Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis -" Talking About Touching" Aligned with Catholic Religious Instruction
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recently published a 27 page document outlining in detail how each lesson correlates to the teachings of the Catholic Faith. This is different than the recently published "Correlation Guide" by Harcourt Press. However, this 27 page document looks very similar to one that was distributed at the rollout meeting nearly one year ago. The final few pages of the document are dedicated to "Creating Safe and Sacred Spaces" for high school students.
It is unclear who the authors are of this document. However, at the Archdiocesan-wide meeting in February 2006, the spokeswoman for the Committee for Children admitted that they, CFC, had created something for the Archdiocese of Boston that aligned the Catechism with "Talking About Touching." This document has a similar look and feel to that shared by the Committee for Children representative at the February 2006 meeting.
This document comes on the heals of the Catholic doctors calling for an end to "safe environments" and they specifically called out "Talking About Touching" as being anything but Catholic teaching.
The 27 page document can be found on the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis "Protection of Children and Youth Initiative" page. This page has some information about the "safe environments" initiative. On the left side where you'll see the new document, you will also see an article from Archbishop Flynn as well an article on "safe environments" published by the Catholic Spirit. Neither of those articles have been available to the public for some time. In addition, the Catholic Spirit no longer has posted the Special Report they published this fall to rollout the "safe environments" initiative to the Archdiocese. We have asked the editor, Joe Towalski, repeatedly post these articles again. While Mr. Towalski has never responded, Sr. Fran Donnelley just informed me that they are working on getting these reposted. We have also asked Mr. Towalski if he would be reporting on the Catholic Medical Association's devastating report on the U.S. Bishops' child safety programs. There has been no response.
I can't help but think what the Church and the world would be like if we marshalled the same kind of passion, commitment, organization, and financial backing to educate adults in the Faith.
It is unclear who the authors are of this document. However, at the Archdiocesan-wide meeting in February 2006, the spokeswoman for the Committee for Children admitted that they, CFC, had created something for the Archdiocese of Boston that aligned the Catechism with "Talking About Touching." This document has a similar look and feel to that shared by the Committee for Children representative at the February 2006 meeting.
This document comes on the heals of the Catholic doctors calling for an end to "safe environments" and they specifically called out "Talking About Touching" as being anything but Catholic teaching.
The 27 page document can be found on the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis "Protection of Children and Youth Initiative" page. This page has some information about the "safe environments" initiative. On the left side where you'll see the new document, you will also see an article from Archbishop Flynn as well an article on "safe environments" published by the Catholic Spirit. Neither of those articles have been available to the public for some time. In addition, the Catholic Spirit no longer has posted the Special Report they published this fall to rollout the "safe environments" initiative to the Archdiocese. We have asked the editor, Joe Towalski, repeatedly post these articles again. While Mr. Towalski has never responded, Sr. Fran Donnelley just informed me that they are working on getting these reposted. We have also asked Mr. Towalski if he would be reporting on the Catholic Medical Association's devastating report on the U.S. Bishops' child safety programs. There has been no response.
I can't help but think what the Church and the world would be like if we marshalled the same kind of passion, commitment, organization, and financial backing to educate adults in the Faith.
posted by John Murphy | 8:32 PM
1 Comments:
This is a load of _fill in the blank_. These lessons do not align with either Catholic moral teaching OR with child development. As one developing a TRUE "safe-environment" program that is Catholic, here are the major problems TAT has:
1) Its "touching rule" can easily be used against any child by a perpetrator.
2) It equates "feels good" and "wanted" with morally right and "feels bad" and "unwanted" with morally wrong.
3) It relies on 5, 6, 7, and 8 year olds to have intuition; to discern situations; to be able to grasp that good can turn into bad (CMA shows this is not possible at their ages).
4) It is exceedingly graphic (even if you alter "terminology").
No...taking TAT as it is and trying to wrap Catholicism around it is like trying to cover up dung with perfume. It just doesn't work.
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