Training future Catholic paedophiles

I came across a posting by a Belgian lay woman, Dr. Alexandra Colen, who describes her quest to have a Belgian catechism textbook, Roeach, removed from Catholic schools in Belgium.

I do not consider myself a prudish Mother Grundy. I was sadly disappointed when a few years ago some Catholic parents wanted Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale removed from being prescribed reading for English in local Catholic high schools. They had never read the book but had read the page where the main character talks about f*ck*ng. (I had not read the book either. The controversy led me to read it and I would say that it should be on everyone's "must read" list along with Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

Roeach (pronounced Ruach where the ch is like the Scottish och) is very different. It had the Imprimatur of the Archbishop's office. The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. It has some drawings of babies and toddlers with bubble texts that led Colen to conclude, “When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation. In this way one breeds pedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is ‘groovy’, while the opposite is the case.”

For some insight into the context of the scandal around resigned bishop Roger Vangheluwe read Colen's blog entry, The Fall of the Belgian Church (http://www.alexandracolen.nu/node/45). Warning, it has a cartoon from the catechism that some might consider pornographic.