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In these destabilizing times, we need to denounce the crimes, care for the victims, and think about how to prevent such horrors from happening again. But we must also be careful not to give in to despair. We mustn’t delude ourselves that all these revelations are just bad dreams that will eventually pass; but we must also have the strength to move forward and rediscover the flavor of the Gospel. This alone will enable us to overcome these terrible difficulties.

Everyone knows what works. Suffice it to look at the overflowing ranks of novices at the traditional-oriented religious congregations of nuns. Such convents have no problem attracting postmodern girls who flock to them. Indeed, the candidates are not attracted to the shallow schools of social- and climate-justice spirituality. They long for the structure that they do not find in their lives. They want a return to order often denied them. The activist nuns are fading away because they rid themselves of those sublime things that attract. Gone are the rules, discipline, and habits that gave structure and certainty to religious life. Gone are the devotions and practices that aided the pursuit of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Two of our four children have fled the Acela Corridor for more Catholic and sane pastures. We remain, like the other two children, behind enemy lines. What is the better path? "Some people are ordained to say and fight, while others are not,” she shared. “That is something every family has to discern according to their own circumstances and vocations.”

Children of divorce are already upset and confused about what is going on in their lives. They shouldn’t have to compete with a new girlfriend for their father’s attention. The never-ending movement between dad’s house, mom’s apartment, and school take a toll on their sense of stability and safety. The remedy is to spend as much time with them as you can and pay attention to what they say.

What does the author mean by this insistence that Jesus came not with water only but also with blood? We may assume that he is alluding to a tendency to place all the emphasis on Jesus’ baptism while setting the Cross aside. And this probably also meant that only the word, the doctrine, the message was held to be important, but not “the flesh”, the living body of Christ that bled on the Cross; it probably meant an attempt to create a Christianity of thoughts and ideas, divorced from the reality of the flesh – sacrifice and sacrament.

But that’s not all. Lay people will have to take the initiative on many other matters. Some, such as conducting Communion services, will require approval from the priest-pastor. But others, from organizing prayer groups to setting up and operating social service programs and running schools, will not. If they aim to do something within their professional competence, without invoking the authority of the Church and themselves accepting responsibility for the results, lay people can and should simply go ahead and do it, without seeking or receiving clerical approval.

There are countless ways in which this implicit materialism manifests itself in the Church today. Youth sports on Sundays (even in “Catholic” leagues!) downplay the spiritual importance of this divinely-ordered day of rest; Catholic schools prioritizing public school educational standards over imparting the Faith to children undermine the importance of their spiritual health; attempts to make the Mass more “relevant” instead of more transcendent fashion a man-centered, rather than God-centered, liturgy; emphasizing “social justice” as the top priority of the Church diminishes its spiritual mission; and, of course, agreeing to classify the Sacraments as “non-essential” services (while Home Depot remained open) undercut the very purpose of the Catholic religion.

What young people need most right now is not so much understanding, compassion, antidepressants, or therapy; they need a good belly laugh, preferably at their own expense. A good start would be for them to watch the skit “Stop it” by Bob Newhart, one of the last of that tradition of great comedians. Check it out on YouTube; it’s a good laugh and good therapy.

The second, equally sad, misunderstanding is to fail to see that any possibility for “social justice” depends on strong, stable families within which the virtues can be developed. This mistake is especially inexcusable given the prominent place the family occupies in every major Church document on social justice...As these documents point out, and as Pope John Paul II repeated unceasingly, it’s in the family that we learn the faith and develop the virtues. It’s in the family that we learn to care for others rather than merely about ourselves. Without strong families, we can no more have strong communities characterized by mutual concern for the common good than you can have a healthy body with unhealthy cells filled with toxic chemicals.

To be a member of the Church means to place Christ at the center of all things. Every work of the Church – her teachings, sacraments, and governance – is ultimately intended for this purpose, to make her members better followers of Christ. To view the Church as having any other purpose (social justice, political advocacy, environmental activism, etc.) is to misunderstand and misrepresent her.

Pastoral accompaniment of those who are mistaken must be rooted in Jesus. He didn’t hide the truth or exempt those innocently in error from needing to change their hearts and minds. He called everyone to undertake the metanoia of laying aside both sin and error in order to live freer and richer lives in Him. Christ proclaimed the truth compassionately and hopefully, promising to be with us and to make fidelity possible regardless of circumstance. He knew many listeners would feel confused or judged and that some would leave, but He insisted there’s no other path to life.

From Alain Oliver at the "Love and Fidelity Network." Why is it, as Time Magazine notes, that parents, who ostensibly feel parenthood is the most meaningful aspect of their lives, would rank other goods like financial stability and job satisfaction as more important for their children? 

The first necessary foundation is the idea of the image of God as the only basis of human dignity and value. The loss of our understanding of who we are as human beings leaves only some vague notion of autonomy and self-expression as that which grounds our existence. Certain members of our community, those who stand in the way of our autonomy and self-expression, must be sacrificed to ensure this flimsy notion of self.

This disheartening outcome might have been different if Catholics had heard, repeatedly and emphatically—from their pulpits, schools, and diocesan newspapers—that abortion is a grave evil; that same-sex “marriage” is a devilish mockery of nature and nature’s God; that politicians who promote these crimes have renounced their claim on Catholic support.

So, I would challenge each of us today to use this occasion to reflect not just on his great crusade for civil rights but also on Martin Luther King’s wisdom in bringing law back to its moral foundations.

Joy arises because of the awareness that the greatest battles in life – against the world, the flesh and the Devil – have been fought – and won – by Jesus Christ; it but remains for us to claim the victory. This perspective on reality provides a person with a real sense of humor, which is a fitting and necessary pre-condition for entrance into a state of eternal joy. Although Advent has a quasi-penitential quality to it, it also includes a spirit of joyful anticipation. So, let’s consider how to foster Christian joy during this season.

Recently, a listener wrote in about some challenges that he and his wife faced together. They committed, he said, to faithfully serving God in “a Gospel-centered, imago Dei-affirming way.” That’s a wonderful way to describe what we must commit to as followers of Christ, what churches should strive for in discipling couples and families, and what we can offer a world so confused about what marriage is.

This Biblical view also clarifies our purpose. We should strive to build a just society, to care for the sick and to help the poor. That’s what Christians have done throughout history more than anyone else. But we do those things as expressions of faith, as works of mercy, not because we think we can perfect this world. Bending the arc of history is not our job. We seek not to perfect things here but to remain faithful to that great event in the past as we look to its fulfillment in the future.

This Thanksgiving, therefore, should remind our families what is at the heart of the culture war — and it is a “culture” war because what is at stake here is who society will worship — Christ or anti-Christ? This Thanksgiving has deeper meaning because it is a call to us Catholics to return to what makes us world-changers — a dynamic Eucharistic life — a life that gives thanks (eucharisteo) to God for everything because everything we have is a gift from God. A society centered on giving thanks to God for everything is a society that will be saved by God.

Ours is a world peculiarly starved for beauty. We must be vessels of beauty, that is, of the beauty that does not originate with us, but that inspirits us and transforms us, best when we ourselves are not aware of it. We must pray the prayer of that old Eucharistic hymn: Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore! O make us love Thee more and more, O make us love Thee more and more.