Human Sexuality: the realities and our response

By Fr Matthew Ragbir

Director, Pastoral Formation

It is said, “to be human is to be sexual, but not everything sexual is human.” What then does it mean to be human? How ought we to live humanly in our sexuality and affectivity?

What are the realities around human sexuality faced in our schools, by both teachers and students, and how are they addressed? How do we approach education in human sexuality/affective development/education for love within the Roman Catholic tradition?

Many educators, parents, and catechists speak of the overwhelming challenge in dealing with issues arising in human sexuality in their own lives and those under their charge.

While parents are the first teachers of their children, the school environment remains a vital learning and formation space where the lived example and advice given shapes and moulds students in ways which can help or impede their maturity in human affectivity.

Pope Francis notes in Amoris Laetitia (AL): “the family is the first school of human values, where we learn the wise use of freedom. Certain inclinations develop in childhood and become so deeply rooted that they remain throughout life, either as attractions to a particular value or a natural repugnance to certain ways of acting. Many people think and act in a certain way because they deem it to be right on the basis of what they learned, as if by osmosis, from their earliest years: ‘That’s how I was taught’. ‘That’s what I learned to do’.” (#274).

He continues, “it is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialised and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving. In such a way, the language of sexuality would not be sadly impoverished but illuminated and enriched. The sexual urge can be directed through a process of growth in self-knowledge and self- control capable of nurturing valuable capacities for joy and for loving encounter” (#280, AL).

This formation needs to be developmentally suited and collaborative with parents, not replacing them and their authority. It is not merely about providing information but is part of a bigger question concerning human flourishing and human development as children of God. Hence, the Church calls for “a positive and prudent sex education” to be imparted to children and adolescents “as they grow older,” with “due weight being given to the advances in the psychological, pedagogical and didactic sciences” – Gravissimum Educationis 1, AL 280.

With this thinking in mind, a Human Sexuality Symposium is imperative. You are encouraged to see the advertisement for details and scan the QR code to register.