Head of the UGCC: ‘Sexuality is not something that can be traded like a roll at the intersection’

Responding to questions about sexual education of youth, His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) at a meeting with the youth of Ternopil said that he helped to develop the program of sexual education of the UGCC, which is called “The Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.” “The reason why we started to do this is because Ukrainian schools have begun to introduce a variety of sex education programs from the EU. In these programs sexual education consists, basically, of teaching children how to maximum satisfaction with minimum liability. There are even practical lessons.” The Primate said that the church was accused of only criticizing and complaining. After looking over various programs of sex education that exist in the world, it became clear that none of them were suitable for Ukrainian culture, for our environment. “We had to create something of our own. So we created the program ‘The Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.’” Speaking about the program, Patriarch Sviatoslav said that it a program of education for love. We must educate, train young people to love. Then we must integrate the whole question of sexuality into the context of interpersonal relationships of love. For all the problems of sexuality start with the fact that sexuality is removed from the interpersonal relationship of love and becomes not someone, but something than can be traded like roll at an intersection. This causes great damage. Under the program, already implemented in the churches, sexual education starts with preschool children. “This is when we must start educating people so that they know how to love... We are talking about so-called sexual integration in a positive sense of the word. We must integrate this dimension of a person’s life.” The head of the UGCC stressed that a very important role in sexual education is played by parents: “Under the doctrine of the Church, we can not completely take away the issue of education, including sex, from the family. For there are certain topics that should not be discussed by the catechist or teacher or priest, but by the father and mother. Why? Because parents have a natural right to educate their children.” The Soviet system of education, said the patriarchate, barred parents from education. Today, parents who remove themselves from the education process say: “Well, let the church teach you about this,” or “Well, learn this at school.” So this program of sex education also involves parents because they are very important participants in a child’s education. But the Church should help them with this.  

catholicnews.org.ua