Scottish Catholic Observer

At this point, I have to admit, I’m not the devotee of Pope Francis that I once was. He’s still the pope, of course, but and maybe it’s familiarity or the seemingly endless drip of scandal that still leaks out of the Vatican, or maybe it’s my own cynicism—I no longer seek out his pronouncements with the eagerness I once did.

Still, now and again, I see a little video or read a snippet of a homily that strikes me as profoundly and unignorably true.

This was the case this week, about the Holy Father’s homily on the first Sunday of Advent.

“One lives for things, no longer knowing what for; one has many goods but no longer does good; houses are filled with things but emptied of children. This is the drama of today: houses full of things but empty of children, the demographic winter that we are suffering.”

Close to home

This felt uncomfortably close to home. I’m no stranger to greed or desiring my neighbour’s house or flatscreen TV and I’m also acutely aware of the profound meaning children have brought into my life and my own failure to live that truth in my life.

A friend recently declared if made dictator he’d put in place draconian punishments for parents who mindlessly scroll through their phones while their children play in the park. I would wholeheartedly support this. Even though I could easily end up in the dock myself. I know my children are a precious gift from God who bring untold joy into my life and the phone in my pocket is an aggressive drain on my attention and care.

The pope goes on: “Time is thrown away for passtimes, but there is no time for God or for others and when you live for things, things are never enough, greed grows and others become obstacles in the race and so you end up feeling threatened and, always dissatisfied and angry, you raise the level of hatred: ‘I want more, I want more, I want more…’

Consumerism

“We see it today where consumerism reigns: how much violence, even verbal violence, how much anger and desire to seek an enemy at all costs! While the world is full of weapons that cause deaths, we do not realise that we continue to arm our hearts with anger.”

This strikes me as true, that the end-stage of our individualistic society is violence of the heart. Not necessarily violence of the body because that might be unprofitable. But angry, frightened people, all worked up with nowhere to go. They’ve got to consume, food, drink, pornography—anything to take their minds off it.

I suspect that the answer lies in ending this demographic winter the pope talks about. A society that truly values children, that supports parents and respects them by offering a way out of the consumerism trap.

Underloved

We may think we care about children, after all, it’s the most natural emotion possible but in Scotland many children will be underfed and underloved this Christmas. There is the scandal of poverty and hunger that should shame us all.

What about the inequality of love that brings gallons of present and no care; that sees the retreat to the screens as comparable to actual interaction?

Children bring shape and structure to society, a reason to progress and get better. As we have increasingly few here in Scotland, is it any wonder we become increasingly greedy, petty and angry and that we barely know how to raise the ones we have.

This is the demographic winter of our discontent.