By DEXTER DUGGAN
Young Catholics curious about what Grandma and Grandad were reading in the mainline U.S. Catholic media back in the early 1960s might discover the topics haven’t changed so much, although the milieu has.
Discovered at random recently, the April 1962 issue of The Liguorian monthly magazine, published shortly before the Second Vatican Council was to open in October of that year, indicated that the family and male-female relationships were leading topics.
In those pre-Internet days, The Liguorian was the type of magazine often available on the literature racks in Catholic churches, as well as through mail subscriptions, and there weren’t entire rows of periodicals under the steeple arguing over what should be fundamental Catholic belief — back when about every Catholic church actually had a steeple.
Three of the articles headlined on this 1962 cover page were “The Rights of Families,” “Forgetting One Who Is Forbidden,” and “Legislation Against Contraception.”
The families article noted “the inalienable rights of…citizens in relation to the family,” but quickly added that “today…so much of the world is under totalitarian governments that deprive their people of the family rights that have been given them by God.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t take the 57 years since 1962 to go past before anti-family meddlers in the U.S. and other supposedly self-governing nations were indoctrinating students in sexual radicalism against parental wishes and even covertly hustling youngsters to abortion clinics.
Long before “same-sex marriage” was another temptation to add to a list of evils, the 1962 Liguorian supplied “Rules for victory in one of life’s most difficult struggles,” the need to end a sinful male-female relationship.
This article concluded, “Remember, to forget someone you loved wrongly is an act of unselfish kindness. In this case the highest type of love is to show no love. Bravely to put the past behind you is to save your soul and another soul as well.”
On another topic, a political officeholder asked for advice about his responsibilities because his state had laws against contraception. A theologian at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C., Very Rev. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., replied. He noted such arguments as majority rule determining the passage of laws, as well as “the natural law of God,” which applied to all human beings, not only Catholics.
(Three years later, in 1965, the Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, grabbed the issue for itself by espying a national right to privacy accompanied by “penumbras” and “emanations” favoring contraception that the court was to use again in 1973 to invent a “right” to permissive abortion.)
Other articles included commentary on an “insanely jealous” husband, “Fallacies of Overpopulation,” “Consequences of Sterilization” for a married couple, and “The Strange Humility of Jesus Christ.”
One thing that definitely changed from the early 1960s was the 64-page Liguorian’s single-issue price of 25 cents, or $2 annually to subscribe.
Nineteen years after this issue of The Liguorian appeared, “sex education” was a contentious public topic because of various levels of governments’ increasing involvement in it, with a generally liberal tilt.
In 1981, as the new secretary of Health and Human Services took office in January under his recently elected boss, President Ronald Reagan, Pennsylvania’s Richard Schweiker expressed traditionalist views on moral matters, exciting at least distaste if not worse among the clout-heavy in journalistic ranks.
Schweiker had been regarded as a moderate-to-liberal Republican who grew more conservative. He was trusted among Reagan’s traditionalist supporters for his pro-life credentials.
The New York Times ran a page one article on January 30, 1981, headlined, “Schweiker Is Critical of Programs on Sex Education.” The Times said that his predecessor under recent Democratic President Jimmy Carter, Patricia Roberts Harris, held different views and “asserted that the country faced ‘disaster’ if steps were not taken to educate teen-agers about contraceptives.”
The Times in 1981 added that HHS’s Office for Family Planning “currently helps to finance 5,100 family planning clinics throughout the country that serve about four million women a year.”
An article on page 3 of the January 30, 1981, Washington Star was headlined, “Schweiker Flays U.S. Role in Sex Education.”
The Star article quoted Schweiker saying: “I don’t think it’s the Fed’s role to do it, and I don’t think that it’s the states’ role unless the local school agency does it with the express approval of the parents.”
The Washington newspaper added that Schweiker repeated “his stand against federal funding of abortions, said he does not think Medicaid should pay for contraceptives for unmarried teenagers, and hinted that federal funding of Planned Parenthood may be reduced.”
Although traditionalists have won significant battles in the 38 years since 1981, there’s no doubt the culture has become more degraded, under the benevolent gaze of dominant media.
As Reagan began his first term, who would have thought that in less than two more generations, not only would it be considered necessary that anyone could walk into anyone else’s public lavatory, but also that the incontrovertible fact there are two genders would be blasted as “bigotry” while dozens of different sexual persuasions would be dreamed up.
It used to be a joking use of language to say someone was of “the female persuasion,” as if biological fact was merely a matter of opinion. But that’s exactly where the culture has been shoved.
Radical Ideologies
On September 16, Lisa Fink, president of Protect Arizona Children Coalition (stopCSE.org), spoke at the weekly meeting of the Phoenix-based Arizona Project Tea Party about challenges facing the state through so-called “comprehensive sexuality education” also being promoted around the nation.
Fink pointed out that left-dominated New York City recognizes 31 different sexual identities, and has legal-enforcement guidance to back this up.
“We’re against a very specific form of sexualized education” aimed at misdirecting young people, she told the audience.
The battle moves to the Arizona legislature, Fink said, “so we want to get in front of that battle.”
“Abstinence” is being redefined wrongly to allow for other types of sexual activity, she said, while the push is on to separate young students’ values from their parent’s or guardian’s.
She said the Obama administration began funding comprehensive sexuality education through the misnamed Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
“Planned Parenthood is after our children, to raise them up in radical ideologies,” Fink said. “. . . They make money when children are sexualized.”
The children’s coalition has meetings set with Arizona legislators regarding curriculum, she told the audience. “It’s in the works right now. We just need you and need to make our voice heard.”
As the Tea Party program concluded, Ron Ludders, chairman of the Arizona Project group, noted how educational programs went far afield from their proper focus and asked, “Whatever happened to reading, writing, and ’rithmetic?”
After the meeting, Fink, a mother of six who has done political work, told The Wanderer she became involved in this effort because she was concerned that education was going downhill.
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