A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Our lord said to his disciples, what is your thought about this? A man owns a 100 sheep. One of them wanders away. Will he not leave the 99 out in the hills and go in search of the wandering sheep?
If he succeeds in finding it, believe me, he is happier about this one wandering sheep than about the 99 that did not wander away. Just so, it is no part of your heavenly father's plan that a single one of these little ones, children, shall ever come to grief. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
Well, that's what our lord said about little children. And right today, I mean, this very day, right within the the fines and the definition of the Catholic church, at least in The United States Of America, we are in a very serious situation. People's thinking is, in many instances, is very screwed up, and that can happen in high places as well as low places and in all places in between. Nothing can be worse than to have have crooked thinking. When I first came to this elegant parish in 1968 was it that long ago?
Right after Easter? Yeah, it was. '68. Some of you weren't even born then. That's a mere word of fratery.
But anyway, I came here in 'sixty eight and soon was asked to give a few well chosen remarks to some group I don't know what it was. And it waswhen I got there, I was supposed to talk on Catholic education. Well, having been involved in it for a number of years, suppose quite erroneously they thought I knew something about it. So I proceeded to talk to them about Catholic education. And one of the first things I said to these dear ladies, they were mostly ladies, they were all mothers, they were all, I think, graduates colleges, and most of them Catholic colleges, which doesn't say anything either, even in '68.
Anyway, the first thing I said that the primary responsibility for educating kids is the parents. You would have been amazed at the reaction I got to that. I would it was you know, I was over at Catholic youth. I was simply astonished. They thought I was talking heresy, and I was simply quoting the holy father.
Now this is a very simple simple declarative sentence. It's a simple logical proposition. Perfectly clear. Well, it's not perfectly clear if you judge it by the way it's received, that the primary responsibility for the education of children now putting that in Catholic terms. That means bringing them to Jesus Christ.
Because if we don't do that, everything else we do is worse than garbage. I'm I'm saying that very literally, and that's what's happening with our Catholic education. The primary purpose citizens, to make them healthy kids, to make them you just take this talk about racism. Here we're talking we're introducing courses now in racism in the curriculum of high schools. It's a big deal.
Do they ever tell you why you should respect the other primary person or why it's definitely of course, they don't use the word immoral. Of course not. Why is it wrong, they'll say, for us to hate somebody because of race, creed, or color or what? Do they ever tell you why? And unless they do, it's all garbage.
It won't work. When the chips are down, who cares? If all you can tell me, well, that you're not a good citizen if you don't and you answer, I don't wanna be a good citizen. Now where are you? And yet that is the dominant view today.
I wanna come back to what's hitting us hard in our Catholic schools right now. It's a subject of this sex education. Who has responsibility? Who has the right, r I g h t, right, to define how my kid is to be educated, and especially in this thing we call sex education? If that isn't a crazy use of words, I've never heard it.
It's like driver's education, which means driving an auto that's you get educated by driving an automobile. We're living in one screwed up world. I'm telling you. It's nuts. But we're doing the same thing with serious things.
You know, the bishops have or issued or will issue this great learned business. And where do they get this? Notice, one or two votes constitutes a majority of the the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. One or two votes. And this this this conference has no canonical standing whatsoever.
Now they're going to issue the about sex education in parochial schools. A lot of parents don't want it. They think that that's no place to teach it. And what are you teaching? In many instances, I'll tell you what they're teaching.
They're teaching the same thing which is being taught in the public schools, absolutely disregarding God, his moral law, and all they can talk about, and that's merely wishful thinking, is value systems. I told you yesterday, that's subjective and it's relative, and it's not the moral law of God, which is the 10 commandments plus Jesus Christ plus his living church. Now the rights of parents are being violated, and some parents are rising up. This is a very serious question. In other words, who has the prior right to determine how my child is to be educated?
And the answer is the parents. And the second thing is they can't slough it off. See? Because at this one this elegant meeting I had in '60 I wasn't invited back, incidentally. We we have a lot to be grateful for in this life.
Let us not forget god's blessings. But, you see, they said, you mean that when we send our children at sacrifice and let me tell you, I wanna emphasize that. These are serious people. These are women who were trying to do what's right. Although they didn't know what the right was.
Not one of them had read any of the papal encyclicals on education. Not one of them! And these were college graduates from Catholic colleges. But I bet they had read John Updike's novels, most of them. I hope none of them were in this congregation this morning.
So I'm very I'm telling because we've got to get our thinking you see, if thinking isn't straight, nothing will go right. Nothing. Because the more if if if you start out with a wrong premise of a syllogism, you're gonna come up with a wrong conclusion. And the more energy you put into it, the more vigor, the more self sacrifice, the worse the situation is. The worse.
So the most important thing is your thinking first. Action second. And if there's anything the holy seed or or the the holy father since Neil the thirteenth have stressed in season and out of season, what the Catholic church has taught is the is the is the priority of parents' right and responsibilities. They cannot delegate it entirely. Day care is not the answer to bringing up god fearing children.
And yet everything we're hearing about is day care now. I can remember distinctly, Not many years ago, of course, it can't be since I'm the one who do doing the remembering. But when we were highly critical of Russia, the godless Russia, the atheistic Russia, because they were going to plan, and they did, take the children away from the parents and put them in daycares. Because after all, what how can a young woman who's never been a mother be a mother and know anything about bringing up a child. Door when they come home at 03:00.
But, anyway, the thing I'm stressing is parents have misresponse. Sensitive, delicate subject of sex education where we're selling them down the road. We're selling them down the road because you cannot separate any kind of education from god centered religiousness without, Newman would say, without giving them a frustrated kind of education. And yet that's what's being done. We are living in that world.
We have to step in our backbone and say we are different. The Jews aren't afraid to say it. The Amish aren't afraid to say it, and indeed the Muslims aren't afraid of saying it. After all, they are a god fearing nation, which you can't say of The USA as a nation. You can't.
I've never seen any group of men stop working and get down on their knees in the mid afternoon and pray. I've never seen it. We used to do it in our class rooms, but I've never seen it down on Capitol Hill. If you have seen it, I'd like to hear about it, where the machinery stops and everybody gets down or the men at least get down on their knees to worship god almighty, and every godfaring Muslim does it. And so when our lord said, suffer the little children to come to me, there's nobody should take this more seriously than parents, and there's nobody should stand up for the rights of parents more than parents.
It's their god awful, awesome responsibility. Pass it on. In the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit. Amen.