Sex Education

SEX EDUCATION. - An integral part of the functions of the organism, the sexual function too cannot be excluded from the educational plan that tends to re-establish the psychosomatic equilibrium disturbed in man by original sin. "One must never lose sight of the fact that the subject of Christian education is man as a whole, spirit joined to body, in unity of nature, in all his faculties, natural and supernatural, as right reason and Revelation make him known to us..." (Pius XI, encyclical Divini illius Magistri, of 31 Dec. 1929 [AAS, 21 (1929), p. 744]).

If this cannot be denied by any honest and intelligent educator, in its practical application the question of sexual education becomes extremely thorny and controversial, particularly when it becomes intertwined with that of sexual instruction, setting up the strongest disagreement between Christian pedagogy and the secular pedagogy that traces back to the pedagogical naturalism of Rousseau.

On the subject of sexual education, opinions divide into two opposing camps: that of initiation or revelation and that of silence. On the one hand it is maintained: a certain number of young people fall into sexual vice through ignorance of evil, coming to know occasionally the instrumental pleasure conjoined with the activity of the function in question, they then learn to provoke it, convinced that they are doing something, though perhaps unseemly, not sinful and not harmful to health. A certain number are initiated by companions already experienced in vice, so that an impure revelation about the sexual organs and functions lubriciously excites the defenceless imagination and, on the slope of an unhealthy curiosity, makes them slide into sin. A pure revelation, which teaches the admirable harmony of organs and functions, the lofty purpose with regard to procreation, the harms of premature use and of abuse, both for oneself and for one's offspring, would be the best antidote for the venereal sin whose determinism, according to such theories, is entirely founded on the fascination of mystery and the attraction of the unknown, which grows without restraint in ignorance of the guilt and of the harms of bad use.

To this, the followers of silence object: to teach, particularly to boys, the structure and function of the reproductive apparatus, its functional deviations and the vices conjoined to these, the harms and diseases that can derive from them, is gravely dangerous, because it disturbs the imagination already so exuberant in the subject, produces obscene representations in the mind, titillates curiosity and, rather than restraining, pushes the individual to want to experience it. Moreover, initiation is superfluous, since experience teaches that many young people, even in the most complete ignorance of the things of sex, remain chaste by the sole means of an indirect education, such as a wise direction of the sensibility, the avoidance of idleness and bad company, the generic training of the will, education in religiosity, and, above all, availing themselves of prayer and the means of Grace. To such arguments, they add that the direct method of revelation is new, contrary to the tradition of Christian families and to the practice of the Church.

In the difficult task of resolving the doubt: whether to give preference to the method of silence or to that of revelation, it must immediately be said that the question cannot be posed in such an absolute manner. Excellent educators and moralists (v. the citations reported in Ruiz Amado [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 118 ff. and Lanza-Palazzini [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 44 ff.) maintain the usefulness, the advisability, indeed the obligation of a sexual education and give the greatest weight to the circumstances and individual conditions of the single cases, the manner in which it is imparted counting for far more than the whether. To resolve the question in an absolute manner, it seems that a classical tradition or the practice of other epochs cannot be invoked, which certainly, examined from the historical side, appears to have adapted itself variably to the circumstances, the moral level, the educational necessities of the various times and cannot bear an absolute generalization. More than to the opinions of individual men, great value must be given to the decisions of the Holy Office and to the words of the Supreme Pontiffs, particularly to those which, being more recent, appear better adapted to our age and, by their tone and the circumstances in which they were pronounced, appear to carry great weight.

The address of Pope Pius XII, delivered on 18 Sept. 1951 to a group of French fathers of families, appears to be of this kind. In it it is said that "in moral education, neither initiation nor instruction can of themselves bring any advantage, that it is on the contrary gravely unhealthy and prejudicial, if it is not strongly bound to a constant discipline, to a vigorous self-mastery, to the use, everywhere, of the supernatural forces of prayer and the Sacraments" (AAS, [1951], p. 733). In this address Pius XII explicitly links back to what Pius XI had already said on 31 Dec. 1929 (encyclical cit., ibid. [1929], p. 747): "Quite widespread is the error of those who, with dangerous presumption and with an ugly word, promote a so-called sexual education, falsely deeming that they can forearm young people against the dangers of sex, with purely natural means, such as a rash initiation and preventive instruction for all indiscriminately, and even publicly, and, worse still, by exposing them early to the occasions, to dry them out, as they say, and as it were to harden their soul against the dangers... It is evident that, especially in the young, offences against good morals are not so much the effect of intellectual ignorance as principally of the infirm will, exposed to occasions and not sustained by the means of Grace... If, in view of all the circumstances, some individual instruction becomes necessary, at the opportune time, on the part of one who has from God the educational mission and the grace of state, all the well-known cautions of traditional Christian education are to be observed...".

From the context of the words of the two Pontiffs it appears that the condemnation really intends to strike the methods with a naturalistic basis, made up of initiation and instruction alone, disjoined, if not indeed opposed, "to a constant discipline, to a vigorous self-mastery, to the use, everywhere, of the supernatural forces of prayer and the Sacraments"; already on other occasions Pius XII had clarified his thought, admitting that, in particular opportune circumstances, the advisability or the necessity of individual instructions may arise. In fact he, in the address delivered on 26 Oct. 1941 to the women of Catholic Action gathered in Rome from the Italian dioceses, had pronounced words that clearly inculcated in parents the advisability of a sexual education, albeit with all those most scrupulous precautions required by the subject: "With your perspicacity as mothers and educators, thanks to the trusting openness of heart that you will have known how to instill in your children, you will not fail to scrutinize and discern the occasion and the moment when certain hidden questions that have presented themselves to their minds will have produced in their senses special disturbances. It will be up to you for your daughters, to the father for your sons, insofar as it appears necessary, to lift cautiously, delicately the veil of truth, and to give them a prudent, just and Christian answer to those questions and those anxieties. Received from your lips as Christian parents, at the opportune hour, in the opportune measure, with all due precautions, the revelations about the mysterious and wonderful laws of life will be heard with reverence mixed with gratitude, they will enlighten their souls with far less danger than if they learned them haphazardly, from troubled encounters, from clandestine conversations, at the school of untrustworthy companions already too knowing, through secret readings, all the more dangerous and pernicious the more the secret inflames the imagination and excites the senses. Your words, if sensible and discreet, can become a safeguard and a warning in the midst of the temptations of corruption that surround them..." (AAS, 33 [1941], pp. 455-56).

It appears therefore clearly that the Pontiff does not wish to exclude unconditionally every form of sexual education for any circumstance, and for every type of person; but only to condemn, by proclaiming it dangerous and fallacious, an absolutely lay and naturalistic form reduced solely to "a temerarious initiation and preventive instruction for all indiscriminately, and even publicly."

It seems that the same conclusion can be reached with regard to a decree and an instruction, both of the Congregation of the Holy Office. The decree, dated 11 March 1931 (AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 118-19), to the question whether the so-called method of sexual education or even of sexual initiation can be approved, responds negatively, affirming that in the education of the young the method used up to this moment by the Church and by holy men and recommended by the Pontiff in the encyclical Divini Illius Magistri must be entirely preserved. The condemnation, however, must be interpreted in relation to the particular informative approach of the sexual education proper to the era, an approach corresponding to the fact that "the supporters of the biological or physiological method fail to recognize original sin in man, and maintain that outside of ignorance alone there exists no other defect that must be remedied" (Lanza-Palazzini, op. cit. in bibl., p. 42). The instruction of the Holy Office concerns the norms which confessors must prudently observe in carrying out their office (norms of 16 May 1943, reported in Monitore ecclesiastico, 68 [1943], pp. 76-79). Explicitly, in it is said "Itidem ne audeat confessarius, seu sponte seu rogatus de natura vel atque ad id nullo unquam praetextu adducatur". If such norms clearly appear to prohibit the priest from giving the penitent a sexual instruction (docere), on the characteristics and the mechanism of the sexual function, they leave unprejudiced the question of a true "sexual education" from which the priest, who in conscience should deem it necessary in a particular case, cannot be prevented.

On this concept of not abandoning to itself the field of sexual education and even less of positively forbidding it to those who have the obligation of education, Pius XII seems to insist in the address to the Teachers of the Discalced Carmelites on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of their International College, on 25 Sept. 1951: "Quid vero dicamus de castitate?... de rebus agitur, quae reverenti modo rationeque tractari debent. Quocirca huiusmodi verecundia non ita accipienda est, ut hac super causa perpetuo aequiparetur silentio utque in impertienda disciplina morum ne sobrius quidem cautusque sermo de iis unquam fiat. His super rebus adulescentes consiliis idoneis instruantur eisque licent aperire animum, sine haesitatione quaerere, responsum accipere, quod securum, perspicuum, satis explicatum ipsis lumen et fiduciam iniciat" (AAS [1951], pp. 736).

The words of the current Pontiff, in which is touched the problem of sexual education, addressed each time to educators: mothers, women of Catholic Action, fathers of families, educators of religious, bring into focus a particular aspect and a well-determined sector of sexual education, that of the preparation of educators for this duty.

It must be agreed that often there exists, and particularly there where the opposite should most be the case, a great ignorance and a great disinterest in certain categories of educators with regard to the problem of sexual education. In particular, parents often take no interest in the question, and through laziness or misplaced modesty almost show that they are unaware that their children have a sexual life and that the education of this represents for them a precise duty, no less important and grave than the formation of every other faculty. Many parents find an easy escape from this duty, taking refuge in the myth of the undisputed purity of their children. Others willingly accept, as an alibi for educational disinterest, the principle of the inevitability or at least of the irresistibility of sexual license or that of the presumed harm that chastity may produce on health.

Therefore let those to whom the young are entrusted, and especially parents, be enlightened on certain particular points regarding the problems of sexual education, so that they may well realize the terms of the question and with true knowledge of the matter may carry out at the opportune moment their mission. The points on which to concentrate their attention are the following: 1) how great is the spread of sexual abuse; 2) it being a prejudice that chastity is harmful to the health of the young and that sexual license is inevitable or even necessary, particularly for males; 3) it being far more useful, from the purely pedagogical side, apart from the use of means of supernatural value (prayer, the Sacraments) to be placed in the very first rank, that sexual education, rather than through authoritarian and absolute prohibitions, be carried out, starting from childhood and progressively with the growth of age, rationally and persuasively to form in the young the conscience of the sexual function, clearly directed to an end, legitimate only in marriage, in which the primary ends (procreation and education of offspring) and secondary ends (mutual help and remedy of concupiscence) can find a sure and harmonious development.

With regard to the first point, educators must be put on guard against excessive optimism. While not wishing to accept outright statistical results according to which sexual license, even in its most unnatural or perverted forms, would be the norm for almost all individuals, holding to what the experience of priests in the confessional, of our best educators, and of the most serious and prudent authors teaches (v. L. Scremin, op. cit. in bibl.), one must admit the very wide diffusion of sexual abuse in every sex, age and social condition. From this one can indirectly infer how great is the probability among the young of immoral contagion and of impure revelation on the part of peers, and how dangerous and unreasonable is the system of educational negativism carried to extremes. With regard to the presumed harm of chastity, v. this entry (Enc. Catt., vol. III, col. 1050). With regard to the necessity that sexual education, in cases where it appears suitable or even obligatory, particularly in the pre-nuptial and pubertal period, be imparted in a rational and persuasive form, it is clear that only through such a path can there be taken away from sexual license that force which can come to it from prejudice, from ignorance, from the uncontrolled unleashing of the vegetative life; and this serves very well to give the will effective motives of rational support alongside the supernatural action of the Sacraments and of Grace. Moreover, it must be borne in mind how always, in every educational manifestation, our rational and free nature, especially from adolescence onward, more easily bends and lets itself be guided by persuasion and by a motivated precept than by authoritarian and absolute command.

In conclusion, far from any aprioristic absolutism, it is thought that the problem of sexual education cannot bear a single solution in one sense or the other, because in individual practical cases many elements can determine the choice of one method rather than the other, one moment rather than another; thus there comes to the forefront, rather than the type of education, the particular manner in which it is applied.

Precisely with regard to the manner, it seems that the following general principles of sexual education can be accepted by every intelligent and honest educator. 1) Sexual education should never be given, in its explicit form, according to a pre-established plan of age, in common, still less in promiscuity of sex; therefore not in school or lectures, but individually, the only manner in which it can be adapted and graduated to each case, avoiding the danger that the malice of one may spoil the simplicity with which the initiation is given and received. 2) The educator should always act in person, therefore not by means of a book placed in the hands of the pupil, since it is not possible by such means to proportion the revelation to the individual's present needs, to his level of instruction and education, to the particular reaction of the moment. 3) Sexual education should be imparted "by those who have from God the educational mission and the grace of state" (Pius XI, encyclical Divini illius Magistri: AAS [1929], p. 747), therefore in the first place by parents, then by qualified educators (priests, religious, laypeople). 4) With regard to the form, let it not be a matter of simple sexual instruction, but let it be raised to the level of a true sexual education, constituted not only by the teaching of a certain number of notions concerning sex and its organs and specific functions, but tending to form the conscience, the responsibility, the volitional mastery of the sexual function.

Giuseppe de Ninnio