We just finished our last intense section with a good test that the students did really well on. Over the past couple of weeks we've been talking about marriage/sexuality and some of the Church's teachings. We hit the big ones in talking about contraception, in vitro fertilization, homosexuality and finally we looked at what the Church says about homosexual persons adopting children.
It was very interesting - I was expecting a battle over contraception but the students all thought the Church's teaching on that issue made sense. The young people were MUCH more into the issue of homosexuality. As I was teaching it, I got to thinking that I'd love to write a book laying out the Church's teaching on such matters, especially homosexuality. I'm sure someone has done it well elsewhere I've just never seen it yet.
The main thing for all of these issues (as I reminded the kids) is this - The Church's teaching on sexuality is founded on 2 key principles
1) Sex is to be found only within marriage
2) Sex between married persons must be both open to life and it must be a unifying act for the couple
I then told them that the other teachings that follow are founded on the above two teachings. I told them if they don't agree with the above teachings, then it makes little sense to argue about a teaching that follows from those two principles. We talked about how they need to deal with whatever it is that is snagging them and not worry about all the other stuff that follows.
To use a math analogy: it is useless to get mad about the definition of a square if you don't really believe that one of Euclid's 5 founding axioms of geometry are accurate. If, for example, you don't believe that two points make a line then worrying about a teaching which is founded on that definition is pretty pointless. The young people seemed to get that.
I also appreciate their questions! It was a very good few weeks of discussion!
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