When she delivered the keynote address to the annual conference of the Ontario Association of Catholic Families (OACF) held in Ottawa in late September, U.S. pro-life activist Maria Zacaria strongly condemned sex education, referring to it as “the fountainhead of abortion.” Zacaria, who is executive director of the pro-family organization Parent’s Round Table, has participated in numerous rescues in the U.S. She was also instrumental in fighting and defeating Planned Parenthood’s attempt to set up school-based sex clinics in Mt. Vernon, New York. She is largely responsible for a 24-hour emergency pregnancy hotline that helps prevent numerous abortions in the U.S.
The OACF is an organization of Roman Catholics who adhere to the pro-family teachings of the Church. They support one another through sharing of information.
Sex ed indoctrination
In her address, Mrs. Zacaria applauded the work of those who participate in Operation Rescues, but stated that pro-lifers must attack the root cause of abortion – sex ed indoctrination – through Family Life programs.
In the U.S., she said, Planned Parenthood networks with gay pride groups, Marxists and an extensive array of liberal-cause coalitions. Many pro-lifers, however, are reluctant to even offer minimal support to Catholics who reject sex education.
Citing Randy Engel’s ground-breaking work, Sex Education: The Final Plague (1989), Mrs. Zacaria urged conference members to tell Canadian bishops that modern secular sex education is an evil in its totality. Catholics, she said, have the right to teach their children about sexual matters as they see fit. The Catholic Church supports their role as primary educators.
Besides condemning sex as taught in the U.S., Mrs. Zacaria also offered conference members practical advice she’d learned from her battles with Planned Parenthood in Mount Vernon, New York.
A lone atheist once objected to religion in public schools, she observed, and in a matter of only a few years prayer was banned in American classrooms. Surely Christians should try to make the courts work for them as well, she said.
In Mount Vernon, a lawyer who supported parents’ objections to school-based sex clinics wrote a letter to the school boards stating that parents would sue of their children were medicated and suffered any ill effects. This strategy proved highly effective, as sex educators and counselors are as fearful of litigation as any other business people. Expressing strong objections to institutionalized sex ed programs, however, takes courage, especially when teachers put their reputations on the line.
Zacaria cited the case of a young teacher from the Albany, New York area who had protested to the Superintendent of Schools and his Archdiocese about the New Creation program; it is similar to the unsound Fully Alive program recently introduced in Ontario.
Although a father of seven, the man was fired from his job, but subsequently, he and his wife started their own school and have admitted thirty-two students for classes this September.
OACF President Brian Taylor told conference members of a recent teacher complaint he’d received regarding Born Of The Spirit, a religion program approved by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).
Should be aware
Commenting on the grade 5 section of the program, entitled “May We Be One”, Bruce Clark, Ottawa President of the OACF warned Catholic parents that they “should be aware that questionable references may be used in the catechetical formation of their children.” The program recommends for further study writers like Leonardo Boff, Mary Malone and Theresa Bouchet – author of Becoming A Sensuous Cathechist.
Boff is a controversial theologian, an admirer of the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, and an influential proponent of liberation theology who has repeatedly clashed with the Vatican.
Ex-nun Mary Malone is a founding member of Canadian Catholics for Women’s Ordination and is at the forefront of the Canadian movement to restructure the Catholic Church along radical feminist lines.
