Catholic churches use the bible and the image of Mary (the mother of Christ), to tell women to live in purity until married. Priests within the church or the sisters do not teach how sexual intercourse can lead to pregnancy, all to preserve the sanctity of marriage. I, as a Mexican American woman, and many other Catholic women were not taught an early age about intercourse, and fertility awareness (Klaus, H. et al., 2018). I dislike the way the Catholic Church has denied this knowledge to its parishioners, but it openly teaches about sexual abuse, due to the many open cases against the church. I find it appalling that the church would be fine discussing sex in terms of sexual abuse but does not openly discuss sex and natural forms of birth control in terms of procreation and future lives as husbands and wives.
As we look back in history, we can clearly see why so many Mexicans, and Mexican Americans were raised with the Catholic values and beliefs. Catholicism was used by Europeans to teach and conquer the Aztecs. Mexican families were taught about Jesus Christ, the patron saints, and Mary the mother of Christ. As Mexican families immigrated to the U.S., they came with their ingrained belief system of Catholicism and the adoration of the “Virgencita de Guadalupe”, the Virgin Mary.
In the United States, Mexican Americans grow up in the faith, many of them being baptized in the Catholic church: doing their First Holy Communion and then Confirmation. The church has guilted its people and made them fear living an unholy life-if Catholicism is not followed. When families use religious values to guide their children to the bible, Jesus Christ, and the Virgen Mary: they are instilling the rules the Catholic church. Catholics want their daughters to become respectable young women, and to live by the purity of the Virgin Mary and wait to have sex until marriage.
As Sandra Cisneros so eloquently wrote: What a culture of denial. Don’t get pregnant! But no one tells you how not to. This is why I was angry for so many years every time I saw the Virgen de Guadalupe, my culture’s role model for brown women like me. She was damn dangerous and ideal so lofty and unrealistic it was laughable. Did boys have to aspire to be Jesus? I never saw any evidence of it. They were fornicating like rabbits while the church ignored them and pointed us women toward our destiny-marriage and motherhood. (Cisneros, S. et al., 2015). The Catholic church has made it impossible for women [and men] to openly discuss their bodies, and their fertility with their children. I believe it is time to stop making women feel dirty and like putas [whores] for discussing something so natural like sex, natural forms of birth control and their ability to give birth-if they decide to be mothers.
Catholics instill religious values and customs to their children. However, not many Catholics openly discuss sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Since sexual abuse happens, the church has now been forced to implement a program [VIRTUS], a class children and adults must take to learn about the sexual abuse, [how to tell the signs of sexual grooming etc.]. Due to the implementation of the VIRTUS program, Catholic parents are now open to having sexual abuse conversations with their children, especially with young adults. Similarly, parents and the church should be open to discussing sex and natural forms of birth control and acknowledge the importance of these topics for everyone. If sex and birth control is discussed, maybe young girls can learn about the natural ways at an early age and prepare for their future lives and as Catholics.
It is critical for the church to make a change in the way it approaches this difficult conversation as it now does the topic of sexual abuse by priests in the church. Programs such as the VIRTUS program are used to disseminate information to parishioners. The same honesty and openness that is now given to speaking about sexual abuse should be given to speaking about sex and natural birth control, such as fertility awareness (Klaus, H. et al., 2018). These conversations could avoid the secrecy of sex and prepare the future young male and females for life as honest Catholics. Honesty and openness may lead to greater trust within families, the community and the building bridges with the church.
