Friday, May 12, 2017

Amoris Laetitia - Par. 285


285.  Sex education should also include respect and appreciation for differences, as a way of helping the young to overcome their self-absorption and to be open and accepting of others.  Beyond the understandable difficulties which individuals may experience, the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for "thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation... An appreciation of our body as male and female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves.  In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment".304  Only by losing the fear of being different, can we be freed of self-centredness and self-absorption.  Sex education should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension "to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it".305

304 Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), 155.
305 Catechesis (15 April 2015): L'Osservatore Romano, 16 April 2015, p.8.

© LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA.