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The Sexual Revolution,
Sex Education and Priest-Paedophilia
By JAMES LIKOUDIS
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It has been a painful spectacle to witness the reports of paedophilia by
priests and other sexual abuses committed by clergy as recounted 'ad
nauseam' in newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio programs (with the
Catholic Church becoming the butt of mockery and vicious criticisms
including attacks on the Church's discipline of celibacy). All this has
occurred with media pundits joining in demands for the Church to change its
doctrine on contraception, abortion and sodomy, and to conform to a "more
enlightened" sexual ethics for modern man.
Bishop John Kinney charged by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
to deal with the problems resulting from clerical scandals, has noted how
severely the Church has been troubled, and has lamented people's loss of
trust in the Church. Reacting to the sensationalist publicity surrounding
the matter, Pope John Paul II has repeated the words of Christ,
"Woe to the world because of scandals", observing
"how the sins of clerics have shocked the sensibilities of many and
become an occasion of sin for others" (Letter to U.S. Bishops,
7/11/93).
There is unavoidable irony in any assessment of the ravages perpetrated by
today's permissive society. For 30 years were we not told by the
sexologists of the Therapeutic State and their sex education minions in the
schools that sex education was the antidote for sexual misbehavior in
society and the guarantor of happy marriage and family life? Have not the
sex educators so busy in the Church with their workshops, seminars,
conferences and programs for priests and religious assured all and sundry
that only wholesome attitudes on human sexuality would result? Never mind,
of course, the years of protest of laity in regards to the dissenting
theologians and catechists teaching such workshops, seminars, and programs,
and being "wined and dined" on the human sexuality circuit while subverting
"Humanae Vitae" and revising Catholic sexual morality to conform to
the "spirit of the world". Never mind the "Classroom Sex Instruction"
programs with their graphic, explicit and erotic information introduced
into Catholic schools. Never mind the anguish of Catholic parents objecting
to their schools promoting Situation Ethics, Values Clarification,
Fundamental Option, and other variations of "moral decision-making"
malforming the consciences of Catholic youth and deadening the sense of
sin. Never mind the naturalistic sexology focusing on genital acts which
disgraced such programs as "Becoming a Person", Benziger's
Family Life", "Reverence for Life and Family", Wm.C. Brown's "NEW
CREATION PROGRAM", Franciscan Communications's "ln the lmage of
God" program, and the "Valuing Values" sex education program of
Fr. John Forliti.
All these human sexuality programs introduced into Catholic schools (and
fostering the moral corruption of those exposed to them) received the
plaudits of liberal priests, religious, laity (even Bishops) who could not
help be influenced by an accompanying "theological view of sexuality"
discontinuous with Catholic Tradition. Many Catholic educators revealed
themselves oblivious to the growing complaint of parents that offensive sex
education programs in their schools constituted a specific form of child
abuse and child molestation! With the spirit of impurity unleashed in the
once-hallowed classrooms of Catholic schools by the followers of dissenting
moral theologians and the catechetical devotees of Kinsey, Masters and
Johnson, and SIECUS' Mary Calderone and Lester Kirkendall, it was to be
expected that millions of Catholics would adopt permissive attitudes
regarding masturbation, fornication, contraception, abortion,
homosexuality, and pornography.
Awash in a secular sea of moral permissiveness abetted by too many of its
own theologians, seminary professors, catechists, journalists, and
"professional" sex educators, it is not surprising that the Church in North
America should be afflicted with the scandal of homosexuality and
paedophilia among priests vulnerable to the misunderstanding of sexuality
common to dissenters. Moreover, a dangerous androgynous view of human
sexuality has been tragically spread by the promoters of 'Classroom Sex
Instruction' in Catholic schools. Such instruction has been a particularly
effective vehicle for modernity's assault on the Church's sexual morality.
The sex educators in the Church have been secularism's allies in the effort
to foster a contraceptive-abortion population control mentality on the
nation's youth. Their sickening non-judgmentalism regarding the immorality
of "gays and lesbians", has contributed to the spread of paedophilia in our
day.
Who have been those spreading the false teaching on sexuality?
Who have been the dissenters subverting the Church's teaching on sex and
morality?
Who have been the "professional" sex educators helping to destroy parental
rights in education and imposing upon Catholic children sex education
programs in totalitarian fashion?
Who have been placing children and adolescents in occasions of sin?
Some are, clearly, well-known dissenter theologians; others are popular
religious educators and catechetical writers; others are professional sex
educators who care nothing for personal and family privacy or for the
virtues of modesty and chastity; still others are joumalists active in a
sycophantic Catholic Press that has oozed sympathy for the radical
innovation of Classroom Sex Education which, long ago, was decried by an H.
L. Mencken as "sexual hygiene quackery".
Some have left the priesthood or religious life, or have died. But the
damage they have all caused the Church and family life is immense. Others
still remain at the same old stand with the same old jaded rhetoric about
the need to combat "ignorance" about sex! Perhaps some of the following
have shown up lately in your diocese. Perhaps their books, texts, articles,
and workshops have directly influenced the sex education and catechesis
being provided by your diocesan schools and parishes:
[N.B. The following list (of formal and informal sex educators) is
hardly exhaustive; more names could easily be added to each category]
Rev. Charles Curran
Rev. Gregory Baum
Rev. John Dedek
The authors of the notorious "Human Sexuality: New Directions in
American Catholic Thought" commissioned by the Catholic Theological
Society of America, 1977:
Rev. Anthony Kosnik,
Rev. Agnes Mary Cunningham,
Rev. Ronald Modras,
and John Schulte.
John L. Thomas, S.J.
Rev. Dennis J. Doherty
Richard A. McCormick, S J.
Lisa Sowla Cahill, former president of the Catholic Theological Society of
America
Rev. Timothy E. O'Connell
Rev. Robert M. Friday
Rev. Matthew Fox
Cornelius Van Der Poel C.S.Sp.
Canadians:
Rev. Andre Guindon, and
Rev. Rev. Michael Prieur;
Priests who headed the USCC-NCCB Family Life Division:
Rev. James T. McHugh,
Rev. Donald Conroy,
Rev. Thomas Lynch.
Rochester, NY Sex Educators:
Dr. Gerald Guerinot,
Msgr. William Shannon,
John McLaughlin, S.J. (now of "The McLaughlin
Group"),
Rev. Kenneth Untener (now Bishop) who, while Rector of St. John's Seminary,
Plymouth, MI, had seminarians view pornographic films which were part of
the Sexual Attitude Restructuring Program (SAR);
Rev. Walter lmbiorski
Dr. Daniel Dolesh
Drs. James and Marie Fox
Valerie Vance Dillon
Dr. David Thomas
Urban Steinmetz
Richard Reichert
Thomas Zanzig
James Di Giacomo, S.J.
Edward Stevens, S J.
Bro. Hugo Hurst
Michele McCarty
Ronald J. Wilkins
Marc Oraison
Rev. Gerald Sloyan
Daniel and Sidney Callahan
John and Mary Perkins Ryan
Joseph and Lois Bird
Jose de Vinck
Mary Tan and Lawrence J. Losoncy
Rev. Joseph Champlin
Rev. William J. Bausch
Ronald A. Sarno, S.J.
Nicholas Lohkamp, O.F.M.
Rev. Joseph "Joshua" Girzone
Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Wilke
Anthony Padovano, now leader of Corpus (Group of former priests)
Rev. Paul Shanley
Rev. Frank McNulty
Rev. John McCall
Rev.Robert Nugent and Sr.Jeannine Grammick, (apologists for DIGNITY)
Rev. John Forliti (He has 5 sex education programs!)
Rev. Richard Sparks, C.S.P.
Milwaukee archdiocese's Nancy Hennessey Cooney and Raejean Kantor
Albany Diocese's Mary Reed Newland and Sr. Lynn Levo, C.S.J.;
Margaret Farley, RSM
Sr. Mariella Frye
Sr. Mary Ann Walsh
Patricia Miller
Galveston Houston's DRE Dorris Desroche
Rev. Michael Crosby, author of "The Dysfunctional Church";
Rev. James Sullivan (Brooklyn);
(both Crosby and Sullivan
spoke to Priests' Retreats in Buffalo, N.Y., sanctioning immoral acts
between priests);
Buffalo sex educators:
Ellen Christensen,
Diana Palumbo,
Sr. Mary Angela Morano,
Sr. Helen Louise Simeca, F.M.D.C.,
Eileen T. Courtade;
Carlow College's Dr. William Uricchio and
nurse Meredith Cochran who ran College workshops showing films on
"love-making between caring men".
Future Church historians will have a field day in documenting the
contamination of the Catholic educational system with Classroom sex
instruction (which has proven to be one of the most powerful forces of
secularization at work in the Church and society). Is it not astonishing
that those in charge of a Catholic education system withering away before
their eyes remain blind to the devastating effects of Classroom sex
instruction programs? Their posture of denial and cover-up is similar to
that of those who absolutely refuse to see the connection between the
spread of pornography and the proliferation of sex crimes, or the link
between contraception and abortion.
In concluding this commentary on priestly paedophilia, let us note recent
remarks by Fr. Michael Crosby (author of "The Dysfunctional Church")
who regales his audiences with the notion cherished by many of the sex
educators we have listed, namely, that the traditional sexual morality of
the Church is responsible for making Catholics sexually and socially
dysfunctional. Described as one of the most-in-demand speakers for
"Priests' Retreats", Fr. Crosby announced recently with great glee:
"The Holy Spirit is purging the Church of patriarchy through the door of
paedophilia".
Outrageous and blasphemous? Indeed. But that statement is typical of the
unchaste decadence brought into the Church by those in revolt against the
moral teachings of Jesus Christ.
In 1970 Fr. George Hagmaier, a Catholic priest who was a member of the
Board of Directors of SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Coucil of the
U.S.), set the tone for the future of 'Sex Education' incorporated into
Catholic schools when he declared:
"We can no longer say that masturbation is objectively wrong; I just don't
think we can. Yet we were raised in the tradition where this haunted many a
young person of our own age. The same thing with a universal condemnation
of some kind of sexual experience — heterosexual experience —
before marriage, varying degrees of physical contact and perhaps even
intercourse before marriage. We can no longer, at least I feel so, and I'm
supported by more and more young theologians, speak in these kind of
absolutes...
We have re-examined the meaning of sexuality and we have found that
sexuality can also serve all kinds of other basic needs and therefore the
evaluation of behavior in this area has to be different.
... Therefore, using your homosexual question, there are individuals who,
as far as we know today, are not going to be able to relate heterosexually
and therefore we have to devise a set of moral principles which will make
them responsible in relating to one another in the areas of care, trust,
love, acceptance and so on – within their own potentialities beyond
which they are not able to go.
... Unless the institution, the rigid institutional church you describe, by
some miraculous way, changes radically and learns to communicate with the
new generation and learns to respond to their questions - their new
questions - then the institution itself will be irrevocably on the road to
complete disintegration and no one will know
what the vestiges of this will
be."
(National Catholic Reporter 2/25/70)
As of 1993 "the vestiges" are only too clear. The phenomenon of priestly
paedophilia is only the latest evidence of the moral corruption allowed to
fester in the Church and to tragically obscure that mark of Holiness
which is its unique splendor.
The rotten fruits of the Sexual Revolution and its handmaid "Classroom Sex
Education" are there for all to see. Headlines in every paper trumpet the
statistics of teenage promiscuity, the number of contracepting Catholics,
the epidemic of sexual diseases among both young and old, and, believe it
or not, the need for more sex education.
Holy Scripture has harsh words
for fools who trust in their own folly. (See
Proverbs 17:12)
Reprinted from SERVIAM Newsletter, issue of Sept./Oct. 1993
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