Monday, April 26, 2010

Baby Boomers to Blame for Catholic Shambles?



Now that you've watched this, here is why I must take some exception to Voris's indictment of the so-called "baby boomer" generation.  To start, it is commonly held that the "baby boomers" were born after the World War II soldiers returned to their wives and started to have children galore.  It is these children who are the "baby-boomer" generation, born from around 1946 to maybe 1960 or so.

Voris implies that this generation was somehow responsible for promulgating "the spirit of Vatican II".  I don't see how this assertion can be logical.  This council was held from October 1962 to November 1965.  Many of the baby boomer generation were still in grammar school.  The older boomers were, at most, 20 years of age - hardly old enough to exert any influence on anything.  Granted, that generation did carry that torch - but only after that generation itself had been intellectually and spiritually victimized.

To illustrate, I'll use myself as an example.  I was born in 1956 and went to Catholic grade school.  Up until the time I was 11 years old, the education was decent enough.  However, even at my young age, I could discern the paradigm shift that occurred as I entered 6th grade.  Obviously there was precious little I could do about it as a child.  Even in high school, I was helpless to do much about it as I watched disgruntled priests literally decimate the faith of several classmates.  Some would say we were a spoiled generation, and I'd say that's true; but I'd also ask in rejoinder, "Who spoiled us?"

Voris then says that we are fading from the scene - and then gives the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin as an example.  Example of the "fading baby boomers"?  Not!  Joseph Bernardin was born in 1928.  Whatever else he may have been, he was not a baby-boomer.

I go through all this not to defend "my" generation, as it were, but to avoid what may be shallow and simplistic diagnoses of the reasons behind the cultural decline that is all too evident.  Yes, the baby boomers did their part and carried that destructive torch, but who handed the torch to us?  The corruption of Catholic education began a long time ago; I feel personally cheated of my heritage as I was forced to make those wretched felt banners and to have my religion classes turned into "explore your inner feeling sessions".  We've got to look back at the forces of Modernism (Pope St Pius X was dead-on right about this menace).  We've got to look at other forces, such as freemasonry, humanism and socialism.  I could go on and on, because the roots of this situation are so deep and intertwined.  Let's never be satisfied with simplistic ideas, but always be ready to dig deeper.

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