Theology of the Body debuts middle-school edition

Pope John Paul II called young people the “morning watchmen” of the new millennium whose “profound longing for those genuine values which find their fullness in Christ” is hugely underestimated by adults.

Given Blessed John Paul’s faith in this often vilified age bracket, it is up to parents and other educators to “take up the baton,” said Brian Butler, addressing 122 religion teachers, catechists and youth ministers assembled at Notre Dame Seminary for a three-day certification workshop breaking open the new middle school edition of “Theology of the Body for Teens: Discovering God’s Plan for Love and Life.”

The religion curriculum of eight chapters, designed for children in grades 6-8, is a prequel to the 12-chapter “Theology of the Body for Teens” for high school students, which was co-authored by Butler in 2006 and inspired by the 129 “Theology of the Body” lectures presented by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984.

“The church is surging with excitement when it comes to young people in our country,” said Butler, a Metairie resident who co-produced the curriculum’s middle school edition – which blends a textbook and DVD format – with Jason Evert, and local high school religion teachers and youth leaders Colin and Aimee MacIver. “It’s easy for us to look at one young person or a couple of young people that we’re working with and to get disillusioned ourselves. But there are many good things going on.”

Years of rapid change

Sometimes that love is tough, said Butler, asking his workshop attendees to describe the age they serve – children born from the mid-1990s through 2010 known collectively as Gen Z, Gen V, (for “virtual”) or Gen I (“Internet”).

Noting that their students were perched between childhood and young adulthood, the teachers described an age of profound physical and emotional change, decreasing dependence on parents and increasing dependence on the peer group. They also pointed to middle schoolers’ overwhelming self-consciousness and need for acceptance, impulsiveness, the maturity gap between the sexes, and their obsession with social media and technology, the latter which makes the practicing of face-to-face relationships next to impossible.

At the same time, they said their students have “energy like crazy,” hunger for the truth, and want desperately to have their own voice and be of service to others.

“They want to act like they’re young adults, but they still feel like kids,” Butler said, noting that Gen Z’s ability to get information instantaneously gives many youngsters the false impression that they are older than they are. “Their sexuality is blossoming, so everything seems sexual in connotation,” Butler said. “It’s not because they’re bad kids, they are just so interested in this new blossoming of who they are that they’re awkward in trying to figure it all out.”

There’s a reason for inner chaos, he notes, and it’s not “just hormones.” Real physiological changes are taking place in the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls functions such as planning, judgment, impulse control, social and sexual behavior, regulation of emotions, learning from experience, and the ability to weigh risks and rewards.

“Neuroscientists used to think that this section of the brain had all of its development between 0 and 3 years old,” Butler said, “but they’ve just found that there’s a new wave of (brain) growth that happens between 10 and 13.”

Feelings of invincibility

Adding to the mix is the fact that human beings’ “risk perception” – an understanding of the consequences of activities such as sex, drugs and alcohol – starts to plummet after age 11, bottoming out at age 16 to 17, “right when they’re getting the keys to the car,” Butler said.

In short, Butler said ‘tweens deserve to receive a religion curriculum focusing on God’s  divine plan for their sexuality. Theology of the Body reminds them that despite their acne, their bodily changes and the taunts of their peers, their bodies are “good,” having been created in the likeness and image of God. Even if they “mess up,” God is like the father in the “Prodigal Son,” longing for his children to return.

“The body makes visible God’s love for us – the body is the invisible made visible,” Butler said, noting that Jesus himself is described as “the Word made flesh.”

Butler, a former religion teacher at Archbishop Rummel High and the archdiocese’s former associate director of youth catechesis, said the curriculum “is neither sex education nor biology,” but a study of “human formation, in light of church teaching, on what God is calling us to be.”

In chapter 5, for example, students learn that chastity is living out our sexuality and loving in a way that matches God’s “road map” to happiness for us. The course reveals that everyone is called to the virtue of chastity, whether they are married, single or have a priestly or religious vocation.

“It’s not just because (chastity) is right; it’s not just because ‘God said so’; it’s not just because ‘you sin if you do the wrong thing’; it’s because this is what we are created for,” Butler said. “Only the person who knows how to be chaste will know how to love in marriage, or in virginity.”

Parents and teachers of young children, Butler said, should impress upon them the positive value of chastity by reminding them that not only is chastity possible, it alone has the power to bring their children the authentic love their hearts desire. Yet even adults wrongly equate chastity with abstinence, Butler said.

“We think, ‘You’re gonna give me a list of things I can’tdo. You’re gonna cramp my freedom,’” Butler said, adding that young people taking the course learn that the opposite is true: chastity actually is freeing.

“It’s brings us good relationships, authentic love and gets others to treat us as persons, not objects,” he said. “Chastity is a ‘yes’ to love and all its demands. Love seeks to give. Lust seeks to take.”

Butler believes children deserve to hear about the gift of sexuality from their parents, in age-appropriate terms, from about age 3. He adds it should be “a long discussion over the course of years,” not just a one-time talk.

“We don’t give our children just one math course or one day of math,” Butler said, adding that a parents’ guide and DVD helps parents “move forward with that conversation” if they have yet to broach it by the time of the course’s recommended target age of seventh grade.

To date, Butler and his co-authors’ religion curricula are being used in about 2,000 schools and parishes nationwide. In spring 2010, the high school edition of Theology of the Body, which ideally is taught to sophomores, received the imprimatur of Archbishop Gregory Aymond as a supplementary religion program for Catholic high schools, schools of religion and youth groups. That year, 160 teachers and catechists representing 16 high schools and 52 church parishes were certified to teach it.

Certification, a requirement for teaching the course, is provided by the Respect Life Office in collaboration with the offices of Catholic Schools, Religious Education and CYO/Youth and Young Adult Ministry. It is open to teachers, priests, directors of religious education, catechists, deacons, youth ministers, campus ministers, parents, home-school educators and others whose ministry serves young people.

For information on future training sessions, contact Peg Kenny at 834-5433, or write to peggy [email protected].

Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].