Bishops may favor sex education

MANILA, Philippines -  Catholic bishops are leaning toward favoring sex education provided that it would be accompanied by values formation and that the teaching would be done in stages, a Church official said yesterday.

“We educate children because we want them to be good adults, to be responsible citizens, to have a part in nation building,” Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines secretary-general Juanito Figura said.

“But to have such great focus on sex education is for him (Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales) disturbing because the children might not need it.”

He also clarified that the Manila archbishop “is not against sex education per se, but he objected to the bulk of sex education modules to the young.”

“Sex education should be accompanied by values formation because in the modules that he (Cardinal Rosales) has seen, the scientific techniques on reproduction and terms were there but there was nothing about values, nothing about discipline, nothing about self control and he was wondering what kind of education would this give to our young children especially the grade schoolers,” Figura added.

The Church leaders contend that the students should also be taught that “the bodies were created by God and therefore should be taken care of.” “We should be responsible for these bodies until they realize that these bodies are instruments of God in bringing in children to the world,” Figura said. – Evelyn Macairan, Aurea Calica