BIG C CATHOLICS

Enter any given high school and you will encounter students wearing all black clothing, makeup and accessories often featuring Satanic or Wiccan imagery. Such is the morbid ensemble of the "Goth culture", a subculture marked by rebellion against authority, rejection of morality and experimentation, whose adherents typically embrace death metal, drugs and all things occult. "Goths" may celebrate their contrarianism by reveling in vice and flaunting convention. Not all millennial’s share in the Goth culture’s tastes or sentiments, but increasing numbers have abandoned Christianity in favor of Satanism, witchcraft, the occult and astrology. Since the turn of the century doubt about God has grown steadily among millennials. Their rejection of Judeo-Christian morality and concomitant embrace of moral relativism has left many millennials searching for meaning. Dr. Joseph Atkinson of the St. John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage explains : Within the last 4

"We live in a world where the family is under attack. It is safe to say that the institution of both marriage and family has never been as threatened as it is today. In fact, its very survival as an institution is questionable. There is hardly a person reading this who is not touched by the disintegration of family life. It can take many forms; divorce, co-habitation, the acceptance of a contraceptive mentality, abortion, fatherless homes, the rejection of the faith and numerous other dysfunctions which plague and threaten to destroy family life all together. Beyond these problems, as Saint John Paul II himself warned in Familiars consortio , there are strong forces in our society, which are actively seeking to change the very nature, structure, and meaning of both marriage and family: and even in some cases to eradicate them all together. This disintegration of marriage and family has not happened by accident. At one time, they were considered to be sacred institutions havin

Contemporary times have witnessed a continued and sustained attack against the traditional family. On the excellent EWTN DVD series, The Domestic Church , Dr. Joseph Atkinson of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family presents a lucid, God-centered vision of the family as a Domestic Church. The following is a partial excerpt of Dr. Atkinson's presentation from the first episode. By What Vision? We live in a world where the family is under attack. It is safe to say that the institution of both marriage and family has never been as threatened as it is today. In fact, its very survival as an institution is questionable. There is hardly a person reading this who is not touched by the disintegration of family life. It can take many forms; divorce, co-habitation, the acceptance of a contraceptive mentality, abortion, fatherless homes, the rejection of the faith and numerous other dysfunctions which plague and threaten to destroy family life all together. Be