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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 14, 2022 5:03:41 GMT
What are students in Catholic high schools taught about the immorality and mortal sinfulness of contraception nowadays?
Especially considering that the vast majority of their parents practice it?
It's not an age-inappropriate subject. It would be a rare, rare student in Grade 9 who does not know where babies come from, or how reproduction works (think Carrie). And there are high school seniors who marry shortly after graduation. It's not as common as it used to be, but it does happen.
And would Catholic high schools not bring this up, to keep from alienating those parents?
44 years ago, our senior high school religion teacher (a priest who has since been involuntarily removed from the active priesthood), to his credit, did have each student, Catholic and non-Catholic (there weren't that many of the latter), read Humanae vitae, write a report on it to prove they had read it, and then --- I remember this day like it was five minutes ago --- said, and these were his exact words, "now I'll show you a way to get around this", invoked "conscience", and constructed a specious argument that the word "magisterium" implies the existence of "magisteria", and that the laity who did not accept HV were one of those "magisteria".
Does that kind of nonsense still go on, or do they just not bring the matter up? I honestly don't know.
In our high school homeschool religion class, I have taught my son (age 15, Grade 10) the mortal sinfulness and intrinsic evil of contraception, taking recourse to natural law as Paul VI did, and he fully understands the teaching of the Church on this matter.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 14, 2022 10:41:01 GMT
We were taught nothing about it in high school to my recollection. We had a course on marriage that was mostly about choosing a spouse, getting along with the spouse, and the Church teaching on divorce. It may have mentioned in passing that no artificial birth control was allowed but it would have been a passing mention because like I said I don’t remember it at all. The teacher was an extremely no-nonsense older religious sister who had exchanged her habit for a very frumpy modern dress but otherwise did not come off as “modern” at all and had the demeanor of a prison warden. She also taught the class on Death and Dying which I found quite useful when my father died about 10 years later.
In “health” class, which was taught by an older lay nurse, we learned the basics of how babies are made and saw an awful movie where a very homely middle-aged lady was filmed from a very unattractive, gross angle, giving birth. Again I don’t think contraception was mentioned or if it was, it was such a fleeting mention that it didn’t stick in my mind, especially after being bombarded with that icky birth film. Edited to add, racking my brain I think at some point it was mentioned that the Church was okay with the form of birth control called the “Billings method” and that it was very effective. This did not go further than a mention.
I learned about contraception from reading womens magazines and books on my own. School/ church had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 14, 2022 14:09:17 GMT
We were taught nothing about it in high school to my recollection. We had a course on marriage that was mostly about choosing a spouse, getting along with the spouse, and the Church teaching on divorce. It may have mentioned in passing that no artificial birth control was allowed but it would have been a passing mention because like I said I don’t remember it at all. The teacher was an extremely no-nonsense older religious sister who had exchanged her habit for a very frumpy modern dress but otherwise did not come off as “modern” at all and had the demeanor of a prison warden. She also taught the class on Death and Dying which I found quite useful when my father died about 10 years later. In “health” class, which was taught by an older lay nurse, we learned the basics of how babies are made and saw an awful movie where a very homely middle-aged lady was filmed from a very unattractive, gross angle, giving birth. Again I don’t think contraception was mentioned or if it was, it was such a fleeting mention that it didn’t stick in my mind, especially after being bombarded with that icky birth film. Edited to add, racking my brain I think at some point it was mentioned that the Church was okay with the form of birth control called the “Billings method” and that it was very effective. This did not go further than a mention. I learned about contraception from reading womens magazines and books on my own. School/ church had nothing to do with it whatsoever. That's really sad. I'd be interested to know if your experience was more typical of Catholic schools of that time (I gather that you and I are about the same age), or whether the more "hands-on" approach, such as I experienced --- to give the priest his due, he did have everyone read HV, so no one could claim ignorance of the Church's teaching --- was more common, and what is being done in Catholic schools 40+ years afterwards. Our good pastor (the one who dissuaded me from going to the seminary discussed in another recent thread) was no slouch regarding HV, he did not hesitate to teach it from the pulpit, and to call those opposed to HV to repentance and a change of mind and heart. This pastor was deeply disliked by the parish in general, but I was one of his biggest fans. He didn't mince words. Our class was a pretty worldly bunch --- drug use was rampant and some students actually came to class "high" from a surreptitious joint at lunch hour --- and nobody was in ignorance of where babies came from and how they got there. One upperclassman was openly gay and it was common knowledge, nobody gave him any grief about it, in fact, he was very popular and well-liked, nice guy. I was solemnly assured by a classmate that several of the girls in our class were known to be lesbians. The school was definitely not a "bubble". It still exists as a college prep academy with a minuscule enrollment. (The school was co-ed out of necessity, our parish could barely afford one school, let alone two.) The book we used was this one: www.amazon.com/search-meaning-love-sex-marriage/dp/B0006C9ISCThankfully, our school had not yet purged traditional pre-Vatican II books from the library --- I devoured these books and did not hesitate to call BS on dissident ideas, which earned me more than one reprimand from various teachers. Any Catholic school that ignores traditional Catholic teaching on birth control, or openly calls it into question, isn't worthy of the name, and should be shut down. When I began teaching my son traditional Catholic doctrine in homeschool religion class (Baltimore Catechism), it soon became apparent that he knew next to nothing, and it also became apparent that I had pulled him out of the parish school just in time, it wasn't so much that they taught anything that was wrong, just that there were huge knowledge caps from what they didn't cover.. There has been a lot of "damage control" to do ("neglect remediation" might be more like it), so far with good result. After we finish BC #3 this year (we've read BC #2 cover-to-cover twice), we will move on to Fr Morrow's My Catholic Faith, which will comprise our religion class for Grades 11 and 12.
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Post by glennonp on Oct 14, 2022 14:25:05 GMT
I was in high school in the mid-to-late 1970s, a decade or so after Humanae Vitae. We were taught that the Church did not allow artificial contraception, although we didn't dive deeply into the subject. It was "Here's what the Church says and you need to obey it" but that was about it. We all knew what the teaching was. There was a boy in my class who refused to allow his girlfriend to get on the Pill (they were sexually active) because the Church taught that we couldn't. Yeah, I know...kind of a disconnect there. But I bring it up to illustrate that we knew what the teaching was.
My daughters' experience was different. Attending high school in the 2000s and 2010s, they spent a great deal of time talking about Humanae Vitae, but also on the virtue of chastity, Theology of the Body, etc. Whereas my experience was "Here's the rule, obey it and don't ask questions", their experience was "Here's the teaching, here's the reasoning behind it, here's some beautiful thinking about God's plan for sexuality", etc.
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Post by theguvnor on Oct 14, 2022 15:49:48 GMT
We were taught nothing about it in high school to my recollection. We had a course on marriage that was mostly about choosing a spouse, getting along with the spouse, and the Church teaching on divorce. It may have mentioned in passing that no artificial birth control was allowed but it would have been a passing mention because like I said I don’t remember it at all. The teacher was an extremely no-nonsense older religious sister who had exchanged her habit for a very frumpy modern dress but otherwise did not come off as “modern” at all and had the demeanor of a prison warden. She also taught the class on Death and Dying which I found quite useful when my father died about 10 years later. In “health” class, which was taught by an older lay nurse, we learned the basics of how babies are made and saw an awful movie where a very homely middle-aged lady was filmed from a very unattractive, gross angle, giving birth. Again I don’t think contraception was mentioned or if it was, it was such a fleeting mention that it didn’t stick in my mind, especially after being bombarded with that icky birth film. Edited to add, racking my brain I think at some point it was mentioned that the Church was okay with the form of birth control called the “Billings method” and that it was very effective. This did not go further than a mention. I learned about contraception from reading womens magazines and books on my own. School/ church had nothing to do with it whatsoever. We probably knew about sex than many of our teachers as it was an inner-city school. Our biology teacher got given the joyous task of demonstrating how to use a condom. This biology teacher was a bloke very near retirement who had never married and he was the worst possible person you could have picked. He got out a banana and started trying to show us how to use one. One my friends Kathleen piped up and went, 'You don't do it like that' and took it from him and I knew very well that she knew how to put one on from personal experience. Cue our teacher going red. We wouldn't normally have had condoms included in this section of teaching but it was the height of the AIDs epidemic and the school bent on it a bit. Our careers teacher was married to my English teacher and about 15 years younger than her husband. She was also a lot more streetwise and had a fairly party girl background before marriage. Everyone was surprised she married the English teacher as he was a former military officer and quite introverted but they got on nicely. She just went, 'You live in the East End of London, keep your legs closed if you don't want to be bringing a baby up on benefits girls and boys keep your trousers zipped if you don't want girl's daddies or brothers coming to have a gentle world with you. Anyone want to talk about future plans for going to college or apprenticeships.' This teacher came from a background a lot like the students came from so she knew explaining the mechanics of sex to us was stupid. At sixteen a good fifty percent of the girls in the room would have lost their virginity anyway. As to death and dying I'd seen plenty of people pass on in the family by the time I hate around age ten so this was no big deal. All of us were used to hearing about kids going back to Ireland or Italy etc. for grandparent's funerals and so forth or going to someone's house where you'd have a coffin laid out on tables at times in the more old-fashioned homes. My father noted when his own father died they sat around the dead body toasting it all night in the coffin. We had these stupid movies about giving birth and that as well, mind you they were so dated they'd get catcalls and comments like, 'don't fancy yours much mate' when the woman would appear on screen. One wit called out, 'Go on son, stick it up her' and pulled out into the corridor and told to behave himself. Also comments of, 'Don't think much of this porno movie' and stuff like that were forthcoming.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 14, 2022 17:39:49 GMT
By the time we were watching that movie we'd already had about three girls in the class get pregnant. They would leave school when it started to show. One of them later caused a minor scandal by returning to school and often bringing her baby to functions outside of school hours. Most people were welcoming to the baby but others thought it was a bad example to show to us schoolgirls. I personally was just happy she hadn't aborted it and thought it was good she was allowed to finish up school, at the same time I thought it was a stupid mess to get into and was not really into dancing attention on babies at age 16 so I did not think about it much. I also wasn't interested in fooling around with guys at that age because I'd seen enough to know most of them were just out for what they could get and were not into lasting relationships for the most part, there were a few exceptions but they tended to be older guys from particular ethnic subcultures different from my own.
In thinking about this I think health class might have given a short talk on forms of contraception not allowed by the Church and how most of them were ineffective, such as comdoms can break, withdrawal doesn't work, and douching doesn't work either. Sex ed back then was very controversial so they likely did not want to say a whole lot, but at the same time they wanted to make sure girls got the basic correct facts on intercourse and how babies were made because there were definitely some who were going to either get misinformation or be told nothing at home. AIDS wasn't yet an issue as that didn't come up till several years after I graduated.
US culture doesn't really expose people to death in the same way as Irish and other European cultures do. My mother for instance had never had to plan a funeral until my dad died and she was already in her mid-60s. Her older sibs had handled the parents' funerals and when her mom died she hadn't even been able to go to the wake and funeral as it was too far away and my dad was having one of his serious illnesses right that minute. I had to go with her to help make the arrangements for Dad and as I had never done such a thing either I was glad for the death class as my poor mother was a bit horrified by the whole thing and leaning on me for support.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 14, 2022 17:50:08 GMT
I was in high school in the mid-to-late 1970s, a decade or so after Humanae Vitae. We were taught that the Church did not allow artificial contraception, although we didn't dive deeply into the subject. It was "Here's what the Church says and you need to obey it" but that was about it. We all knew what the teaching was. There was a boy in my class who refused to allow his girlfriend to get on the Pill (they were sexually active) because the Church taught that we couldn't. Yeah, I know...kind of a disconnect there. But I bring it up to illustrate that we knew what the teaching was. My daughters' experience was different. Attending high school in the 2000s and 2010s, they spent a great deal of time talking about Humanae Vitae, but also on the virtue of chastity, Theology of the Body, etc. Whereas my experience was "Here's the rule, obey it and don't ask questions", their experience was "Here's the teaching, here's the reasoning behind it, here's some beautiful thinking about God's plan for sexuality", etc. Your experience in the mid-to-late 70s was the same as mine. As I said in the other post, nobody was confused about the basic teaching, but whether people chose to follow it was a different matter. Pregnancy outside of marriage was still considered disgraceful, especially for the girl but also in some cases for the guy. I don't know how "sad" it was because like I said we already knew the teaching, nobody was condoning premarital sex or artificial contraception, and there wasn't much reason for school to spend a ton of time on it. I think Theology of the Body was a game changer in terms of presenting the whole subject of sexuality to young people. But back then it wasn't out yet. Now the kids have whole curriculums, workshops and retreats on Theology of the Body. It's a different mindset. Also parents today are less likely to get upset about sex ed being taught in a Catholic school. Back then a lot of parents were disapproving of that and some of them probably sent their kid to Catholic school to keep them away from that sort of subject matter.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 14, 2022 18:18:14 GMT
I was in high school in the mid-to-late 1970s, a decade or so after Humanae Vitae. We were taught that the Church did not allow artificial contraception, although we didn't dive deeply into the subject. It was "Here's what the Church says and you need to obey it" but that was about it. We all knew what the teaching was. There was a boy in my class who refused to allow his girlfriend to get on the Pill (they were sexually active) because the Church taught that we couldn't. Yeah, I know...kind of a disconnect there. But I bring it up to illustrate that we knew what the teaching was. My daughters' experience was different. Attending high school in the 2000s and 2010s, they spent a great deal of time talking about Humanae Vitae, but also on the virtue of chastity, Theology of the Body, etc. Whereas my experience was "Here's the rule, obey it and don't ask questions", their experience was "Here's the teaching, here's the reasoning behind it, here's some beautiful thinking about God's plan for sexuality", etc. I like the second approach much better. Catholics need to be able to know why things are right or wrong, true or false, good or bad, and to be able to give a strong defense of what the Church teaches. So many Catholics, if pressed, will say something like "I dunno, that's just what I was taught", and a determined evangelical fundamentalist on one hand, or an equally determined secularist on the other hand, can take someone like that and slice them to ribbons. It often descends into a pathetic appeal of "it is my faith..." or "because the Church says so..." coupled with emotional agitation and that feeling one gets when they can't defend what they believe, or refute challenges to it. It is as though secular college professors have a "game plan" that they put into play the first semester of freshman year, to "jar loose" the religious faith of their students who possess it, such that the freshmen go home for Thanksgiving and tell their family "everything is relative and there is no absolute truth". I've seen it done and I know precisely how they operate.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2022 20:27:34 GMT
What are students in Catholic high schools taught about the immorality and mortal sinfulness of contraception nowadays? Especially considering that the vast majority of their parents practice it? It's not an age-inappropriate subject. It would be a rare, rare student in Grade 9 who does not know where babies come from, or how reproduction works (think Carrie). And there are high school seniors who marry shortly after graduation. It's not as common as it used to be, but it does happen. And would Catholic high schools not bring this up, to keep from alienating those parents? 44 years ago, our senior high school religion teacher (a priest who has since been involuntarily removed from the active priesthood), to his credit, did have each student, Catholic and non-Catholic (there weren't that many of the latter), read Humanae vitae, write a report on it to prove they had read it, and then --- I remember this day like it was five minutes ago --- said, and these were his exact words, "now I'll show you a way to get around this", invoked "conscience", and constructed a specious argument that the word "magisterium" implies the existence of "magisteri a", and that the laity who did not accept HV were one of those "magisteria". Does that kind of nonsense still go on, or do they just not bring the matter up? I honestly don't know. In our high school homeschool religion class, I have taught my son (age 15, Grade 10) the mortal sinfulness and intrinsic evil of contraception, taking recourse to natural law as Paul VI did, and he fully understands the teaching of the Church on this matter. You know, Homeschooldad, at my non-Catholic secondary school, we were taught all sorts of things during these sex education classes that not only contradict the moral norms of Holy Church but also of any reasonable man in our society. When I was in Year 10 - which is different to Grade 10 in the USA if I recall correctly (I was 14) - we had these classes, we were taught that we needed to use contraception, we were taught all about the various 'alternative' LQBT lifestyles, etc. I was not a practising Catholic at the time, but even then I realised that what we were being taught that nothing short of indoctrination of youth. In fact I refused to engage in some of the activities in that class. I am very worried for my younger brother who is being taught this nonsense currently as his school which is affiliated to the Anglican Church - I sometimes consider writing a letter to the Anglican Diocese as some of what is being taught to him even contradicts the moral teaching that is explicitly upheld by the Anglican Church in our country. Your son is very lucky to have such an education - if every school in my country, or even just every Catholic school, asked its students to read Humanae vitae, then I believe society would be in a very different place. Paul VI - I have his portrait in front of me now, his pontificate was so inspirational and his words so prophetical - predicted all the degeneracy of modern Western society.
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Post by theguvnor on Oct 14, 2022 20:31:55 GMT
By the time we were watching that movie we'd already had about three girls in the class get pregnant. They would leave school when it started to show. One of them later caused a minor scandal by returning to school and often bringing her baby to functions outside of school hours. Most people were welcoming to the baby but others thought it was a bad example to show to us schoolgirls. I personally was just happy she hadn't aborted it and thought it was good she was allowed to finish up school, at the same time I thought it was a stupid mess to get into and was not really into dancing attention on babies at age 16 so I did not think about it much. I also wasn't interested in fooling around with guys at that age because I'd seen enough to know most of them were just out for what they could get and were not into lasting relationships for the most part, there were a few exceptions but they tended to be older guys from particular ethnic subcultures different from my own. In thinking about this I think health class might have given a short talk on forms of contraception not allowed by the Church and how most of them were ineffective, such as comdoms can break, withdrawal doesn't work, and douching doesn't work either. Sex ed back then was very controversial so they likely did not want to say a whole lot, but at the same time they wanted to make sure girls got the basic correct facts on intercourse and how babies were made because there were definitely some who were going to either get misinformation or be told nothing at home. AIDS wasn't yet an issue as that didn't come up till several years after I graduated. US culture doesn't really expose people to death in the same way as Irish and other European cultures do. My mother for instance had never had to plan a funeral until my dad died and she was already in her mid-60s. Her older sibs had handled the parents' funerals and when her mom died she hadn't even been able to go to the wake and funeral as it was too far away and my dad was having one of his serious illnesses right that minute. I had to go with her to help make the arrangements for Dad and as I had never done such a thing either I was glad for the death class as my poor mother was a bit horrified by the whole thing and leaning on me for support. Irish culture loves funerals - get a group of older Irish people together and half the chat will be whose funeral it was last week. By the time I was 18 I'd probably planned about three funerals and that was partly because I had a higher level of formal education than the generation behind me, many of whom had very limited schooling. I'd get constant stuff like, 'Get that boy to write the letter, do the paperwork, he's a bit of a brainbox and good with big words and can make it sound impressive.' I used to dread my father knocking on my door with a notepad and pen as a teen as I knew it meant, 'Please help me write a letter.'
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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 14, 2022 21:00:36 GMT
Religious education has got far more sophisticated. My daughter was in high school in the 2000's. They actually completed a legit certificate in Theology as part of the curriculum. Another assignment was to make a teaching brochure focusing on a particular issue of Catholic ethics. My daughter did IVF. The only one they were told they couldn't touch was homosexuality.
In high school we received a small booklet on Catholic sexual ethics but the topic wasn't taught to us in depth. Every now and then a Priest would come and we wrote questions about the topic and they went into a box and then he would answer them. I remember spending all those sessions blazing red blushing.
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 14, 2022 21:23:48 GMT
Since I only went to Catholic school through the middle of the 6th grade, contraception never came up at school. I don't recall of it being discussed much at CCD either, but that was decades ago, and maybe I forgot.
I will simply say on the subject of sex, contraception, NFP, or any of the other topics which come up over and over again, actually seems like too much on this forum. Even the folks here who had the proper Church education regarding the matters still failed to follow the Church teachings admittedly.
So if you knew what the Church expected and still failed, what good was getting the proper education in the first place, it didn't work.
Maybe there could be a study done as to whether or not the proper Catholic education related to all sexual matters make any difference as to whether or not those teachings are followed throughout life.
Yes it is easy to say, well, I slipped and didn't follow Church teaching during X period in my life, but now I follow it to the T. Yep, after decades of marriage, or after child bearing years, or once a spouse dies, or for any other number of reasons it really does become much easier to follow Church teachings around sex in our 50's, 60's or beyond than it is when we are in our teens, 20's and 30's.
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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 14, 2022 21:38:17 GMT
Since I only went to Catholic school through the middle of the 6th grade, contraception never came up at school. I don't recall of it being discussed much at CCD either, but that was decades ago, and maybe I forgot. I will simply say on the subject of sex, contraception, NFP, or any of the other topics which come up over and over again, actually seems like too much on this forum. Even the folks here who had the proper Church education regarding the matters still failed to follow the Church teachings admittedly. So if you knew what the Church expected and still failed, what good was getting the proper education in the first place, it didn't work. Maybe there could be a study done as to whether or not the proper Catholic education related to all sexual matters make any difference as to whether or not those teachings are followed throughout life. Yes it is easy to say, well, I slipped and didn't follow Church teaching during X period in my life, but now I follow it to the T. Yep, after decades of marriage, or after child bearing years, or once a spouse dies, or for any other number of reasons it really does become much easier to follow Church teachings around sex in our 50's, 60's or beyond than it is when we are in our teens, 20's and 30's. I really agree with you here. I actually have followed Catholic teaching on sexuality for all my life ie staying celibate until marriage, learning NFP and not using contraception and I know just how difficult it has been. Especially navigating it with a husband who wasn't taught those things. I know that it is only by the grace of God and being raised in a very good Catholic home, that we have managed to stay the course. I find it gives you more of a compassion for others rather than condemnation.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 14, 2022 22:57:26 GMT
What are students in Catholic high schools taught about the immorality and mortal sinfulness of contraception nowadays? Especially considering that the vast majority of their parents practice it? It's not an age-inappropriate subject. It would be a rare, rare student in Grade 9 who does not know where babies come from, or how reproduction works (think Carrie). And there are high school seniors who marry shortly after graduation. It's not as common as it used to be, but it does happen. And would Catholic high schools not bring this up, to keep from alienating those parents? 44 years ago, our senior high school religion teacher (a priest who has since been involuntarily removed from the active priesthood), to his credit, did have each student, Catholic and non-Catholic (there weren't that many of the latter), read Humanae vitae, write a report on it to prove they had read it, and then --- I remember this day like it was five minutes ago --- said, and these were his exact words, "now I'll show you a way to get around this", invoked "conscience", and constructed a specious argument that the word "magisterium" implies the existence of "magisteri a", and that the laity who did not accept HV were one of those "magisteria". Does that kind of nonsense still go on, or do they just not bring the matter up? I honestly don't know. In our high school homeschool religion class, I have taught my son (age 15, Grade 10) the mortal sinfulness and intrinsic evil of contraception, taking recourse to natural law as Paul VI did, and he fully understands the teaching of the Church on this matter. You know, Homeschooldad, at my non-Catholic secondary school, we were taught all sorts of things during these sex education classes that not only contradict the moral norms of Holy Church but also of any reasonable man in our society. When I was in Year 10 - which is different to Grade 10 in the USA if I recall correctly (I was 14) - we had these classes, we were taught that we needed to use contraception, we were taught all about the various 'alternative' LQBT lifestyles, etc. I was not a practising Catholic at the time, but even then I realised that what we were being taught that nothing short of indoctrination of youth. In fact I refused to engage in some of the activities in that class. I am very worried for my younger brother who is being taught this nonsense currently as his school which is affiliated to the Anglican Church - I sometimes consider writing a letter to the Anglican Diocese as some of what is being taught to him even contradicts the moral teaching that is explicitly upheld by the Anglican Church in our country. Your son is very lucky to have such an education - if every school in my country, or even just every Catholic school, asked its students to read Humanae vitae, then I believe society would be in a very different place. Paul VI - I have his portrait in front of me now, his pontificate was so inspirational and his words so prophetical - predicted all the degeneracy of modern Western society. Let me be clear that it was me who was required to read HV, 44 years ago, not my son. I have imparted the teaching to him, consonant with his age and ability to understand the teaching and the reasons for it, but I haven't yet required him to read the document. We cover a lot in our homeschool religion class, and Catholic moral teachings on married life are just part of it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2022 23:01:25 GMT
You know, Homeschooldad, at my non-Catholic secondary school, we were taught all sorts of things during these sex education classes that not only contradict the moral norms of Holy Church but also of any reasonable man in our society. When I was in Year 10 - which is different to Grade 10 in the USA if I recall correctly (I was 14) - we had these classes, we were taught that we needed to use contraception, we were taught all about the various 'alternative' LQBT lifestyles, etc. I was not a practising Catholic at the time, but even then I realised that what we were being taught that nothing short of indoctrination of youth. In fact I refused to engage in some of the activities in that class. I am very worried for my younger brother who is being taught this nonsense currently as his school which is affiliated to the Anglican Church - I sometimes consider writing a letter to the Anglican Diocese as some of what is being taught to him even contradicts the moral teaching that is explicitly upheld by the Anglican Church in our country. Your son is very lucky to have such an education - if every school in my country, or even just every Catholic school, asked its students to read Humanae vitae, then I believe society would be in a very different place. Paul VI - I have his portrait in front of me now, his pontificate was so inspirational and his words so prophetical - predicted all the degeneracy of modern Western society. Let me be clear that it was me who was required to read HV, 44 years ago, not my son. I have imparted the teaching to him, consonant with his age and ability to understand the teaching and the reasons for it, but I haven't yet required him to read the document. We cover a lot in our homeschool religion class, and Catholic moral teachings on married life are just part of it. It sounds like you have a very decent homeschool procedure here. I used to think that homeschooled students did virtually nothing but in the last few years I have become more familiar with Catholic homeschooling and the benefits it can offer when done properly. Some parents in Western countries may feel they have no choice but to homeschool in order to protect their children from the things that pass at schools these days.
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