Mexican bishop says Church will always defend comprehensive sexual education

Mexico City, Mexico, Aug 16, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Reacting to the Mexican government’s proposed reform of sexual education material, the president of the Bishops’ Committee on Family Ministry, Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar Martinez, said the Church would never be opposed to sexual education as long as it is comprehensive and respects the dignity of each person.

In response to school officials’ distribution of textbooks that treat sexuality separately from morality and marriage, the bishop stated, “Each person filters information according to his basic experiences, his social context, his level of human development.  Therefore, this education should be imparted first of all by parents, who have the responsibility and the primary right to provide it.”

He said the textbooks contain ambiguous and incomplete information, with a reductionist view of human sexuality, which leads to bad formation, since it does not allow for a healthy and balanced sexual development founded upon self-control and the fostering of responsible sexual behavior, both individually and in society.

“By encouraging self-eroticism, masturbation, and pornography searches on the internet, the textbooks exempt adolescents from their responsibility, which is detrimental to a proper character formation that assumes the consequences of one’s own acts,” Bishop Aguilar noted.  “They are being exposed to becoming incapable of responsible love that involves self-donation,” he added.

Bishop Aguilar also noted that the material does not fully explore the reproductive aspect of sexuality, as it does not make reference to the family as the proper place for the procreation of children.  Rather, it separates sexual activity from the family and from ethical norms.

“By presenting sexuality divided into potentialities and separated from the person, not only is it not being understood as a reality with diverse aspects, but pleasure is prioritized without any reflection on the moment in which one has the maturity to exercise responsibility in the use of sexuality,” the bishop continued
 
Lastly, Bishop Aguilar recalled, “Sexual pleasure is a reality that should never be independent of the conjugal act, as it would lose its sense of communion and be reduced to the encounter between two egos.”