Educational Guidance in Human Love

Ecclesial Pronouncement excerpt

By: Pope John Paul II and the Congregation for Catholic Education

Date: November 1, 1983

Source: Pope John Paul II. Congregation on Catholic Education. "Educational Guidance on Human Love." (November 1, 1983).

About the Authors: Pope John Paul II (1920–2005), the former Karol Wojtyla, was born in Poland. Elected to the papacy in 1978, he was known for his strong opposition to communism and his staunch social conservatism. He also traveled more than any previous pope, which helped him become one of history's most popular Catholic leaders. The Congregation for Catholic Education, headquartered at the Vatican, is responsible for educational standards in Catholic Universities and schools.

INTRODUCTION

Sex education, historically a family matter, did not become a public concern until the late nineteenth century. Groups such as the American Purity Alliance and the Young Men's Christian Association sponsored lectures and panels on sex-related topics in the 1880s. A few grade school teachers discussed sexuality with their students in the 1890s, but sex education did not become a regular classroom topic until the early twentieth century.

Increasing fears of venereal disease and changing attitudes toward marriage led instructors to emphasize the importance of sexual hygiene and preparation for marriage. Still, by the 1920s, only tenty-six percent of the largest school districts in the United States offered sex education classes. The hesitance to address sexuality was based on a common belief that sex education merely meant instruction on the sexual organs. In 1940, the U.S. Public Health Service produced a pamphlet entitled "High Schools and Sex Education" that covered the methods, materials, planning, organization, and integration of sex education in many fields. This is the first government guide to sex education in the United States.

By the 1960s, government and educational leaders emphasized the importance of family life education at all grade levels. These programs were to focus on psychological, sociological, economic, and social factors that affect personality and individual adjustment. At the same time, conservative groups shocked by the sexual revolution and its liberal attitudes toward birth control, abortion, premarital sex, and homosexuality, rallied to oppose sex education. Over the next decades, conservative leaders and organizations, notably the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II, called for a return to traditional sexual values.

PRIMARY SOURCE

The teacher may find that in carrying out his or her mission, he or she may be confronted by several particular problems, which we treat here.

94. Sex education must lead the young to take cognisance of the different expressions and dynamisms of sexuality and of the human values which must be respected. True love is the capacity to open oneself to one's neighbour in generosity, and in devotion to the other for the other's good; it knows how to respect the personality and the freedom of the other, (53) it is self giving, not possessive. The sex instinct, on the other hand, if abandoned to itself, is reduced to the merely genital, and tends to take possession of the other, immediately seeking personal gratification.

95. Relationships of sexual intimacy are reserved to marriage, because only then is the inseparable connection secured—which God wants—between the unitive and the procreative meaning of such matters, which are ordained to maintain, confirm, and express a definitive communion of life—"one flesh" (54)—mediating the realisation of a love that is "human," "total," "faithful," "creative" (55) which is marital love. Therefore, sexual relations outside the context of marriage constitute a grave disorder, because they are reserved to a reality which does not yet exist; (56) they are a language which is not found in the objective reality of the life of the two persons, not yet constituted in definitive community with the necessary recognition and guarantee of civil and, for catholic spouses, religious society.

96. It seems that there is a spread amongst adolescents and young adults of certain manifestations of a sexual kind which of themselves tend to complete encounter, though without reaching its realisation: manifestations of the merely genital which are a moral disorder because they are outside the matrimonial context of authentic love.

97. Sex education will help adolescents to discover the profound values of love, and to understand the harm which such manifestations do to their affective maturation, in as much as they lead to an encounter which is not personal, but instinctive, often weakened by reservations and egoistic calculations, without therefore the character of true personal relationship and so much less definitive. An authentic education will lead the young towards maturity and self-control, the fruit of conscientious choice and personal effort.

98. It is the task of sex education to promote a continuous progress in the control of the impulses to effect an opening, in due course, to true and self giving love. A particularly complex and delicate problem which can be present is that of masturbation and of its repercussions on the integral growth of the person. Masturbation, according to catholic doctrine constitutes a grave moral disorder, (57) principally because it is the use of the sexual faculty in a way which essentially contradicts its finality, not being at the service of love and life according to the design of God. (58)

99. A teacher and perspicacious counsellor must endeavour to identify the causes of the deviation in order to help the adolescent to overcome the immaturity underlying this habit. From an educative point of view, it is necessary to consider masturbation and other forms of autoeroticism as symptoms of problems much more profound, which provoke sexual tension which the individual seeks to resolve by recourse to such behaviour. Pedagogic action, therefore, should be directed more to the causes than to the direct repression of the phenomenon. (59)

Whilst taking account of the objective gravity of masturbation, it is necessary to be cautious in evaluating the subjective responsibility of the person. (60)

100. In order that the adolescent be helped to feel accepted in a communion of charity and freed from self enclosure, the teacher "should undramatise masturbation and not reduce his or her esteem and benevolence for the pupil." (61) The teacher will help the pupil towards social integration, to be open and interested in others; to be able to be free from this form of autoeroticism, advancing towards self giving love, proper to mature affectivity; at the same time, the teacher will encourage the pupil to have recourse to the recommended means of Christian asceticism, such as prayer and the sacraments, and to be involved in works of justice and charity.

101. Homosexuality, which impedes the person's acquisition of sexual maturity, whether from the individual point of view, or the inter-personal, is a problem which must be faced in all objectivity by the pupil and the educator when the case presents itself.

"Pastorally, these homosexuals must be received with understanding and supported in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their social maladaption, their culpability will be judged with prudence; but no pastoral method can be used which, holding that these acts conform to the condition of these persons, accord them a moral justification.

"According to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts deprived of their essential and indispensable rule." (62)

102. It will be the duty of the family and the teacher to seek first of all to identify the factors which drive towards homosexuality: to see if it is a question of physiological or psychological factors; if it be the result of a false education or of the lack of normal sexual evolution; if it comes from a contracted habit or from bad example; (63) or from other factors. More particularly, in seeking the causes of this disorder, the family and the teacher will have to take account of the elements of judgement proposed by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, and be served by the contribution which various disciplines can offer. One must, in fact, investigate elements of diverse order: lack of affection, immaturity, obsessive impulses, seduction, social isolation, and other types of frustration, depravation in dress, license in shows and publications. In greater profundity lies the innate frailty of man and woman, the consequence of original sin; it can run to the loss of the sense of God and of man and woman, and have its repercussions in the sphere of sexuality. (64)

SIGNIFICANCE

In the 1960s and 1970s, Catholicism became more liberal as reflected in the reforms of Pope Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council, known as Vatican II. Upon taking office in 1978, Pope John Paul II repudiated many of these reforms. He wanted to restore Catholicism to its previous conservatism and strongly approved of an authoritarian church.

John Paul II made a number of pronouncements on sexual matters. In 1983, the Vatican issued a set of guidelines for sexual education. The thirty-six-page declaration "Educational Guidance in Human Love," was viewed in church circles as largely a stern restatement of the Roman Catholic Church's traditional attitudes. It was also an attack on the worldwide relaxation of sexual mores.

The statement, distributed to all bishops, strongly opposed the devaluation of sex. The Vatican stressed that sexual education is education in love and should never be separated from the morality of the Roman Catholic faith. While the government had an obligation to protect the citizens from pornography and prostitution, it was the family's responsibility to teach sexual education to children.

It is not clear how much of an impact "Educational Guidance in Human Love" had upon Catholics and governments around the world. Europeans and Americans continued to practice liberal attitudes toward sexuality. Asia, Africa, and Latin America, historically more conservative than the industrialized West, may have been more influenced by the document, particularly since the Catholic church is increasing its influence in these regions.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Eberwein, Robert. Sex Ed: Film, Video, and the Framework of Desire. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 1999.

Melody, M.E., and Linda M. Peterson. Teaching America about Sex: Marriage Guides and Sex Manuals from the Late Victorians to Dr. Ruth. New York: New York University, 1999.

Pope John Paul II. Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words. New York: Gramercy, 2000.

Weigel, George. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.