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Your child, in Grade 5, opens her looseleaf to a page listing definitions of genitalia and intimate body parts more appropriately found in a Pre-Med anatomy textbook.

Your grandson, in Grade 7, listens intently as a representative of Dignity explains to his class about the need for understanding and tolerance of alternate sexual lifestyles.

In Grade 4, your niece is instructed to draw a picture depicting world over-population and, in Grade 3, her little sister is watching a frightening movie about how baby animals are born.

These are representative examples of the many complaints about sex-education in Catholic schools THE MINDSZENTY REPORT has received over the past several years. By no means, however, are they the most extreme. When the WASHINGTON TIMES observed that material approved for sex-education in 1995-1996 too pornographic to print in a family newspaper, the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese quickly announced that this program was no longer in use.

Who approves these weird sex-ed programs for Catholic school children?

In one diocese it was the Bishop who appointed a monsignor who appointed a priest/educator who selected a former nun to devise a program integrating human sexuality with the religious education program: One day sex-ed; the next day religion. In his name, the Bishop was cited as final arbiter of the diocesan sexuality program being taught in his Parish schools.

In more examples -- Where parents have objected to classroom sex instructions using values clarification and moral relativism, they've been told the program has been cleared and certified by such organizations as the Catholic Education Association or the National Center for Pastoral Leadership or even "approved by the Vatican" in Rome. In other words parents get-out!

Not so: the teaching of sexuality -- and chastity, the spiritual power which frees love from selfishness and aggression -- is a parental responsibility and right which no bishop, educational association or ecclesiastical authority may usurp:

"Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them (ed. "parents")....."

So states an important Pontifical Council for the Family document entitled "The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality" which has been quietly ignored since its publication on December 8, 1995 by the Vatican.

Does anyone wonder why? The 24,770-word document -- years in the making -- not only emphatically asserts parents' rights in regard to sex-education for their children, it also urges them to take an active role in opposing programs they find offensive and degrading:

"It is recommended that parents associate with other parents, not only in order to protect, maintain or fill out their own role as primary educators of their children...but also to fight against damaging forms of sex education and to ensure that their children will be educated according to Christian principles...."

The significance of the Pontifical Council's "guidelines for education within the family" as the document is subtitled, was expertly summarized in the March 1996 issue of Education Reporter the newspaper of education rights (7800 Bonhomme Ave. St. Louis Mo. 63105; annual subscription $25) from which the following is quoted with permission:

This officially proclaimed church doctrine gives Catholic parents a First Amendment freedom-of- religion right to remove their children from all school instruction in sexuality and/or distribution of devices, whether in separate classes or integrated in other classes. It reiterates again and again the rule that "The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to find an adequate substitute."

Hereafter, Catholic parents should be able to go to any school, public, private or parochial, and say: My religion requires me to supervise my child's sex education, to be informed of each and every class that includes any instruction pertaining to sexuality, to be allowed to inspect any and all materials used, to be present during sex education classes, and to remove my child altogether without being subjected to any adverse treatment in any way.

These rights would pertain not only to any course called Sex Education, but to any part of any other course that includes instruction about sexuality, such as Health, Family Living, Personal Development, Social and Cultural Studies, AIDS Education, Home Economics, Religion, or Literature.

This Vatican document absolutely does not mean that Catholic parents have any right to dictate what is taught in the public schools. The document means only that parents have total control over what is taught to their own children.

Here are some sample quotes from the official Pontifical Council document on the rights and wrongs regarding sex education. The number before each excerpt notes the paragraph in the document where the quotation can be located.

(45)...Parents, as individuals or in association, have the right and duty to promote the good of their children and demand from the authorities laws that prevent and eliminate the exploitation of the sensitivity of children and adolescents.

(64)...This primary task of the family includes the parents' right that their children should not be obliged to attend courses in school on this subject which are not in harmony with their religious or moral convictions. The school's task is not to substitute for the family, rather it is 'assisting and completing the work of parents, furnishing children and adolescents with an evaluation of sexuality as value and task of the whole person, created male and female in the image of God.'... The Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles.

(78) It can be said that a child is in the stage described in John Paul II's words as 'the years of innocence' from about five years of age until puberty...this period of tranquillity and serenity must never be disturbed by unnecessary information about sex...

(83)...In some societies today, there are planned and determined attempts to impose premature sex-information on children...Such information tends to shatter their emotional and educational development and to disturb the natural serenity of this period of life. Parents should politely but firmly exclude any attempts to violate children's innocence....

(111) Parents should avoid adopting the widespread mentality whereby girls are given every recommendation regarding virtue and the value of virginity, while the same is not required for boys, as if everything were licit for them.

(124) 2. Only information proportionate to each phase of their individual development should be presented to children and young people...

(125)(b) Homosexuality should not be discussed before adolescence unless a specific serious problem has arisen in a particular situation...

(c) Sexual perversions that are relatively rare should not be dealt with except through individual counselling, as the parents' response to genuine problems.

(126) 3. No material of an erotic nature should be presented to children or young people of any age, individually or in a group...Moreover, even if they are not erotic, graphic and realistic representations of childbirth, for example in a film, should be made known gradually, so as not to create fear and negative attitudes towards procreation in girls and young women.

(135) Today parents should be attentive to ways in which an immoral education can be passed on to their children through various methods promoted by groups with positions and interests contrary to Christian morality. It would be impossible to indicate all unacceptable methods....

(138) In some societies professional associations of sex-educators, sex-counsellors and sex-therapists are operating. Because their work is often based on unsound theories, lacking scientific value and closed to an authentic anthropology, theories that do not recognize the true value of chastity, parents should regard such associations with great caution, no matter what official recognition they may have received.

(139) Another abuse occurs whenever sex education is given to children by teaching them all the intimate details of genital relationships, even in a graphic way. Today, this is often motivated by wanting to provide education for "safe sex", above all in relation to the spread of AIDS. In this situation, parents must also reject the promotion of so-called "safe sex" or "safer sex", a dangerous and immoral policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against AIDS. Parents must insist on continence outside marriage and fidelity in marriage as the only true and secure education for the prevention of this contagious disease.

(140) One widely-used, but possibly harmful approach goes by the name of "values clarification." Young people are encouraged to reflect upon, to clarify and to decide upon moral issues with the greatest degree of "autonomy", ignoring the objective reality of the moral law in general and disregarding the formation of consciences on the specific Christian moral precepts, as affirmed by the Magisterium of the Church. Young people are given the idea that a moral code is something which they create themselves, as if man were the source and norm of morality.

(141) Parents should also be attentive to ways in which sexual instruction can be inserted in the context of other subjects which are otherwise useful (for example, health and hygiene, personal development, family life, children's literature, social and cultural studies etc.)...

The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality proclaims the doctrine that sex education may not be taught to Catholic children unless it conforms to Catholic teaching on sexuality, period! Even if those children are attending public schools, forcing them to attend such sex courses is a direct violation of the child's First Amendment religious rights.

As the Education Reporter notes: "The document strongly asserts 'the parents' right that their children should not be obliged to attend courses in school on this subject which are not in harmony with their religious and moral convictions.'"

Further, where many schools have warned children not to tell their parents about the content of sexuality courses, the Reporter adds: This important document also advises: "No one can bind children or young people to secrecy about the content and method of instructions provided outside the family." Any public school that does so may and should encounter serious legal problems.

But what about Catholic schools, where problems with sex-ed programs are equally as controversial and divisive? The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality provides an answer.

Until all such sex education curriculum conforms to specifications of this official Pontifical Council document, a moratorium should be called on the teaching of sexuality in our religious schools. In addition, parents should meet with school authorities and educational staff to discuss a proper program to re-introduce into the classrooms.

Naturally, this suggestion will not be taken lightly by some. At least three major textbook publishers have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars producing sex-ed books for each class from grades one through eight which contain the sort of objectionable material the Pontifical Council document specifically condemns.

That is their problem. As this remarkable document affirms:

(150) The Pontifical Council for the Family therefore urges parents to have confidence in their rights and duties regarding the education of their children, so as to go forward with wisdom and knowledge, knowing that they are sustained by God's gift.....