MANILA, April 16, 2012—The Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education has launched a 12-volume book series on values education for children and youth that teach about sex and family in an age-appropriate manner using universal human values.
“This is a pro-active response [of the Church] to the steady deterioration of Catholic values among our youth,” said Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.
Villegas is also the chairman of the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Titled Alive to the World, the series presents a course program that teaches young people to think about choices and consequences. At age-appropriate levels, the book series discusses values like family, friendship, peer pressure, romance, sex, love, marriage—and implications like loyalty, team work, personal responsibility, and respect for property, to name but a few.
“The Church is a teacher and caretaker of truly positive universal human and Christian values. The way to overcome the anti-family and anti-life bills in Congress is to teach our youth and children what are truly human and Christian values,” Villegas said.
He stressed the importance of forming the hearts and mind of the youth to instill in them the value of life and family.
“We will fight the anti-life and anti-family and anti-women bills in Congress by winning the minds and hearts of our youth. We will overcome these evil bills by the power of good, dedicated and well-formed young leaders. The hope of the nation is the pro-family pro-life youth not the anti-life and anti-family congressmen,” Villegas said.
The prelate encouraged all Catholic universities, colleges and schools to avail of the book series and start using them when the school year opens in June.
“It has a series for students and another series for teachers to assist them in the classroom instruction,” he explained.
The book series on personal, social and health education has been tested successfully in Latin America, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Villegas also pointed out that even non-Christians can benefit from the program.
The book series was launched in collaboration with the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and Rex Publishing House. (CBCPNews)
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