Argentinean Archbishop says “sex-ed” programs anything but education

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 27, 2004 / 22:00 pm

In his weekly television program, “Keys for a Better World,” Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata, Argentina, denounced “sex-ed” programs that are being proposed for use in schools as “the complete opposite” of what education in chastity and love should be.

According to Archbishop Aguer, the sex-ed programs promoted by international organizations have a “totalitarian aspect, as they ignore the rights of parents, who are always primarily responsible for the education of their children, and this right is preeminent with regards to these matters that are so essential and so important in the formation of one’s personality.”

Health officials in Argentina have planned in 2005 for the distribution of 5 million oral contraceptives, 850,000 injectible contraceptives, 460,000 intrauterine devices, 8 million condoms, as well as other contraceptives.

Archbishop Aguer denounced the current “National Law on Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation,” for requiring schools to provide instructions on these issues.  “I think these figures reveal the focus of these types of projects which tend to propose education on human sexuality and provide tools ‘to cure oneself’, as they say,” he explained.

Archbishop Aguer explained that there are alternative programs which suggest that the State “propose sexual education workshops for parents,” adding that “it is often said that parents are the ones with the right and the duty to educate their children in these matters but that they are not competent.”

“It is essential to respect the rights of parents regarding the philosophical and even spiritual or religious formation which they wish to impress upon their children,” he stated.  The archbishop said that “something very important for young people and for all of society is at risk” and that the only alternative is “that of an integral education that understands sexuality in the context of the whole human person and is truly oriented towards love, the family, and the formation of the emotions, and not only a superficial instruction that broadcasts a false sense of security and leads to promiscuity and early contact, even earlier than that that we must lament in today’s world, with sexual experience.”

Lastly the archbishop said it is the duty of the bishops to preach and catechize “seriously on the 6th Commandment and its implications and on the virtue of chastity.  This is healthier and more dignified than distributing condoms.”