"Tell the young men to keep themselves completely under control." —Titus 2:6

In the USA, we often expect our parishes and pastors to provide for the religious education of our children. We expect our pastors to provide the sacraments and to reach out especially to the elderly and the sick. These expectations are good, but they are different than the early Church's expectations for ministry.

Paul expected Titus, the pastor of the church of Crete, to focus his ministry on old men and young men so as to call these men to holiness (Ti 2:2, 6). Paul expected that holy men would make their marriages and families holy. In this way, the Church would have credibility. Many would listen to the gospel and become Christians, thus making disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19).

In today's Church, there is something wrong. Symptoms of our problem are:

• our children leaving the Church,
• our inability to stop millions of children from being aborted,
• the breakdown of Catholic marriages, and
• the refusal of many young people to accept vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.

Considering the casualties the Church is suffering in our culture of death, we should "stand beside the earliest roads, ask the pathways of old which is the way to good, and walk it" (Jer 6:16). Let's run our parishes the old-fashioned Biblical way, and be victors, not victims, in our anti-Christian secular humanistic culture. This means focusing on the ministry to men.

Nihil Obstat:  Reverend Richard L. Klug, April 10, 2002

Imprimatur:  †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, April 18, 2002