#754 Stolen Innocence

If you feel like the ground shifted under parenting in the last decade, you’re not imagining it. We walk straight into the pressure points families are facing: explicit content showing up earlier, “comprehensive sexuality education” that goes far beyond biology, and a culture that treats truth as negotiable while asking kids to define identity before they can even read. Along the way, we share the real story behind “Stolen Innocence” and why this work isn’t driven by outrage, but by the cost we’ve seen when innocence gets stolen and silence takes its place.

We also get practical about what these conversations look like with actual teens. One retreat moment starts with a pronoun demand and ends with a simple reset: “Can I call you a beloved child of God?” From there we unpack what kids are learning about love, sex, and self worth, and why so many are starving for a clear definition of love that isn’t just a feeling or a transaction. We talk about school libraries, debated book content, parent rights, and why “leave it to the experts” often means pushing parents to the margins.

We close with a constructive path forward: Love Ed, a facilitated parent-led program built to help families talk early, talk often, and build trust that lasts.

If this matters to you, subscribe, share this with a parent seeking answers, and leave a review so more families can find it. 

Transcript

Why Stolen Innocence Exists

SPEAKER_09 0:00

We started this uh presentation with Stolen Innocence some some years ago. I started with an undercover police officer that was working with child sex trafficking and child porn. And as we were talking, we just said, you know, this issue of what's happening to our children is just getting too big. And the only way to try to solve it is to get the parents involved, right? It's not so easy to do for a number of different reasons, but that's the idea, and that's where stolen innocence came from. It's trying to wake people up or give them information to what's going on. And then at the tail of this presentation, we're going to introduce you to love education. Sister Lucia Fatima said the last great battle between our Lord and Satan is going to be over what? Marriage and family. And the most intense attack today is over what? Yeah, children. The hearts, minds, and very bodies of our children. We started this apostolate, John Paul II, many years ago because we saw what happened from the sexual revolution in our own lives and our own marriages, and we saw the destruction around us and our friends and stuff. And so we started there. We started with engaged couples for the diocese of Rockford. We still do that. We present to the engaged couples there before they get married. Then we saw some problems. We saw that nobody was helping the younger people, college campuses we were on. Today, 70% of all young people would consider themselves socialists. 90% of young people today would call themselves moral relativists. Very difficult, huh? To have a conversation with people when there is no truth.

A Brother’s Story And A Return

SPEAKER_09 1:35

Stolen innocence came out of the pain and suffering originally from my brother Danny. I'm the oldest of five boys. The fourth went down, was sexually abused as a young person. We didn't know that until he was older. He never told us. Got into drugs in drug rehab. They asked him if he had same-sex attractions. He got into a homosexual lifestyle at 25 years old. At 29, he was dying of AIDS. My brothers and I, everybody left the church. Danny, the fourth brother down, as he's dying, we found out months and months before he had come back into the Catholic Church, was receiving the sacraments. The priest that was giving him the sacraments when he could no longer get there was coming into the house. The hospice people said he's gone. He won't react to you. I saw the tenants on his neck as he heard our voices. And I saw him rise from death, basically. And I touched his hand. I said, Danny, you can hear us, can't you? And his eyes opened. And he tried to get up. And so we helped him up and he said, Let's pray, but his mouth was really dry. I said, Danny, did you say let's pray? And he said, Pray to God really clearly. And I don't have time to go through that experience. But there I was reconverted to the Catholic faith as some of my other brothers were, and we realized the power of stolen innocence. What happens to young people when you take the innocence away from them and you try to fill it with lies and distortions, right?

Meeting Teens Where They Are

SPEAKER_09 2:59

I was in a high school retreat. I walked in there, 15, 16-year-olds, co-ed group, and I just got there. I bring a team of younger people with me. And I just threw out anybody in youth ministry knows it's an icebreaker, right? Just to get them to talk a little bit. I ask a question. I look over at a young lady and I said, Yes, young lady. She said, Call me they. And I said, Holy Spirit, you got me fast, didn't you? I just walked into the situation, right? And I look over at her. She's a very serious young lady, right? I don't know her background. I don't know what her history is. You have to be very, very careful with young people, right? And you and so it's a process. And I said, you know, I'm looking at her, she's looking at me, and I said, you know, I'm a simple guy. I said, I just walked in here. I don't even know your names. Now I got to learn all your pronouns. I said, it's going to be too much for me. So just for now, just for now, and if you don't like it, the next session will change, right? Just for now, can I call you a beloved child of God? And she, by the grace of God, nodded her head yes. And I said, How about you? And you nodded your head. I said, Me too. I'm a beloved child of God. We all have the same heritage. And we took those young people that they told us don't want silence or anything, we took them right into prayer, huh? Where we get below the surface of this crazy world and we sat there. And when I asked those kids to pray for something that's on their hearts, on their mind, pray for people, it's amazing, amazing, amazing beauty that happens. It'll tear your heart out when you hear those kids. And you know that we're doing the right thing when we're there for them.

Teaching What Love Actually Means

SPEAKER_09 4:36

I had the boys for two sessions, somebody else had the girls, and uh in the afternoon we're going to come together for this co-ed retreat. And uh they told me about Alex. Alex's dad was literally in prison. Sometimes they tell me these things about certain kids so I can watch out for them a little bit. This one's on the spectrum. It's good to know, right? And so I got the boys by the cells in a small group setting and telling them about what love is and you know how a young man would treat a woman if he really loved her. I said, anybody got any questions? And uh Alex raises his hand. I think he's gonna be sarcastic. He goes, So, Mr. Rigert, what you're telling me is sex is not just sex, right? And I go, duh, Alex, no, sex is not just sex. But he got it. The light bulb went off. 16 years old, Catholic school, never understood that sex was more than just sex. And he wasn't the only boy in there, right? Anyways, we're having lunch after two sessions. We're gonna do these final sessions with the girls. And the the counselor comes over to me and she says, Jack, we got to change up the afternoon session. And I go, Why? And she said, Well, the boys told the girls what you told the boys about how a young man should treat him if he really loved them, and the girls want you to tell them what you told the boys. And I said, Okay. About 10 or 15 minutes into a conversation with these young women, 16-year-olds, about how a young man would treat him if he really loved him, and a young girl started to cry. And I almost stopped. I looked over at the counselor, she said, just keep going. And so I did, and I asked the counselor later on, I said, you know, tell me why that young girl was crying. She said, I knew as the relationship with this boy got more and more physical, sexual, I had an emptiness in my heart. I felt like I was being used. Was this love? Is love really just a feeling? Is it really just sex? That's the first man she's talking about me that ever stood up. I don't have a father in my home that told me what love was and how I should be treated if somebody really loved me. And it was so beautiful that I started to cry. It was so beautiful that I started to cry. I'm gonna show you some things here with schools. I took some stuff out of here so I wouldn't shock people if they don't know. But I'm gonna give you some information. It's not as raw as some of the presentations I do, depending on the on the audience, but I want to give you a background on this, right?

What Schools Teach About Sex

SPEAKER_12 7:28

What would you do if I told you that your child was being sexually harassed? Would you call the police? Would you demand that charges be filed against their abuser? Now what if I told you that your child was being not only sexually harassed, but shown pornography in an effort to groom them for sexual activity? What if they were being groomed for homosexual activity? What if they were being groomed for sex with pedophiles? Wouldn't you keep them as far away from those people in places where those things were happening as you possibly could? Now here's the big question. What if I told you that all these things were happening to your child in their school classroom? Is it hard to believe? Of course it is. No one wants to believe that their children are being groomed. No one wants to believe that there's anything other than the best of intentions behind everything taught in our kids' schools. Surely this is just a mistake, a misunderstanding. Maybe it's just being blown way out of proportion. Or maybe it's true.

SPEAKER_07 8:58

Up until now, we've been learning about the possible negative consequences of having sex and the importance of keeping a relationship real. The reality is, the majority of middle and high school students are not having sex, but at some point later in their lives, they may feel like they are ready to have sex. That's a big decision. I mean really big. Once a couple's made a decision to have sex, whether it's vaginal, anal, or oral sex, it's important they discuss ways to protect themselves against STDs and pregnancy. One of the ways to be responsible about having sex is to use condoms. Condoms or rubbers are made of latex, polyurethane, or plastic. Condoms are shaped like long balloons and they fit over the penis before sex. If a condom is used correctly and if it is used every single time, it helps reduce the chances of getting pregnant or an STD. But it won't reduce these chances if you don't use them. But as with all new things, it's a good idea to practice until a person feels confident they could use a condom.

SPEAKER_06 10:01

If you ever have the chance to look at a comprehensive sex education curriculum, you're going to see that they have objectives. Now, there are objectives that they write down, and then there's objectives overall for the ideology behind comprehensive sex education. Their objective is to increase the use of condoms, that the people use them consistently, including children, which means that they're going to teach them not only how to use condoms, educate them on STDs, how they're transmitted, getting testing, but it's also about how do you convince your sexual partner to use that condom, which means that they role play and practice eroticizing the use of condoms and lubrication to convince your partner to use it. So it's not just about talking about the biology of things, it's also teaching children and even and adults, but you know, I want to focus on children here, teaching them about sexual activity, assuming that they're going to be sexual at a young age, teaching them about the various ways they can be sexual and how to eroticize the use of condoms with their partners and then getting tested and having abortions. Now, this is all in the name of quote unquote health. What's really happening though, the the full ideology of this is that they want to sexualize children. They groom the children for sexual activity.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Monica Klein is founder of It Takes a Family, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring the roles of parents in the family. She worked as a comprehensive sex educator for 10 years.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

Now, when I first started, you know, they they provided me with my training about STDs. They also recommended that I learn how to share this message with children. And they recommended that I speak to Planned Parenthood for that. And they were just across the street from our office. So I was invited across the street to Planned Parenthood, where the director of sex education for the Austin area trained me on how to share this message with children. And she was a woman from the community, and uh, so people really trusted her as well. She was older, she just looked like a really sweet grandma, to be honest. And uh, so she sat me down and made the case of why this was important to share this message with children. And so she let me know that there was girls as young as 10 coming into the clinic for abortions, they had STDs, and that really shocked me because, in all honesty, when I was in middle school or high school, I was not sexually active. So I couldn't believe that girls as young as 10 were sexually active and that these things were happening to them. Uh, so I quickly asked her, I said, All right, you've convinced me this is a really real problem. Teach me how to teach these girls how to avoid sex, how not to have sex. And she reached over and patted me on the knee and she said, No, dear, we're not teaching them not to have sex. We're just gonna teach them how to do it safer. She said, We meet them where they're at and we teach them how to do it safer. So if you are talking to these girls and they're telling you that they're sexually active and you tell them not to have sex, you're judging them. We teach them how to do it safer.

SPEAKER_09 12:58

Any of you working with young people, you'll come into contact a lot of time with young people that nobody has talked to them about sex at all. That's why we're bringing Love Ed and those kind of programs in because parents have abdicated the child's education and also the sexual education to the culture, and these kids are really suffering because of that.

Books, Libraries, And Parent Pushback

SPEAKER_03 13:18

The indoctrination of our children isn't only through social emotional learning and graphic sex ed content. It's also prevalent in the books our kids read that are not necessarily part of their textbooks. It's in the kids' books section of our school and public libraries as well.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

I am reading a book that is available at Creekside Middle School. So 11-year-olds have access to this book. And it is called It's Perfectly Normal. Masturbation is touching or rubbing of your body's sex organs for pleasure because it feels good. One term for masturbating is playing with yourself. Some people think that masturbation is wrong or harmful, and some religions call masturbation a sin. But masturbation cannot hurt you. It doesn't result in pregnancy or get passing infections that are spread by sexual content contact. Many people masturbate, many don't. Whether you masturbate or not is your choice. Masturbating is perfectly normal. When people masturbate, they usually rub their sex organs with their hands or something soft, like a pillow. A girl often rubs her clitoris, a boy often rubs his penis, but the clitoris and penis are sensitive to the touch.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

We've uncovered, not necessarily used as a curriculum here, but it is definitely in many of our public libraries, is the book called It's Perfectly Normal. And in that book, um, it promotes that kind of lifestyle, homosexuality lifestyle. And it teaches the kids at the age of 10. This book is geared for them at age of 10, that parents or anyone who objects to a homosexual lifestyle are bigoted and homophobic. And so that is a very dangerous path to go down because you're advocating for that lifestyle against parents' wishes. Um, and in some cases it is being used as curriculum. And that's what's actually being taught in the schools. So it's it's advocating comprehensive sexuality education, advocates for the entire gamut of sexuality. It's not just sex as we would think of it. It's everything is sexual, including the LGBT agenda.

SPEAKER_09 15:30

The next one I want to show you this is the the John Kennedy. John Kennedy's a senator, right? And he's one of the good guys, thank goodness, right? He's he's he's got a heart for the country, he's got a heart for families. What Illinois is doing, Pritzker and them, and Alexia Janulius, who's our Secretary of State, wants to ban, they're putting a law through, maybe you know this, that wants to ban parents from banning books in the schools. So, in other words, you don't have a say in the books that go in there because we're experts. We leave that to the experts, right? And uh so this is gonna be John Kennedy, the senator, in the Senate, speaking to our Secretary of State, trying to get that law passed, and Kennedy is questioning him on that. And wait till the very end. You'll see the power of this, how he he wants to just move the parents away, right? Because there's no there's no other way for him to express it. Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SPEAKER_08 16:30

I I confess I'm a little confused, and I appreciate the argument that that we've or discussion that we've been having, but for me it's a little too conceptual or I don't know, metaphysical or theological, or whatever you want to call it. I want to try to understand what you're asking us to do. Let's take two books that have been much discussed. The first one is called All Boys Aren't Blue. And I will quote from it. I put some lube on and got him on his knees, and I began to slide into him from behind. I pulled out of him and kissed him while he masturbated. He asked me to turn over while he slipped a condom on himself. This was my ass, and I was struggling to imagine someone inside me. He got on top and slowly inserted himself into me. It was the worst pain I think I have ever felt in my life. Eventually, I felt a mix of pleasure with the pain. Close quote. All boys aren't blue. The second is a another much discussed book. I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's called Genderqueer. Let me read an excerpt from that. Quote I got a new strap home strap-on harness today. I can't wait to put it on you. It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly. You're going to look so hot. I can't wait to have your cock in my mouth. I'm going to give you the blowjob of your life. Then I want you inside of me. End quote. Now, Mr. Secretary. What are you asking us to do? Are you suggesting that only librarians should decide whether the two books that I just referenced should be available to kids? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_11 18:59

No.

SPEAKER_08 18:59

Okay. Tell me what you're saying.

SPEAKER_11 19:02

First of all, there's this.

SPEAKER_08 19:04

Don't give me a speech. Tell me what you're asking me to do.

SPEAKER_11 19:07

With all due respect, Senator, uh the words you spoke are disturbing, especially coming out of your mouth is very disturbing. But I would I would also tell you that we're not advocating for kids to read port to Senator Booker's.

SPEAKER_08 19:19

What are you advocating for?

SPEAKER_11 19:21

We are advocating for parents, random parents not to have the ability under the guise of keeping kids safe to try and challenge the worldview of every single manor on these issues.

SPEAKER_09 19:35

You are random parents, right? And who are you to say what your kids should see or not see, right? This is pervasive right now. National sex ed standards, everybody should get a copy of this. They're out on the second edition right now. Just Google it. This is all public stuff, right? Nobody's hiding anymore. Everybody's out in the open. Kumbaya, right? Get this and read it. I'll show you just a couple excerpts. This is a guide for teachers. The counselors are certainly learning this. And it gives you a guide. What should be told from preschool, then K through second, third through fifth, et cetera. What are the goals to teach these kids? Here's K through two, standards by grade level, actually out of the National Sex Ed standards, identify different kinds of families, nuclear, single parent, blended, blah, blah, blah. The question we have, and the question I think you should be asking yourself, why do we need this, right? Why do we need this in the school? So again, K through second, define gender identity, gender role stereotypes. You're mixing kids up. These are little kids. They have no idea what you're saying to them, except it's everything is perfectly normal. Here's your guidelines for teachers from three to five. Define and explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender non-binary, gender expansive, gender identity. That's where I said that young girl that when I walked into the class, call me they. I mean, this is what she's been brought up through, right? And again, you know, we it was not hard just to talk through these things with them. It's the first time they ever heard somebody actually explain it to them in a way they could understand, which is just the gospel. I mean, I'm not a genius. Okay, I'm gonna blow through this here. In sixth to eighth grade, now look at I I have seven grandkids. Six of them are girls. They go from high school on down to one-year-old. This is what I know that innocent girl, 11-year-old. I could see her in my eyes, define vaginal, oral, and anal sex. This is why I do what I'm doing right now, because we're concerned about our kids. Okay.

Phones And Social Media Influence

SPEAKER_09 21:38

John Birsch is really good. Uh that first, just so I say it, because these are friends of mine. I used a couple of their clips in the beginning that's from the mind polluters. So they they said, Yeah, Jack, no problem. Take whatever you need, just you know, tell people where you can get this from. This is excellent. John Birch, right here, is on my show. And John Birsch, he's really an interesting dude. He wrote this book, Loving God's Children. He's a good Catholic guy. He really goes through this and explains it really, really well. Everybody should have this. This is a really, really good book. I have other ones there that I would recommend, but he's on the show. The interesting about John, he is for the with the ADL, Alliance for Defending Freedom, and he saw the docket shift from the cases that they're bringing to court systems now. And so many of them are now trying to take the children away from parents and stuff. This guy's a smart dude. He has argued 12 cases in front of the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, well, certainly there's a crisis. Um I would even say a pandemic when it comes to our young people. Um and it starts with the the schools. You know, California has a curriculum now where they teach gender ideology beginning in kindergarten. So five-year-olds are asked in class to say what their gender expression is and things like that. So it's certainly starting there. And the the books that you were highlighting in the library, they're they're unbelievable. But but where the the the infestation, I think, is the worst, where it's it's really toxic, is with the smartphones and the social media. You know, and every Catholic parent needs to seriously consider whether their child even needs a smartphone before age 16 and whether they've got access to a computer that the parents don't supervise, uh, whether they have social and media accounts. You know, in our family, we didn't allow those until the kids turned 18 and were going to college. Uh and it's because there is a a pervasive amount of content on TikTok and on Instagram and and other places that are all pushing the LGBT agenda generally, but the trans agenda in particular. And then it doesn't even stop with the social media because if you're not careful, the the regular media that your kids consume will have it too. Um as I talk about in the book uh just a couple of years ago, during this month, June, you know, which is officially Pride Month in the United States, um, there was an episode on blues clues. And if you if you're not a parent with a young child, you don't know that that blues clues is kind of this combination cartoon and live action show that's targeted for three, four, and five-year-olds. You know, and so twenty years ago when our kids were little, so sometimes we let them watch blues clues. So three years ago in June, during Pride Month, they had a pride parade on blues clues. And every single float in the parade, it was the Yansko marching one by one was was the tune. Each float highlighted a different aspect of LGBT culture. And one of the floats, there was a family of beavers, and there was a young girl beaver who had taped over her breasts where they had been removed. She had had a massectomy. And in case there was any doubt about that, someone asked the show's producers, Were you really showing kids a young girl who had had her breasts removed to promote gender ideology? And they said yes. So if you were throwing a load of laundry in or you were making dinner and your four-year-old was watching blues clues, that was the propaganda that they were being exposed to. And so as parents, it's crucial that we know what these issues are about and that we be cognizant of the way culture is trying to influence our kids, because at the very youngest ages possible, they're being influenced in the worst possible ways to adopt transgender mentalities.

SPEAKER_09 25:17

I'm going to show you just one more one or two more clips, and I'm gonna I want to show you what Love Ed

Gender Dysphoria And Medical Harm

SPEAKER_09 25:22

is about. Gender dysphoria, I think there's a lot of questions in our minds about this. What is this? What can we do about it? I think this is a short clip. This is worth watching, uh, just so you kind of get a little base, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So so so back to the science then. You have so kind of leaving the the social group aside. There are a number of young people who actually have diagnosable gender dysphoria. You can go to a psychologist and they have this intense feeling that they're not born in the right pot. Now, this sounds maybe foreign concept to many people, but there are lots of dysphoria, and this isn't the only one. Uh the most common one that many people have had at least a family member experience uh has to do with anorexia. Many families have struggled with this. And and so, you know, as you know, hopefully your your listeners know, that's where someone has that same type of dysphoria, this disconnection that their their body is too fat, when that's not the objective truth. And so they'll do anything that they can to try to get thinner, even though it hurts them. You know, and and one point going back to the importance of dealing with this issue with love and compassion, you know, and and truth, you would never tell your anorexic daughter, yeah, if you feel that you're too fat, you should eat less, and we'll even pay for the surgery to reduce your stomach size so that you'll eat less. That would be the most cruel, horrible thing that you can do. Now instead, what we want to do is help them align their mind with the objective truth of their body. So these kids who are experiencing the gender dysphoria, they do have a suicide rate that's about 12 times higher than the general population. They need love, compassion, uh, counseling, certainly, but accompaniment at every step of the way. We have to take that seriously. We can't just you know push it to the side as though that's something that's gonna go away. Because it needs to be treated just like anorexia needs to be treated. But the medical evidence shows the best long-term studies in the world, that for those who have gone through a complete transition, so they they had the surgery, that they have a suicide rate that's 19 times the general population. Higher rates of suicidal death, higher rates of medical problems across the board because of the transition, but also higher incidences of mental health problems. And so affirming and a transition is not a panacea. And so what we see in Europe, where a lot of this this care, if you want to call it that, put that in air quotes, was pioneered much earlier than the United States, is that they're all pulling back. UK, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, they're closing down the gender transformation clinics because not only is that the surgery harmful, but the cross-sex hormones and the puberty blockers are harmful for them too. And my my book was published last fall, and almost every month since then, there's been a new study recognizing how harmful all of these treatments are for young people. That the the puberty blockers cause all kinds of physical difficulties. Um, you know, the the doctors in the United States will say, well, it's just a pause button. You can always unpause it later. That's not true. It'll lead to loss of bone density, muscular developmental problems, um, psychosexual problems, as well as problems with psych uh sexual physical development, all those things. The the cross-sex hormones, it's even worse, you know, in including heart issues and and other mental health problems.

SPEAKER_09 28:36

I'm gonna show you one girl, you may have heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Or a dead daughter. That's quite a thing to ask a set of parents, isn't it? That was basically the choice that was presented to my parents. Either let us pump your 13-year-old child full of irreversible experimental treatments, or you may be responsible for their death. The professionals claimed I would experience suicidal ideation if I didn't transition. And the truth is, they were only half wrong. I did contemplate suicide as a teenager, but that came after all the hormones, after the social transition, after a surgeon ignored his Hippocratic oath to do no harm and surgically removed my healthy breasts, leaving scars, infection, and ongoing pain in their place. After years of turmoil and irreversible damage to my body, I realized two things I should have known all along. First, the doctors could only mold me to something that superficially resembled a man, but could never truly make me a man. And second, that even the most convincing superficial changes could not resolve the issues I had going on underneath that drove me to my transition in the first place. That is why I detransitioned and now live my life as the woman I truly am. Gender theory activists would like to have you believe that my story is unique, that my regret is the rare exception to the rule. But as much.

Truth, Love, And Real Identity

SPEAKER_01 30:37

What is a man and a woman? What is the sex nature of the human body for? Um, what what is the meaning of life and is it worth protecting? What does it mean to have human dignity? You know, you can't ask those questions unless you understand truth and love. So so just briefly, in in our modern culture, among young people in in particular, they've rejected any notion of an objective truth. For our teenagers and our college students, about 90% of them they they ascribe to moral relativism, where there is no objective truth. What's true for you is true for you. What's true for me is true for me, and it reduces everything to just a matter of opinion because we can't ever agree on anything that's universally true for everyone. And modern Americans love this kind of relativism because it's very non-judgmental. So if I'm at work and there's someone else who's spouting a pro-abortion ideology, I don't need to confront them because, well, protecting life is a truth for me. It doesn't have to be for them. And so I don't need to engage in that conversation. So it's you know a polite way to step out and say, I'm not gonna engage. But we all know that there is an objective truth. It's created by God, and he gave us the intellect so that we can rationalize what that truth is. And the church has been doing that for 2,000 years, you know, starting with the the words of Jesus, uh, but but using everything in the Bible to reveal truths about the human person and you know, theology of the body, get case in point there. And so we we have to agree that there is a truth that can be discerned before we start the conversation. Love is a concept that's even more perverted in modern culture. Uh from movies and TV shows and novels, you know, the this notion that love is just a feeling is pervasive. Everyone thinks that it's how I feel. Um, you know, if you've ever watched one of those dating shows, well, you know, do I have a connection with someone? How do they make me feel? I feel really good when I'm with them. This must be love. And that's not love at all. The Catholic Church in the catechism teaches us that love is willing the good of the other. So it's not a feeling, it's an action, and we choose to do it. And it's it's one that's not tied to what the other person wants, it's tied to what's best for them. And as parents, we intuitively understand this, you know, put the putting the the love and the truth together. If my child wants to touch a hot stove and they really want to do it, they say it's gonna make me so happy to do that, we still won't let them because one, we know an objective truth that a hot stove will burn them and severely hurt them. And two, because we want what's best for them, we'll deny them the one thing that they they desire and ask for the most because that's what's best for them. That's what keeps them safe, that's what protects them. And so as we enter into these conversations with families and school boards and employers about gender ideology, we always need to approach it with both of those things. What's willing the best for others, but also what does the objective truth have to say about this subject. And so if we get those right, then everything else can flow from that. If we can get that portion of our identity right, you know, that you know, I'm not non-binary, I'm not transgender, I'm not gay, I'm not a smoker, I'm not a pornography consumer. None of those defines who I am. Those are merely actions that I may have chosen in the past, but I'm free to choose something else because my identity is as a son or daughter of Christ. Once you get that, then we can have all kinds of conversations because the foundation has been laid.

Love Ed As A Family Roadmap

SPEAKER_09 33:57

Okay, so I'm gonna show you two real quick clips of love, Ed, and you're gonna see a whole different side. And you're gonna go, Oh, thank you, Jesus, that we we have a solution to this, right? Because you can see this is a difficult thing, right, to talk about. So hang on, and then I'm gonna just open it up to see if there's any questions.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

My husband John and I have begun the endeavor to teach our three boys about God's plan for love, for life, for marriage.

SPEAKER_10 34:26

We want to make sure that our kids are living the faith, and we know that that's not always easy. There are those outside influences on our children that are difficult to control, and those are the real challenges.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

They're getting messages from the world all the time: billboards, commercials, magazines.

SPEAKER_10 34:44

So it gets harder for us as parents to make sure that they're on that right pathway.

SPEAKER_14 34:48

It's so important to be able to, as parents, have a resource, have a roadmap to utilize, you know, to steer them and to guide them.

SPEAKER_13 34:58

Love Ed helps parents educate their children about the meaning of love and life. It guides them together on a conversational journey to learn how to overcome the struggles of adolescence and how to develop the virtues they need to make the right choices. Love Ed reveals how God created the entire universe for love, and it shows how each of us have an important role in his divine plan. It gives parents the knowledge they need to teach their children the right biological facts at the right time, and it gives their children the practical advice they need to be strong, smart, and pure. Love Ed helps parents bond with their children and helps children understand their faith so they can journey forward confidently, knowing that their family and the church are there to guide them on their way.

SPEAKER_14 35:47

I wish that growing up that I would have had something like this to be able to draw strength from. It makes you feel better as a parent because you know you're on the right path.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

We can now approach our children with so much more confidence.

SPEAKER_10 36:00

There's no other program that I've seen like this where it helps you open up the conversation.

SPEAKER_09 36:09

You can see the contrast, can't you, uh, between something like this and helping the kids and that earlier uh presentation. So, real quick on Love Ed. So, Love Ed, two important times for kids uh to be talking to their parents about this when they're coming out of the age of innocence, entering into puberty, so nine to eleven years old. Uh let's call it fifth grade-ish, about, right? Nine to eleven. And again, right before they go to high school. And what we're doing in there is two things. We're giving them the biology, what's changing in their bodies, right? These little girls are confused, the little boys are confused. What's going on in your body and what is it all about, huh? What is love? And then the second thing is so important, they they're bonding with mom, they're bonding with dad. I was up in Crystal Lake last night. We did level two up there. We had presented a number of times up there already. Uh level two. So these are seventh and eighth grade boys I had uh with their dads, and they always come in nervous. The dads, especially are nervous. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? And it's such a comfortable thing. It's so beautiful. Same thing with the boys. You know, they've seen things they probably shouldn't have seen, really, at that age already. And you can see where the way they act when I can identify who's had some issues and stuff by now. But, anyways, here's the thing we do a little blessing at the very end. We show them five acts, five scenes, and each in in between the the dad with his boy, mom with the girl, they discuss these things. And that's where the real richness, the fruit comes out of is that discussion. But we you have a book, everything comes out of it. So easy to do. You're always going to run out of time. That's the biggest issue. When these boys start talking, the dads start talking, but here's at the end. After the blessing at the very end with holy water, the father blesses the son, the son blesses the dad. How many of those dads and those boys hugged each other? That's the fruit. That's what we want. We want that little boy, that young man, even at seventh or eighth grade, to go home and if he has a question, to be able to say, Dad, I, you know, can I talk to you about something? That's the fruit of this. One last story. So we were down in a Spanish-speaking church down in Aurora, and uh, we were presenting in Spanish, and and uh and so we had this 12-year-old girl with her mom there, and the girl at the end was crying. And so Isabel, our one of our Spanish-speaking uh presenters, went over that little girl and she said, Are you okay? And she said, I had all these questions. I never knew I could ask my mom. My mom never talked to me about anything. She never even told me what a period was. And her mom's standing there, and then her mom starts to cry. And she says, Now I can. Now we can talk. And she was such a relief. And then again, they hugged, right? I mean, this is the beauty of this, right? This is the beauty of this. And it's a one-night thing. We give you a book, and then you bring it home. There's six more sessions that you do at home, but really nice. It's organic. We've unpacked the big stuff, the hard stuff, everybody's talking, and then we have six more 20 minutes at home, and uh and it's fruit very fruitful.