PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN

 

            Catholic parents have long had to be concerned about their children’s faith and moral beliefs when they go off to college, even if they are enrolled in an institution with a Catholic affiliation.  This is because many professors teach according to a secularist worldview which rejects natural law and organized religion.  They impress their opinions on their young students, who are intimidated by their professors’ credentials and rarely have the confidence or knowledge to defend their faith against the secularist onslaught. 

            Today, parents are finding that the challenge to the faith and moral teaching which they give to their children begins not in their college years but in their elementary and teenage years.  The biggest challenge are the ideas and temptations swirling around on television, social media and the internet.  Children today have all too easy access not only to ideas, but to videos and images that can harm them.  According to Google Analytics, pornography searches increase by 4,700% when kids are using the internet after school hours.  You read the number correctly – 4,700%!  The website NetNanny.com reports that “Most statistics on pornography use say the average age of a child's first exposure to pornography is 11 years old. New research from the security technology company Bitdefender, has reported children under the age of 10 now account for 22% of online porn consumption under 18 -years old. Particularly alarming is that the site most visited by children under 10 include porn mega sites like Pornhub. The under 10 age group is now accounting for one in 10 visitors to porn video sites, per Bitdefender.”  Everything you teach your child about purity and faith is undermined when a child clicks on to sites that present sexual sin as desirable and free of negative consequences.  Pornographers know that young people are watching.  They have a vested interest in corrupting their young minds so that they become future paying clients.  Parents, be warned, and monitor your children’s devices!  There are many filtering and parental control programs that will hope you to do this, like Covenant Eyes, NetNanny, Custodio, etc.  Also, talk to your children about this issue.  To assist parents, our parish is sponsoring a presentation on Saturday, Oct 16 which will offer suggestions on how to talk to your children about sex.  If you don’t form their thinking, the pornographers will.

            Unfortunately, it is not only pornographers that are corrupting young minds.  Youth are targets also of groups that promote comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in schools, which include organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).  An organization formed to resist their pernicious attempts to circumvent parents is “Stop CSE.”  It reports on their website at www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org that “CSE programs seek to change society by changing sexual and gender norms and teaching youth to advocate for their sexual rights. Most CSE programs promote acceptance of diverse sexual identities and orientations and have an almost obsessive focus on sexual pleasure, instructing children and youth at the earliest ages on how to obtain sexual pleasure in a variety of ways.”  These programs are in schools across the country and have reached their tentacles into Southern Chester County.  Evidence of this is the promotion of one of the resources which SIECUS uses to indoctrinate children by the Avon Grove Library.  Yes, our own humble library!  This book is written for children ten years and older, with the title: “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.”  The Avon Grove Library put this provocative and controversial book on prominent display.  When one of our parishioners checked the book out it was quickly replaced by another copy. 

            “It’s Perfectly Normal” includes very explicit cartoon figures of naked boys and girls and of young people engaging in various sexual activities.  When a parishioner showed me the book I was speechless.  Then I was angry.  It is advertised for children, and the material is not appropriate even for adults.  I decided that parents need to be warned about it.  Hence, this article and my homilies this weekend.  It is not a subject I prefer to speak about in church, or anywhere, but as your pastor I would be negligent to ignore it.  What I find particularly offensive about “It’s Perfectly Normal” are the pictures which are meant to attract young, curious eyes.  If you think that Avon Grove Library and the Chester County Library System should not include such subversive literature aimed at children in their collections, please let your views be known. Concerned parishioners have put together a petition which I invite you to sign.  Also, you may express your views directly to the president of the Avon Grove Library Board of Trustees, Susan Geiger, at oucorgis@yahoo.com.  You may also want to contact your local officials since your tax dollars support the public libraries in Chester County.  Please be respectful in your comments and peaceful in your protest.