust and openness between parents and their
children, a dialogue which respects not only their stages of
development but also the young persons as individuals. However,
when parents seek help from others, there are various useful
methods which can be recommended in the light of parental
experience and in conformity with Christian prudence.
130. 1. As couples or as individuals,
parents can meet with others who are prepared for education
for love to draw on their experience and competence. These
people can offer explanations and provide parents with books and
other resources approved by the ecclesiastical authorities.
131. 2. Parents who are not always
prepared to face up to the problematic side of education for
love can take part in meetings with their children, guided by
expert persons who are worthy of trust, for example, doctors,
priests, educators. In some cases, in the interest of greater
freedom of expression, meetings where only daughters or sons are
present seem preferable.
132. 3. In certain situations, parents
can entrust part of education for love to another trustworthy
person, if there are matters which require a specific
competence or pastoral care in particular cases.
133. 4. Catechesis on morality
may be provided by other trustworthy persons, with particular
emphasis on sexual ethics at puberty and adolescence. Parents
should take an interest in the moral catechesis which is given
to their own children outside the home and use it as a support
for their own educational work. Such catechesis must not include
the more intimate aspects of sexual information, whether
biological or affective, which belong to individual formation
within the family.
134. 5. The religious formation of
the parents themselves, in particular solid catechetical
preparation of adults in the truth of love, builds the
foundations of a mature faith that can guide them in the
formation of their own children. This adult catechesis enables
them not only to deepen their understanding of the community of
life and love in marriage, but also helps them learn how to
communicate better with their own children. Furthermore, in the
very process of forming their children in love, parents will
find that they benefit much, because they will discover that
this ministry of love helps them to "maintain a living awareness
of the ?gift' they continually receive from their children". To
make parents capable of carrying out their educational work,
special formation courses with the help of experts can be
promoted.
Methods and Ideologies to Avoid
135. Today parents should be attentive
to ways in which an immoral education can be passed on to their
children through various methods promoted by groups with
positions and interests contrary to Christian morality. It would
be impossible to indicate all unacceptable methods. Here are
presented only some of the more widely diffused methods that
threaten the rights of parents and the moral life of their
children.
136. In the first place, parents must
reject secularized and anti-natalist sex education, which
puts God at the margin of life and regards the birth of a child
as a threat. This sex education is spread by large organizations
and international associations that promote abortion,
sterilization and contraception. These organizations want to
impose a false lifestyle against the truth of human sexuality.
Working at national or state levels, these organizations try to
arouse the fear of the "threat of over-population" among
children and young people to promote the contraceptive
mentality, that is, the "anti- life" mentality. They spread
false ideas about the "reproductive health" and "sexual and
reproductive rights" of young people. Furthermore, some
antinatalist organizations maintain those clinics which,
violating the rights of parents, provide abortion and
contraception for young people, thus promoting promiscuity and
consequently an increase in teenage pregnancies. "As we look
towards the year 2000, how can we fail to think of the young?
What is being held up to them? A society of ?things' and not of
?persons'. The right to do as they will from their earliest
years, without any constraint, provided it is ?safe'. The
unreserved gift of self, mastery of one's instincts, the sense
of responsibility these are notions considered as belonging to
another age".
137. Before adolescence, the immoral
nature of abortion, surgical or chemical, can be
gradually explained in terms of Catholic morality and reverence
for human life.
As regards sterilization and
contraception, these should not be discussed before
adolescence and only in conformity with the teaching of the
Catholic Church. Therefore, the moral, spiritual and health
values of methods for the natural regulation of fertility will
be emphasized, at the same time indicating the dangers and
ethical aspects of the artificial methods. In particular, the
substantial and deep difference between natural methods and
artificial methods will be shown, both with regard to respect
for God's plan for marriage as well as for achieving "the total
reciprocal self- giving of husband and wife" and openness to
life.
138. In some societies professional
associations of sex-educators, sex-counsellors and
sex-therapists are operating. Because their work is often
based on unsound theories, lacking scientific value and closed
to an authentic anthropology, and theories that do not recognize
the true value of chastity, parents should regard such
associations with great caution, no matter what official
recognition they may have received. When their outlook is out of
harmony with the teachings of the Church, this is evident not
only in their work, but also in their publications which are
widely diffused in various countries.
139. Another abuse occurs whenever
sex education is given to children by teaching them all the
intimate details of genital relationships, even in a graphic
way. Today this is often motivated by wanting to provide
education for "safe sex", above all in relation to the spread of
AIDS. In this situation, parents must also reject the promotion
of so-called "safe sex" or "safer sex", a dangerous and immoral
policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide
adequate protection against AIDS. Parents must insist on
continence outside marriage and fidelity in marriage as the only
true and secure education for the prevention of this contagious
disease.
140. One widely-used, but possibly
harmful, approach goes by the name of "values clarification".
Young people are encouraged to reflect upon, to clarify and to
decide upon moral issues with the greatest degree of "autonomy",
ignoring the objective reality of the moral law in general and
disregarding the formation of consciences on the specific
Christian moral precepts, as affirmed by the Magisterium of the
Church. Young people are given the idea that a moral code is
something which they create themselves, as if man were the
source and norm of morality.
However, the values clarification
method impedes the true freedom and autonomy of young people at
an insecure stage of their development. In practice, not only is
the opinion of the majority favoured, but complex moral
situations are put before young people, far removed from the
normal moral choices they face each day, in which good or evil
are easily recognizable. This unacceptable method tends to be
closely linked with moral relativism, and thus encourages
indifference to moral law and permissiveness.
141. Parents should also be attentive
to ways in which sexual instruction can be inserted in the
context of other subjects which are otherwise useful (for
example, health and hygiene, personal development, family life,
children's literature, social and cultural studies etc.). In
these situations it is more difficult to control the content of
sexual instruction. This method of inclusion is used in
particular by those who promote sex instruction within the
perspective of birth control or in countries where the
government does not respect the rights of parents in this field.
But catechesis would also be distorted if the inseparable links
between religion and morality were to be used as a pretext for
introducing into religious instruction the biological and
affective sexual information which the parents should give
according to their prudent decision in their own home.
142. Finally, as a general guideline,
one needs to bear in mind, that all the different methods of
sexual education should be judged by parents in the light of the
principles and moral norms of the Church, which express human
values in daily life. The negative effects which various methods
can produce in the personality of children and young people
should also be taken into account.
Inculturation and Education for
Love
143. An authentic education for love
must take account of the cultural context in which the parents
and their children live. As a union between professed faith and
concrete life, inculturization means creating a harmonious
relationship between faith and culture, where Christ and his
Gospel have absolute precedence over culture. "Therefore,
because it transcends the entire natural and cultural order, the
Christian faith is, on the one hand, compatible with all
cultures insofar as they conform to right reason and good will,
and, on the other hand, to an eminent degree, is a dynamizing
factor of culture. A single principle explains the totality of
relationships between faith and culture: Grace respects nature,
healing in it the wounds of sin, comforting and elevating it.
Elevation to the divine life is the specific finality of grace,
but it cannot realize this unless nature is healed and unless
elevation to the supernatural order brings nature, in the way
proper to itself, to the plenitude of perfection". Therefore,
explicit and premature sex education can never be justified in
the name of a prevailing secularized culture. On the contrary,
parents must educate their own children to understand and face
up to the forces of this culture, so that they may always follow
the way of Christ.
144. In traditional cultures, parents
must not accept practices which are contrary to Christian
morality, for example rites associated with puberty which
sometimes involve introducing young people to sexual practices
or acts contrary to the dignity and rights of the person, such
as the genital mutilation of girls. Thus the authorities of the
Church are to judge whether local customs are compatible with
Christian morality. But, the traditions of modesty and reserve
in sexual matters, which characterize various societies, must be
respected everywhere. At the same time, the right of young
people to adequate information must be maintained. Furthermore,
the particular role of the family in such a culture must be
respected, without imposing any Western model of sex education.
VIII
CONCLUSION
Assistance for Parents
145. There are various way of helping
and supporting parents in fulfilling their fundamental right and
duty to educate their children for love. Such assistance never
means taking from parents or diminishing their formative right
and duty, because they remain "original and primary",
"irreplaceable and inalienable". Therefore, the role which
others can carry out in helping parents is always (a)
subsidiary, because the formative role of the family is
always preferable, and (b) subordinate, that is,
subject to the parents' attentive guidance and control. Everyone
must observe the right order of cooperation and collaboration
between parents and those who can help them in their task. It is
clear that the assistance of others must be given first and
foremost to parents rather than to their children.
146. Those who are called to help
parents in educating their children for love must be disposed
and prepared to teach in conformity with the authentic moral
doctrine of the Catholic Church. Moreover, they must be mature
persons, of a good moral reputation, faithful to their own
Christian state of life, married or single, laity, religious or
priests. They must not only be prepared in the details of moral
and sexual information but they must also be sensitive to the
rights and role of parents and the family, as well as the needs
and problems of children and young people. In this way, in the
light of the principles and content of this guide, they must
enter "into the same spirit that animates parents". But if
parents believe themselves to be capable of providing an
adequate education for love, they are not bound to accept
assistance.
Valid Sources for Education for
Love
147. The Pontifical Council for the
Family is aware of the great need for valid material,
specifically prepared for parents in conformity with the
principles set out in this guide. Parents who are competent in
this field and convinced of these principles should be involved
in preparing this material. They will thus be able to offer
their own experience and wisdom in order to help others educate
their children for chastity. Parents will also welcome the
assistance and supervision of the appropriate ecclesiastical
authorities in promoting suitable material and in removing or
correcting what does not conform to the principles set out in
this guide, concerning doctrine, timing and the content and
method of such education. These principles also apply to all the
modern means of social communication. In a special way, this
Pontifical Council for the Family is counting on the work of
sensitization and support by the Episcopal Conferences, who will
know how to vindicate, where necessary, the right of the family
and parents and their proper domains, also with regard to State
educational programs.
Solidarity with Parents
148. In fulfilling a ministry of love
to their own children, parents should enjoy the support and
cooperation of the other members of the Church. The rights
of parents must be recognized, protected and maintained, not
only to ensure solid formation of children and young people, but
also to guarantee the right order of cooperation and
collaboration between parents and those who can help them in
their task. Likewise, in parishes or apostolates, clergy and
religious should support and encourage parents in striving to
form their own children. In their turn, parents should remember
that the family is not the only or exclusive formative
community. Thus they should cultivate a cordial and active
relationship with other persons who can help them, while never
forgetting their own inalienable rights.
Hope and Trust
149. In the face of many challenges to
Christian chastity, the gifts of nature and grace which parents
enjoy always remain the most solid foundations on which the
Church forms her children. Much of the formation in the home
is indirect, incarnated in a loving and tender atmosphere,
for it arises from the presence and example of parents whose
love is pure and generous. If parents are given confidence in
this task of education for love, they will be inspired to
overcome the challenges and problems of our times by their own
ministry of love.
150. The Pontifical Council for the
Family therefore urges parents to have confidence in their
rights and duties regarding the education of their children, so
as to go forward with wisdom and knowledge, knowing that they
are sustained by God's gift. In this noble task, may parents
always place their trust in God through prayer to the Holy
Spirit, the gentle Paraclete and Giver of all good gifts. May
they seek the powerful intercession and protection of Mary
Immaculate, the Virgin Mother of fair love and model of faithful
purity. Let them also invoke Saint Joseph, her just and chaste
spouse, following his example of fidelity and purity of heart.
May parents constantly rely on the love which they offer to
their own children, a love which "casts out fear", which "bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things" (1 Corinthians 13:7). Such love is and must be
aimed towards eternity, towards the unending happiness promised
by Our Lord Jesus Christ to those who follow him: "Blessed are
the pure of heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).
Vatican City, December 8, 1995
Alfonso Card. Lσpez Trujillo
President of the Pontifical Council for the Family
+ Most Rev. Elio Sgreccia
Titular Bishop of Zama Minor
Secretary of the Pontifical Council
for the Family
