Rev. Fr. Henry V. Sattler - Parents, Children and the Facts of Life (with Supplemental Reading: Catholic Prayers) [Illustrated]

I MPRIMI P OTEST:	John Sephton, C.SS.R. Provincial Superior October 13, 1951
N IHIL O BSTAT:	Bede Babo, O.S.B. Censor Librorum
I MPRIMATUR:		Thomas A. Boland Bishop of Paterson October 22, 1952

Copyright 1952 by St. Anthonys Guild.

Originally published by St. Anthony Guild Press, Paterson, N.J., in January 1953 and reprinted September 1953, February 1955 and again in 1961. Also published by Doubleday in the Image Book series in 1956 and reprinted by them numerous times. (Total copies printed prior to the TAN edition: approx. 750,000.)

Reprinted with permission of The Franciscans, St. Anthonys Guild, Paterson, New Jersey 07509-2948.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 93-60170

ISBN 978-0-89555-489-5

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
1993

To
Saint Maria Goretti

Martyred for Her Love of
Chastity and Modesty

because of widespread appeal from parents asking for such a work I am happy to voice approval of this popular book by Father Sattler, Parents, Children and the Facts of Life .

Most Rev. Edwin V. OHara, Archbishop
Chairman, Episcopal Committee
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine

This work is by far the best on the subject produced to date clear, forceful, definitivethe last word in Christian Sex Education.

Dr. Alphonse Clemens, Director
Marriage Counseling Center Catholic University

This is, perhaps, the best, the most complete, and the most practical treatment of the whole question of sex education yet written by a Catholic.

Catholic Transcript

For practicality, precision of detail, thoroughness of treatment combined with compactness of volume, we do not know the equal of this book in the sex education field.

The Register

A providential answer to a problem which we who are concerned with education find more pressing month by month I thank God for its existence.

Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel
Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Buffalo

Seldom has a manual been written which fills so adequately the purpose for which it is intended.

The Magnificat

Parents, Children and the Facts of Life is undoubtedly the most successful Catholic book ever written on the duties of parents to instruct their children properly concerning sex and procreation. Among the four printings of the book published by St. Anthony Guild Press, starting in 1953, and the numerous printings done in the Doubleday Image edition, some 750,000 copies of this book have been sold, according to the authors own reckoning.

Originally writing between 1947 and 1949, the author labored over every line to be certain that every word he wrote was in strict accord with the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding parental duties concerning educating children in the facts of life. Fr. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., S.T.D., then Dean of the School of Sacred Theology at Catholic University of America, had been asked by the U.S. National Catholic Welfare Conference to write this book, but because he was too busy, he in turn commissioned Fr. Sattler to do it; nonetheless, Fr. Connell guided it every step of the way, to use Fr. Sattlers own words.

The result is a book which is eminently helpful to parents, that they may know, not only their duties in this delicate and important matter, but also what techniques and methods to employ. A thorough reading of Parents, Children and the Facts of Life will give all parents the necessary tools to handle this important aspect of their role as the primary educators of their children.

One might think that the passage of forty years from the printing of the first edition of the book would have rendered it outmoded or grossly dated. But exactly the opposite is the case. Except for the dates in the footnotes and bibliography, the text reads as fresh as if it had been written today. Virtually every reference, for example, to the baneful influence of the secular world on the tender consciences of children today is as accurate and meaningful now as it was when writtenexcept that today serious Catholic parents realize even more profoundly what a stark contrast exists between the sex education imparted in the public schools and by way of the media and entertainment business, on the one hand, and what should be imparted in a proper Catholic context and manner, on the other. In a letter of February 1, 1993 to the present Publisher, the author confessed, I have often attempted to revise and update and re-edit the book, but it would never lend itself to revision, as though cast in iron which would not mill. What the author has produced in this book is a classic, timeless, Catholic statement on the role of parents vis--vis the education of their children in the facts of life. It does not need to be changed.

As the reader gets into the book, it may appear overly long and needlessly protracted, but the fact is that parents should keep reading, right to the end, and make the contents of this book their own, so that when an occasion arises to make a point in the sexual education of one of their children, the instruction can be done immediately, simply, naturally, and just to the extent needed by that child at that time. For the intent of this book is to form the parent to become a confident, effective, proper teacher in this subject for his or her own children. If a parent will read the book through and digest its contents, it will produce the desired effect.

Finally, Fr. Henry V. Sattlers Parents, Children and the Facts of Life will serve as an excellent and much-needed counterpoise to the Godless, public and grossly immodest sex education employed in the public schoolsand, alas, in all too many Catholic schools. For it will give parents at once both the ammunition to show school authorities that the primary and essential obligation to instruct their own children in sexual matters belongs to THE PARENT and not the school, plus it will more than equip parents for their task.

It is a pleasure, then, to present to the reader this extremely important and germane little book.

The Publisher
February 9, 1993

The right and duty to educate children belongs in the first place to those who gave them life, their parents. Indeed, the education of the young is so intimately bound up with parenthood that the Catholic Church has always regarded it as pertaining to the primary end of matrimony. Parents mayand usually dodepute to professional teachers the task of instructing their boys and girls in the various branches of natural knowledge that make up the curriculum of schools and colleges. Catholic parents may delegate even a portion of the spiritual training of their children to the teachers in the parochial schools. But parents may not entirely consign to others the task of providing for the moral and religious formation of their sons and daughters. Almighty God, who has conferred on a married couple the privilege of bringing children into the world, has commanded that they actively and earnestly help those children to know, love and serve Him in this life, so that they will be happy with Him forever in the life beyond the grave.

One of the most important phases in this parental duty of promoting the spiritual welfare of the young is sex education. Unfortunately, to many parents this means nothing more than the imparting of biological facts concerning the process of procreation and the measures to be taken in order to avoid disease. To Catholics, sex education means much more than this. It signifies, primarily, the training of boys and girls to be pure and innocent, and eventually to enter marriage with a noble and holy purpose, if God calls them to that state of life.