Text of the talk given at the seminar on Parental responsibility for sex education, London, September 1999.
His Eminence Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo was born in Villahermosa Tolima,Colombia on November 8, 1935. He was ordained a priest on November 13, 1960. He was appointed auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Bogota on March 25, 1972. He was Archbishop of Medellin from 1979 to 1991; President of the Conference of Latin American Bishops from 1979 to 1983. He was elected a Cardinal in the consistory of February 2, 1983. He was President of the Columbian Episcopal Conference from 1987 to 1990. Since November 8 1990 he has been holding the office of the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family in Rome. At present he is a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Congregation for Bishops; Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; Congregation for the Causes of the Saints; Pontifical Commissio for Latin America. He is the author of 14 books including "The Family: Gift and Commitment, Hope for Humanity" (Citta Nuova, 1997) and he collaborates in numerous magazines.
"Today everyone recognizes the importance of genuine sexual education. The problem is deciding upon the forms and content of this education and adapting it to the age and development levels of the children and adolescents who receive it. Moreover, there is another question which cannot be ignored: Whose responsibility is it to teach this? The state? The schools? The family? It must be acknowledged that this has not been entirely clarified, and that among parents, even Catholics, there is confusion about this. Some of this confusion is over their rights and ability to carry it out, especially in regards to sexual education taught in schools, which parents themselves do not always know about, and in those cases when they do know about the methods and content, they do not always follow or accept it.
The question of sexual education is more complex because in regards to the content and moral evaluation of this education, there is generally an enormous difference between the education promoted, or in fact imposed by governments, through the ministries of education or health, and what the Church would like, not only for its members but for everyone receiving this education. Education has been expropriated from the family.
There is no use trying to hide the fact that the positions and requirements of the Church’s Magisterium and the hypotheses circulated by some theologians (fortunately very few) do not always converge. Regarding certain positions conflicting with Church teachings, they are usually closer to the content and methods employed by those who teach a type of sexual education more limited to genital sex and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, and this type of education does not correspond to what families expect for their children.
The Pontifical Council for the Family has received countless appeals from parents, apostolic movements, and other organizations worried about the confusion surrounding this issue, despite the many efforts undertaken in numerous cases by the Bishops’ Conferences. Nevertheless, the Episcopal Conference itself, and even some bishops, have been surprised on more than one occasion, or literally attacked, in their good intentions, when they saw the sort of sexual education being taught in their districts and dioceses which, in some cases, instrumentalized the name of the Church.
There has not always been a desire for appropriate information and a good critical sense when experimentation was begun with various texts or when efforts were made to implement some criteria, and proper consultation with the authorities may have also been lacking.
Following the patient work of several years, the response to this was a document entitled, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, published on December 12, 1995 by our Council. Naturally, this document was warmly received, first of all by those who study and work with this subject, and by an impressive number of parents. It is not in contrast but rather is complementary to the other documents of the Holy See. The subtitle of our document indicates its particular feature: Guidelines for Education within the Family. This in itself highlights the family’s basic right, as the primary community responsible for the education of children, to take up its specific task, that cannot be totally delegated, in this fundamental area which effects one s entire life.
This is a good occasion to cite a few sections of Article 5 of the Charter of the Rights of the Family, presented by the Holy See (October 22, 1983) at the express request of the Synod on the Family (1980). This lets us see the reason why the Pontifical Council for the Family took on the task of studying this matter in depth: "Since they have conferred life on their children, parents have the original, primary, and inalienable right to educate them; hence they must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children."
After stressing that "parents have the right to educate their children in conformity with their moral and religious convictions" (Letter C), the instruction about sexuality is specified. As written in letter C, "Parents have the right to ensure that their children are not compelled to attend classes which are not in agreement with their own moral and religious convictions. In particular, sex education is a basic right of the parents and must always be carried out under their close supervision, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them." It is clear that there is no opposition between education in schools-- a subject on which the Congregation for Catholic Education published a document entitled Educational Guidance on Human Love (November 1, 1983)-- and our document. It is clear that sex education must be carried out under the close supervision of parents, even what is taught in schools. The Church can in no case resign herself to being ousted by the state or other institutions.
The Papal Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, returns to the subject of sexual education. It does so precisely following the paragraphs which recall the "decisive responsibility of the family", "definite and irreplaceable" for the formation of the culture of life (no. 92). It recalls how such formation is given through education, in different aspects and phases, beginning with the formation of moral conscience and the rediscovery of the essential connection between life and freedom (no. 96). It states: "Closely connected with the formation of conscience is the work of education, which helps individuals to be ever more human, leads them ever more fully to the truth, instills in them growing respect for life, and trains them in right interpersonal relationships. In particular the Encyclical emphasizes--, there is a need for education about the value of life form its very origins, It is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not help the young to accept and experience sexuality and love and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection. Sexuality, which enriches the whole person, 'manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love. The trivialization of sexuality is among the principal factors which have led to contempt for new life. Only a true love is able to protect life. There can be no avoiding the duty to offer, especially to adolescents and young adults, an authentic education in sexuality and in love, an education which involves training in chastity as a virtue which fosters personal maturity and makes one capable of respecting the 'spousal meaning of the body (EV97)." This paragraph fully justifies the title of our document.
The Magisterium has notably enriched everything regarding the family and its rights. Three basic, interrelated documents represent the foundation of our Council s document on human sexuality: the Apostolic Exhortation: Familiaris Consortio, the Letter to the Families Gratissimum Sane, and the Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. They constitute the backbone of our service in the Roman Curia.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains much information on the family and the themes concerning it, as does the Papal Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, and the whole of these teachings is at the basis of our contribution, together with the input from experts in the field and the dialogue that led to its preparation.
Lastly, our document on human sexuality is fully convergent with our document entitled Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage. The best way to prepare couples to take on responsibilities before God and society is to provide them with information that is often otherwise lacking.
After the international conferences in Cairo on population and development, and in Beijing on women, there was a better awareness of the importance of this subject and everything that is at stake. At these conferences, especially in the preparatory texts, there were many ambiguous concepts having to do with distorted sexual education, in which the real significance was systematically obliterated. In these discussions what was completely eclipsed was anything dealing with the culture of life and its roots, that is, the concept of sex itself, the source of life, the truth of its spousal language and its relationship with love, and the family and society itself. The words employed and the attempts made to impose a new sort of morals or the main elements of a new lifestyle at all costs were, according to the Holy Father s denunciation, filled with ambiguity and manipulation through the use of a suggestive language that responds to the reality of certain subjects. And so, "expropriation" became substitution and invasion in the attempt to create new attitudes.
Expressions like "sexual rights", "reproductive health", and "family planning" were aggrandized and employed in an individualistic sense on the margin of love and the responsibility in marriage and the family, and often without parents being aware of it, through a series of elements moving in the direction of a trivialization of sex, reducing it merely to genital sex and health risks, including contraception and even attempts (which were not completely successful) to introduce the abominable crime of abortion into family planning or as a means of population control.
We could say that the "Battle of Cairo" was also the battle for authentic sexual education, for its criteria and its meaning. An attempt was made to "expropriate" educational rights from the family. At its base were the ideas--as if they were tacitly shared--about the myths of over-population, while terms like the ones mentioned earlier, were at the service of population control at all costs and by all means. Naturally, starting from these roots, from an underlying anthropology on whose basis the truth of man and woman is obscured, the meaning of sexuality negated. Is this not, on the other hand, the battle being fought in many countries across the world? The same clear interests with which the campaign is carried out emphasize the importance of the stakes. This is not a matter of secondary importance.
Although there are many other aspects of primary importance in the educational sector, like the transmission of human and Christian values, sexual education represents a fundamental matter that gives tone, style, and colour to the way of being a man and woman and it is connected with the dignity of the human person. Moreover, it is one of the most conflictual sectors of the anthropological battle, or to use the words of the Holy Father, of a style of life.
What is most important is to set down the criteria for authentic education. This deals with human sexuality, referring to human persons, which cannot lack an anthropological basis, and which does not confuse it or reduce it to pure instinct or to the impulse of a libido that is not subject to free will. The well known, hasty conclusions of some studies maintain that there is a passage from the behaviour of animals to human sexuality. Some have spoken about a "Neuronal Man" (Changeaux), in a sort of scientism, of positivism limited to defining man as a capacity to feel pain and pleasure, no different from the animal world.
It would be good to make a clear distinction between necessity and instincts. No identity between necessity and sexual impulses can be established. These have their own anatomy and physiology and have the aim of a social relationship with the family as its nucleus. Moreover, instincts do not belong to the biological but rather the psychic order, that is, they are not mechanical and automatic, but aroused by vital conscious or pre-conscious factors. The error some ethologists (those who study the science of instincts) make is to not distinguish between human and animal instincts. Among human instincts, "libido" and "concupiscence" stand out. The libido is a specifically human instinct, not an animal one. As one Italian author wrote: "The libido is genial, plastic and always present, different from animal instinct which is monotonous, auto-regulated, not inventive and repetitive. On the contrary, the libido, an object of human control, knows neither limits nor lulls, nor stereotypical styles of realization." Man also has the capacity to violate the meaning and the truth of sex and, in this sense, Aristotle spoke of man as a "perverse animal" (in politics), and Aristophanes alluded not to the "ecstasy " of gratification, but to the "madness" tied to the destructive character of disorderly and violating sex.
But as perfect as he is, man is not a programmable machine with supplementary features. There is at the foundation rampant materialism which cripples the capacity for freedom and hurls man into the arms of determinism. Humans would have neither defence nor possibilities in the midst of sexual disturbances and would be subject to the always invasive pressure that comes from the society in which they live.
It is personal sexuality which has compromised it. Sex is not something outside a person, an idea that leads to trivialization in that the variety of sexual behaviour would not affect the person. Sexuality is not something external; it refers to the intimate nucleus of the personality. It is something that is progressively discovered in more complete forms. The Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio observed: "Sexuality characterized men and women not only on the physical level but also on the psychological and spiritual one, characterizing every expression" (FC 11) "Sexuality is a basic component of personality, a way of showing oneself, of communicating with other, of feeling, expressing, and living human love.
Only a few aspects of the meaning of the corporeity can be mentioned, by observing that the body should not be considered a material object because it is part of one s whole personal life, the manifestation of the self. The body is united to the spirit. A human is spirit incarnate and a spiritualized body and thus is part of the entire subject. It is a living body, the expression and thus a vehicle of the interior life of the self. In this sense, the body is the incarnation of the self, with which it can live the history of time and space with a patrimony of gifts that insert it into history. It is fundamental to have an correct anthropological vision, founded on the ilemophoric (non dualistic) conception according to which the human person is made up of both body and soul.
The body is human precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul from which it receives unity, coordination and harmony. This substantial union is at the origin of the unity of human activity. If St. Thomas is historically tied to this fundamental and irreplaceable anthropology, there is a more recent series of contributions that constitute an important enrichment. In this way, Gabriel Marcel can maintain that "I am my body" (evidently not only body) since, as he observes, "that what pertains to my body does not exist separately by itself, and cannot exist alone." The French philosopher also studied the body s function in social mediation. One could "be with others", be open to others by means of corporeity and body language: The body is "presence" with regard to others, it is a synthesis and a memorial of the past, present and future in relations to others, and this implies the reciprocal recognition as a person and the possibility of communion.
With regard to the substantial unity of the body and soul, Maritain affirms that in some cases this has been forgotten, as if it were of little importance: "Each element of the body is human and exists as such, in virtue of the immaterial existence of the human soul. Our body, our hands, and our eyes exist in virtue of the existence of our soul." As Elio Sgreccia rightly adds, the contributions made by contemporary philosophy are of great value always and when they do not put in doubt the ontological structure of the person. In further detail, the distinction is made in German between the words Korper (the organic body, and object of study), and the Leib (the vital body, the subject of life and relation). In all of this, physical life is a basic value. The body is also a manifestation (epiphany), according to the strong Greek connotation, language.
There is an established language of sexuality, as a structure of nature, and not something "established socially". A person s being, his/her ego, is therefore not the body, and not some kind of "space buoy", unfixed and unanchored, as if a person were simply available and thus capable of being manipulated by others and by society. Sexuality is an instrument of a language of complementarity which is made concrete rightly in marriage; therefore, it is the manifestation of spousal, conjugal language. This was affirmed by the Holy Father in Kampala, Uganda with the following words: "Actions are like words that reveal our heart. To give one s body to someone is to give oneself entirely to that person." This consideration opens up the horizons of spousal and conjugal language.
In sexual education it is fundamental to integrate sexuality into the person, in love, in the love in marriage, marriage in the family, and the family in society. The breaking of this chain is an outrage against true education and damages human beings and society and does not correspond to love but to betrayal. When real love is betrayed, the victims are the people themselves.
What then is education to the authentic meaning of sexuality? We should remember first of all that for parents, this is not simply reproduction. The language must be clarified so as to speak more precisely about procreating and about multiplying, producing, or reproducing. They are parents and they are educators because they are parents. "This educative function of parents is so important that if it is lacking it can barely be replaced. It is up to the parents to create the atmosphere in the heart of the family". In his Letter to Families, Gratissimam Sane The Holy Father observed: "Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators because they are parents" (GrS 16).
To educate does not simply mean to inform. Today there is a deluge of all kinds of sexual information, and some of it is not always appropriate and respectful of children s and adolescents development. It would be superfluous to note here that the information given should not be distorted and overly detailed since this might lead to certain behaviour such as, for example, if children were to read gynecological literature to satisfy their curiosity. Educating means providing training, offering criteria, incarnating values, and guaranteeing principles.
One careful researcher rightly observed: "The information should not be a cold and aseptic transmission of ideas; it should carry a message: in other words, it should go beyond providing biological answers, offer clear ethical answers, and clarify further the reason for one kind of behaviour over another"
Our document keeps the environmental and cultural difficulties in mind particularly in reference to the positivistic mentality that lead to utilitarian attitudes as exemplified in the following text: "Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of 'things and not of 'persons , a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used" (GrS 13). To be convinced that this is the case, one need only look at certain sexual education programs introduced into the schools, often notwithstanding the disagreement and even the protests of many parents" (Ibid).
Here we find ourselves confronted with tv o major problems. For this reason, the Pope has called on parents to reclaim their own responsibility and support whatever is necessary to exercise their educative action founded on the values of the person and Christian love, and take a clear position in regards to ethical utilitarianism (cf. GrS 16).
Today many parents are afraid to teach, they dodge this responsibility, and feel unable to carry our the role of educators (and therefore be true parents). This fear has been energetically denounced by the experts. Many feel confused and are even afraid to correct or instill values and principles in their children. As Professor Tony Anatrella has pointed out, they fool themselves by thinking they can use the methods that psychologists and psychiatrists employ to cure patients, which provides neither direction nor orientation and aims at therapy through a catharsis that relies heavily on listening. Education is not a therapeutic undertaking. Organized guidance and psychological services should not lead one to renounce teaching, training and correction. It seems to me that this fear to educate, almost as if it could harm freedom, is related to a certain psychology cited in the well-known book, The Peter Pan Syndrome, by author Dan Kiley. The book’s subtitle says it all: "Men who refused to grow up" (meaning mature). They have chosen to remain children, "marvellous children", as Peter told Captain Crochet. They avoid becoming men and their desire is synthesized in the words Peter Pan spoke to Mrs. Darling: "I don’t want to go to school to learn serious things. The man is still not born who will capture me, ma’am, to make me a man. I want to stay a child for my whole life and have fun."
This rather widespread complex exists with the complicity of parents who surrender their role as educators, and its consequences can be felt in every area 'beginning with the lack of real sexual education--something which the author refers to throughout the book.
Another important aspect is to discover the truth--the profound meaning of sex in relation to love. Here we find ourselves in the fundamental area of the truth of man and woman--anthropology. When sex is 'removed from responsible love, a theme which the Holy Father spoke about so clearly in Kampala, it loses its expressiveness and intimacy and becomes a lie. The truth about sex is tied to the truth of man and woman and adapted to human nature. It is difficult to understand why some moralists are so disbelieving when they are confronted with natural law; they refuse to acknowledge it or seek to weaken it while giving great importance to the person s malleability in social mechanisms and influence. Man is highly malleable (let us remember Lipovtsky’s "space buoy") and as Margaret Mead maintains: "Human nature is eminently malleable, it faithfully obeys the impulses transmitted by the social body." And this does not take into consideration that this "malleability", which becomes the negation of human nature, can lead to a sexual lie. In this regard, the position of the author who expressed the following is not completely clear: "We consider belonging to a sex as an immutable fact, an eternal truth. Only recently has the complexity of our biological sex been appreciated. We realize that in other cultures different ideas about male and female identity can be found". The author recognizes that "against the typical tendency of modern subjectivism to free the individual from the inherent rules of nature, the Christian ethic constantly re-proposes the value of 'natural law ." However, closely following the ideas put forth by B Haring, he maintains that "besides culture, for nature there is also natural culture", and the author warns that it is not known from which of the two it comes. However, the authors also adds, "A unique contribution of Christian anthropology must be seen in the area of revising behaviour connected to sexual stereotypes." Sandro Spinsanti is the author of the section dedicated to corporeity that has a lot in common with the problem of "gender". This was a major topic at the International Conference on Women in Beijing because of the ambiguous way in which it was presented. So, what does this desire to reexamine "sexual stereotypes" mean?
What seems to lack the clarity and strength of the encyclical, Veritatis Splendor a tributary of an anthropology worthy of this name-- is the relationship between behaviour and truth in the area of sexual language. It all seems to be something that is floating in space and, just like in many sexual education manuals, there is freedom of choice in relation to any kind of experience that leads to knowledge and the process of maturation.
Attention must also be given to the not very well concealed defence of homosexuality, especially in light of the European Parliament’s wide approval of a resolution on the rights of "homosexual couples". This resolution would recognize that not only can there be marriage, but that these couples can enjoy the civil effects of marriage, even regarding the possibility of adoption, contrary to logical conditions of international agreements. In these cases, we can see once again the importance of a true anthropological vision, without which even dialogue becomes difficult since everything is reduced to a form of pragmatism without any moral criteria. We are at the heart of human sexuality as truth.
The present confusion makes dialogue difficult. Yet, there are some signs that certain criteria are not absent in primitive tribes in contrast to the emptiness of a "culture" that turns its back on nature and ethics. And here we have a truth that involves an underlying anthropology. If C. Levi-Strauss recorded homosexual practices in some tribes, he also pointed out that in others, like the Nambikwara, this sort of conduct was given the name, "Tamindige Kihandige", which means "False-love", for which, as one moralist commented, it shows that they are more mature than certain ethnologists (Margaret Mead).
Many texts clearly champion false-love, as if it were a truth based almost on nothing (which is the real conception of vanity: inconsistency), as something worthy of man, something useful, as if it were a liberation. What is forgotten here is the fundamental relationship between truth and freedom. The lack of truth can only produce slavery and prostration. The title of our document is Truth and Meaning because the nucleus of the problem and the discussion are rooted in these.
Many different interpretations hide or try to conceal the truth in the name of the need for dialogue in which one participates with the idea that no pondered arguments, serious content or one truth exist. Or attempts are made to cloud the truth by interpreting free conscience in such a way that any unwillingness to renounce criteria and principles that cannot be objects of compromise, is seen as a rigid, dogmatic position. It is as if society and families have no right to know the truth that comes from the teachings of the Church or from the light of reason not subjected to adaptation and accommodation.
Allow me to reproduce the Holy Father s enlightening words on this subject. He begins with a denouncement of a "mental weakness", which is indifference to truth. Concealing the truth is a serious weakness of the spirit and highlights the symptoms of this weakness: "Indifference towards truth manifests itself, for example, in the belief that truth and falsehood, in ethics, are solely a question of taste, personal decisions, and cultural and social conditionings, or that it is enough to do what we think, without worrying about understanding if what we think is true or false.. . If a person is indifferent, in the sense mentioned here, to truth, he or she will end up sooner or later confusing coherence.. with their own conscience, with adherence to any personal opinion or majority opinion."
The truth and meaning of human sexuality are negated in many ways. A drastic break filled with negative consequences is the clear separation of sex from true love which must be love that is responsible, generous and not self-centered; love capable of true giving that is open to life. Love cannot be separated from its procreative significance, as underlined by the Encyclical, Humanae Vitae (H.V. No. 11).
The true language of love requires it to be lived in a stable union of a married couple, the basis of the family. According to St. Thomas, marriage, at the basis of the family consists in: "A union ordered by persons, brought about through their consent" and presumes respect for its properties: unity and indissolubility a true communion of love and life. Consent presupposes the structure of marriage. There is a network of goals that aim at achieving communion through the intimate sharing of existence, reciprocal love, procreation, and the education of children. The words used in Humanae Vitae regarding love-- total, responsible, faithful, fertile and exclusive love--along with the weight implied by each of these adjectives, give sexuality a dimension of dignity and greatness and save it from "trivialization" so that sexual education is education in love and about love and includes training in chastity. (cf. EV 98)
Paul Ricoeur makes the timely observation that trivialization makes sex meaningless and insignificant: "The removal of prohibitions relating to sex have produced a curious effect that the Freudian generation did not know of: its loss of value because of its ease. Sex has become too readily available and has been reduced to a mere biological function and become quite insignificant." Meyer warned that in this movement from taboo, fear and rigor to the sexual revolution, some obvious dangers have sprung up: "The sexual wave, to the extent that it suppresses taboos, introduces new dependence and new taboos."
As one author comments; "Current myths have decreased the meaning of sexuality to the point of stripping away all of its human content as if it were a simple zoological function or a vulgar way to pass time or have fun". And this has created a culture of death. One priest working in university pastoral care spoke to me about the difficulties he faced in getting people to understand the language of the Church since they were prey to a permissiveness which in his words had killed their hearts. Fortunately, there are also some signs accepting these ideas and signs of a positive elevation of responsible sex through generous love.
Unfortunately, society does not contribute to a human ecology, to not polluting hearts breathing some fresh where, along with solid principles, children and youth can be given an integral education. The trivialization of sex leads to worse things that society is unable to conceal. Returning to the "Peter Pan syndrome", it is enough to keep in mind the great number of conflicts regarding sexuality and the role that sex has taken on.
There is a whole series of behaviours, or "concessions", such as the lack of respect for virginity, as if it were obsolete, that influence the development of personality, affect a person s vital nucleus and greatly compromise his/her future happiness. The first victims of what has been called "educative abstinence" are the young people themselves whose lives lose vigour, and then it is society that condemns this when it is too late, after having contributed to and provoked, with the complicity of the mass media, the permissive atmosphere that led to excess. There should be a reckoning of all the consequences of the "sexual revolution", caused by, among other things, the contraceptive mentality which was greatly supported by the revolution of the birth-control pill, and artificial means of contraception (anti-ovulation). These have served to break down the barriers between contraception and even abortion, as the Holy Father wrote in Evangelium Vitae (No. 13).
The truth about sex is forgotten when society becomes permissive, when the education of children is hindered, when pornography invades the home through television: in a word, when a wrong lifestyle is imposed. Such permissiveness adopts relativism. I found some reflections by an agnostic, who is a careful observer of society, Nobel prize winner Octavio Paz, very interesting. He has said: "Today universal relativism triumphs. The terminology is contradictory: No relativism can be universal without ceasing to be relativism. We live in a logical and moral contradiction... Apart from its intrinsic philosophical weakness, it is an attenuated and, in a certain way, a hypocritical form of nihilism.. .A relativist society that does not admit to being so is a society poisoned by falsity, a slow but certain poison." This reminds me of a poison, under the guise of permissiveness, distilled in some ways in sexual education. Let us listen in this regard to the confession of a Mexican writer who wrote about a "superstition about sex". "One aspect of the North American mentality (which is not limited to that nation) is the freedom of customs (permissiveness) and another is the public outcry over its political leaders great and small sexual transgressions. Puritanism lives freely alongside libertinism thanks to the bridge of hypocrisy."
It is not necessary here to retrace the path of the "sexual revolution", predicted by Wilhem Reich, who opposed moral controls of instinct (he considered them pathological and chaotic), "self control through sexual economy", which consisted of refusing any absolute norm, which is repression of the family and the society. With the rejection of anything that condemns adultery, polygamy and infidelity, he arrived at the dreadful conclusion that "love is a tomb when a family is founded on it."
Thus, the truth about sex in marriage and in the family-- which was a solid acquisition and part of the world s cultural patrimony based on human essence and recognized as such throughout centuries of history-- is negated by making a distinction between a responsible sexual relationship which society must protect and promote in marriage, the basis of society, and occasional, adventurous sex which is inserted into another sphere.
In marriage, love, expressed in sexual language, is not a tomb but a source of dignity, and the family is the cradle of life. Sociologist Giorgio Campanini wrote: "In every culture there are two fundamental kinds of relations between the sexes: Those prior to and outside of marriage which are labelled as occasional, and those oriented towards stability and a union lasting over time. Marriage marks by rule the institutional passage from an existing or planned sexual relation, characterized as occasional, to a relationship which will last over time. This second group is found in the family.
Far from the truth, idolatry reigns where sex is not at the service of men and women, the family and society, but an idol that tyrannizes, even though this form of slavery, this "project for civilization", seems useful because it aims at finding oneself, but in a distorted way. Sexual idolatry starts off from a false model that is meant to be imposed: it invades the spirits who frenetically seek to find pleasure by adopting an immature or infantile sexuality. Psychiatrist Tony Anatrella has made a magnificent contribution to this discussion. Even Freud proposed an altruistic sexuality in which another person had to be present to combat the immature positions of selfishness. An "Id" wrapped up in itself or an "Egoism in two" are both impoverishing.
Sexual maturity is related to the desire to approach parenthood. Infantile sexuality is the opposite of this because it favours the "instinct" for itself and is not incorporate into a relational dimension with a sense of responsibility. Let me digress here. Doesn’t immature sexuality put us on the distorted path of contraceptive neurosis where instinct or drive counts? Or in the words of the French psychiatrist, "Isn’t this a frenetic search for pleasure, where sex becomes like a drug that is more and more exacting, and ever more frustrating?" Tony Anatrella highlights Freud’s text: "The normal character of sexual life is assured by the confluence of two currents toward the sexual object and the objective: affectivity and genitality. Far from being extraneous to the former objective which was pleasure, the new objective is solidified by the fact that the greatest pleasure is joined to the final act of the sexual process one s relationship with another. Sexual drive is then placed in service of the reproductive function: it comes to be altruistic (because of the desire for children)."
It should be said that the sexual idolatry, which is so widespread in the, inappropriate contents of sexual education, has the anything but secondary defect of being placed in a position inferior to the discoveries of science, even if we have to recognize that some progress has been made in this area through the Freudian positions mentioned earlier which, however, we should be careful about promoting in their entirety.
An obvious distinction can be made between the search, without responsibility (and therefore without love), of mere pleasure, and a language of love as such that enters into family life. There is no need here to here the sometimes ambiguous terminology that is used. However, it is important to remember the distinction usually made between love as "eros", that has already been noted by Victor Franki, which consists of feeling the desire to love a person in his or her totality including sex, and a sexuality that is the desire to make use of the genital organs for pure pleasure in which self-giving is absent. Hedonism makes pleasure the aim of all actions the rule of morality itself. And this is the catastrophe of the sexual revolution which does not hide its false ideal of liberation . "We call a society free in which masturbation, games between adolescents, premarital sex, and homosexuality are adopted."
The Church, because she is free in the truth, cannot remain silent and accommodate a culture that buries love and dignity and poisons the heart. Sexual education cannot be reduced to information (and partial information at that) related to hygiene. The Church cannot accept the betrayal of love and human beings, the disassociation of people from sexuality, sexual activity from conjugal life, and conjugal life from fertility (in the contraceptive neurosis), where the heart is set not only against the sources of life, but against life itself. The permissive and trivializing culture must be transformed into a liberating formation or campaign, into a freedom that does not turn its back on the truth.
In conclusion, although we have principally carried out an ethical reflection enlightened by reason with the support of science, we cannot set aside the richness of that the Christian anthropological vision offers on human sexuality. Revelation projects an extraordinary light beginning with the God s original project whereby the union of a man and a woman is for the mystery of procreation; and the human person, in God s image, finds him or herself converging with the will of God. Therefore, sexual education must move in the direction of the civilization of love, and be guided by responsible people working for love so that it will not be confused with merely instinctive, animal sexuality that becomes an idol which enslaves rather than liberates. We must discover and respect other humans who are loved by God and cannot be treated as things, especially when they are most vulnerable and when others require greater cooperation in order to fully realize their potential.
We cannot forget that in many parts of the world today there is a healthy reaction to the erosion underway. This reaction organizes, reflects, and fights for the dignity of men and women and rejects the ideology of confusion that is often fed by the myths regarding overpopulation. This reaction will not allow ethical values and the sense of responsibility to be buried, even in relation to human conduct with its sinful "ways".
I would like to end this reflection with the words of St. Augustine: "Where does one who is a slave to sin flee? A guilty conscience cannot hide from itself. One has sinned to have bodily pleasure; when the pleasure has passed, the sin remains; what brought pleasure has passed and remorse remains. When someone begins to not have grave sins, he begins to lift his head to freedom; but this only the beginning of freedom, not perfect freedom."