The morality in the west has almost vanished. I study on a Catholic gymnasium and probably the entire class except me doesn’t know that pre-marriage sex is a sin. Everywhere i look, i see something related to sex. Porn everywhere, everyone masturbating,… Everybody is lying, lying has being socially acceptable, as well as homosexuality,… Stealing has become cool among some kids, breaking the law in general has become even cooler. Bashing the Church,faith, mocking the ones who pray has become wiedly popular. And a day can’t pass without cussing. All this happens in the west. What has happened to the west? Is the apocalypse near?
There is more than one thing here. I don’t pretend to be an expert, and certainly not on Slovenia (though I am persuaded the wine there is good).
I don’t think you can generalize about the West and be sure you’re right in conclusions like these. First of all, there are differences in the West. Religious observance is different in the U.S. than in, say, France. It’s different in France than in Denmark.
In those countries like Slovenia, they went from being under communist oppression to almost overnight being free to do almost anything people want to do. That has to be a shock, particularly if people suddenly also became more prosperous.
Now, when it comes to youth, young people have historically been morally rebellious. So that isn’t alarming in itself. What is more problematic is perhaps the lack of catechesis you seem to be talking about. That is probably due (as in the west) to a secular rebellion following Vatican II in which moral teaching broke down a great deal. I believe that will reverse itself and, in the U.S., I think that reversal has already started among younger people. But it probably plays out differently in different countries.
Perhaps interesting only to me, but I consider Slovenia part of the “west” as well. It never was really “eastern” in the sense that, say, Russia is “eastern” or even that Serbia is “eastern”. Yes, Slovenian is a Slavic language, but so is Polish, and the Poles have had their eyes fixed west for centuries.
So, your situation in Slovenia is going to more resemble that of the west generally than anything else, for better or for worse. Right now, it’s not for the best. But that doesn’t mean it will always remain so. Possibly Slovenes are presently “drunk on freedom” a bit. That doesn’t mean it will always be so.
A Slovene, like an American, should always be prepared to tell the truth about the faith to his contemporaries. They will not want to remain morally ignorant forever.
Perhaps passingly interesting: I read some wise person say that, unlike people of prior centuries, we moderns neither sin well nor repent well. In other words, people were sinners long ago too; oftentimes more grievously than now, but they knew better and had the moral courage to admit when they were wrong and repent.
Today, we often do not know better and, even when we do, we deny we did anything wrong and try to justify sinfulness. There is a lot of that now. Personally, I have to confess that I would prefer one who sins well and repents well. The world lacks for good teachers. Perhaps in some way, you can also be one.
