"Francis has been totally orthodox..can only be faulted by faulty reading"

For those of us parents who need help with sex ed, a totally encompassing Catholic Church vetted program is far superior to learning it from the world. But the current program just released by the Church is not it. It is insane to provide pornographic images to depict what goes on in the minds of teenagers. They've seen a million of them already. And the absence of Catholic teaching on sin, lawful marriage, sexual perversion, etc. makes this more suitable for a public school.

I strongly suggest that we parents buck up and take responsibility for teaching our children about human sexuality, using materials provided by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family or other authentic Catholic resources, but NOT this new material just provided for us by the Vatican. Something is terribly wrong.

I was raised with six brothers, all of us very close together in age. I doubt that there was any side of sexuality that I did not witness or hear about. With my mom having nine of us in ten years, she did her best (extraordinarily well) to keep us on the right path. But boys will be boys and a full-time morality cop was unavailable, so I helped.....it kept me from straying too often myself.

I have had no problem discussing anything with my own children in spite of their frequent embarrassment in the early years. Now, because of our openness and many conversations and disagreements on current issues, they always hear God's truth on the matter and often bring up very personal matters themselves. This is our job and it's too risky to pass it off onto others; their immortal souls are at stake.

So everyone, toughen up and meet the issues on sexuality head on. Give them God's beauty and purpose to remember and apply to their choices. Go into this with the graces given us in the sacraments, holy resources, and an unabashed demeanor that tells them you love them enough to make them really uncomfortable because you want them in heaven with you.

 

Thank you

I would like to make another comment about this though. Yes I am speaking from my own experience and geographic location (California USA). Poor catechisis is rampant in my diocese and I would dare to say the vast majority of the country (there are pockets where I think a good job is being done, and it varies as to whether an order such as Dominicans are running the parish or strictly diocesean priests). It was the poor catechisis I encountered that drove me to start teaching in the first place. I have no idea if anyone on this forum has experience teaching catechisis, but for myself I've taught 2nd grade twice (the first reconciliation year here), 3rd grade (the first communion year here), 4th grade, and also the confirmation years (for my area that's 10-12 grade). I have to say that I've always been surprised by how knowledgable kids are about sexuality, even the little ones. They pick up on it from everywhere - home, school, movies, friends - and it usually saddens me by what looks to my eyes as a sign of the loss of innocence in little kids. I have never felt in all the different grade levels a need to explain anything that sounds like sex ed. I'm usually blown away by the things they tell me they already know. As a catechist, I only see them for about an hour and a half once a week, and only during the regular school year. I can't replace the knowledge of sex or morality that they will learn from everywhere else. It's impossible. The exception may be Catholic schools, but that's a whole different topic. The only thing I can do is teach what is right and what is wrong - the morality of what they are already knowledgable about. THAT is what they don't know. Morality is rarely learned these days. Kids learn in school not to bully, but they don't learn masturbation is a sin (or why) and offends God - they learn it can be a comfort to themselves and that they aren't hurting anyone. I talked with a girl who told me that she was embarrassed in her 3rd grade classroom because the teacher was demonstrating with a banana how to properly use a condom. As much as I would like to, I personally can't prevent her from learning this from her school teacher. What I can do as a catechist is teach her the morality involved and what offends God and why. Book knowledge of sexuality by the church, I feel, is a pointless and useless endeavor in our society. The very best that we as catechists can do in the limited time we have in teaching these children is to instruct them in the morality of all the evil that the rest of the world is already telling them is a-ok.

 

You've convinced me, DM!

 

Thank you David for your thoughtful and honest reply.

 

World Youth Day: Vatican Venue for Sex Education.

http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/ind...rld-youth-day-vatican-venue-for-sex-education

 

For those who want to investigate what the Vatican project is about then rather than read the predictably negative views from the 'remnant' or 'lifesite' websites, you can judge for yourselves at:
http://www.educazioneaffettiva.org/?lang=en

I have yet to investigate!

 

I obviously had a difficult time responding to John Rowley when I wrote my previous incomplete response with a new device. My point was to highlight the astute clarification given by Archbishop Sample:

"Understood in its proper context, Pope Francis simply repeats in a very striking way what the church has taught with regard to persons who experience deep-seated same-sex attraction. He was really not breaking new ground, and was certainly not advocating support for same-sex 'marriage,' as some have tried to assert."

The full article with quotes from two solid, orthodox prelates, Archbishop Sample and Bishop Paprocki:

'Who Am I to Judge?' -- a Closer Look
Sep 16, 2015


by Terry Mattingly

Soon after same-sex marriage became law in Illinois, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield offered a highly symbolic liturgical response: an exorcism rite.

"Our prayer service today and my words are not meant to demonize anyone, but are intended to call attention to the diabolical influences of the devil that have penetrated our culture," he said in his sermon. "These demonic influences are not readily apparent to the undiscerning eye. ... The deception of the Devil in same-sex marriage may be understood by recalling the words of Pope Francis when he faced a similar situation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2010."

So Paprocki quoted then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, facing the redefinition of civil marriage in Argentina: "Let us not be naive: It is not a simple political struggle; it is an intention (which is) destructive of the plan of God. It is not a mere legislative project ... but rather a 'move' of the father of lies who wishes to confuse and deceive the children of God."

"Father of lies" is a biblical reference to Satan.

When it comes to gay rights, this is probably not the first Pope Francis quotation that springs into the minds of most people, even those eagerly awaiting his Sept. 23-27 visit to the corridor between Washington, D.C., and New York City. The papal visit is linked to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

A search-engine query for "Francis" and the precise phrase "Who am I to judge?" yielded nearly 200,000 hits, including 4,540 in current news articles.

A Washington Post guide to the pope's "most liberal statements" noted, about this 2013 remark: "On a flight back from his visit to Brazil, Francis struck a different note on homosexuality than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who had once described it as an 'intrinsic moral evil.' In contrast, Francis had this to say about homosexuals: 'If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?'"

The problem with the "Who am I to judge?" statement is that most people quoting it pull the phrase out the context in which it was used during a casual meeting between Pope Francis and reporters, according to Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample.

The pope was "speaking about God's mercy and the call for all of us to allow a person, including ourselves, to convert and put his or her sins in the past," Sample noted online. "These words of Pope Francis were delivered in response to a very specific question about a particular individual who was accused of inappropriate homosexual behavior in the past."

Thus, Sample stressed these words from the pope's remarks:

"I see that many times in the Church, people search for 'sins from youth,' for example, and then publish them. They are not crimes, right? No, sins. But if a person, whether it be a layperson, a priest or a religious sister, commits a sin and then converts, the Lord forgives, and when the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is very important for our lives," said Pope Francis.

"When we confess our sins and we truly say, 'I have sinned in this,' the Lord forgets, and so we have no right not to forget, because otherwise we would run the risk of the Lord not forgetting our sins. That is a danger. This is important: a theology of sin. ... If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?"


 Thus, the pope affirmed church teachings that temptation is not in itself a sin. In fact, people facing temptations are children of God and should be "treated with respect, compassion and sensitivity," noted Sample.

"If someone sins in this regard, converts, confesses his or her sins, they are forgiven and the Lord forgets their sins," he added. "So should we forgive and forget. Hence, 'Who am I to judge?'

"Understood in its proper context, Pope Francis simply repeats in a very striking way what the church has taught with regard to persons who experience deep-seated same-sex attraction. He was really not breaking new ground, and was certainly not advocating support for same-sex 'marriage,' as some have tried to assert."

(Terry Mattingly is the editor of GetReligion.org and Senior Fellow for Media and Religion at The King's College in New York City. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.)

God bless His Holiness, Pope Francis.

 

Another fine quote, John. Thank you.

Pope Francis: Where Calumny is, There is the Devil
by Edward Pentin
– EP

For the third time in as many weeks, Pope Francis has warned not to speak ill of others, and again mentioned the devil in another striking homily this morning in the chapel of the Vatican's Santa Martha residence.

Calumny, he said, is worse than sin and is the direct expression of Satan. "We are all sinners; all of us. We all commit sins. But calumny is something else. It is of course a sin, too, but it is something more,” he said, according to a Vatican Radio report.

“Calumny aims to destroy the work of God, and calumny comes from a very evil thing: it is born of hatred. And hate is the work of Satan. Calumny destroys the work of God in people, in their souls. Calumny uses lies to get ahead.” Be in no doubt, he said: “Where there is calumny, there is Satan himself."

He then gave the example of St. Stephen, who was a victim of calumny, wrongly accused of bearing false witness, and was martyred because of it. The Church’s first martyr, the Pope said, does not repay falsehood with falsehood. Instead, he “looks to the Lord and obeys the law", being in the peace and truth of Christ. It’s the way of martyrdom, he said, and there have been numerous examples of those who have witnessed to the Gospel with great courage.

But he added – and later repeated – that the age of martyrs “is not yet over” and that “even today we can say, in truth, that the Church has more martyrs now than during the first centuries.”

“The Church has many men and women who are maligned through calumny, who are persecuted, who are killed in hatred of Jesus, in hatred of the faith,” the Holy Father continued. “Some are killed because they teach the catechism, others are killed because they wear the cross ... Today, in many countries, they are maligned, they are persecuted ... they are our brothers and sisters who are suffering today, in this age of the martyrs".

This age of “such great spiritual turmoil” reminded the Pope of an ancient Russian icon that depicts Our Lady covering the people of God with her mantle: "We pray to Our Lady to protect us, and in times of spiritual turbulence the safest place is under the mantle of Our Lady. She is the mother who takes care of the Church. And in this time of martyrs, she is the protagonist, the protagonist of protection: She is the Mother. (...) Let us state with faith: Mother, the Church is under your protection: Care for the Church.”

This is the third time at these early morning Masses that the Pope has warned against speaking poorly of others. Last month he said it was the equivalent of selling someone “like a commodity,” not unlike Judas, who sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. A few days later, he warned against gossip, saying that complaining behind each other's backs is a temptation that comes “from the Evil One, who does not want the Spirit to dwell among us and give peace.”

Since his election last month, the Pope has also made frequent references to the devil. Observers have noted this emphasis with interest, especially as explicit mentions of the devil largely fell into disuse in the years following the Second Vatican Council. With his disappearance from Church texts, exorcists complained that the rite of exorcism had become useless against demons.

Pope Francis’s frequent allusions to “Satan” and the “Evil One” may well be part of an effort —one that Benedict XVI had already begun — to cast out the presence of evil and so bring back healing and harmony to the Church, and to parts of the Vatican in particular.

 

You are not foolin anyone here, David. The Vatican Sex Education Program includes sexually-explicit and erotic images worthy of soft-core porn, not a Catholic publication. And now it is being FORCED down the throats of Catholic parents in one diocese:



NASHVILLE, Tennessee, August 31, 2016 - The Catholic Diocese of Nashville is backing the administration of a private Catholic school in refusing to allow parents to opt their children out of an explicit sexual education program that parents say will corrupt their children by providing them with erotic and even salacious detail. Parents opposing the course say their hearts are broken since they feel betrayed by those in whom they had placed the trust of educating their children.

“We don’t want the Catholic school to corrupt our kids,” said Susan Skinner whose child attends Father Ryan High School in Nashville, TN and who represents a group of concerned parents. “Why can’t Catholic schools simply be Catholic?” she added.

School administration told parents earlier this year that students cannot be opted out from the course, suggesting that when parents send their children to school they hand over their right and duty as primary educator.

When LifeSiteNews contacted the diocese for comment on the matter, Director of Communications Rick Musacchio backed the school, stating that the course was "appropriate and necessary” and that “it is our policy that all students participate fully in all required classes."

LifeSiteNews then reached out directly to Nashville Bishop David Choby, who is considered to be a traditional-minded bishop, to ask if Musacchio accurately represented his position. The bishop’s secretary Elizabeth Clay said the bishop was on vacation and assured LifeSiteNews that Musacchio represented the bishop and that it “is his position” that parents are not allowed to opt their children out of the sex-ed course.

Well-known Catholic apologist, author, and commentator Fr. Peter Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., told LifeSiteNews that Catholic parents do not surrender their rights over their children when they send them to school.

“Parents never relinquish their rights over their children anywhere, not even in a state school where parents are able to withdraw their kids from a course or a presentation if they don’t like it,” he said.

The Catholic Church holds that it is the parents’ primary right and duty to educate their children while schools play only a subsidiary role. Pope Pius XI emphasized this point in his 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge in which he urged parents living under the Nazi regime in Germany to never surrender their moral duty to instruct their children.

“Parents…have a primary right to the education of the children God has given them in the spirit of their Faith, and according to its prescriptions. Laws and measures which in school fail to respect this freedom of the parents go against natural law and are immoral,” the pope wrote.

Pope Saint John Paul II affirmed parental rights in the 1995 document “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality” put out by the Pontifical Council for the Family, stating that schools are “bound” to respect parents when it comes to sex-ed in school.

“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 pope stated. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/u...-not-let-parents-opt-kids-out-of-salacious-se


I went to Catholic schools my whole life. My children went to Catholic schools their whole life. NEVER were they exposed to this kind of trash put out by the Vatican and NEVER would they have been forced to do so. Something foul is afoot. I hope Pope Francis makes a statement on this issue and fast.

 

The wolves of the world and the church have hypnotised the majority of the population into believing a lie that masqurades as truth; namely that that there is no God nor any moral absolutes and by believing this lie the world sinks further into the abyss and most people are on a highway to hell!
Our poor Holy Father is doing his absolute best to stay one step ahead of the wolves that are out flanking him on all sides. Not an enviable position.

It seems to me that not only do the wolves become stronger each day, controlling politics, laws, economy and money while fanning the flames of Godless beliefs, through their control of the media, but also this same media constantly misquotes Our Pope or takes what he says out of context. Not an enviable position.

It also seems that Our Holy Father is in the relentless firing line, from good catholics that want clarification of media reports and wonder why he says what he says and I will agree, it would be edifying to get clarification on some of what is reported. Still not an enviable position for Our Holy Father.

In the meantime, Our Holy Father is busily about his Fathers business.......calling Gods children back to God, by putting out the fires of New age beliefs where he can, and also speaking of Gods mercy and love, inviting all people to the waters of repentance and forgiveness to refresh this poor generation of souls!


I think some of us mistakenly believe Our Holy Father is not putting out the right fires or is giving the 'waters of life' to those unrepentent in sin!

But we must remember that when Jesus ate and drank with sinners He was not endorsing the sin! He was loving the person behind the sin and giving those sinners, the truth of Love so they come to renouce their sins and embrace the beauty and freedom of truth!

 

I think this latest Vatican project of explicit sex education just goes to show how sneaky wolves have indeed infiltrated into the vatican and yet again have, injected their poisionous venom.
Like you I hope the Holy Father gets wind of this so he can make a statement and remove this rubbish altogether!

 

Josephite, it seems that you feel that Pope Francis has not seen the contents of the new Vatican Sex Ed program.
Does it normally work like that?

 

I'm not sure in what way I was supposed to be fooling anyone by posting a link to a website that had been highlighted by lifesitenews and others. I have yet to see examples of what is upsetting people. I am not prepared to listen to opinions coming from websites like lifestenews as their agenda is fundamentally to criticize virtually anything Pope Francis says.

I hope eventually to be able to make an informed comment about all this when more balanced opinion becomes available.

 

This is the exact reason why the Church needs to teach an understanding of sexuality in relation to the teachings of the Church at a young age. The reasons for procreation, what the sacrament of marriage means, and why contraception is wrong so that the teachings can counter act the modernism entering into children lives. It is difficult to explain these things without explaining sexual education to a certain degree. But I do believe its possible to teach to children without being explicit about it.

 

If you havent looked at the material , why defend it?

 

I would assume that with the entire 'vatican state' to govern and the spiritual welfare of the entire Christian world to look after, that Our Holy Father would have to at least delegate the majority of portfolios, [like with the CDF, Vatican bank or investigations of potential saints], to prelates that he trusts to work in these areas, to deliver projects that do not compromise the Catholic Faith. These Prelates would then have many others working under them.
I suspect that Pope Francis may have been briefed on the new Vatican Sex Ed program but not given many details, possibly trusting the word and works of others.
How very difficult it must be for our Holy Father as it seems the Cardinals and Priests on whom he can rely are getting fewer and fewer.

 

Yet he promotes the worst.

'Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are'

 

You are right. The old maxim........'keep you friends close and your enemies closer' doesn't seem to be working for our Holy Father.

But we can't see his friends, they're been eclipsed by the mountain of enemies that he is keeping closer.
So your right again, He needs a new strategy!

 

Orthodoxy?