Suffer the Children: The Disaster of 'Talking about Touching'
by Mary Jo Anderson - May 3, 2004
Reprinted with permission from our good friends at InsideCatholic.com, the leading online journal of Catholic faith, culture, and politics.
On September 29, 2003, a frustrated Rev. David Mullen sent a letter to newly installed Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston, pleading for help. "Talking About Touching" (TAT), a controversial safety education program designed for children in kindergarten to fourth grade, had just been accepted in the Archdiocese of Boston. He wrote:
I am most distressed that you have decided to impose the evil [TAT] program on the parishes of the Archdiocese. We have learned nothing from the clergy abuse crisis: Pastors are still ignored, parents' rights are ignored, the innocence of children is tossed aside, and arrogant chancery officials are still convinced that by shuffling a few papers and giving a few orders all will be well. And of course, we refuse to think like Catholics. Over three months ago I wrote a letter to Bishop Lennon, with copies to all the other auxiliaries, regarding the various objections I have to this program. It was not even acknowledged. I have included a copy of this letter for your eyes.
But it didn't end there for Father Mullen. In October, he appeared on the Fox News Channel and again described TAT as "evil." This was followed by an interview with the Boston-area News Channel 7, where he said the sexually graphic program was unsuitable for his parish and that he refused to implement it.
Father Mullen wasn't alone in his concern. The adoption of the program ignited a firestorm of parental protest throughout the archdiocese. Criticism was coming from all corners.
In response, Rev. Chris Coyne, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, told Channel 7 that the TAT curriculum was "excellent" and confirmed that the program would be required in all schools as part of the archdiocese's response to the scandal. Father Coyne later acknowledged to CRISIS that he was "not unsympathetic to some of the concerns" and that the situation with parents and some pastors was "a bit intense." An understatement, to be sure. After numerous meetings, phone calls, and unanswered letters, many Boston-area parents feel estranged from their bishop. Others have removed their children from diocesan schools rather than subject them to "kid-porn education."
How did it get to this point?
A Nightmare for Parents
The parents who reviewed the introductory TAT video last spring were stunned. In one scene, a kindergartener asks his mother, "Mommy, what is sex?," to which the celluloid mom responds, "Sex is when two people get undressed and rub their private parts together." One woman who attended the screening later voiced her disgust with chancery officials: "What is Catholic about this program? This is one more sellout to secular values. On second thought, this is exactly what I've come to expect from the chancery – they've sold us out in favor of dancing with the devil."
John Bettinelli, a father of three boys at St. Catherine of Sienna school, reported his reaction to the video preview in Catholic World Report: "There was no mention of chastity or love, or that the two people should be married, or even that they should be of the opposite sex." Despite a summer of protest and efforts to convince chancery officials that TAT was a disastrous choice for an archdiocese attempting to dig itself out from underneath a scandal of historic proportions, the divisive curriculum was nevertheless mandated for Boston's Catholic schools.
Bishops across the country have instituted various programs to create "safe environments" in an effort to comply with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Youth adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in June 2002. According to the USCCB's communications office, the guidelines for such programs call for "training programs for children and young people that include 'age-appropriate materials pertaining to personal safety.' This includes information about improper touching and relationships."
The USCCB's newly established Office of Child and Youth Protection, headed by former FBI agent Kathleen McChesney, monitors compliance with the charter via audits – the first of which has just been completed. While the USCCB doesn't designate particular programs to be used in Catholic schools, Sheila Horan, McChesney's assistant, told CRISIS that TAT is among three programs mentioned when a diocese asks the office for suggestions. Horan noted that a bishop is free to choose or design a program that best reflects the needs of his flock, provided that the program meets the charter guidelines. While several programs have been used in public schools, there's no specifically Catholic option in the marketplace. As a result, each diocese has been under pressure to quickly review, select, and implement a program in order to meet the timeline of the first audit.
This haste, critics contend, may be responsible for the adoption of a child-safety program that ends up doing more harm than good.
The COYOTE Connection
At the heart of the TAT controversy are two central concerns raised by alarmed parents. First, the sexually explicit curriculum violates the Vatican's own directives on appropriate sex-education material. Second, TAT shifts the burden for "safety" to children rather than charging parents, educators, and clergy with their protection. Several parent groups sent detailed reports to Archbishop O'Malley that outlined their objections, among them the criticism that TAT material was developed by the Committee for Children (CFC), a former Seattle-based prostitution rights advocacy organization. Indeed, the CFC is the sanitized name of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics). Parents' groups such as Faithful Voice and Concerned Parents point out that those who support prostitutes' rights simply don't have an educational philosophy compatible with Church teaching.
Deacon Anthony Rizzuto, appointed by Bernard Cardinal Law to head the Boston archdiocese's Office of Child Advocacy, Implementation, and Oversight, disagreed. He dismissed the charge that TAT should be removed on the grounds that its creators don't share the Catholic view of human sexuality, even with the COYOTE link.
Rizzuto isn't alone. Harry Purpur, director of education for the Diocese of Orlando, Florida, and Sister Lucy Vasquez, chancellor of the diocese, likewise defended their decision to mandate TAT in the diocesan schools, despite the known COYOTE connection. When contacted, Purpur rejected the notion that the CFC was compromised because of the link. "I did due diligence before accepting this program," he said, "and the only COYOTE I found was an animal." But one school staffer questioned Purpur's claim, noting that Purpur came to Orlando from Seattle, home of the CFC. Even after Purpur was given verification of the COYOTE connection, he still declined to consider other safety-education programs.
When parents raised objections to the sexually explicit material in the curriculum and cited a scathing critique of TAT by Dr. James Dobson's Family News in Focus, Rizzuto and Purpur dismissed the source. This despite the critique quoting Rev. Bob Carr, a Boston priest who told Focus that he "will refuse, if ordered, to teach this curriculum in his parish."
However, the claimed ignorance of Rizzuto and Purpur to the link between COYOTE and the CFC falls flat on the evidence. Focus on the Family is a highly respected Evangelical resource that reaches millions of parents and ministers. Its May 2003 critique of TAT and its COYOTE connection was available to anyone interested in the facts. The critique listed Planned Parenthood and SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, an organization that promotes abortion and graphic sex education) as supporters of TAT. Lois Matheson, the CFC spokeswoman, refused to discuss the history of the committee. "I think that really distracts from the real issue here," she said. "I don't know how that's relevant."
But angry Catholic parents found it most relevant. Many were informed about COYOTE's strong homosexual element – doubly worrisome for Boston in the post-scandal months. The shared history of COYOTE and the CFC was hastily deleted from the CFC's Web site after irate parents flooded the Boston archdiocesan offices, protesting the introduction of TAT in their schools. However, several parents had already downloaded the history before it was removed: "1976: Seattle COYOTE changes its name to Judicial Advocates for Women, becomes a non-profit and identifies its mission: To educate the public about the realities of prostitution." By 1979, according to the published history, Judicial Advocates for Women initiated a "curriculum review committee" to research child-abuse prevention and changed its name to the Committee for Children.
Why would the CFC have gone to such lengths to cover its own tracks? COYOTE was the work of Margo St. James, a former prostitute who testified during the 1996 San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution. At one point in her testimony, she noted, "The forerunner of COYOTE was WHO – Whores, Housewives and Others. Others meant lesbians, but it wasn't being said out loud yet."
St. James further detailed the birth of COYOTE: "I cornered [San Francisco Sheriff Richard Hongisto] at a party and asked him what it would take to get NOW [National Organization for Women] and gay rights groups to support prostitutes' rights… He said that we needed someone from the victim class to speak out… I decided to be that someone." St. James (and COYOTE) spent more than 25 years defending "prostitutes' rights," organizing the Hooker's Ball (drawing 20,000 in 1978) and taking her research to the United Nations' Women's Conferences. According to St. James, COYOTE organized the 1984 Hooker's Convention and drafted a Bill of Rights, the basis of the "World Whores Charter, drawn up by the International Committee for Prostitute's Ri
