Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 25 No. 2, 2005.
Review article
The Issue of Sexual Education: The Standpoint of the Roman Catholic Church
Luka Tomašević
Abstract
Even though Plato and Aristotle were both interested in the phenomenon of human sexuality within the context of their ethical reflections, philosophers were to start the modem philosophical discussion on sexuality only in the 19th century. Yet, it is only during the 60s and the 70s of the last century that a true philosophy of sexuality (systematic and serious) was introduced and discussed. During the 60s of the last century a magnificent work on sexuality was published in French, called the encyclopaedia of sexuality and collaborated on by a number of renowned philosophers. Following the publication, psychologists and psychoanalysts also started researching sexuality. Yet, no certain answer to the question of what exactly sexuality is is given to date. Today, theologians also engage in the discussion on sexuality, and they consider sexuality God’s gift to man. However, it seems that the presiding discipline in today’s discussion on sexuality is sociology, which does not aim to supply an answer to the question of what sexuality is, but rather describes it as a phenomenon. To- day’s discussion on sexuality unfolds through descriptions of sexual habits or behaviour, which are then published in journals and statistical studies. What is present in this is the phenomenon of the globalism of sexuality or the eroticisation of society. It is due to the above that the need for sexual education has emerged - a need to sexually educate people not only in the family, but also at school and even wider, a need to sexually educate society as a whole.
Real reflection on sexual education began at the end of the 19th century, when medical literature started discussing sexual hygiene. The discussion on sexuality and sexual education can be divided into four periods encompassing approximately the last one hundred years, at least as far as Europe is concerned: the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the accession of fascism and communism, Europe before and after 1968, and Europe from the 80s of the 20th century up to the present time. Nevertheless, sexuality was pedagogically instructed only between 1965 and 1975, when talk of the sexual identity of man and woman began. From 1968 all life precepts were publicly discussed. The period of the 80s and the 90s dramatically opened the issue of sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS in particular. This horrifying disease has finally brought about the need for people to become aware of the necessity of sexual education of the informative type, which discusses the physiology and biology of sexuality, AIDS and homosexuality.
The Roman Catholic Church has been involved in these discussions on sexual education throughout all four periods. However, it has officially engaged in the debate only recently. The Church holds that »in today’s socio-cultural situation, children, adolescents and the youth must urgently be given a positive and gradual affective- sexual education... In this sphere, silence is not a valid criterion of behaviour.« The Church also holds that sexual education must also be formative and not only informative, i.e. that education must talk about the nature and significance, as well as the values and meanings of sexuality.
Keywords
sexual education; Catholic church; sexuality; contemporaneity
Hrčak ID:
202181
URI
Publication date:
25.6.2005.
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