Parents and clergy in Fairfax County, Virginia are furious about proposed changes to school curriculum that would eliminate clergy from a list of trusted adults.
“I take that as a personal insult,” Catholic Bishop Michael Burbidge said in remarks reported by Catholic Herald. “What a great insult to our clergy who give their lives in service to God’s people, to God’s young people (helping) them to do what is good and right.”
The censorship of the clergy is just one of several disturbing changes to the district’s so-called Family Life Education curriculum. Board members are expected to approve the changes Thursday.
The curriculum would also mandate using the phrase “sex assigned at birth” instead of “biological sex.”
It would also end the practice of teaching that abstinence is the only 100-percent effective method of preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
Bishop Burbidge urged Catholic parents to oppose what he called the misguided and harmful school district proposals.
“It is truly regrettable that a public school curriculum would deny scientific truth, the reality of how we are made,” he wrote in a letter to the Fairfax County Times. “As a society, we must never forget the dignity of the human person, the true meaning of human sexuality, how God created us and taught us to live.”