Priest tells parents to face future

Press, 28 August 1978, Page 7

Priest tells parents to face future

PA Hamilton New Zealands biggest social problem is not overemphasis on sexuality, but a diminishing capacity to enter permanent relationships, according to the Rev. Tom Ryder, an Auckland Roman Catholic parish priest and and educationist. He told the Parent Teacher Association’s annual conference that marriages were breaking down like ninepins “because New Zealanders lacked self-confidence and were unable to relate to each other.”

“Our young people don’t need instruction in the physiology of sexuality, but instruction in the bonds between men and women in love,” he said.

Father Ryder discussed questions being raised about the Johnson Report on health and social education. (He is a member of the committee which compiled the report).

He said parents were opposing teachers’ rights to instruct children in human development and relationships, distrusting teachers’ ability to teach in this area, and questioing the subject’s place on the curriculum. The Johnson Report, he said, had been variously labelled a dangerous document, a denial of Christianity, and a serious challenge to the secular nature of New Zealand’s education system. But the philosophic basis of New Zealand education was one of the trickiest areas New Zealand had entered in its history. “It has got to be faced,” said Father Ryder. “We have dodged it long enough.”