Parents as prime protectors and educators of their children

“Since they have conferred life on their children, parents have the original, primary and inalienable right to educate them... in conformity with their moral and religious convictions"
Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality

Pope Pius XI

“The Church cannot wait to deplore the devastation of its altars, the destruction of its temples, if an education, hostile to Christ, is to profane the temple of the child's soul consecrated by baptism, and extinguish the eternal light of the faith in Christ"

Pope Pius XII

About this section

Advice and support- dealing with values education

State education programmes- parents rights and how to deal with them

Key Documents and Encyclicals


About this section

Parents today are increasingly angry at the desire of the state to initiate sex education as early as the infant years. We have repeatedly heard complaints from parents who find that their children are taught about sex (rather than values and marriage) in both primary and secondary school, and repeatedly asked during their pubertal years to question their sexuality. Education on condoms and access to confidential advice on contraception and abortion, as well as biology teaching in schools as part of the National Curriculum, all corrupt children at an early age. When we hear of children laughing and tittering in such classes and simply being told by teachers it is ok to see it all as a joke, it becomes clear that such teaching is wrong and causes damage. We also hear of children seeing their parents differently after sex classes.

So it is essential that parents understand and prepare for these issues from an early age. Education in these matters starts early, and many wish to make such education compulsory. Even those who home school their children see moves to force them into the system. From our point of view we hear that poor education leads to teenage pregnancies, while we observe that those pregnancies far more commonly in those who have been taught according to the state's recommended methods rather than those who have not.

Our Lady Queen of the Family- Protect our Families

Advice and Support- Dealing with Values Education

Documents in this section: To top

State Education Programmes- Parents' Rights and How to Use Them

Documents in this section: To top

Key documents and encyclicals

  • Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality
    This document is the central gift of the Church on values education for children. It sets out very clearly that parents are the prime educators of their children in these matters, and that schools should serve parents rather than removing that role from them. It also clearly sets out an agenda of moral values education and moves away from the very commonly seen explicit sexualisation of children by school programmes.
  • Mit Brendenner Sorge
    This document, written by Pope Pius XI to the German Church, has a huge resonance with the situation of families today. Pope Pius knew how families were being persecuted and his priest and Bishops taken to extermination camps and desperately wanted to protect his faithful. But he saw and describes how “the banishment of.. the clear and precise notion of Christianity, from teaching and education, from the organization of social and political life, spells spiritual spoliation and degradation.” He said that “All efforts to remove from under morality and the moral order the granite foundation of faith and to substitute for it the shifting sands of human regulations, sooner or later lead these individuals or societies to moral degradation.” So this encyclical is worth a read. It sets out the protection that parents must afford their children and reminds you of those inalienable rights.
  • Humanae Vitae
    Pope Paul VI's key encyclical was tremendously short, and described marriage as having to be a fully human, exclusive and complete giving of one to another, fully open to life. This beautiful description of marriage and love and complete self-giving leads inevitably to the prohibition of contraception and creates the huge support of Natural Family Planning and chastity to married love. Expressed beautifully and prophetically, Paul VI foresaw the social disorder of today, believing it to be an inevitable result of the separation of the unitive from the creative act of marriage. A beautiful, short and very clear document, it becomes a cornerstone of Christian marriage.
  • The Charter of the Rights of the Family
    Pope John Paul set out the rights of the family in this short but powerful document. It should be used in Catholic schools and elsewhere, to support our right to know what is being taught, to comment upon it, and to stop teaching that you believe will corrupt your children.
  • The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae)
    "Each human being is a unique gift of God." With this view, there is no place for killing the unborn or the dying. The silent sharing of affection can constitute someone as a person. To be a human is partly to receive as well as to give, partly to be weak as well as to be strong. This encyclical, published on the feast of the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord gives robust philosophical arguments and reasons against abortion, euthanasia and embryo experimentation etc.It is set out in the context of the huge love and care that is the hallmark of our Gospels.
  • The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons
    The issue of homosexuality is now a key issue in society and the Church. This document sets out very compassionately the Church’s view towards people who are homosexual. Regardless of orientation, where people promote living in a state of mortal sin, or teach against the fundamental beliefs of the Church, then parents should expect and require that their children be protected from such influences.
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