Talking about Touching
Bishop Vasa writes his own “safe environment” program
Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, has gone on record as a critic of the current “safe environment” programs being offered by dioceses in response to the Scandal, such as “Talking about Touching” and “Good Touch, Bad Touch” and others. Rather than curse the darkness, the good bishop has decided to light a proverbial candle as described in his latest email sent out to various folks.
In brief, he is working with the Catholic Medical Association and others to craft a new program to address the shortcomings of what is available now, with the most basic goal of endeavoring to train the parents to teach their own kids, which is what the Church says we’re supposed to do in the first place.
It has been a while since I corresponded with you regarding the Safe Environment Programs which are being used throughout the Dioceses of the US. I write to give you an update, offer some hope and ask a favor.
UPDATE: In the Fall of 2006 the Catholic Medical Association issued a Report titled: To Protect and to Prevent: The Sexual Abuse of Children and its Prevention. This Report is available for purchase on the CMA website: Cathmed.org. One of the recommendations of the Report was: “We recommend that the energy and resources now directed to child and adolescent empowerment programs be refocused on the development of programs to assist parents in being the primary educators and protectors of their children.” As you can imagine this recommendation has not been accepted or acted upon by the producers of other Child Protection strategies.
HOPE: It does not appear that others will engage in the recommended work. Thus, I have been working with a small group of dedicated Healthcare Professionals and Priests to fulfill this recommendation. We have studied the issues more thoroughly and have been engaged in formulating the script and format for a 6 hour video series focusing on strengthening and reinforcing good parenting as a primary way to assure the safety of children. The proposed title of our effort might be something like: Strong Families: Safer Children. While it may be that our program will not be adopted by Bishops as the only mechanism for fulfilling the requirements of Article 12 of the Charter for the Protection of Children it is our hope that at least some Bishops will adopt this program as well as many priests in a variety of Parishes and that the families therein will be able to benefit from it.
The letter continued
Technorati Tags: Catholic | bishop | Talking about Touching | safe environment | pedophile | sex abuse |
Catholic doctors say Talking about Touching, other programs are no good
Many of us have been saying it for a long time, but it’s nice to be backed up by experts. The Catholic Medical Association has released a 55-page report recommending the US bishops end “safe-environment sex education” programs like Talking about Touching because of the damage it does to children and to their relationships with their parents. (For a review of what I originally wrote about Talking about Touching.)
The group released a 55-page study, “To Prevent and to Protect: Report of the Catholic Medical Association Task Force on the Sexual Abuse of Children and Its Prevention,” Oct. 27 during the association’s annual conference in Boston. ... The study states that sex abuse prevention programs that empower children to protect themselves are ineffective, inconsistent with the science of the emotional, cognitive, neurobiological and moral development of the child and contrary to the Church’s teaching on the education of children in matters pertaining to sex.
John Brehany, executive director of the CMA, boiled the debate down into one question: “Are (the programs) well designed, effective in practice, consistent with the Church’s teaching on human persons, family and sexual love?”
If you read my initial report on Talking about Touching, you’ll see that it isn’t. It was written by a group whose founding principle was the legalization of prostitution and whose founder was a “Dianic Wiccan priestess.” Even setting aside those problems, it promotes a worldview that sets aside questions of morality in favor of a relativistic approach of “Is it a bad touch?”, i.e. is this wrong in my subjective view? It also makes children the front-line of their own defense and undermines parents’ authority. As I showed in the article, the implementation of such programs also frequently undermine parental rights’ and authority as set out in Church teaching. What these programs do is turn children in good witnesses for the prosecution; they don’t prevent abuse. But then identifying and isolating abusers is properly the role of parents and other adults, not the children.
Ignoring the causes, real solutions
Technorati Tags:bishops, Catholic, Catholic Medical Association, doctors, safe environment, sex abuse, Talking about Touching
Homegrown “safe environment” program is more of the same
Is there such thing as a good “safe environment” program or is the concept itself flawed? The Diocese of Manchester in New Hampshire was unsatisfied with the programs available to it (like Talking about Touching) so it created its own. In fact, it created two. One is a musical theater show performed at area Catholic schools to which parents and children are invited. Another is a mandatory program that takes place in Catholic schools and during religious education instruction for pre-K to 12th grade.
Here’s an initial reaction. Once again we have programs taking place during time that’s supposed to be set aside for religious instruction. Are our children so well-catechized that we can afford to give up more of the precious little time we have already? And since when it is a religious function to teach kids about “safe touching”?
The Manchester programs tried to address the deficiencies in other programs. For example, they say that parents complained they were left out of the planning process and implementation. In reality, the complaint is that children should not be exposed to material harmful to their innocence and that as the primary educators of their children, parents are the ones to determine both harm and appropriateness. Like I’ve said before, if a diocese wanted to have an education program for parents who would then decide how best to educate their children that would be appropriate, but going directly to children as young as four to make them their own first-line of defense is wrong. Our job as adults is to protect the children, not leave them to defend themselves.
What about the enablers and the bishop?
Technorati Tags:bishops, Catholic, Manchester, McCormack, safe environment, sex abuse
Studies show “safe environment” programs don’t work
The Catholic Medical Association agrees with me that “safe environment sex education” programs like Talking about Touching are ineffective and possibly dangerous and should be abandoned by dioceses that have implemented them. I’ve been saying this about Talking about Touching since it was first proposed three years ago.
These programs were supposed to be a panacea “empowering” children, when in reality they stripped children of their innocence, made them their own front-line defense against predators, and treated them like potential witnesses for the prosecution. They also effectively let dioceses off the hook by giving them something to point at when asked about the Scandal and, to top it off, often supplanted religious education programs, leaving our children even less catechized than before.
The Catholic Medical Association, the CMA, had engaged a task force of physicians who specialize in the care of children to examine sexual abuse of children and adolescents, its causes and the effectiveness of popular prevention programs used in schools. The experts were asked to suggest “interventions for the prevention of sexual abuse, based upon scientific principles of child neurobiological and moral development. …”
The task force findings echoed the concerns of thousands of parents, that the programs in use had “the potential … to traumatize the child by introducing false and negative concepts concerning the meaning and dignity of human sexual relatedness and the potential to produce distrust for trustworthy parents.”
These parental cries of protest reached the Vatican, where the Pontifical Council for the Family logged pleas and petitions asking the Council to address the issue of so-called “safety education” programs used in their schools for the prevention of sexual abuse. The Congregations for Bishops, Clergy and the Doctrine of the Faith urged the CMA to continue with the work of their task force.
Absence of morality
Technorati Tags:Catholic, parent’s rights, safe environment, sex abuse, sex education
Talking about Touching in Minneapolis
The debate over “safe environment sex education” continues in the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese. Unlike other dioceses, concerned parents have been successful in getting the archdiocese to agree to allow parishes to choose between a Catholic-appropriate program and Talking about Touching, whose deficiencies I have detailed at length.
The parents’ group, Primary Educators, has updated their blog with information on the new push for the program as the school year begins. Among the key bits is the news that for the first time “the archdiocese has publicly stated in writing that the “Formation in Christian Chastity” or Harrisburg program is approved by Archbishop Flynn.” This is the alternative to the Planned Parenthood-endorsed Talking about Touching that parents were able to get officials to allow, if begrudgingly. The Harrsiburg program now has 36 schools using it, while Talking about Touching will be used in 31.
Speaking of the Planned Parenthood endorsement, in a Q&A in the diocesan newspaper, Sr. Fran Donnelly, archdiocesan director of the youth protection office, admits to the fact of the endorsement. This should embarrass everyone pushing this program as much as its roots in a pro-prostitution occultic feminist organization.
I hope someday soon people wake up and realize that these programs unnecessarily strip the innocence from children, make them responsible for their own protection from predators, and aim to make us forget that the reason priestly predators were able to do the damage they did was because bishops coddled and protected them.
Technorati Tags:Catholic, Minneapolis, safe environment, sex abuse, Talking about Touching
Paying for the privilege
I’ve been saying for some time that I think the USCCB’s “safe environment sex education” programs are an ill-conceived idea that ignores the real reason why we had a major scandal involving clergy sex-abuse (i.e. bishops ordaining priests with personality disorders and then failing to remove those priests from ministry when they abused kids) and instead puts the onus on volunteers, parents, and children to prevent further abuse. In the end, it’s mainly a means of dioceses covering the assets under orders from lawyers and insurers.
My primary disagreement is with programs that focus on the children, stripping them of their innocence, especially when such programs are mandatory. While I’m not thrilled about the training for adults, I can see some value. However, too often they’ve been full of the same politically correct nonsense we’ve been hearing in the media, especially the repeated refrain that homosexuality had nothing to do with the abuse. (Saying it a million times doesn’t make it true.)
But this takes the cake. One of Amy Welborn’s readers (keep in mind we don’t know what school or diocese this is so we have no way to verify this) sent her an email revealing that her children’s Catholic school will now make parents pay to take this mandatory training. On the one hand, you could say that the parents will pay one way or the other, if not directly then out of the tuition. The training materials for these programs are expensive. (Talking about Touching is about $2,500 per parish.)
Yet I sympathize with the emailer’s gut reaction:
I find it absolutely obscene that the Church is charging parents for programs that stem more from ecclesial wrongdoing than children’s needs. I don’t care that the fee is only $10 or that the cost of the training program would eventually trickle down to us as parishioners or school parents anyway. There’s something about paying this fee that makes my blood boil.
In the end, it’s not about the ten bucks. It’s the whole darn thing and perhaps the straw breaking the camel’s back.
Technorati Tags:bishops, Catholic, safe environment, scandal, sex abuse, sex education
Giving parents what they already have a right to
I was buoyed by this title in a recent issue of The Wanderer—U.S. Bishops Reverse Mandatory Safety-Sex-Ed Policy”—but then realized it wasn’t what I thought.
What I thought was that they were going to reverse their ridiculous mandate that every diocese require children to be indoctrinated in a “safe environment sex education” program. (I’ve blogged on my objections before), but upon reading the article I see the change is more subtle.
In a little-noticed, single paragraph released May 15 on its web site, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reversed the policy adopted by numerous dioceses across America that had subjected Catholic schoolchildren to mandatory “sex-abuse-education” classes.
“New regulations issued May 15 by the U.S. bishops allow parents to remove their children from diocesan-sponsored training programs in child sex-abuse prevention,” said the announcement from the U.S. bishops’ Catholic News Service (CNS).
Gee, thanks for giving me what is already my right. No diocese or parish or Catholic school has the right to demand that I submit my child to any program involving sexuality. Pope John Paul II underlined that right in his 1981 encyclical Familiaris Consortio:
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents. [emphasis added]
But is it sex education?
Technorati Tags:bishops, Catholic, sex abuse, USCCB
What is Talking about Touching?
I highlighted some of this in my own article about Talking about Touching, but it’s worth revisiting what exactly this program entails. The Primary Educators League has posted some of the sample lessons online which expose the explicitness of the program. If you’re tempted to say, “So what, it’s not any worse than what you see on network TV at night,” keep in mind that this is for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.
All of these lessons use the explicit names for body parts, no euphemisms. If you ask the Talking about Touching trainer why this must be so, they will reply that it is necessary so that the children will be good witnesses for law enforcement. So much for preventing abuse; instead they’re concentrating on preparing their trial testimony. There’s no sense of safeguarding the innocence of children, but there’s plenty about making children paranoid and distrustful of everyone, including parents, but ironically not teachers and other institutional authorities.
As I’ve said before, it should be up to parents and institutions in loco parentis to be sure that predators, potential and actual, be kept away from children and not make children their own first line of defense.
My pastor and I have refused to implement this in our parish despite a direct order from Cardinal O’Malley. My pastor told the cardinal that he cannot be ordered to do something immoral and in violation of his conscience and if the cardinal wishes he can remove him as pastor. Good for you, Father.
Parents speak out in Minneapolis
Matt Abbott links to a full-page ad taken out by parents in Minneapolis-St. Paul against the implementation of Talking about Touching. (Page down to the bottom, he also provides a link to the ad itself.)
The parents took out full-page ads in the two major newspapers, detailing the problems with Talking about Touching and promoting the alternative that some parishes are offering. Good to see that some parents have not given up the fight.
Technorati Tags: Catholic, Minneapolis, sex abuse
What happens if a “bad touch” feels good
In its continuing series of articles defending the Archdiocese of Los Angeles against charges of negligence with regard to sex abuse and trying to convince people that things aren’t as bad as they seem, last week The Tidings, the diocesan newspaper, penned an article about teaching kids about “good touches” and “bad touches.” Oops sorry, it’s supposed to be “Good Touch/Bad Touch” followed by the the “R”-in-a-circle sign indicating a registered trademark. That makes it more official and probably is designed to prevent people from writing criticisms of it or something.
Anyway, we’re first informed that the American Humane Association says the average age of a sexually abused child is 9.3 years. That would be pedophilia, all right. But wait a minute, that’s not related to the actual abuse of children by priests, which is ostensibly the reason for this training. When you look at the John Jay Criminal College report data, you find that the average age of victims was over 12, the majority of victims were between males between the ages of 11 and 17, and over half of all victims (male and female) were between 11 and 14. This more properly defined as ephebophilia, not pedophilia, and has distinct characteristics. When it’s an adult male with a post-pubescent male, it’s called homosexuality. But we’ve discussed that before. On to the rest of the article.
Good touch. Bad touch. How about immoral touch?
Technorati Tags: Catholic, sex-abuse
Flynn says Altier not silenced
Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis has a form letter response to those asking about Fr. Robert Altier. He denies that Altier has been “silenced” and that he and Altier simply decided that now would be a good time for him to stop his radio apostolate.
The webmasters of the Desert Voice web site, which was posting Fr. Altier’s homilies until the order came down, ask the obvious question: If this was only about ending radio ministry, then why was he also forced to ask that his homilies not be posted online anymore? Certainly, having someone else record and post those homilies takes no time or attention away from his parish ministry.
Flynn also mentions the objections to the “safe environment sex education” programs—apparently because some people surmise that Altier’s objections were why he was silenced—as saying that “parents always retain the right to withhold their children from any program to which they object.” How gracious and generous. Yet it doesn’t address the basic objection: that such programs are in themselves immoral and usurp the proper role of parents in educating their children. It’s not the fact that my children have to go through it, but that any children have to go through it and at the hands of the Church no less. Even then it is an opt-out, not opt-in process. He just doesn’t get it.
Technorati Tags: bishops, Catholic, Minneapolis, priesthood, sex-abuse
Audit results in Boston
The Boston archdiocese released the results of its latest audit of its compliance with the US bishops’ charter on sex abuse. The report says that archdiocese is doing just fine except not all children have been indoctrinated in the “safe environment sex education” program.
The archdiocese said that it has completed the training for adults and for approximately 119,000 children, but it has not yet given training to approximately 90,000 children in religious education classes and parochial schools.
And they won’t in my parish as both I, as a parish religious education coordinator, and my pastor have both said. These programs are themselves a form of abuse of children’s innocence and a co-opting of the role of parents. In addition, their mandatory nature takes time away from what we’re supposed to be doing, which is giving kids an education in their religion. They also make children the frontline of their own defense. Teaching them to say no, does not protect them from predators. Not assigning such predators as priests in their parishes does. Even more, making sure adults are on the lookout for them does as well. I’ve outlined my objections to these kinds of programs in detail before.
The usual suspects
Technorati Tags: audits, Boston, Catholic, sex-abuse
Sex-abuse ed options in Minneapolis
It looks like the “safe touch sex education” programs in Minneapolis-St. Paul are a wee bit more flexible than those in Boston. The bearing blog describes that at his parish they have decided not to use Talking about Touching in their parish, an option provided by the archdiocese, and will instead use a more appropriate program. The archdiocese is offering family-based training, which I assume means training the parents and letting them teach their kids. This seems to be a decent compromise.
Still, no one has yet offered a good response to my question: Why should the Church be running these child-abuse programs?
Why is it the Church’s duty to run sex abuse prevention programs for children? Now, I can agree that the archdiocese has a duty to make sure that it has oversight of priests and employees to prevent them from abusing kids, but under what law or principle does the Church have an obligation to educate kids about sex abuse? The Church doesn’t have that authority. Only parents have that authority. Now if there were an optional program offered for parents who could sign up to receive training that they could pass on to their kids that would be fine. But forcing the Archdiocese to force “touching safety” programs on kids is unconscionable and a violation of our rights. Why not require the Church to teach, say, gun safety? Kids need to be safe around guns. Oh, is it because some bishops were negligent and allowed abuse to occur in Church? So why does that mean that the Church must take on the role of “safe environment sex education” programs? It should just mean the Church has to make sure it doesn’t put abusers among kids.
Technorati Tags: Catholic, Minneapolis, sex-abuse
More on Fr. Altier
I’ve been getting lots of emails about Fr. Robert Altier, who I mentioned in the previous post. Some people just want to reiterate their high regard for Altier and how surprised they are by these actions. Others are passing on their conviction that the silencing has to do with Altier’s strong opposition to the Virtus and Talking about Touching training. There’s still no hard information, so I’ll hold off on direct speculation.
However, I will say that Archbishop Flynn, Altier’s bishop, is the chairman of the US bishops’ Ad-Hoc Committee on child and youth protection and thus it is important to his national credibility that all of the “safe environment sex education” training programs be implemented in his archdiocese. Having a prominent priest—who is heard on a national Catholic radio network and whose homilies are posted online and read throughout the country—opposing him on this is not good for his image.
Contrast the action taken against Altier with the (in)action against the infamous St. Joan of Arc parish in the same archdiocese. Outright heterodoxy from priests and people of that parish were tolerated for years until the pastor left on his own terms. There was no silencing, no rebuking. Just tolerance of stuff like a gay/lesbian ministry that openly defies the Church’s teachings.
Problems with Talking about Touching
Update: See new info after the jump.
Technorati Tags: bishops, Catholic, Minneapolis, priesthood, sex-abuse
Priest silenced
A number of people have alerted me today to this notification about the silencing under obedience by Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis of Fr. Robert Altier. Altier is a noted orthodox priest, who has a program on the Relevant Radio network, and is an advisor to Catholic Parents Online, a group opposed to the implementation of Talking about Touching in Minneapolis.
I have hesitated to post anything about it because no one can tell me why he was silenced. The Archdiocese is not talking and neither is Father Altier. Some people are speculating why, which is fine for them, but I’d rather wait until there is more information.
(As longtime Bettnet readers know, I have been burned in the past by jumping the gun. Maturity means we learn from our mistakes, right?)
So if anyone has anyone information, please either email me or post a comment. I will respect requests for anonymity and information that is either off the record or on background.
Technorati Tags: bishops, Catholic, priesthood
