Catholic school principal defends telling students to ‘tear out’ page of textbook

The principal of the Catholic school accused of censoring its curriculum has told Tony Jones homosexual content had nothing to do with the decision to remove a page from students’ workbooks.

St Francis Xavier College in the South East has copped criticism after it reportedly ordered students to rip out a page in their health text book that showed a picture of two men hugging.

But Vincent Feeney, principal of the school, says the decision was not to do with the content, but rather its placement within the PE curriculum.

‘That [content] was absolutely irrelevant to our actions,’ Mr Feeney told Tony Jones. ‘The page was not intended to be in that package for the PE course…the intention was to teach that content as part of the RE curriculum.’

‘It asks some valid questions, but it doesn’t ask them in the way that a Catholic school would address those matters.’

The page in question posed questions about sex before marriage and homosexual relationships, and Year 9 students were reportedly called into the school hall and told they could not leave until they had thrown a page of the textbook in the bin.

Scroll down to listen to the full interview.

 

The page in question from the health workbook (Photo: The Age)

Tony Jones speaks to the Principal of St Francis Xavier College