ROME- Trying to get ahead of the curve when it comes to sex education for children, the Vatican has issued an alternative to the standard treatments. The new project seeks to avoid approaches that teach either too much about human sexuality to impressionable youth or too little.<\/p>\n
Amid the frenzy of World Youth Day, which gathered millions of young people in Krakow, Poland at the end of July, the Pontifical Council for the Family, headed by Italian Archbishop Vicenzo Paglia, launched a website with materials both for students and educators called \u201cThe Meeting Point, project for affective and sexual formation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCultural, legislative and educational projects directly or indirectly challenge the Christian vision of the body, of the difference and the complementarity between man and woman, the exercise of sexuality, marriage and the family,\u201d Paglia wrote in the project\u2019s introduction.<\/p>\n These projects, he wrote, want to legitimize the different ways in which sexuality is lived in society \u201cby proposing visions that constitute a real anthropological change, which impedes the affirmation of sexual identity, virtues, values and attitudes that integrate the body and the affections in the vocation to love that is the basis of the whole project of human life and of the good life according to the Gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n As of Sept.1, Paglia\u2019s office will be absorbed by a new, larger Vatican department, the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, headed by American Bishop Kevin Farrell<\/a>. Paglia was recently appointed by Pope Francis as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life<\/a> and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.<\/p>\n Divided into six units, the project is a response to Francis\u2019 document on the family,Amoris Laetitia.<\/em> In one of its passages, the pontiff writes: \u201cIt is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving.\u201d<\/p>\n Called \u201cThe Meeting Point: Project for Affective and Sexual Formation,\u201d the new materials aim to answer that, offering \u201can educational path in love that helps young people discover the beauty of mutual self-giving and the pursuit of happiness through the gift of body and spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n The project was created with the collaboration of Catholic University San Antonio of Murcia, Spain. The materials are available for free in English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, including texts for students and teachers, activity books, and movie recommendations.<\/p>\n Those materials are directed to high schools, and it\u2019s styled as a \u201ccomplement or aid to the task of parents.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent years, many Catholic leaders have risen their voice to say that in some places, the right of parents to educate their children on matters of sexuality is not sufficiently respected, including Pope Francis. During one of his weekly Wednesday audiences he claimed the \u201ceducational partnership\u201d between parents and schools is broken.<\/p>\n On May 20, 2015, Francis criticized the \u201cintellectual critics\u201d that he said have \u201csilenced\u201d parents in order to defend younger generations from real or imagined harm. He also regretted that schools are often more influential than families in shaping the thinking and values of children, with parents having no say in what schools teach them.<\/p>\n \u201cIf family education regains its prominence, many things will change for the better. It\u2019s time for fathers and mothers to return from their exile – they have exiled themselves from educating their children – and slowly reassume their educative role,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n