From Doorkeepers to Defenders: Catholic Men Step Up to Guard Parishes

As I have observed before, we don't live in Mayberry, North Carolina, in 1959 any more. That world vanished long, long ago. Too many places---like churches and schools---retain the obsolete mindset that we still live in a relatively law-abiding society.

We don't. We live in a society that's closer to the Roman Empire in 4th century: advanced, wealthy, and still carrying a brittle veneer of social order and stability from the way things were before they degraded, but filled with new dangers like lawless gangs and maniacs running the streets, criminal foreigners pouring in over the borders, a justice system that is completely broken, corrupt politicians and authorities who are either helpless or unwilling to do anything for the people, and a populace that is divided by polarized ideologies. If you go to the large cities, it's even worse than that; cities are more like Western Europe in 500 A.D., or Dodge City or Abelene in 1868: full of rioters, rapists, arsonists, and armed criminals who engage in gun battles every night, and commit all manner of crimes against the population whenever they feel like it.

We have to stop thinking in 1950s terms when it comes to 2020s realities in our churches, our schools, our hospitals, etc. If we don't adapt to the savage, violent, nasty truths now emerging in our society, then the only avenue left for us is to return to the catacombs---hiding in cellars and secret rooms for our religious services, and homeschooling our children, never letting them outside unless we are accompanying them, heavily-armed.

Remember all those movies about the awful conditions in the aftermath of an apocalypse? We're getting closer to that being a reality all the time.