Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me
Achieving world peace or teaching children to behave at Mass - which is tougher?
Achieving world peace or teaching children to behave at Mass - which is tougher?
In his 1929 encyclical Christian Education of Youth, Pope Pius XI taught that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions . . . (ibid., no. 66). His Holiness is reminding us of the dangers of providing children with information on human sexuality at a time when they do not have the maturity to use this information properly.
As a former educator who saw the scribbling on the wall in the 1970s, when schools started soliciting rock stars for anti-drug-abuse videos (which my eighth-graders, predictably, laughed at), I see today seven factors turning out this nations first generation of killer kids.
My adolescent is completely immersed in himself, very focused on expressing himself. Im worried that hes losing sight of the objective truths weve raised him with.
The right and responsibility of parents in the education of their children is expressed in a number of magisterial documents, some of the more recent of which are excerpted here.
Dr. Robert Spitzer, the" instrumental figure in the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic manual of mental disorders, has announced a new study, which has altered his beliefs on the issue. "Like most psychiatrists," says Spitzer, "I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue some people can and do change."
Mans sexual energies are of extraordinary power and complexity. Is this energy something we can use however we wish, or is there some objective standard to which this energy should be conformed? The Western tradition, like many other traditions, has consistently held that there is such an objective standard, and it is the reality called marriage. Today, however, many think that marriage can be whatever they want it to be.
The pill hasnt exactly delivered the paradise it promised. Our brave new world of fertility control is full of sad ironies.
Many of the problems we hear about today - sexual harassment, date rape, young women who suffer from eating disorders and report feeling a lack of control over their bodies - are all connected, I believe, to our cultures attack on modesty.
Achieving internal chastity is not an easy task. For many, it is a lifelong struggle, fought day in and day out.