Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
La Plata (Agenzia Fides) - In response to the intense criticism spread by feminist activist groups, Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata clarified that the Catholic Church is not opposed to sexual education in schools, however it asks that authorities offer programs of “education towards love, chastity, marriage, and the family,” and recalled that the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference published “a general plan for education and workbooks and textbooks” along this line, and it also insists that teachers be prepared for presenting such a program.
According to Archbishop Aguer, the Church is opposed to “the in-school promotion of a notion of human sexuality that excludes all founding principle as to the nature of the person and his actions, and abounds in half-truths and in the recommendation of the questionable security that contraceptives claim to provide.” The Archbishop of La Plata says that “this incomplete education, which is also explicit, does not take into account the affective and relational dimension, the need for self-discipline and the respect for objective values” and, therefore, “runs the risk of leading adolescents into premature or irresponsible access to sexual activity.”
Archbishop Aguer explains that “the foundations of this reductionist version of education is found in gender ideology, in a constructivist sociology.” Thus, “with these guidelines, we could only look forward to the destruction of the family and the consecutive decay of society.”
The Archbishop also warned of another imminent danger, the legislative project that proposes the promotion of sterilization (by means of operation) in schools n Buenos Aires. “This norm,” he says, “deserves a grave ethical reproach, as it promotes a perversion that goes against the integral good of the person: the loss of the capacity to conceive children.”
Regarding a group of representatives that have expressed their concern for the eventual interference of Church authorities in activities that are reserved to the exclusive competency of the powers of the State, “it is impressive to not this totalitarian inclination of the law-makers,” as it is not only the Bishops, but any citizen has the right to and should “undertake all legitimate form of action in order to procure that the laws that are made do not contradict moral order.”
In addition, according to Archbishop Aguer, the promotion of a so-called right to mutilate oneself does not imply progress. True progress will come about “when the chronic state of poverty in which our nation has fallen is overcome, when there is an abundance of opportunity for employment, when the State can provide for the life and goods of citizens, when Argentinean families can raise and educate a numerous family in a dignified manner, when a justice that has been too-long awaited finally becomes a reality. And legislators can do a lot in achieving these goals,” the statement concluded. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 16/5/2008 righe 38, parole 460)
