Bishop’s sex education remarks criticised

The bishop of the diocese of Basel, Felix Gmür, has spoken out against a controversial statement about sex education by the bishop of Chur, Vitus Huonder.

Gmür told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper that “teaching about human sexuality is the job of the school. It shouldn’t be relinquished”.

Gmür, a member of the liberal wing of Switzerland’s Roman Catholic church, was responding to a letter from Huonder on the occasion of Human Rights Day on Saturday.

In the letter, the bishop of Chur said parents should have the right to have their children exempted from sex education classes in school.

Huonder also said that divine law comes before human rights.

In an interview published on Sunday on the German-language pages of swissinfo.ch, former Federal Court president Giusep Nay said Huonder’s statement reflected an attempt to deny Catholics their human rights.