June 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — An international speaker and UK coordinator of a fast-growing sex and relationships education program backed by the Pontifical Council for the Family, is set to address a high profile British audience with a clarion call for sex and relationships education to be taught according to the mind of the Catholic Church.
She has also “learnt of vested interests” that have stopped authentic Catholic sex and relationships education being passed onto the next generation.
Louise Kirk, a mother of four and school governor, was appalled by “Living and Growing,” a notorious graphic sex education program produced by Channel 4 in the UK. She fought against it, knowing there had to be something better.
Kirk is now the UK national coordinator of Alive to the World. Her role has led to speaking invitations at the 2013 World Congress of Families in Sydney, and an Australian speaking tour the following year. She is also author of “Sexuality Explained: a Guide for Parents and Children”.
Asked if she had faced opposition, Kirk revealed to LifeSiteNews: “I have since learnt of vested interests, and was amazed at how few people seem to have taken to heart the Vatican's guidelines on teaching human sexuality 'The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality'.”
“They’re now better known than when I first started, but few are really making what I think is the necessary effort to put them into practice and get parents teaching their children.”
Elsewhere, Kirk has warned that “this teaching has been obscured by ideologies opposed to the sanctity of human life and marriage.”
“The ready availability of contraception has undermined the Church’s teaching on chastity more generally. Far from leading to happier unions, divorce and family breakdown has reached catastrophic levels.”
“On an international scale, fear has played out in trying to rival God in controlling population numbers.”
Kirk will speak at the annual lecture of the Catholic Union Charitable Trust (part of the historic Catholic Union of Great Britain) on “Teaching Sexuality Following the Mind of the Church” which takes place on June 18 at the University of Notre Dame’s London campus.
Click “like” to support Catholics Restoring the Culture!
Alive to World, founded by Venezuelan-based Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, has spread to 14 countries in Latin American, with hundreds of thousands of school children using its resources. Other countries including South Korea, France, Hungary and Poland have taken it up. A version is being prepared for the African continent.
In a letter of endorsement, Bishop Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, wrote
“It gives me great pleasure to endorse Alive to the World, as an enlightened programme of personal, social and health education fully in keeping with the mind of the Church…it also give[s] children the ability to defend their values among peers…I commend the programme to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”
Kirk told LifeSiteNews that “children in broken communities may have no personal knowledge of good married families, and no idea how to achieve that goal. Even the hope of doing so is dying in some areas.”
Vollmer sits on the Pontifical Council for the Family and Pontifical Academy for Life, and it was at her invitation that Kirk introduced Alive to the World to the UK.
Kirk has the backing of Bishop Mark Davies of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, England, seen by many as an outspoken leader on pro-family issues.
“He has been very supportive, and invited me on to his Commission for the New Evangelisation. He is waiting for the full family synod process to be complete before planning a strategy for the diocese,” said Kirk.