Class 1:  Self-Respect – Acknowledging why you are so important

Class 2:  Understanding the changes we experience

Class 3:  Friendship, love, and life

Class 4:  Christ in my home and in my life

Grade 6

Class 1:  Vocation – God has a role for each of us

Class 2:  Being responsible for our own lives

Class 3:  Life is worth living

Class 4:  Learning how large love is

Grade 7

Class 1:  Vocation:  We are called to make a commitment

Class 2:  Modesty: A virtue we should emulate

Class 3:  Making good use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation

Class 4: Christ and the courage to be pure of heart

Grade 8

Class 1:  Your vocation: To make the world a better place

Class 2:  Living in a world that suffers from AIDS

Class 3:  Christ and my conscience

Class 4:  The Eucharist and love

The Catholic Vision of Love (CVOL) is a sexuality program that is implemented in every parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  It is not “sex” education.  Its goals are to help your children respect themselves because they are made in the image of God.

If you would like to see the entire curriculum, it is available in the Religious Education Office.

Some things that you, as parents, can do to help your children’s education in human sexuality:

1. Discuss sexuality at home.  Do your children know the basic facts of life?  Do they know that sexuality is a gift from God?  Do they know what sex is for in the divine plan of human life?  Do they understand that sexual love is both very good and wonderful but comes with great responsibility and the need for self-possession and self-discipline?

1. Monitor all media to be sure that these things are reflective of the values of our faith.  Your children are learning and being formed by the media in ways that are quite contrary to the teachings of Christ and the values that lead to happy and satisfied lives.

1. Help your children to experience the goodness of modesty in dress, in speech, in attitude and action, in respecting their own bodies and in respecting themselves and others.

1. Grow in your understanding of what the faith teaches and put into practice those convictions in your own lives.  Children need to see that good people think and feel in the ways that the faith teaches.  Your example is critical in helping your children know not only what the Church teaches, but why it is taught.

1. Help your children realize the foolishness and danger of casual sex and trivializing the importance of sexuality.  Expose the dangers and lack in realism in what society tells us is “safe sex.”  Explain that this casual attitude to sex can only lead to problems and carries with it many dangers.  You can help your children realize and believe that charity and abstinence make sense, and that it is possible for them to live the way that Christ wants us to live.

1. Pray together with your children at home, attend Mass regularly as a family, and encourage regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Faith must be alive in the home if young people are to find insight and courage to care about what the Church teaches concerning sexuality.

Working together, we can make great progress in educating our children in the essential values of human life.  In so doing, we are empowering our children to make the right moral decisions and embrace positive moral living.