In 2000, I was asked to do this video interview. As I noted at the beginning, someone once told me that priests are ordained and bishops are consecrated, but monsignors are created, which means something is made out of nothing.
In any case, a copy of the interview is posted here on my Youtube account:
Recently, concerned clergy, parents and educators have approached me regarding present and proposed radical sex-education programs. I have written this statement in response.
Comments on Sex Education, Updated March 12, 2015
First, I would like to state that, regarding educational guidance in human love, group instruction in biological details is contrary to Church teaching. Modesty, chastity, respect for parents, sin, the means of grace and the formation of conscience are proper content to be considered in the classroom.
I wrote a booklet “From Winnipeg to Fully Alive” in protest against the Fully Alive program when it was first introduced in Catholic schools in Ontario (see article under Catholic Education section at http://www.msgrfoy.com). This was a critique/condemnation of the published edition of this sex-education program at that time, in 1992. Apparently, there is an updated 2012 version of the Fully Alive program used in Ontario Catholic schools now, but I have been too ill to critique that current edition. There are teachers who simply would not and still do not teach the Fully Alive program and I have received complaints from parents about it just this week.
Do I have anything to say about Ontario’s radical sex education program?
I recently signed a petition at http://www.lifesitenews.com to protest the introduction of Kathleen Wynne’s sex education program. I am opposed to this explicit sex-education curriculum that Liberal and lesbian Kathleen Wynne would like to implement in September of this year. Parents across Ontario are still petitioning that it not be introduced in schools. Taxpayers’ dollars should not go into corrupting children and stealing the innocence of our students. Wynne’s program violates Judeo-Christian morality and the religious beliefs of Ontario parents. Studies have shown that classroom sex-education is concomitant with an increase in teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity and fornication, abortion, and spiritual devastation.
The curriculum victimizes children by desensitizing them in the sacred and private area of sexuality. I see it as a form of sexual abuse. On March 3, 2015, Lifesitenews reported “The new elementary school sex education curriculum just unveiled by Ontario’s Liberal and lesbian premier, Kathleen Wynne, is a ‘disaster,’ and amounts to ‘sexual abuse,’ according to psychotherapists interviewed by LifeSiteNews. ‘Any action which sexualizes a child before he or she is ready is sexual abuse,’ said Dr. Robert McDonald, a retired psychotherapist and medical doctor. ‘Therefore so-called sex-ed for children before puberty is an act of sexual abuse.’”
I would not endorse the current 2012 Fully Alive family resource, for theme three, grade 3 (7/8 year olds) describing the marital act in detail, including male and female genitalia.
I am edified to hear that Archbishop Prendergast has spoken out against it. Many are petitioning members of parliament to stop this program from being implemented. I hope this will happen. I am not certain if Kathleen Wynne threatened to withhold funding from Catholic schools if they do not go along with some inclusion of her program.
I was told Cardinal Collins recently stated that updates for the implementation of Wynne’s program will only be made to the existing family life education program, in line with Catholic teachings. (As noted above however, in 1992 I wrote my critique of the Fully Alive program used in Catholic Schools at that time. Just yesterday, I received complaints from concerned Catholic parents who believe the program is still inappropriate and are therefore withdrawing their children from the Catholic school system. Even a program with a local bishop’s Imprimatur is not guaranteed to be suitable for children and youth).
Besides Catholic schools that are obligated to uphold Catholic teachings, children who attend public and private schools need to be protected against such an evil indoctrination into sinful behaviours. Wynne’s radical sex-education program does not respect the latency period and is harmful to children. It will lead to corruption in society and further demolition of the family.
In light of the current threat of Kathleen Wynne to introduce more radical sex education, I would like to state some of the principal teachings of the Church on sex education:
These teachings and guidelines of the Church are not followed in radical sex-education.
Remedies:
On March 5, 2015, lawyer Gwen Landolt, released a press release from Real Women of Canada, exposing that Kathleen Wynne and Lis Sandals, Minister of Education, lied to the public and covered up that Benjamin Levin, who was recently convicted of being a child predator, was in charge of the new sex-ed curriculum. Gwen Landolt stated: “This curriculum is not acceptable and should be withdrawn so that it can be properly reviewed and allow parents opportunity to be consulted on its contents.”
What else can be done about the present and potential future problems?
More families who are able to do so could decide to home-school.
Cardinal Ambrozic stated that parents or guardians are free to have their children withdrawn from the existing family life education (Fullly Alive) program.
“It’s actually in the Education Act that a parent has the right to withdraw their child from content they don’t want their child to receive,” Education Minister Liz Sandals said in an interview with the National Post. However, the fallout and spreading of the teachings of this program across the curriculum, makes it virtually impossible to enforce a total exemption.
For Catholics who cannot homeschool, an exemption form could be completed at the school and/or parish level, perhaps inserted in school or parish bulletins. As noted earlier, I have not read or critiqued the current family life education (Fully Alive) program used in Ontario Catholic schools, or any proposed updates or editions, so I don’t have a right to and cannot consent to give my own endorsement of it.
For public or private schools, parents or parental guardians can and should exercise their right to protect and remove their children from Wynne’s program by signing a waiver to have them exempted from attending sex-education classes. A letter could simply be provided by or submitted to the school principal and a copy given to the child’s sex-ed/family-life/phys-ed and health/teachers, to note the names of students to be exempted.
Exempting students from sex-education programs:
For example, a form letter could be used:
Dear Principal ________________,
I _______________ (name of parent or guardian) hereby request that the following students __________________ (names of students) be exempted from the sex-education curriculum and classes.
Sincerely,
Signature of Parent or Parental Guardian
Msgr. Vincent Foy, Canon Lawyer, Former Director of Catechetics, Archdiocese of Toronto
Foreword to “Salvation Redefined”, a Book by Lorene Collins
By Monsignor Vincent Foy
Foreword
“Among the aids available to catechesis, catechisms excel all others”— General Directory for Catechesis. St. Francis Xavier, in a letter to St. Ignatius in the year 1542, wrote of the situation in India. He lamented: “There is nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s law”. Yet even the children were anxious for divine Truth and grace. He wrote: “The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: ‘the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ ” Even graver than the situation in sixteenth century India has been the situation in much of the Catholic world since the Second Vatican Council. Often orthodox teaching has been replaced with false. Spawned by a renascent Modernism, sometimes called the Teilhardian Revolution because of its roots in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, catechetical institutes in Holland, Belgium, France and elsewhere gave us what is called “The New Catechetics.” Because of its lack of doctrinal content it is also called “Creedless Catechetics” or even “Catechetics without Catechetics”. The old catechetics dating from the early Church was rejected. The old methods enshrined in great catechisms like those of the Council of Trent, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Peter Canisius, St. Pius X, and hundreds of their offspring like the Butler Catechism and the Baltimore Catechism were despised, even forbidden. The great theologian Cardinal Charles Journet saw the new catechetics as an effect of the loss of direction by the hierarchy and the internal decay of the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger, speaking at Paris in 1983, called the new catechetics “la misere de la catechisme,” the “misery of the new catechetics.” In an article entitled “The Corruption of Souls by the New Catechisms”, the noted defender of the Faith, Dietrich von Hildebrand, tells us that the new catechisms poison the souls of children with a distorted presentation of Christian revelation. He calls the new catechisms “a diabolical game, a terrible irreverence against God and innocent children.” He says: “What we are confronted with here is not a question of pedagogy. Written all over these text-books which are this day poisoning the souls of little children is a hatred of the sacred and of the supernatural.” (Dietrich von Hildebrand, “ The Charitable Anathema”, Roman Catholic Books, Harrison, N. Y., 1993, p. 70 ). The prime example of the new catechetics was the Dutch Catechism, which was nothing else but the Dutch rebellion against orthodoxy. It rejected angels and the devil, transubstantiation and the sacramental priesthood. Condemned by Rome, it was only required to list its principal errors in an Appendix. Millions of copies were sold in numerous translations and it was praised by bishops, priests and catechists. It was not withdrawn until after Pope John Paul II’s synod with the Dutch bishops in 1980. It was the herald of even worse things to come. The coming of the new catechetics to Canada is the subject of the present book, entitled “Salvation Redefined” by Lorene Collins. That is an apt title because in the new catechetics we are not saved by the cross of Christ, but by an ungodly alliance with the secular order. The sub-title tells it all: “The post-Vatican II Collapse of Catechesis in Canada “. The arrival of the new creedless catechetics in Canada was ensured when our Canadian bishops authorized a Canadian Catechism in 1966. Its composition was already far advanced by the collaboration of “a team of 30 trained catechists, theologians, psychologists, sociologists and teachers”. Their names were not given. It was first introduced into Quebec under the title of “Viens vers le Pere”. It was translated into English and published by the Paulist Press under the title “Come to the Father”. Soon it spread across Canada. It did not teach the Ten Commandments, the precepts of the Church, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Original Sin, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, the infallibility of the Pope, the hierarchical structure of the Church. In general it did not give as models our great saints, but secular activists like Martin Luther King. The so-called Canadian Catechism developed into a 3000-page behemoth consisting of parent, teacher and pupil texts and audio-visual aids. Probably no bishop or teacher in Canada studied the whole mess. Its very size acted as a giant smokescreen well-designed to hide its vacuity and perfidy. At about the same time the faith-destroying Canadian Catechism was inflicted upon Canadian children, sex education was introduced into our Catholic schools. It was not family life education in modesty and chastity in accordance with Vatican II and other magisterial directives. It was blatant sex education after the model of Siecus (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States). Boys and girls were taught together the intimate details of licit and illicit sex. They learned more about sex than their parents. It has always been a mystery to me why our bishops would allow sexologist Fr. Leo LaFreniere to introduce this immoral program into our Catholic schools. The birth of the program “Fully Alive” would mean the spiritual death of countless children. So when our Catholic children were being reduced to a state of religious illiteracy, they were being traumatized by a flood of sex information for which they were not prepared. Lorene Collins, talented, vocal and dedicated, is uniquely qualified to record the demise of authentic catechetics in Canada. She fully realized that a creedless catechetical course was depriving Catholic children of their compass to goodness and holiness. She was not content to see her own children victimized by lethargic custodians of the Faith. First Lorene Collins details her own experience in Edmonton. Her efforts can only be described as heroic. She was harassed, insulted, humiliated and subjected to attempted brain-washing. She met with other concerned Catholic parents, wrote critiques and reports. She helped in the wide distribution of the General Catechetical Directory of 1971. She corresponded with that truly great Archbishop Henri Routhier, who encouraged her. He had studied thoroughly the Canadian Catechism, wrote a critique of it and saw clearly that it was a spiritual disaster, incapable of producing practicing Catholics. Lorene, her husband Ed Collins and Father Charles Keenan were the core group which organized about 50 other concerned Catholics in setting up Canada’s first Chapter of C.U.F. (Catholics United for the Faith). Their purpose was to dialogue with others in defense of orthodox catechetics. Edmonton was a mirror or miniature of the tragedy being enacted across Canada. In this book we are given the broad picture of brave priests and groups everywhere from East to West. There were the Newberrys in Victoria, the Aherns in Halifax, Sister Mary Alexander in Hamilton and scores of others. There sprang up a net-work of C.U.F. Chapters. In all of this Lorene Collins was a catalyst. The Epilogue to “Salvation Redefined” is called “The Tapestry of Love”. We are given a brief history of the great pioneers, including saints, who set the Church in Canada on a firm foundation. It is a moving account of dedication and holiness. It is this great history, extending over four hundred years, that gives us hope of a resurgence of orthodox teaching of our Faith in Canadian Catholic schools. This book deserves the widest possible circulation. It would be good if it were read carefully by every Canadian bishop, priest, teacher, parent and all those who wish our Patrimony of Truth to be preserved. To bishops it says: Please, as our God-given shepherds, give us a Canadian Catechism fully approved by the Holy See, in complete accord with the great catechetical directives of the Church and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Help us preserve the innocence of our children by removing the “Fully Alive” sex education course from our schools, a course which so often leaves our children spiritually “Fully Dead”. To priests if says: Please call for right instruments of catechesis in our schools and encourage good teachers in transmitting the fullness of the Faith. Please continue in your own homilies and instructions to transmit our Catholic heritage. To teachers it says: Please be a beacon of Truth and goodness for our children. Please remember that that those who instruct others unto goodness “shall shine like stars for all eternity”. To parents it says: Please insist on your rights as parents to have your children properly catechized in our Catholic schools. You know that those rights were fully reaffirmed in the Second Vatican Council. To paraphrase the words of Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, do not tolerate your children being force-fed a secularized Christianity. On July 9, 1983, at Arlington, Virginia, Cardinal Silvio Oddi, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy, gave a talk on catechetics entitled “The Right of the Catechized to the Truth”. In it he said: “No catechist has the right to deny the child knowledge of the fundamentals of the faith. A teacher unable to teach about the Fall, the Redemption, sin, grace, judgment, heaven and hell, without traumatizing his or her pupils is not worthy of his or her salt—all I am asking is that the child be given the full Gospel and taught all ten of the commandments, for no one can love God without knowing in what love of God consists: “If you love me, keep my commandments (John: 14:15 )”. On September 28, 1978, the last day of his life, Pope John I spoke to the Bishops of the Philippines in Rome on the occasion of their “ad limina” visit. He said to them: “One of the greatest rights of the faithful is to receive the Word of God in all its purity and integrity”. With dedication and love, that is the message of Lorene Collins in “Salvation Redefined”. Msgr. Vincent Foy Former Director of Catechetics, Archdiocese of Toronto.
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