WASHINGTON — Child Lures. Good-Touch/Bad-Touch. Talking about Touching. VIRTUS. These so-called “safe-environment training” programs may be coming to a school or parish near you.

More than likely, one of them is already in place.

Article 12 of the 2002 U.S. Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People called for dioceses to maintain “safe environment” programs, and to conduct them cooperatively with parents, educators and others. While the programs are being praised by many as an effective way to prevent child sexual abuse, they are drawing fire from others who say they conflict with Church teaching that parents are the “principal and first educators of their children” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1653).

Critics also point out that some of the programs are secular, and accordingly do not reflect Catholic teaching. And they say such programs may be doing more harm than good by providing information that compromises the innocence of children.

Some critics have also questioned whether the bishops’ charter actually mandates the kind of classroom training that is taking place in many diocesan schools and religious-education programs.

The programs have been implemented — and evaluated — with the same urgency that fueled the quick adoption of the 2002 norms.

Teresa Kettelkamp, a former law-enforcement officer who is executive director of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said in a memorandum to bishops that any training programs for children left totally to parents will not satisfy the requirements of Article 12. Parents may refuse to allow their children to participate in the training, the memo said, provided they are given educational materials and sign a statement saying they declined the training for their children.

Julie and Frank Wilson withdrew four of their eight children from St. Bernadette School in Silver Spring, Md., rather than have them participate in the Child Lures program, which is being used in schools in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and more than 25 other dioceses.

The Wilsons were among a group of parents at four schools who objected to the program. When they learned about Child Lures, Julie Wilson asked for permission to opt her children out of the training, as she and her husband have done with sex-education classes offered by the school.

“I was told, ‘No, that wasn't allowed,’” Wilson said. When she appealed to the superintendent of Catholic schools, it was suggested that she find another school. She also wrote the archdiocese, but says she received no response to her Feb. 7 letter.

She now is home-schooling the children who were at St. Bernadette.

Susan Gibbs, spokesman for the archdiocese, confirmed that all children in Catholic schools and religious-education programs are required to participate in safe-environment training. “When someone sends a child to Catholic school, they entrust us to teach their children and this program is part of health and safety,” she said.

Gibbs said the number of parents who have complained about the archdiocese's safe-environment program and policies is very low compared to the number who have responded positively.

A Bishop Objects

Julie Wilson said her major objection to Child Lures, a program that focuses on the most common tactics used by predators, is “the overall idea that somebody else is teaching my children about who they can trust and can't trust and that they can step into your place as a parent.”

“The Church has asked us to be open to new life and offers us the grace we need to raise and know what's best for [our children],” she said, “but here they're saying, ‘Sorry, we know what's better for your kids when it comes to this. If you want them in Catholic schools, they'll have to go through this program and it has to come from us.’”

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Ore., a member of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, voiced similar concerns in an Oct. 6 article in the Catholic Sentinel, the newspaper of the Baker Diocese.

Bishop Vasa said in the article that because of questions he and many parents have about the effectiveness and content of safe-environment training, he does not plan to expand it to include all children under the diocese's care. He asked whether such programs:

“ Impose a burden on very young children to protect themselves, rather than insist that parents take such training and assume the primary responsibility for protecting their children.

“ Introduce children to sex-related issues at inappropriate ages and are being advanced as part of the agenda of groups promoting early sexual activity for children.

“ Invade the Church-guaranteed right of parents over the education of their children in sexual matters.

Bishop Vasa said his position may mean the diocese will receive a “not in compliance” finding as part of its annual charter audit, and that he is prepared to ignore a “required action,” should one be issued.

Advocates of safe-environment programs claim they are necessary because all parents may not be up to the task of doing it themselves.

“I don't have any problems with parents doing this, except most parents don't know how,” Pam Church, who founded Good-Touch/Bad-Touch in 1983, said. Church said, however, that her program, which she said is used by at least 10 dioceses, does provide materials for parents who want to teach their children at home.

She said she emphasizes the importance of seeking parental permission before children participate in her program, adding that Good-Touch/Bad-Touch urges children to go home and talk to their parents about what they learn in the program.

Kettelkamp, of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said if safe-environment training is left to parents, “Some children might not get it.”

She said she doesn't see such training as separate from the Church's support of the parent as primary educator. “I see it as providing safe-environment training in cooperation with the parents,” she said.

However, Patrick DiVietri, executive director of the Family Life Institute in Manassas, Va., said research shows that the safest place for such training is within the home, conducted by parents.

DiVietri said children's innocence can be damaged by premature exposure to information about sexual abuse, creating fear and distrust. “There's something kind of absurd about taking a 5-year-old and saying, ‘Here, I want to prepare you to protect yourself.’ You wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that with my son. There's no way my son at 5 is going to be able to protect himself. That's why he has me.”

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist in West Conshohocken, Pa., agreed, saying that only parents should be allowed to teach children under 11 about preventing sexual abuse.

He cited the 1995 Pontifical Council on the Family's document, Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, which states, “Parents must protect their children, first by teaching them a form of modesty and reserve with regard to strangers, as well as by giving suitable sexual information, but without going into details and particulars that might upset or frighten them.”

Fitzgibbons said he is concerned that safe-environment programs are exposing children to information they are too young to process. At the same time, he said, such programs fail to deal with the truth about the Church's sexual abuse crisis, which primarily involved the abuse of adolescent males by homosexuals.

For children beyond 11, he said, “We need a new, specialized program that helps the victims of the crisis — adolescent males — understand homosexuality and how to protect themselves from sexual predators.”

Designing Their Own

According to the bishops conference's website, safe environment programs should have been identified, selected and underway by June 20, 2003.

In spite of the rush to meet the haste of reforms, some dioceses have responded to concerns about safe-environment programs by designing their own programs to comply with the bishops’ charter. In the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa., for example, Father Edward Quinlan, secretary for education, and a committee of parents, educators, physicians and others wrote “Formation in Christian Chastity,” a program that reflects many of the principles found in “Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.”

In addition to chastity, the program teaches safe-environment principles based on materials from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. To supplement classroom instruction, a list of basic safety tips from the center is sent to parents with a letter giving them teaching points for discussion with their children.

Jim Gontis, a parent and diocesan director of religious education who served on the Formation in Christian Chastity committee, said, “Our whole program is designed very much to respect the rights and responsibilities of parents and to help them have confidence in their role as first and primary educators of their children in the faith.”

Theresa Farnan, a committee member and mother of seven who teaches philosophy at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmittsburg, Md., added, “In other programs, I always got the sense that parents are incompetent and unable to convey this information. I found that very troubling. As a mother, I remember talking to different school administrators about this and one thing kept coming up to me: If someone else was giving my child this information about safe environment and human sexuality, when questions came up, who was he going to go to? He was going to go outside the family.”

Gontis said Harrisburg has had calls from several other dioceses who are interested in the program. Among those using it is the Diocese of Arlington, Va.

Father Terry Specht, director of child protection and safety in Arlington, said the diocese chose the Harrisburg program after looking at dozens of others.

“Formation in Christian Chastity,” he said, met and exceeded Bishop Paul Loverde's criteria for such a program, which stated it must be parent-centered, respect the innocence of children and be Catholic from its inception.

Father Specht said reaction to the program has been overwhelmingly positive. Of some 40,000 children being instructed, he said, only about a dozen parents exercised their option to remove their children from the program.

Judy Roberts writes from Graytown, Ohio.