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Adamski
Guest
The question is why where all of us 20-40 something’s grandparents such strong Catholics when our parents generation basically either abandoned the faith all together or are caffiteria Catholics.
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dshix
Guest
The society fell apart and your parent’s generation wasn’t ready for it. Their parents weren’t ready either, so they didn’t fortify their children in the way they needed.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
Indoctrination of the liberal ideology compliments of a college education.
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Skye_Ariel
Guest
Because of the changing of times and change in society as well as technology. The same reason why the children of today live on video games and computers and cell phones and other things that we never had or did as a kid, and in the future WE will be their strong grandparents and they will wonder why we were so different from their generation.
Things were more simple back in our grandparent’s day. They didn’t have as many negative influences in their day as our generation does. Mothers stayed at home and raised kids, kids rarely went to day care in our grandparents day. Prayer was still in school when our grandparents were growing, food was real and was cooked naturally when our grandparents were growing up. They didn’t have the luxuries we have today so they were used to hard work, they had to work to do laundry and cook and clean, they had no microwaves and washer & dryers etc. They had to do chores as children and chores was real work when they were kids, not quick and easy like for us because of technology. All of that stuff added up put them in a different mindset and made them stronger. It seems like the easier things get as far as technology, the lazier and more selfish and weaker mentally people become. People didn’t have the time or luxury to feel sorry for themselves when they had a lot of work to do just to survive, people didn’t have time or energy for affairs back when they had to really work. LOL! Families stayed together.
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Waiting
Guest
I can tell you from personal experience. I was a CCD teacher after Vatican II when someone decided that children shouldn’t be taught the basics of the Catholic faith, but a general idea of love of neighbor. Text books were more social studies books of biographies of people like Martin Luther King. I was dumbfounded and sick about the sudden change. I continued to teach from the catechism along with the new text, but I doubt that many other teachers followed suit. Soon we had a new generation of illiterate Catholics. Illiterate as to knowledge of the Catholic faith. If people aren’t knowledgeable of their faith, then such practices as attending Mass on the weekend, or marrying in the Catholic Church, become unimportant. How can they set an example of allegiance to the Catholic faith to their children, when they have no such allegiance themselves? They can’t give what they haven’t got.
I am a senior citizen. My generation was fortunate that the truths of the Catholic Church were passed on faithfully by dedicated, well-informed people – chiefly nuns and priests.
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AnneElizabeth
Guest
I think life was harder for them, quite honestly. Harder life= more need for Jesus.
I don’t know when your grandparents were born. I’m kind of an odd one- I’m 35 and my grandmere was born before the turn of the century. The others were born all within the first two decades of the 1900’s. So having talked with them when they were alive I got to see that people HAD to communicate and work together on a local level to survive. This makes following Christ’s commands absolutely necessary to get what each other needed and for help from others. (Today we mock each other online, in school, and on tv freely, never realizing someday it could be we might need their help. Today people take life for granted.)
Necessities in life were hard to come by then. Having an orange was like a once a year luxury. My parents generation- this is not so much. I think that was when things started to get good, and so they started to forget about God and probably thought their parents were hoaky and square to pray. And today… hardly at all do we have needs. We have SO MUCH materially. We don’t have to starve and suffer as much. We don’t’ even see it anymore as if anyone who is sick is swept away from social gatherings and into a hospital, hospice, or institution somewhere. In my grandmother’s day, her sick grandparent would be present with the family. Not so today.
Today, even for the poor- in this country at least-there isn’t really a risk of starvation, unless you don’t want to beg for food or if you are stuck out in the middle of nowhere. That is why you can find very holy people from 3rd world countries and other places people still have to strive to survive. They know suffering, fear.
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Skye_Ariel
Guest
That’s a very good point! People forget about God when things get easy.
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Skye_Ariel
Guest
I’m like that too. My parents had me later in life too especially my dad who was like 60yrs old when I was born, and he was like just a few year younger than my mom’s mother. So my dad was from my maternal grandmother’s generation. So my paternal grandparents were born in a time when it seems like they shouldn’t have been. LOL! My paternal grandfather was born in the 1800s because he had my dad when he was older too! It’s weird.
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AnneElizabeth
Guest
I thought I was the only one! LOL! I don’t feel so odd now.I’m like that too. My parents had me later in life too especially my dad who was like 60yrs old when I was born, and he was like just a few year younger than my mom’s mother. So my dad was from my maternal grandmother’s generation. So my paternal grandparents were born in a time when it seems like they shouldn’t have been. LOL! My paternal grandfather was born in the 1800s because he had my dad when he was older too! It’s weird.
When I think about how much change they went through in their lives, it amazes me. I’m so glad they were around (well, only 3 of them, that is) when I was younger to tell me about it all. I used to be shocked when people would tell me they had great grandparents (living) just because I thought that would mean they were, like, *really * *really *old!
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Skye_Ariel
Guest
LOL!! Yup, exactly!I thought I was the only one! LOL! I don’t feel so odd now.
When I think about how much change they went through in their lives, it amazes me. I’m so glad they were around (well, only 3 of them, that is) when I was younger to tell me about it all. I used to be shocked when people would tell me they had great grandparents (living) just because I thought that would mean they were, like, *really * *really *old!
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fred_conty
Guest
I am a great grandfather. In my youth families lived together and stayed together. Whether a person was cathlic, protestant, jew, the family life prospered and the kids had a home and were taught manners and morals regardless of the faith. I only knew of one divorced woman in our whole block. Everyone knew everyone else and whose kid was whose. On Monday mornings, all the women did their weekly washing and hung it on clothes lines in the back yard. That’s when all the news of the neighborhood was transmitted about everyone over the back fences.
Grandparents were also given a home with the family which also helped the younger children feel solid. There were few nusing homes, and these were sponsered by the nuns. Speaking of which we had a durth of nuns teaching in our schools. And if any catholic parent wanted to send their child to a non catholic school, they had to make an appointment with the pastor and explain the need, which in some cases was refused.
In school we had prayer every hour on the hour, short, but still prayer. We attending Mass everyday before school. Confessions were every morning during all Masses during the week.
Many people went to daily Mass, and if they couldn’t, then they would receive Communion which was given out every 10 minutes. On Saturdays, confessions were from 4-6 and 7-9 pm and there were lines of people waiting. First Fridays were busy days for the priests. The Protestant churchs were filled as well on Sundays. Church bells rang everywhere.
The Catholic Church had a rating system for all Movies. “C” was condemned and was considered a serious sin to watch. A “C” today would allow kids to see it, and that is no exageration.
I remember as a kid of hitchhiking everywhere. All kids did it and nothing was thought of it.
I could be alone on my bike at night on the street, and I wasn’t worried nor my parents.
It was a very different world, one which looking back upon I can scarcely believe. It was a disneyland of peace. Life was not easy but nice.
If I were to guess where it went, it would be the family breakdown, which then caused less vocations, which then caused less prayerful catholic schools and less discipline and faith in the home and less Sunday church. The simple beauty in life is in it’s sundown stage.
That’s why grandma was different, that is before she got run over by a reindeer.
Just a thought.
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dshix
Guest
THAT is a dream situation. If only we still had that.
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aicirt
Guest
I agree with what you wrote. Your generation was given the truths of the CC by the dedicated, well-informed nuns and priests so my question is who stuffed the text books with social studies and neglected the catechism? Who were these people who had the power after Vatican II?
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filiaecclesia
Guest
FredConty, that is amazing! How fortunate you - and so many in your generation - were to be raised in that way with such great security in your identity. By contrast, even the most dedicated and focused Catholic parents today are just casting about, hoping what they teach their children in their homes won’t be completely undermined by the larger culture which is completely hostile and violently opposed to it.
Perhaps in your youth there was a greater chance that the person you chose to marry would have the same or similar values with which you were raised. Today, at least in suburbia and cities, with young people going to high school and university with people from all over the place, it is very possible they will meet and fall in love with people who have had very different upbringings. As a mother of three children, I don’t care what anyone says: the best situation is to marry someone who shares at least your core values, and preferably a similar family life and upbringing.
My oldest child is 23. I was a product of the post Vatican II Church with the miserable lack of solid catechesis. My husband and I tried to raise our children better than we were raised, with a stronger faith and teaching, but to be honest, our youngest got a much better, deeper Catholic identity because we were learning right along with our older children. I’m sad about this, but we did our best and trust our Lord to make up what was so lacking in us at the time!
I see a lot of strength in the Church today compared with the weak and watery way things were in the '80s and '90s, and that’s very exciting and heartening. Yet the garbage of the self-indulgent and self-centered culture is stronger and stronger, too. We’re all a bunch of babies with our insatiable lust for new toys - when people had far fewer things and money there was more at stake in cleaving to the human relationships they did have.
God bless our priests and religious, and increase vocations to the religious life.
Perhaps in your youth there was a greater chance that the person you chose to marry would have the same or similar values with which you were raised. Today, at least in suburbia and cities, with young people going to high school and university with people from all over the place, it is very possible they will meet and fall in love with people who have had very different upbringings. As a mother of three children, I don’t care what anyone says: the best situation is to marry someone who shares at least your core values, and preferably a similar family life and upbringing.
My oldest child is 23. I was a product of the post Vatican II Church with the miserable lack of solid catechesis. My husband and I tried to raise our children better than we were raised, with a stronger faith and teaching, but to be honest, our youngest got a much better, deeper Catholic identity because we were learning right along with our older children. I’m sad about this, but we did our best and trust our Lord to make up what was so lacking in us at the time!
I see a lot of strength in the Church today compared with the weak and watery way things were in the '80s and '90s, and that’s very exciting and heartening. Yet the garbage of the self-indulgent and self-centered culture is stronger and stronger, too. We’re all a bunch of babies with our insatiable lust for new toys - when people had far fewer things and money there was more at stake in cleaving to the human relationships they did have.
God bless our priests and religious, and increase vocations to the religious life.
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Waiting
Guest
So sorry for the lack of catechesis in post Vatican II days. I was disgusted with the new texts, but my voice was drowned out in the rush to teach the faith differently. My own family, through the years, shows the effects of the lack of proper instruction. Most have fallen away from the faith. I’m so happy you are blessed with a deep appreciation for the faith.
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filiaecclesia
Guest
Yes, Waiting, my own faith formation was gooey and half-hearted, but at least I got the basics. When my oldest son was in elementary school and we were getting to know the families of his little friends, my husband and I were shocked at how few were raising their children in any faith tradition. Now those young men are in their early 20s, college grads, perfectly nice fellas, yet they are without that early tradition. I think that even if children from families of faith “drift away” from the practice of it for a time, never the less it’s part of their true and sturdy foundation. They will always have it to return to.
Of course, it’s best never to drift away at all , but that’s how we humans operate sometimes. . .
Blessings to you for all you’ve done to share the Gospel of our Lord!
Of course, it’s best never to drift away at all , but that’s how we humans operate sometimes. . .
Blessings to you for all you’ve done to share the Gospel of our Lord!
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Waiting
Guest
Than you. God bless.
Because of the changing of times and change in society as well as technology. The same reason why the children of today live on video games and computers and cell phones and other things that we never had or did as a kid, and in the future WE will be their strong grandparents and they will wonder why we were so different from their generation.
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Hat4
Guest
I don’t go that far back. I grew up in a smaller town not that long ago. When I moved to the city for college I had to get used to locking my front door and my car. We didn’t start locking our house or cars with regularity until I was in high school. Every little town is different and mine wasn’t perfect but our town and the little towns around us might have a murder every 50-75 years, I never heard of anyone getting kidnapped and there wasn’t a “bad” part of town. If someone fell on hard times there were always people there to help. Someone would always stop and help if your car broke down or you got a flat tire. I don’t remember one girl from my class or the classes around me that got pregnant while in high school. Almost everyone would finish high school. Divorce was uncommon. I had one guy in my class who didn’t have a dad around because of divorce so that’s where we would go to get in trouble. I’ve lived in a few cities since and it’s almost like a different world. It’s amazing how far our culture has eroded and most people probably don’t even know how much better it can really be. It’s probably more apparent to me because rather than seeing things decline over 30 years I got to see a big change from how it used to be just by moving.
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