Written by James Parker
Controversy is ablaze in Western Sydney and, once again, it is all about education.
The new draft religious education curriculum for the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta claims to teach students from Years 7-12 about gender ideology, identity politics, and LGBTQ+ studies.
Having been a gay activist, I recently exposed the deliberate strategies that are in part furtively rolled out by identity ideologues, which include infiltrating and taking leadership within key areas of society to bring about homosuperiority by completely smashing heteronormativity.
Identity ideologues’ primary focus has always been the classroom. The success of their cult involves indoctrinating developing minds with counterfeit truths, moulding them to see life predominantly through rainbow-tinted spectacles, and enforcing Abraham Lincoln’s wise insight that “the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.”
Parramatta Diocese’s acting executive director of Catholic Education, Christine Howe, has been quoted as saying she believes the new syllabus has been wilfully misrepresented. She wants to assure parents that it is “faithful to Catholic teaching, traditions and values”.
The same assurance has been given by the diocesan bishop’s representative for education and formation, Fr Christopher de Souza. He stated that this new approach consists of “looking to our Catholic faith for answers to challenging questions arising from different scenarios.
De Souza went on to say that the new draft curriculum “is firmly based in Catholic Scripture, Tradition and Context, focussed on sharing the faith with students as well as encouraging them to become attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible Catholic adults.”
At face value, these would seem satisfactory responses that should quieten the increasing baying crowd of rightly concerned parents who deliberately part with hard-earned wages to ensure their offspring receive a comprehensive Catholic education.
So why, we need to ask, would three diocesan priests who are familiar with the curriculum’s amendments seek to publicly oppose them? Anyone who has worked within the corridors of episcopal power as I have knows that to take such a stand is equivalent to ecclesial harikiri.
Let us be real. More can and should be done to assist young people to navigate themselves through the cancerous web of gender and identity politics. And yet something is deeply amiss – and parents, as first educators of their children, are right to be disturbed.
I am the parent of a teenager in a Catholic school. Like other parents, I want our kids to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible. We know, however, that without the fullness of the Church’s teaching in place, our children will not have the fully-informed mindset necessary to rise above the world’s limitations and to take on ‘the mind of Christ’.
As someone who has had the rare opportunity to serve both at the heart of LGBTQ+ fundamentalism as a frontline activist, and, following my conversion to Catholicism, then serving in the Vatican, the offices of cardinals, archbishops and bishops, my conscience is screaming as I read statements relating to human sexuality released from the Diocese of Parramatta.
Interestingly, de Souza’s phrase “Catholic Scripture, Tradition and Context” has replaced the usual “Catholic Scripture, Tradition and Teaching”. And it doesn’t take a genius to know that context is something wholly differently to teaching.
It is the Catholic Church’s teaching – divinely appointed authority to teach the truth – which was the invisible double-edged sword that convicted me that the practice of homosexuality was in direct opposition to God’s design for my life. It is for this reason that I have spent nearly three decades walking alongside literally hundreds of others who also have rejected LGBTQ+ ideology and its destructive religious practice to pursue what we believe are lives pleasing before God.
Context can only truly make sense, especially in the minds of young people, when there is a strong foundation of clear teaching.
An alarm bell should ring in every parent’s mind when examining the list of LGBTIQ Resources for Teachers in Parramatta Diocese, prepared by the Rainbow Catholics InterAgency for Ministry.
No mention is made on the list of Courage, or Encourage, the Church’s international apostolate which offers support for those who experience same-sex attractions and for their loved ones.
Neither are there any books among the myriad of resources which uphold the Catholic Church’s liberating teaching on human sexuality such as Living the Truth in Love. Why not? Maybe because these orthodox resources encourage members to make a commitment to at least strive for chastity even if they never achieve it, which for centuries has been the call of every baptised Christian.
Recommended resources come rather from trendy-teaching-twisters like Jesuit Fr James Martin, and from the English and Welsh Catholic bishops, who have failed collectively in the third millennium to uphold with any clarity the Church’s teaching on human sexuality (and I should know; I’ve worked closely with them.)
Interestingly, it takes a 21-year-old openly gay YouTube sensation, Lohanthony (Anthony Quintal), to back up what I am saying. He has recently insinuated that a sexual assault incident from his childhood led to him identifying as gay and wanting to pursue same-sex relationships.
“I did not know that God loved me, I did not know that God was with me throughout all of this,” Lohanthony has said in his latest video. “Through the pursuance of my same-sex attraction […] eventually I submitted, surrendered, and I was reunited with my creator.”
Many of Lohanthony’s online fans, who have only known him for being “unapologetically gay, outspoken and larger-than-life”, are concerned for him. Why? Because he is taking on the mind of Christ.
This young man has merely chosen to pursue chastity. He remains the same same-sex attracted budding young adult that he was previously, only now he has been convicted to take a different pathway – a way the world often despises, mocks and rejects, one that is upheld within Scripture, Tradition and Teaching. Yes, his context has prostrated itself before centuries-old Christian teaching and not vice-versa.
If de Souza’s words really are true – that the new curriculum will be “firmly based in Catholic Scripture, Tradition and Context” to encourage students “to become attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible Catholic adults” – then parents can look forward to stories like Lohanthony’s, and those containing powerful ex-LGBTQ+ witnesses on websites like Changed, Two Prisms, Free To Change, and TrueLove.Is, to also be included on the list of teachers’ resources.
Parents in Western Sydney have already fought long and hard to see the insidious Safe Schools Program rejected from the public school curriculum. Who would have guessed that parents in the private sector would also have to fight to safeguard the dignity and delicacy of their children’s sexual development?
I will be honest with you. Following my firsthand experience of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle and its destructive beliefs and rituals, I would want the existence of gender ideology, identity politics, and LGBTQ+ studies brought to my child’s attention. Contemporary marketing already does this anyway so to shy away from reality assists no one.
However, I would only want this information disseminated within the context of the full story of human sexuality. This includes what the Church has always upheld as Christ’s call and ability to redeem every person’s sexuality and means that disordered, immoral expressions of human sexuality – homosexuality, contraception, premarital sex, transgenderism and so forth – not be taught as authentically human and moral life choices, but as aberrations needing to be brought before God’s throne of mercy.
I would also want anything taught to include every known health risk – mental, emotional, physical, spiritual – and for this information to be based on scientific fact, and not merely feelings and socio-political opinions.
The Church’s teaching, and not the LGBTQ+ agenda, should be the beginning and end of all education and discussion in a Catholic school, with students being permitted to hear real–life stories of those whose lives backup the authority of Scripture. This is what every bishop vows to uphold. This is what parents are paying for – and which many are praying for. Instead, we are seeing Church authorities playing with minors’ sexual development and preying on their vulnerability. God help us – literally!
At present, there is no “looking to our Catholic faith for answers to challenging questions arising from different scenarios” as de Souza has guaranteed. Teachers’ resources are not “faithful to Catholic teaching, traditions and values” as Howe has assured parents.
Until fee-payers in Parramatta have the absolute guarantee that the Church’s teaching in its entirety enfolds the content of their children’s religious classes, they would be foolish to stop vigorously challenging the gender, identity, and LGBTQ+ philosophies which are being unscrupulously and harmfully forced upon the schoolroom in this generation.
To stop would be to hand over to the visible ideologues outside the Church, and now to the barely visible ones within, the freedom to shape greater anti-theistic philosophy in governments to come.
That’s one out-of-control and invisible blaze that NSW firefighting parents need to get under control more swiftly than ever, before any more teenage lives are eternally lost.
James Parker was a gay rights’ activist and today facilitates True Identity, an informal national network that supports those struggling with sexuality, gender and identity issues.
