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Star of the Sea School parents upset after young students questioned about sex

Controversy was brewing again at Star of the Sea this week after the church handed out pamphlets to young students at the adjoining school that many parents felt were inappropriate.

In preparation for their first confession, second graders were given a pamphlet asking questions about sexual topics like “Did I practice impure acts on myself or masturbate?”

Parents told ABC7 News that they’re not upset with the Star of the Sea School or its administration – which is run separately from the church – but rather with the new priest at the neighboring church who walked onto the campus and handed out the literature to young students.

“It talked about some pretty serious things, that pamphlet,” said parent Meghan Parent. “So yeah, obviously we want to protect our kids as much as possible.”

This is the second time that the church, led by Father Joseph Illo, has received media attention recently.

In late January, the church made national news when Father Illo changed a policy to now ban girls from being altar servers in the church.

ABC7 News reports that parents at the school are now forming a group that will help facilitate communications between the priest and the school. They hope future lessons about sin will be tailor-made for young children.

Sarah B.

12 Comments

  1. While this is something I can find in lots of papers at the moment, I’d like it if there was some balanced reporting on good things being done by religious organizations as well. Additionally, am I to think that The Jewish Community Center has zero controversy surrounding it? Etc.

    I also think masturbation, abortion, etc. are things that kids can comprehend from early ages and I remember we were more likely to spread inaccurate rumors without real data from grown-ups; I doubly think this considering how much total garbage is in the mass media (including the Internet). I’d rather they thought and discussed facts, but I am sympathetic to the parents.

  2. Religion is used to control people. Parents who send their children to religious based schools should know that before they enroll their kids, so this comes as no surprise. Religion is the cause of most of the grief in the world, but you can always say NO!

  3. St. Paul that is a very prejudice thing to say and not the rule of The United States of America where people have the freedom to worship or not. In parts of the world where religion is forbidden or deeply curtailed, your ignorant proclamation of religion being a cause of grief would be instantly proven wrong.

    It also makes me nervous any type of notion that all people should think the same way, which is what you’re doing at the same time that you claim to be against the notion; it’s hypocrisy.

    Faith is so much more than a non-believer can understand, where to you it is only restriction, to us it is freedom and joy. My life would have no joy without my heartfelt need to worship, regardless of how I happen to do that (or anyone else); I do not need your “permission” or “approval” to feel that way. Nor do any other Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Native Americans, Wicca, etc.

  4. It would be easy to argue that neutering people who commit sexually violent crimes would be a swift way to end them (yet that has been seen as cruel and extreme), or certainly any case where we could make people all “alike” would be a way to reduce conflict, but the truth is that human beings will ALWAYS form different manners of thought based on a myriad of topics including religion. Forbidding thought and attempting to align people, often under penalty of death, still has not ever been successful in the history of time.

    Speaking of such: I am saddened to see that yet again, my family and friend’s reasonable comments to this article were “banned” or “censored” by the authors YET AGAIN. Their remarks go into a queue “awaiting moderation” only to never get approved, even when a much more inflammatory remark has already appeared. When they try to comment on any other story, they are unable to do so there either, and this “awaiting moderation” status is never removed. It’s essentially a silencing and a punishment. Speaking of “religion” being used to “control” people…one clearly does not need religion to experience that and people are excellent at making up reasons to disagree or find unacceptable differences in one another.

    None of these previous commentaries have ever done more than critique (not dictate), like myself, the heavy hand of censoring or disagreed with the tone of an article. Nothing more. No insults to their mothers, no death threats, or sexism, or creedism, etc. It’s confusing in a blog with welcoming liberal attitudes to be run like a dictatorship. I also know that others have been treated this way and it’s a pattern.

    Why? Please stop. Please allow discourse or courteously address it.

    Censoring is not news reporting as we conduct it in The United States. People should be allowed to criticize — one another OR an author — in intelligent ways or disagree. That’s free press. Heck, in San Francisco, they often do it in less-than-intelligent ways *cough* and it simply becomes part of the discourse if we don’t resort to childish slander. Part of OUR culture.

    Freedom of expression…it’s what we are all about. What we SHOULD be about. Wether that is the choice of religion, the choice to challenge a religion within it’s own doctrines, or to personally chose not to participate in religion — as ONE example.

  5. It’s important to remember that culture and family often have deep ties to religion and it can be cruel, as well as racist, to ask people to cut that off because you disagree with (nor practice) organized religion. For many, religion is a deep form of support in a literal and metaphorical sense; it is as complex, challenging, and uplifting as love between individuals.

    Please have some compassion, those of us with faith do struggle within our faiths and their visions, as politicians do with running government, and business leaders do with running a capitalist corporation or mom & pop store that we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, but we DO want to open discourse on these topics and to stay aware on ALL platforms of faith within the city who do a great deal of good (wether one agrees with their religious principles or not).

    I see that there is a backlash to the openness of the Pope with an archdiocese who is famous for conservative nature in a liberal city, an interesting contradiction, and one worthy of discussion. Like Alex said, please don’t cut us off from that.

  6. Is anybody surprised that the Catholic church is handing out brochures and making policies that conform to their belief system? Isn’t that the Catholic way? I’m not Catholic (and don’t support those policies but that’s their business) but I’m guessing that these things aren’t a surprise for Catholic believers and are likely supported by Catholic believers. I suppose that handing these things to young children sounds out of touch but keep in mind that Catholic church priests and archbishops don’t have families or children of their own so may not know the best way to disseminate these ideas to young children.

  7. This can’t be true . . . the church would never do anything like, well, like everything it does and gets away with. It’s 2015 and we’re still all fools.

  8. I am not a Catholic.
    However, the uproar over this is revealing in and of itself. In a city especially known for its sexual perversion, it is not temperance, but any restraint of the lower impulses that enrages.

  9. I don’t know much about Catholic traditions… but asking little kids if they’re sinners and handing out pamphlets to kids who probably can barely read them just seems sad to me.

  10. I’m sorry–but if you send your kids to Catholic school, don’t be surprised when stuff like this happens. Not to say that Star of The Sea’s current leadership isn’t possibly a little retro…But if you go to a coffee shop, don’t be surprised when they gasp…serve coffee.

  11. I’m sorry, but this has nothing to do with church teaching,, regardless of what anyone thinks about the moral teachings of the Catholic church. Second grade is too early for this kind of talk. We certainly weren’t asked those kinds of questions when I was in second grade and preparing for First Confession.

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