Fr. Tom Offers Observations on Cultural Problems. Will the Synod on Synodality Address Them?

Several of the traditional homeschooled children who participated in theAll Saints Day parade
 in 2020. Hope for the future! There is only one parish in the Atlanta Archdiocese that offers the extraordinary form, St. Francis de Sales in Mableton, served by the FSSP (See comments)

Editor's comment: Fr. Tom paints a pretty painful view of where we are, particularly with the conditions affecting our children, the hope of the future. But there are a few encouraging signs. 

Although those attending the Traditional Latin Mass represent a small percentage of Catholics, those Masses explode with life. Many of the families have a large number of children who are being raised and trained seriously in the faith. Compare that to the Masses almost devoid of children which my husband and I experience often whenever we travel and even here at home. Consider also that home schooling is on the rise. During 2021 the percentage of children schooled at home tripled from 3% to over 11% according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (Source) They used a strict definition excluding children who were simultaneously enrolled in brick and mortar programs. Will the rise be maintained now that many school restrictions have been dropped? Time will tell. But as the Left's imposition of critical race theory and gender ideology increase in the classroom, as well as violation of parental rights, I think we can expect more parents to flee the satanic influences in the public schools. So don't despair. God always brings good out of evil! Pray, hope, and don't worry!

As an increasing number of Church leaders are giving their #Me-too allegiance to the secularist agenda, it is worth noting that, in the process, they have chosen to remain oblivious to how our posterity is being incrementally seduced to renounce their faith.

Among the problems that are being overlooked are the following:

• More than 80% of Catholic youth attend public schools, where “family life curricula” contain all kinds of perverted perspectives on marriage, sexuality and human life are promulgated; 

• Only a small minority of their families have two devout Catholic parents, with the rest being raised in various forms of mixed marriages, where religious convictions are non-existent or routinely relativized for the sake of maintaining domestic tranquility; 

• Less than 20% of these children regularly participate in Sunday Mass and/or parish religious education programs, with secular sports programs prioritized over their sacred Baptismal commitments;

• Most Catholic have no moral qualms about not faithfully participating at Sunday Masses, thus violating the Third Commandment – and ratify the legitimacy of their moral delinquency by receiving Holy Communion in the state of unrepented objectively serious sin; 

• Most Catholic only have consciences obfuscated by the perverted premises and perspectives of secular society (e.g., cohabitation, contraception, abortion, divorce, sodomy, slander, etc.); 

• Bishops have capitulated to governmental tyranny by conceding that, unlike liquor sales, lottery sales and “abortion services”, Sunday Mass and the sacraments are not “essential services”; 

• Continuing revelations show that the clergy sexual abuse and cover-up scandals have not been resolved by the much flaunted Dallas Charter, which seems to have been motivated more by the fear of the lawsuit (and of lost revenues) than by the fear of the Lord; 

• Pope Francis and many bishops have uncritically embraced the narrative that Catholics are morally required to be injected with dangerous experimental gene-altering mRNA serums, which is in violation of the 1947 Nuremberg Code. In addition, it is worth noting that their abuse of their moral authority to promotion of the false “safe and effective” narrative leaves them criminally and civilly liable for injuries or deaths caused by these serums; 

• By asserting that Catholics promoting abortion should not be denied Holy Communion, bishops are agreeing with them that Jesus endorses the premise that our children had no right to be born; 

• By failing to condemn the imposition of an ever-growing $30,000,000,000,000+ debt on our posterity bishops are conceding that the consigning of our children to perpetual debt slavery is morally licit; 

•  Pornography, graphic violence, sexual innuendoes and obscenity permeate even the programming in popular children’s entertainment; and parents who take seriously their responsibility to raise their children in the ways of righteousness are often viewed and/or treated as “intolerant”, “psychologically rigid” or “judgmental”.

In view of such factors, the much flaunted Synod on Synodality notwithstanding, the prospects for the success of the New Evangelization among our youth are not very promising.

Fr. Thomas Collins

Hot Springs VA

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