Notice the signs of a decaying society

Historians have warned over the centuries that societies that lose their sexual self-restraint soon decay and disintegrate. Edward Gibbon, author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” identified five marks of the Roman decaying culture: 1) art becoming freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original; 2) a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor; 3) an increased demand to live off the state; 4) concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth; and 5) obsession with sex and perversions of sex.

The speed with which the U.S. family has disintegrated in only a half century as a result of a change in sexual mores and a loss of sexual self-restraint is startling. Yet, we scratch our heads and wonder why more children are performing poorly and behaving so badly in American schools. Children suffer emotionally and educationally when their families collapse under the weight of increased rates of adultery, divorce, unmarried parents, absent fathers and mothers and an array of legally invented “family” styles.

Self-discipline is a necessary ingredient for success in school, but children must learn it from their parents' example. Governments and elites can propagandize most people to do or believe anything that suits their agendas. Many are willing follow the mutable winds of fashionable opinion, even if it means abandoning that which they formerly considered to be taboo only a few short years ago.

The Catholic Church preserved the best of Western civilization after the collapse of Roman civilization. It may have to do so again.

Eileen Griffin

Hoffman Estates