The last couple of weeks have been filled with violence, shootings at schools and churches, assassinations of public figures, and groups of young people causing havoc in our communities. Why? I think it’s obvious. We have given our lives to Satan.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and have wondered how we can reverse this trend. I guess the simplest solution is through education. But that leads to the next question: who should be responsible for the teaching?

When I was younger, my parents taught us the difference between right and wrong. They taught us about God and about our religion. We learned about morality and how to treat others with respect. My parents learned these things from their parents, who learned from their parents.

I look back at my children and realize that I taught some of this to them. I taught them right from wrong, how to treat others, and how to be good Christians, without the religious aspect. They were baptized and had their first communions, but that was it. We didn’t go to church, so they didn’t. They didn’t learn Catholic teachings, although you certainly don’t have to be Catholic to believe in God or be a good person. They haven’t turned out bad; they are both good people, but here’s my point: I don’t think they are passing these things to their children. Not the religion anyway.

How many others have not taught their children? How many children are out there with one or no parents? Who will teach them? How are they learning right from wrong, good from evil? In a society where everything is relative, where we think something is right because it’s good for us or because it feels good, they don’t know what absolute truth is.

This is what Satan has counted on. No one will ask about sin because they don’t know what it is. As we read from St. Paul, people have refused to acknowledge God, or they have been unaware of their obligation to do so, and as a result, they have been abandoned by Him. The two passages below sum it up perfectly.

I haven’t much time left in this world, whether or not it’s enough to make things right for my family, I don’t know. But I know I have to try.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.  They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,  foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (Romans 1:28–31, RSV2CE)

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. (Romans 1:24–25, RSV2CE)