POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
AMORIS LÆTITIA
OF
THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
CHAPTER
SEVEN
ToWards a beTTer educaTion
of chiLdren
The need for sex
educaTion
280. The Second Vatican Council spoke of the need for “a
positive and prudent sex education” to be imparted to children and adolescents
“as they grow older”, with “due weight being given to the advances in the psychological, pedogogical and didactic
sciences”.301 We may well ask our- selves if our educational institutions have taken up this challenge. It 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. In such a way, the language of sexuality would not be
sadly impoverished but illuminated and en- riched. The sexual urge can be
directed through a process of growth in self-knowledge and self- control
capable of nurturing valuable capacities for joy and for loving encounter.
281. Sex education should provide information while keeping in mind that
children and young people have not
yet attained full maturity. The
information has to come at a proper time and in a way suited
to their age. It is not helpful
to over- whelm them with data without
also helping them to develop a critical sense in
dealing with the on- slaught of new
ideas and suggestions, the flood of pornography and the overload of stimuli that
301
second vaTican ecumenicaL counciL, Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis, 1.
can deform sexuality. Young people
need to re- alize that they are bombarded by messages that are not beneficial
for their growth towards ma- turity. They should be helped to recognize and to
seek out positive influences, while shunning the things that cripple their
capacity for love. We also have
to realize that “a new and more appro- priate language” is needed “in
introducing chil- dren and adolescents to the topic of sexuality”.302
282. A sexual education
that fosters a healthy sense of modesty has immense value, however much some people nowadays
consider modesty a relic of a bygone era. Modesty is a
natural means whereby we defend our personal
privacy and pre- vent ourselves from being turned into
objects to be used. Without a sense of modesty,
affection and sexuality can be reduced
to an obsession with
genitality and unhealthy behaviours that distort our capacity for love, and with forms of sexual violence
that lead to inhuman treatment or
cause hurt to others.
283. Frequently,
sex education deals primarily with “protection”
through the practice of “safe sex”. Such expressions convey a negative atti-
tude towards the natural procreative finality of sexuality, as if an eventual child were an enemy to be protected
against. This way of thinking
promotes narcissism and aggressivity in place
of
302
Relatio
Finalis 2015, 56.
acceptance. It is always
irresponsible to invite adolescents to toy with their bodies and their desires,
as if they possessed the maturity, values, mutual
commitment and goals proper to mar- riage. They end up being blithely
encouraged to use other persons as an means of fulfilling their needs or
limitations. The important thing is to teach
them sensitivity to different expressions of love, mutual
concern and care, loving respect
and deeply meaningful communication. All of these prepare them for an
integral and generous gift of self that
will be expressed, following a public commitment, in the gift of their bodies. Sexual union in marriage will thus appear
as a sign of an all-inclusive commitment, enriched by everything
that has preceded it.
284.
Young people should
not be deceived into
confusing two levels of reality:
“sexual attraction creates, for the moment, the illusion of union, yet, without
love, this ‘union’ leaves strangers
as far apart as they were before”.303 The language of the body calls for a patient
apprenticeship in learning to interpret and channel desires in view of
authentic self-giving. When we presume to give
everything all at once, it may well be that we give nothing. It
is one thing to understand how fragile and bewildered young people can be, but
another thing entirely to encourage them to pro- long their immaturity in the way they show love.
303
erich fromm, The Art of Loving, New York, 1956, p. 54.
But who speaks of these things
today? Who is capable of taking young people seriously? Who helps them to
prepare seriously for a great and generous love? Where sex education is con-
cerned, much is at stake.
285. Sex education should also include respect and appreciation for differences, as a way of help-
ing the young to overcome their
self-absorption and to be open and
accepting of others. Beyond the understandable
difficulties which individuals may
experience, the young need to be helped
to accept their own body as it was created, for “thinking that we enjoy
absolute power over our own bodies
turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation… An ap- preciation of our
body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an en-
counter with others different from ourselves.
In this way we can joyfully
accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator,
and find mutual enrichment”.304 Only by
losing the fear of being different, can we be freed
of self-centredness and self-absorption. Sex ed- ucation should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension “to can- cel out
sexual difference because one no longer knows how
to deal with it”.305
304 Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (24 May 2015), 155.
305
Catechesis (15 April 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 16 April 2015, p. 8.
286. Nor can we ignore the
fact that the con- figuration of our own mode of being, whether as male
or female, is not simply
the result of biolog-
ical or genetic factors, but of multiple elements having to do with
temperament, family history, culture,
experience, education, the influence of friends, family members and respected
persons, as well as other formative situations. It is true that we cannot
separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s
work of creation, which is
prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impos-
sible to ignore. But it is also true that masculinity
and femininity are not rigid categories. It is pos- sible, for example, that a husband’s way of being masculine can be
flexibly adapted to the wife’s work schedule. Taking on domestic chores or some aspects of raising children
does not make him any less masculine or imply failure,
irrespon- sibility or cause for shame. Children have to be helped to accept as normal such healthy “ex- changes”
which do not diminish the dignity of the father figure. A rigid approach turns
into an overaccentuation of the masculine or feminine, and does not help
children and young people to appreciate the genuine reciprocity incarnate in
the real conditions of matrimony. Such
rigidity, in turn, can hinder the
development of an indi- vidual’s abilities,
to the point of leading him or her to think,
for example, that it is not really
mas- culine to cultivate art or dance, or not very femi- nine to
exercise leadership. This, thank God, has
changed, but in some places
deficient notions still condition the legitimate freedom and ham- per the
authentic development of children’s spe- cific identity and potential.
passinG on The
faiTh
287. Raising children
calls for an orderly pro- cess of handing on the faith. This is made diffi-
cult by current lifestyles, work schedules
and the complexity of today’s world,
where many people keep up a frenetic pace just to survive.306 Even so, the home must continue to be the place where we
learn to appreciate the meaning
and beauty of the
faith, to pray and to serve our neighbour. This begins with baptism, in which, as Saint Augustine said, mothers who bring their
children “cooper- ate in
the
sacred
birthing”.307 Thus begins
the
journey of growth in that new life. Faith is
God’s gift, received in
baptism, and not our own work, yet
parents are the means that God uses for it to grow and develop. Hence “it is beautiful when mothers teach their little
children to blow a kiss to Jesus or to Our Lady.
How much love there is in that! At that moment the child’s heart be- comes a place of prayer”.308 Handing on the faith
presumes that parents themselves genuinely
trust God, seek him and sense their need for him, for
306 Cf. Relatio Finalis 2015, 13-14.
307 Augustine, De sancta virginitate 7,7:
PL 40, 400.
308
Catechesis (26 August 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 27 August 2015, p.
8.
only in this way does “one generation laud your works
to another, and declare your mighty acts” (Ps
144:4) and “fathers make known to children your faithfulness” (Is 38:19). This means that we need to
ask God to act in their hearts, in plac-
es where we ourselves cannot reach. A mustard seed, small as it is, becomes a great tree (cf. Mt 13:31-32); this teaches us to see the disproportion between our actions and
their effects. We know that we do
not own the gift, but that its care is entrusted to us. Yet our creative
commitment is itself an offering which enables us to cooperate with God’s plan. For this reason, “couples and parents should be properly
appreciated as active agents in
catechesis… Family catechesis is of great assistance as an effective
method in training young parents to be aware of their mission
as the evangelizers of their
own family”.309
288. Education in the faith
has to adapt to each child, since older resources and
recipes do not always work. Children
need symbols, actions
and stories. Since adolescents usually have issues with authority and rules, it is best to
encourage their own experience of faith and to provide them with attractive testimonies that win them over by their sheer beauty. Parents desirous of nurturing the faith of their children
are sensitive to their patterns of growth, for they know that spiritual
experience is not imposed but freely proposed.
309
Relatio
Finalis 2015, 89.
It is essential that children
actually see that, for their parents, prayer is something truly impor- tant.
Hence moments of family prayer and acts of devotion can be more powerful for
evangeli- zation than any catechism class or sermon. Here I would like to
express my particular gratitude to
all those mothers who continue
to pray, like Saint Monica, for their children
who have strayed from Christ.
289. The work of handing on the faith to chil-
dren, in the sense of facilitating its
expression and growth, helps the whole family in its evangelizing mission. It naturally begins
to spread the faith to all around them, even outside
of the family circle.
Children who grew up in missionary families of- ten become missionaries
themselves; growing up in warm and friendly
families, they learn to relate to the world in this way, without giving up their faith or their
convictions. We know that Jesus
himself ate and drank with sinners (cf. Mk
2:16; Mt 11:19), conversed with a
Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:7-26), received Nicodemus by night
(cf. Jn 3:1-21), allowed his feet to
be anointed by a prostitute (cf. Lk 7:36-50)
and did not hesitate to lay his hands on
those who were sick (cf. Mk 1:40-45; 7:33).
The same was true of his apostles, who did not look down on
others, or cluster to- gether in small and elite groups, cut off from the life of their people. Although the
authori- ties harassed them, they nonetheless enjoyed the
favour “of all the people” (Acts 2:47; cf. 4:21, 33; 5:13).
290. “The family is thus
an agent of pastoral activity through its explicit proclamation of the Gospel
and its legacy of varied forms of witness,
namely solidarity with the poor, openness to a diversity of people, the
protection of creation, moral and material solidarity with other fami- lies,
including those most in need, commitment to the promotion of the common good
and the transformation of unjust social structures, be- ginning in the
territory in which the family lives, through the practice of the corporal
and spiritual works of
mercy”.310 All this is an expression of our
profound Christian belief in the love of
the Father who guides and sustains us, a
love man- ifested in the total
self-gift of Jesus Christ, who even now lives in our midst and enables us to
face together the storms of life at every stage. In all families the Good News
needs to resound, in good times and in bad, as a source of light along the way. All of us should be able to say, thanks to the experience of our life
in the family: “We come to believe in
the love that God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). Only on the basis of this
experience will the Church’s pastoral
care for families
enable them to be both domestic churches and a leaven of evangelization
in society.
310
Ibid.,
93.
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