Nothing much has happened recently with regard to “Talking about Touching” since the announcement last month that parents will be able to have their children opt out of the program this fall. That doesn’t alleviate the concerns of parents since (1) the program will still be in the schools, creating discussion of inappropriate topics based on what kids who aren’t opted out hear and (2) it still takes up 17 weeks(!) of class time from religious education. And with the program moving into parish religious education the situation will only get worse.
Here’s what I’ve found out recently. At least one of the auxiliary bishops who the concerned parents are talking to told them that TaT did not get the normal theological review that any curriculum to be used in parishes or parochial schools is supposed to get. And that the bishop read my article in Catholic World Report and was disturbed by what he read. Yesterday was the first full meeting of the auxiliary bishops of Boston with Archbishop O’Malley where they were to present their priorities to the archbishop and this auxiliary said that TaT had become his top priority.
That’s encouraging, but I hope there is some fast action on this. At the least, the archdiocese should declare a moratorium on the program until the controversy has been settled. With the speed that negotiations with abuse victims are being done, I can hope that the furor over TaT can be resolved with similar alacrity.
