To measure the extraordinary nature of our time one has only to look at the alumni chosen at the ten-year reunion for professional distinction at Scotlandville Magnet High School in Baton Rouge (class of 1997).
One was a wounded veteran. No problem there. Applause in order. One was a tech executive. Okay; high-tech is the rage. And the third was a hard-core pornography “actress” currently in the news for her salacious accusations against the sitting U.S. president.
A pornography actress? That a high school would even acknowledge what this woman does for a living — and that she felt no need to hide behind her alias; that she could work the crowd of suits and gowns with a proud smile — was fantastical enough; but to receive an award from her classmates — kudos for what is fully tantamount to prostitution on the big screen?
We, America, are now over the top in turpitude.
It’s not to judge the person but it is to say that what they do and promote and what they are proud about is evil — not generic evil, but real darkness, bringing to mind a message from the Blessed Mother the same month:
“Dear children! I am calling you to be with me in prayer in this time of grace when darkness is fighting against the light. Pray, little children, confess and begin a new life in grace. Decide for God and He will lead you towards holiness; and the Cross will be a sign of victory and hope for you.”
If Catholic morality in the past seemed so obsessed with preventing sexual sin that it ignored sins of injustice, today, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa told Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia last week, “we have gone to the opposite extreme,” seemingly concerned only with how people treat others, not with how they treat the gift of their bodies, the papal preacher said.
“Every day, people tend to contrast sins against purity with sins against a neighbor and to consider just the sin against a neighbor a real sin,” he said. But the two go together, the Capuchin insisted. “Purity and love of neighbour represent dominion over self and the gift of self to others. How can I give myself if I do not possess myself but am a slave to my passions?”
And so here we are, with too many examples of extremes to summarize. Now, in Canada, there is even ice cream with a blasphemous and at times directly satanic motif (even openly — in advertisements — ridiculing Christians by using God’s Name in vain).
America, you are in a sad state.
America, what can be said about a nation that allows transgenders in the military (although this is now being limited) and even wicca in military chapels?
Oh, woe, Western society; oh woe, mad, mad world.
Let the good times roll, but remember: there is a price to pay for the Midas touch.