So how badly off is our culture, really?
Yesterday, Sunday morning, I was sitting outside, reading and smoking a cigar, minding my own business. Some two hundred feet away, across a very busy street, is a Catholic school physically attached to a Catholic church.
Some young children were hanging out of an open classroom window, shouting insults at passers-by. Then they spotted me. Here is some of what they yelled at the top of their lungs.
“Smoker! Smoking man! Ewww! Cough-cough! He’s trying to kill us with his smoke! He must be a homosexual! Hey, homo! Hey, homo man!” And so on, for a good ten minutes.
I couldn’t help thinking of II Kings 2:23-24, in which a crowd of “little children” mock the prophet Elisha, and he curses them, and a couple of bears charge out of the woods and chomp down on 42 of them. (The Hebrew word for “children” in this case denotes boys or girls up to 17 years old.) Not that I wanted that to happen; but I would’ve been pleased to see a nun come in with a yardstick and hand out a few good smackings.
The children I had the pleasure to teach at another Catholic school never showed any sign of being capable of behavior like that described above. It would not have occurred to them. But that was years ago: it was even in another century.
We have had a good 15 years to make our popular culture more debauched, more depraved, and have taken full advantage of it.
Still, these kids were actually inside a Catholic school, a religious school, when they did this: on a Sunday morning, with services being held in the adjacent building. And I wasn’t their only target. Anyone who passed on the sidewalk got insulted.
Kids, if left to it, will get up to mischief. Families and churches have the responsibility to teach them better.
It distresses me to think a Catholic school can do no better than what I saw that morning.
And it distresses me to hear that you sat there and said and did nothing for the entire “good ten minutes”,
even though you decry that “the Families and Churches have the responsibility to teach them better”.
You were the representative of the culture at the point of that offense and you failed to act.
Great! Another “bystander” who fails to act on their own or anyone else’s behalf.
“For evil to prevail, it is only necessary that good men do nothing.”
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And I was supposed to do… what?
Exactly, what would this person expect you to do? The Ill-loons back in the 30’s goal was to infiltrate the church’s & seminary’s, well, seems as though they were successful!
Lee, I’ve read your columns, your head is screwed on right! I believe in today’s world we’re dealing w/people w/negative IQ’s!
God be w/you brother!
shalom
shalom
Welcome aboard–and thank you.
Very disturbing. And what were they doing there unattended? On a Sunday morning, it most probably wasn’t a class and it certainly doesn’t sound like it was a Bible study class. Maybe the monsignor or the principal would be interested to know their children behave so badly.
We’ve thought of sending a note, but we are not encouraged by this church’s consistent record of unresponsiveness.
You did the right thing by doing nothing. Who knows what would have happened if you had complained.
Shameful, really. It reflects badly on that school, the church, and the parents. I, too, wonder why these kids were unattended for so long, hanging out of the window. I doubt any response from you would have made a difference–clearly these kids were looking for negative attention, and they would have just fed off of anything you gave them.
If it was me, I probably would send something to the church/school though. They should know what is happening in their classrooms. Even if they don’t respond to you, the process of writing it might make you feel better. Then you can wash your hands of them and move on.
If I had ever seen the kids at St. Helena’s (where I used to teach) behave like this, it would’ve struck me dumb. But those good kids are all adults by now.
Civility has been lost over many decades with each generation. I’m 71 and we would never have dared to behave the way those kids did.. Even my grandchildren who are in their 20s are respectful and if their parents or I ever got wind that they had behaved that way as kids; there would have been consequences. What gets me are the teens and 20 somethings who have zero respect for anyone or anything. I know they aren’t all like that, but there’s a culture out there that drives the behavior in many.
The way things have been going; I don’t see that the church has any particular influence on the parents or the children. Not anymore.
Ultimately, this is the doing of certain political and academic–ahem!–“thinkers” who have purposely fostered culture decay in obedience to their master, Satan.