2. Practice devotions to the Divine Mercy and Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are two solid reasons to do this: First, because the world desperately needs Christ’s forgiveness and Our Lady’s care. Second, because the more we do this, the more comfortable our immigrant brothers and sisters will feel coming to our churches — and if we could only evangelize them, we would snatch back the future of our country.
3. Build strong families. The family is the basic building block of society. That is not an ideological assertion, it is a description of all human experience. However clever Western secularists think they are, and however absurd they think Catholics are, our grandchildren will be the ones to decide what history will record about the child-averse sophisticates who once ruled the world.
We Catholics will always love Ireland, America and Europe. It is sad to realize that they no longer love us back.
Ah, well. One day Indian, Chinese and African missionaries may rescue them from the historical irrelevance they are hurtling into with such abandon.
Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.