Focus: Parents as primary educators of their children

Parents as primary educators of their children

The Church has consistently taught that parents are the first and foremost educators of their children. They have the inviolable and inalienable right and duty, given by God, to educate their children in such a way as to best ensure their healthy physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual development. How have the theologians and Church fathers of different periods expressed this truth? Here is a selection of their teachings:

“For a child is by nature part of its father: thus, at first, it is not distinct from its parents as to its body, so long as it is enfolded within its mother’s womb; and later on after birth, and before it has the use of its free-will, it is enfolded in the care of its parents, which is like a spiritual womb… Hence it would be contrary to natural justice, if a child, before coming to the use of reason, were to be taken away from its parents’ custody, or anything done to it against its parents’ wish.” – St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica (II-II Q.10 Art 12.)

“…inasmuch as the domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the gathering of men into a community, the family must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to those of the community, and founded more immediately in nature… The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error…” – Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, 15 May 1891 “Parents… have a primary right to the education of the children God has given them in the spirit of their Faith, and according to its prescriptions. Laws and measures which in school questions fail to respect this freedom of the parents go against natural law and are immoral.” – Pius XI, Mit brennender sorge, 14 March 1937

“Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognised as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking…” – Second Vatican Council, Gravissum educationis, 28 October 1965

“The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable

and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others…” – John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, 22 November 1981

“The Pontifical Council for the Family … urges parents to have confidence in their rights and duties regarding the education of their children, so as to go forward with wisdom and knowledge, knowing that they are sustained by God’s gift.” – Pontifical Council for the Family, The truth and meaning of human sexuality, 8 December 1995

We must consider it a tragedy that members of the Church hierarchy today, in many cases, appear to have neglected the zealous public defence of the virtue and innocence of our children, and on many occasions, even support the very structures of sin that were so seriously warned against by popes before this century. It suffices to consider the section in Amoris laetitia entitled “The need for sex education”, which has no reference to parents, to recognise the startling break with the Church’s perennial teaching on this most delicate matter.

When the concept of “sex education” – for married couples – first surfaced in the 1920s, Pope Pius XI offered wise guidance on this question in Casti connubii (1930):

“[W]holesome instruction and religious training in regard to Christian marriage will be quite different from that exaggerated physiological education by means of which, in these times of ours, some reformers of married life make pretense of helping those joined in wedlock, laying much stress on these physiological matters, in which is learned rather the art of sinning in a subtle way than the virtue of living chastely.”

In his great encyclical on Christian education Divini illius magistri (1929) the same Pope Pius XI spoke much more explicitly and strikingly as if addressing directly the dangers and errors we are faced with today with regard to sex education in schools:

“Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers. “Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognise the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.

“In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano when he says: ‘Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice.’”

Many of the defenders of sex education today would want as to believe that things have changed, that the complexities of modern life set out new demands for parents and educators to meet in the best interest of children. To these voices Dr Peter Kwasniewski, a parent and educator of young people, beautifully responded in his recent column on LifeSiteNews:

“Human nature does not change; the demands of virtue do not change; the harm of premature and improper exposure to sexual topics, outside of the confines of the family, remains the same; the permanent damage sins of impurity cause in souls, in friendships, in families, in society as a whole, remains ever the same. Nothing of substance has changed between 1929 [the year Divini illius magistri was published] and 2019. All that has changed is that our world has become ferociously promiscuous, mired in morose delectation, addicted to carnal pleasure, steeped in iniquities that weaken the will and blind the reason. All of these effects were known to the Desert Fathers of ancient Christianity, who predicted all the consequences of self-indulgence. Far from needing to be up-to-date, we would be far wiser to look back and recover their wisdom.”