Courtney McGrailDear Editor, We all recognise that parents today are at their wits end trying to discover how to prepare their children for the runaway world of modern technology and its messages.
To see, hear, speak, bully and act any old way that wins longed-for popularity whatever the cost to others, is termed ‘openness’. Of course there are people out there who see through all this and quickly note that there are bucks to be made by exploiting not only children but ignorant adults too.
One philosophy being energetically promoted is that there is no general ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. ‘Good’ or ‘bad’ depend on what each individual thinks. Understandably our unprepared adults and young people turn to the heady ‘freedom’ such a philosophy seems to give, unable to see the hidden illusions. To be making money as top dog, rejecting human dignity, fostering eroticism and liberality are seen as open-ended ‘rights’, the ‘cool’ and enlightened way to live. Failed feminism has led women to allow themselves to be used as commodities to attract men.
We had better get around to firm moral education if we want to get out of the chaos of this modern jungle.
Catholicism has a ready-made opportunity to avail of the Sacrament of Confirmation (for parents and children), to challenge the prevailing culture in an ongoing way understandable to all people. It should be a call to heroism “to renew the face of the Earth”.
Yours etc.,
Angela Macnamara,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.
