Parents in Today’s Spiritual Battle Need Information and Inspiration

Admit it – we are in the spiritual battle of our time, with authentic Catholics being constantly publicly assaulted because of our beliefs regarding marriage, sexuality, the sanctity of human life in the womb, and family values. And the assaults aren’t just coming verbally. There were 350 physical attacks on Catholic churches, such as arson and vandalism, from May 2020 to August 2023, as reported by CatholicVote.org.

Society is moving at an ever-increasing speed to the demonic side and at this rate, no deviancy is too outrageous to assume won’t become commonplace in the near future. It’s bad enough that today’s social media, corporate media, and the entertainment industry believe in unchristian values, but it’s worse that their godless propaganda has captured the eyes and ears of most children and young adults.  Because of today’s moral decline and sexual debauchery, faithful Catholic parents and Catholic school teachers have to work harder than ever to swim against society’s tide.

One example of the immoral, outrageous beliefs that have surfaced in the 21^st century, is a push toward accepting pederasty, also known as “man-boy love.” Before assuming it is an exaggeration and gaslighting to say society is moving toward accepting this form of pedophilia, remember that ten years ago we all would have thought it ridiculous that we would ever have a flood of people “identifying” as the opposite sex and demanding to enter opposite-sex locker rooms, to join opposite-sex athletics, and to be called by their so-called chosen pronouns. What makes it worse than these mentally disordered people making these demands is the majority of citizens either actively supporting them or at best not speaking out against them, including some medical professionals and parents who are mutilating children to show their supreme support for so-called transgenderism. Society’s normalization of so-called gender-affirming surgeries would have been a ridiculous conjecture a generation ago but has now become a current reality.

There are other examples of today’s moral decline and sexual debauchery that devout Christian parents and teachers have to shield their youngsters from or, if their kids have already been infected, have to work like crazy to deprogram their minds and souls. Besides the anti-God gender ideology that is being imposed in preschools through graduate schools, another example of the depravity we are dealing with is how the belief of faithful Catholics that sex should be between a married man and woman has been squashed by the popular culture’s belief that sex should be between any two consenting adults. Wait – strike that! Today’s culture believes sex should be between any number of people and of any so-called gender they affirm. After all, “love is love,” right!?

Saint Pope John Paul II back in 1994, identified the spiritual war Christian families are in when he wrote his Letter to Families:

Unfortunately, various programs backed by very powerful resources…aim at the breakdown of the family. At times it appears that concerted efforts are being made to present as “normal” and attractive, and even to glamorize, situations which are in fact “irregular”. Indeed, they contradict “the truth and love” which should inspire and guide relationships between men and women, thus causing tensions and divisions in families, with grave consequences particularly for children. The moral conscience becomes darkened; what is true, good, and beautiful is deformed; and freedom is replaced by what is actually enslavement.

When you’re in a battle, you can either wave the white flag and surrender or stand up, speak up, and rise up, with surrender not an option. I want to challenge you – whether you are the Catholic parent of one child or a Catholic school teacher of a classroom full of children – to stand up, speak up, rise up, and not surrender. If we are to achieve the spiritual renewal of the Church and our world, good men and women must first get informed and inspired and then must act.

Standing firm includes having a drive to teach their kids to know, love, and serve God during the short course of one’s pilgrimage in this world. Those who won’t surrender to today’s corrupt culture and won’t let their children be drawn into our sick society will have the best chance for the highest reward possible. That reward is both they and their kids being taken up to heaven to be happy with God Himself for all eternity.

But it’s not going to be easy to stand firm and to receive the ultimate reward. For one, today’s adults need more training, more education, and more encouragement than ever before in how to positively act in front of and respond to their kids. Too many of today’s parents are being informed by watching tabloid-like headline news, are being moved by shallow, soul-less media, and are conceding to a harmful, politically correct public education system. And even if mom and dad are faithful enough to go to church every Sunday, there is a good chance the watered-down homilies they are hearing from the pulpit and the progressive Masses they are attending are proving unproductive in enlightening and encouraging them.

Similarly, a growing number of Catholic school teachers today, who were taught themselves by secular professors in extremely liberal, godless universities, are not living active, faithful lives such as by attending church weekly, and have at best no more than an eighth-grade level education in church doctrine. They cannot do a good job touching their students’ minds and souls if their own minds and souls were never properly developed. Add to the problem many of their advisors and supervisors – Catholic school principals, presidents, and school boards – are too timid to run their schools as truly Catholic institutions either due to their own underdeveloped faith lives or their buy-in to wanting to model public education.

Accordingly, many Catholic school educators and Catholic parents need sources that load them with true theology and flood them with positive, virtuous principles to live by, model to, and pass on to the young ones under their care. They will find a source in Catholic Stand and many other authentically Catholic publications, websites, and blog sites whose purpose is to communicate God’s revealed truths and the truths of our faith. Catholic Stand states as its mission:

We are here to offer our stories, our encouragement, when we can, our instruction, our love, and our communion. If you desire to live the truths the Church teaches boldly, but are unsure sometimes what to do or say, we hope this website provides what you need.

I am thrilled to be a contributor to Catholic Stand, using my knowledge of and experience with kids, families, education, and Catholicism to write to those Catholic parents and Catholic school teachers who are not content with being lax, lukewarm, and capitulating Christians but desire to earnestly stand firm against our corrupt culture. Throughout my career as a 40-year Catholic school educator – with 34 of those years ministering as an elementary school principal – I knew I had the responsibility to bring awareness of and appreciation for our Almighty Father to the parents, teachers, and students I encountered each school day. I felt called to be an instrument of God, a profound privilege that I never took lightly. Now recently retired, I hope to continue to inform and inspire by writing on my blog site – aprincipalsprinciples.com – and for Catholic Stand.

I commend those parents who are counter-cultural by refusing to send their children to public schools, which these days are part of a national education system designed to turn both the hearts and minds of children away from God and to keep youngsters and young adults from using old-fashioned common sense and following moral truths.

It is a financial burden for parents to enroll their children in faithful Catholic schools, so these moms and dads are inspiring. Likewise, I applaud those teachers and principals who are choosing to work in authentic Catholic schools even though they have to give up the higher pay they would make in public education. Additionally, parents who choose to home-school are admirable for their willingness to devote every hour of every weekday to their children due to their awareness of the dangers of public schools.

These devoted Catholic parents and educators are diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores and are trying to live their lives and raise their children following Christian principles that do not jell with society’s principles. It is getting extremely difficult to constantly swim against the tide, as these parents and teachers are doing, so they deserve praise, need encouragement, and helpful counsel.