This past weekend I was touched by two stories. One was the awful experience of the school bus monitor who was bullied by four 13-year-old boys in a most egregious fashion. It seems they reduced her to tears with their series of jibes, insults, and inappropriate language. So wicked was their conduct that the police authorities became involved. One parent of these brats thought that his son “might have been a bit out of line.”

In the sacristy on Sunday I met a boy we will call Joe. He was, as he told me emphatically, 2-years-old. He knew the sign of the cross in Latin by heart and he gave perfect answers to the first two questions in the Catechism. For a 2-year-old, it was a nice conversation, not at all like the 13-year-olds we were discussing. What is the reason for that?

Obviously it is the parents in each case. The father of the 13-year-old was unsure of the propriety of his sons’ conduct. The mother of the little boy was with him, and it was she who taught him all these things about their faith. When we look at our world and our society, and the things that happen and we are upset or discouraged, or wonder if things will be better — at those times we realize the importance of parents and what happens when they do not do their jobs.

In the 21st century America, parenting has to be one of the greatest, and most difficult responsibilities that people can bear. It can be a 24-hour-a-day occupation. For parents who try to raise their children to be morally upright, good citizens both of the city of God and city of man, it can sometimes be an impossible task. But, no one else in the child’s circle of relationships is able to do that better than a conscientious, engaged parent. Truly it costs them money and pain and some sleepless nights. But we see all around us an increase of problems in our schools, of the influence of gangs on adolescents and young people, of juvenile crime, delinquency, and the increasing number of young people who cannot cope with life and for whom suicide seems something inviting.

All these things bespeak a culture that is devoid of true parenting. In far too many cases children in our culture have people who generate them in the physical sense, but are bereft of parents. That is where the Church repeats an ancient message that “marriage is the building block of society,” and it must be made immune from anything that diminishes or weakens it.