_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ CANADA ________________

Archbishop meets parents’ requests
Implementing Vatican document
Responding to a series of requests from Catholic parents, Archbishop Adam Exner of Vancouver has announced that his archdiocese will follow the directives of the Holy See, and leave parents in charge of educating their children on sexual matters.

Catholic parents across Canada have long struggled with the issue of sex-education programs in Catholic schools. Two of the texts most commonly used in Canadian Catholic schools, Fully Alive and Growing in Love, have come under intense criticism by concerned Catholic parents because of their controversial presentation of human sexuality to very young children.

In Vancouver, parents in more than nine parishes rallied, sometimes with the support of their priests, against the mandated use of the two controversial programs. Petitions were sent to pastors and to the archbishop, objecting to the programs and quoting the text of the Vatican document, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality. That 1995 document from the Pontifical Council for the Family, the parents pointed out, stressed the rights and duties of parents as the primary educators of their children, particularly on intimate matters involving human sexuality.

While the Office of Religious Education in the archdiocese had rebuffed parents’ requests, Archbishop Exner ruled definitively on the matter in March. He called a meeting of the priests of the archdiocese and responded positively to the parents’ requests.

Archbishop Exner said that:

• the Vancouver archdiocese would recognize the primary role of parents in education on matters of sexuality;
• no classroom instruction on sexuality should be given in Catholic schools to students below the 7th-grade level;
• if any sex-education programs are offered in the classrooms, Catholic schools are to use no texts other than the Love and Life series published by Ignatius Press; and
• every parish is to have training sessions designed to help parents prepare for their task of educating their own children.