Cathal Barry
Sex education must involve more than just teaching children scientific facts, newly released sex education guidelines by the Church here claim.
The guidelines also dismiss as a “distortion” any attempt to communicate the facts of life without reference to the religious and moral dimensions of human sexuality or to the student’s need to grow in maturity.
“Scientific facts are not the whole truth about human sexuality and reproduction. To allow children to become aware of the mere facts without being helped to see them in their rich human meaning would be to deprive them of the truth,” the guidelines state.
The document, Guidelines on Relationships and Sexuality Education, claims children “should be taught from the beginning to recognise, at their own level that sexuality is a gift from God”.
“They should learn to appreciate that being a girl or being a boy is something for which they should be thankful to God. They should learn that human beings are created male and female in the image of God; sexual difference and complementarity are part of the variety of God’s gifts,” the document says.
The publication, which updates Relationships and Sexuality Education in Catholic Schools (1997), outlines the context within which Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) takes place in a Catholic primary school.
It insists that everybody involved in RSE in Catholic schools should “seek to communicate the Christian vision of human life and human relationships, which can “greatly help young people towards a mature and balanced and Christian understanding of sex”.
The document also states that all Catholic schools “should reflect Catholic moral teaching on sexual matter”, ensuring the dignity, privacy and modesty of each individual child “must always be respected”.
However, it also notes that in the area of sex education, the school must recognise its role is “subsidiarity to that of the parents”.
