Parenting Today – I
Nearly 20 years ago a priest of the Society of St Pius X, master of an Ignatian Retreat House in France and therefore in close contact with Traditional Catholic family problems, wrote an excellent editorial on How our youngsters are evolving. He paints a dark picture. Alas, the picture has grown only darker in the meantime. We must not despair, but on the other hand parents must see things as they are. It is not as though today’s youngsters are blameless, but parents must do everything possible to put them on the path to Heaven, because even today that is still the responsibility of parents. Here is the dark picture, adapted and abbreviated from Revue Marchons Droit, # 90, avril-mai-juin, 2000:—
In the Retreats we see youngsters growing up, incapable of rebuilding Christendom. The sacrifices made by parents and teachers seem to have borne no proportional fruit. Clearly something is not working , and if we do not react, then within two generations we will be swallowed up by the spirit of the world.
Young people we observe between 18 and 30 years old are profoundly ignorant of the crisis in Church and world, not because they have not been taught, but for lack of interest . Broadly speaking, they follow along the lines of their parents, but they cannot explain on their own what is wrong with the New Mass, with Vatican II, with the New World Order. Never having had to fight, to defend their beliefs or to resist, and so never having studied for themselves, when they meet the world they easily give way. They want to be like everybody else , they do not want to be different, they lack the personal conviction to stand up for Catholic Tradition, and so instead of being Apostles of Christ, little by little they go with the flow.
Where will there be tomorrow the good vocations, the good Christian families we so urgently need? Vocations grow rare, marriages grow weak or dry up altogether, formation grows soft, immaturity takes over. All the youngsters want is to enjoy. The boys lack character, sense of responsibility, generosity, self-control, everything that parents should be inculcating in them to turn them into the men we can rely on for tomorrow: men chaste, mature, thoughtful, hard-working, magnanimous. Without such men of conviction, where will be the heads of tomorrow’s families? The girls are also being reared in disorder.
Instead of preparing for motherhood and for looking after a family, they learn to look down on the domesticity which is their true vocation, and they are encouraged to study longer and longer, thus acquiring a spirit of independence , alongside a worldliness turning to fashion, parties and rock music. How can mothers give way to their girls’ mini-skirts and trousers, to their loose dress for parties which are obvious occasions of sin, where they waste their time and soil the purity of their hearts?
The result is young people getting married at 20 or 22 years of age, when they are absolutely not ready. And soon the children are arriving whom they have no idea of how to bring up. If I look at the young couples I have married – in Tradition – since my ordination in 1980, thank God there have been no divorces, but I have to say that half the marriages are hanging on a thread, being held together only by the youngsters’ Catholic principles. Parents, do you realise what you need to be giving to your children for their future in today’s world? You must for God’s sake form your boys to be men worthy of the name and your girls to be women worthy of the name. Do your duty. Otherwise, your children risk losing their souls, and Christendom is finished.
Surely Fr Delagneau is right. Christendom is in serious danger, no less. Now can we see why in 2018 God is allowing Europe and France in particular to be filled by His enemies with His enemies? And why He is allowing the Society of St Pius X to be sliding into the arms of His enemies? He did not create us to fall into Hell. He created us to fight the good fight to get to Heaven. And He will permit any disaster that will shake us off the road to Hell, and put us back on the road to Heaven. Wait for it!
Kyrie eleison.
