By Dr. Dencio S Acop
I don’t know about you but if you were born in the ‘60s like me, I think you’d feel a bit disappointed and frustrated seeing all the things that have turned from bad to worse instead of better from good in our world today.
When I was just a kid, for instance, courtesy and decency were normal practice. Today, disrespect and vulgarity are commonplace. Many people have no respect for their elders or anyone. You see it in the way people talk and behave. Back in the day, adults were mindful of the children and protected them from indecency and vulgarity.
Today, many kids grow up with vulgarity normalized in their vocabulary because they hear it all the time from their irresponsible parents or elders. My mom would tell my sister when we were growing up that she would sweep out the door a suitor who looked like a hippie-addict! Of course, that was just a metaphor but you see my drift, right? There was a time when people dressed decently just to be in the public space out of respect for other people. Today, you see a person attending church in his shorts, sleeveless t-shirt, and slippers! What sort of nonsense is that? Even a beggar can dress better. Many cannot have enough tattoos on their God-given bodies. Some motorists drive like crazy and I wonder where the police are. Trash is everywhere as if people think that the seagulls and squirrels are their janitors. Voters elect not the best of us but rather the worst of us. Many are alright with dishonesty and corruption. Many governments have legalized drug use. Many people are using. Pornography and human trafficking are a global menace. I can go on and on but I think you see where my rant is going.
Towards trying to make sense of the changes that are happening, I wish to explore the world’s horizon these days. What’s happened to the world? What has happened to us? For one, it seems like everything just exploded uncontrollably in every direction soon as the internet was discovered. With cyberspace upon us, every bit of information, good or bad, became available to any human being in the world who had a cell phone. Governments could not control the new, radical phenomenon. Indeed, regulations may have been passed. But their implementation leaves far more to be desired. It may be an overstatement but the internet lost mankind. Through human history, institutions of every kind came to be in order to establish order in civilized society. For instance, institutions like the family, church, governments, schools, and their derivatives were effective ways to ‘control’ human thinking and behavior according to some order that nurtured humanity’s survival through all types of adversity. Institutional order initially came from the brutal laws of nature. As time progressed, man learned to rely on paganism as a way to enhance his superiority over other men to subdue them in the survival of the fittest jungle. But eventually divine revelation and the coming of the son of man laid waste to all previous claims to lordship. The era of the moral order is undisputably the age when man was at his highest point of achievement with all that he can be according to the destiny of his creation. The coming of age of the internet has challenged the moral order as we know it. The greatest threat comes from false information authored by whoever has the capacity to alter institutional values in favor of any vested interest. This threat is being exacerbated by the deployment of quantum AI which will have the capacity to radically accelerate the alteration of moral values in favor of selfish and immoral ones.
What can we learn from all these? A lot. Man’s history has been about learning from life in order to survive. As I’ve pointed out earlier, man’s greatest moment has been the reign of the moral order. Just recall the gains made from that era of order. Man was able to see the family as the basic unit of society. When society was built upon the foundations of a good family, the world experienced peace and stability that gave rise to unprecedented achievements in the humanities, arts and sciences. But when rampant divorce and moral decadence engulfed societies, that world began to crumble and experience internal and external upheavals, threatening the global order and supplanting it with chaos and anarchy everywhere. Radical false narratives confusing young minds attending institutions of learning and worship are wreaking havoc throughout the world.
For example, there were those demonic and satanic scenes inserted in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris which deviated from traditional practice and opened a portal for the demonic to enter the world. It must be pointed out that the Olympics is a global event witnessed by all peoples, young and old. Secular eyes may not be sensitive to the workings of preternatural forces in the world but non-secular ones are. The operations of dark forces to disrupt moral order in the world are endless and ongoing. The end sought by these forces is the winning of human souls. Their ways and means are the corrupting of souls through the body: violations of the ten commandments, disordered pleasures, ill-gotten wealth, drunkenness with power, undeserved worldly honors, misleading of souls, and all its derivatives. Other ways and means of evil in the world include the perversion of the sacraments and leading followers to believe that they need not turn away from their sins because they are saved by Jesus anyway. Perversions of the sacraments include abortions, same-sex marriages, satanic black masses, disrespecting consecrated hosts, and denial of the sacraments. Even cohabitation without marriage or marriage without openness to procreation is a perversion.
As with most things in life, advocating the highest standards is key to living a worthy life as willed by God and modeled by His Son. We must all adhere to the culture of excellence inspired by the Son of Man who came to show us the way. And not fall short with just our own cultures of mediocrity.