This is a talk given by the Dominican Teaching Sisters of Post Falls,
Idaho. In the first part of the talk they point out the importance of
a good education and the faults (sins) of their students which
frustrate the learning process and the serious consequences of these
unchecked vices later in life. The Sisters site the causes of the
problems and give parents and teachers the remedies.

The second part (- presented below -) gives emphasis to the influence
of television and how to best combat its effect on children as well as
young adults. The conclusion offers guidelines which can aid parents
in combating the permissiveness of today's society. Stressed is the
importance of co-operation between teacher and parent.

Part II

TELEVISION:
Deadly poison for their soul

Often one television program is enough to push a youth into mortal
sin. By letting your children sit in front of the television, you run
the nearly certain risk of killing the supernatural life in their
souls. There is no such thing as a harmless television program.
Impurity, ugliness and vulgarity strike their eyes, their senses,
their imagination and soil their souls. It cannot be avoided.

None of you would dream of risking your children's lives, for
instance, by setting them in the middle of the highway at night, all
ready to be run over. Setting them in front of the television is
worse yet. (And the same danger is true of listening to the radio,
rock music and modern music.*) You endanger the supernatural life of
your children which is infinitely more precious than their bodily
life. What a responsibility before God!

TELEVISION:
Deadly poison for their mind

Watching television requires no intellectual effort whatsoever. In
front of a television people are passive, that is, they receive what
is presented without making any effort to think. They are comfortably
and lazily seated on the sofa, with a little snack on the TV table,
why not? And like this, everything is at hand, and they swallow and
swallow all that the television pours out, without their mind's
having the time, or even the possibility, to react. The pictures
strike the imagination and leave their trace on the mind, where they
destroy any personal life, any personal thought or reaction. And
television creates millions of people who do not think, who are no
longer themselves. They are all alike, all blinded by the illusion
that they are knowledgeable. And thus, news replaces culture; public
opinion dispenses people from thinking for themselves and replaces
God's judgment; even the stupidity of television shows does not
awaken the apathy, the listlessness of their brains under anesthesia.

But personal reflection is so important. It is necessary to our
supernatural life. We shall not be saved automatically. We cannot be
saved without conquering our liberty of judgment and of choice,
without making all our decisions in favor of Good, whatever be the
obstacles and traps which come from the world, the devil, or our own
lusts. Television prevents us from attaining this interior liberty of
judgment, without which we can never truly be human persons.

TELEVISION:
Deadly poison for their studies

Ask an intellectual effort of children who watch television . . . you
will obtain no response. These children have, firstly, an inability to
concentrate, and inability to be attentive, which comes directly from
television. They are unstable, superficial, incapable of maintaining
an intellectual effort, and intellectual reasoning. In addition, they
have lost their liking for this sort of work -- it is so arduous! With
television, we just turn it on and . . . the whole world is before our
eyes! These television watchers are full of illusion thinking they
know so much.

What is more, their interests become as superficial as the programs
they watch. This is why some children, even some only ten or twelve
years old, are so worried about how they look; this is why they wear
make-up etc. Certain twelve-year-olds look like sixteen-year-olds. It
is a shame that they lose the innocence and the simplicity of their
age.

And when this artificial world of television, this world of sin, of
ugliness and of stupidity has captured their intelligences and their
hearts, irreparable harm has been done. Their intelligences and their
hearts remain untouched by the language of the Faith and of education.
And all your efforts, all our efforts are made sterile.

Do not think that attending Sunday Mass is enough to save your
children. But refer everything to this Mass, to Jesus Christ and to
His love. If you do not, there is a lie in your life. It has always
been necessary for Christians to cut themselves off from the world:
"You are in the world, but you are no longer of the world," Jesus
tells us. This means that your behavior must be different from the
world's.

It would be too long to quote St. Paul, but reread his Epistles. In
all of them he enjoins his faithful to abandon their pagan customs
and to put on the Christian way of living. And he goes into detail.
He does not tell them, "It is good enough if you go to Mass on Sunday
and say your morning and night prayers." He tells them all to overturn
their idols; this is the other side of adhering to God. And all the
missionaries after him always overturned the idols in order to
install a Christian city.

Today's idols are no longer Zeus or Venus. Today's idols are
television, singers, sports stars, rock music, movies, . . . We are
to be as firm towards these idols as the first Christians were toward
their false gods. "No alliance is possible between the light and the
darkness." None.

TELEVISION:
Deadly poison for your family life

Your homes must be sanctuaries where God is honored, loved, served,
where the parents watch vigilantly over the education of their
children.

What is television doing in the middle? It is breaking family life.
It is keeping the father or the mother from talking, rectifying,
advising, encouraging. The television is the stranger who has the
place of honor in the home, the place that belongs to God, the place
that belongs to the parents.

And there is no more family life, no more home where the flame is
burning, from where it lights and warms all those who come near. You
have simply people next to each other, separated, in fact, instead of
being united; for the bond of unity is lacking, it is ruptured by the
presence of television, which dictates its programs, its opinions,
its lies. Well? What is the conclusion? It is easy. Get rid of the
television. Throw it into the garbage. That is where it belongs. Do
it this evening. Do not wait until tomorrow; your courage might fail.
Tonight while your children are sleeping, without asking their
opinion, of course!

And you will be surprised to see how much time you will then have to
enjoy your family life and to look after each other. You will be
surprised to see how fast the level of your conversations will go up,
to see how docile your children will become to your authority. Family
prayer, morning and night, family rosary, will take back their place
of honor. Soon you will fell how much this new beginning of a natural
life will pacify each and every one, will solder them to each other.
The artificiality of a life which goes on in front of the television
kills the personality of everyone in the family, and the result is
mediocrity, laziness, slavery to fashion, and always impurity in one
way or another.

Catholic parents, you must not be accomplices of such an undertaking
of dehumanization and of dechristianization.

Do not renounce educating your children.

"To educate your children," wrote Rev. Fr. de Chivré, "is to secure
them with the means of attaining the full exercise of their spiritual
lives as baptized Catholics, of making the most of their natural
lives, and of facilitating their future lives." Thus one can
understand the importance of the language in conversations, in
readings, in warnings, in scoldings, in encouragements and in
corrections coming from the parents. The education of a child's
interior life is the only things that will arm him against the false
appearances of the world. Helping him become accustomed to the truth,
attracted to what is simple, energetic in the faithful accomplishment
of his duties, proud in upholding moral values, aware of the presence
of God, of an interior voice . . . teaching him to bear the arms of a
Catholic who is baptized, who is confirmed . . . all these things
galvanize the undecided frailty of teenagers and forge their
characters.

And their duty belongs primarily to parents: the heart of a father
and the heart of a mother, constantly burning with flames which are
conducive to the awakening of the soul, the conscience, the reason,
the heart, and the sensitivity of children.

"The home is a church in which dwells the True Presence. Not just
anybody may come in; not just anything may be said, no unfitting or
vulgar tunes may be sung. The home is like a tabernacle; one enters
to be grasped by a need for respect, to be stolen over by a certain
depth, to be sheltered from intellectual and moral degradation.

"It is the parents who have the responsibility, before the school, of
teaching their children to live and to love what is Good and what is
True. And it is precisely because childhood is characterized by both
a lack of sufficient reason and an excess of anarchistic and
unreasonable desires that intelligent imperatives are needed from
parents, and intelligent refusals must be pronounced by parents when
the need arises.

"To educate a child is to dare to choose for him, in order to deliver
him from his ignorance, his weakness, and his personal inclinations.
It is to dare to choose in accordance with what one knows to be
Christian, that is, Christ like."

To give commands is to love, precisely, with due measure and mild
firmness.

In the realm of your children's physical life, we do not hesitate to
impose the necessary treatments to safeguard their health. And in the
all-important realm of their conscience and knowledge, could we stand
by and allow just anything to be said, or anything to be done? If we
no longer dare to ask, no longer want to instruct, or decide no
longer to allow or forbid, we annul and abandon our teaching
functions.

It would also make all of our labor fruitless . . . We can obtain
nothing from your children if you yourselves do not have the same
requirements in their education. Children must learn the same truths
and contemplate the same examples to follow at home and at school. If
the case were to be the opposite we would be obliged, God forbid, to
send away the children whose parents would educate them in a
different direction: an atmosphere of carelessness, permissiveness,
or liberal ideas in the intellectual, moral, and religious domains.

So, for the love of your children, be courageous enough to take
heroic steps, of which only the first steps are hard, then the others
come easier . . . .

Eliminate all the candy and cookies throughout the day. Save them for
feast days and holidays, and even then in moderate quantity.

Require that your children eat everything at meals without choosing,
and without making comments which reflect their likes or dislikes.

Establish a set time for studies in the evening, with calm, quiet
surroundings. Supervise their work and insist on neatness and
perfection.

Punish them severely when their work is bad, and take measures until
it changes and improves.

Take a concrete interest in their schoolwork. Follow it closely.
Without your help in this area we will have a hard time truly
captivating their interest.

Send them to school, even if they have a headache or a stomach-ache.
Require that your girls help around the house.

Demand of them true Christian generosity towards you, first, then
toward their brothers and sisters. (This is a sacred and religious
duty.)

Insist upon physical efforts: walking, hikes, bicycle riding, etc.
They are too lax, weak and wanting in energy! . . . no physical or
moral vitality!

Throw out the makeup, the fingernail polish and the rest, for all of
this develops the worship of the body to the detriment of the soul,
the worship of one's own person instead of the worship of Jesus
Christ and dedication to one's duties.

Whatever the causes may be, whatever weaknesses we may have or
mistakes we may have made in the area of education, we must take
courage and remain confident; for we have the graces to accomplish
this work well, and where necessary, to correct and improve our
methods of education.

Everything is possible as soon as the family and the school have
decided to work together, in the same direction, with the same
firmness. It is never too late to do something well or to make
resolutions. We must have Faith!

Don't give up! It will be easier than you think. Youth is made for
heroism. The more you ask of a youth, the happier you will make him;
for you are giving him a true moral, intellectual and spiritual
value.

At the origin of all great saints, there were almost always saintly
mothers and fathers. Look at St. Pius X, St. John Bosco, Archbishop
Lefebvre . . . Prayer, work, sacrifice, poverty . . . these were the
conditions in which they lived . . . walking in the traces of the
model which we all must follow: the Holy Family at Nazareth. If Our
Lord felt it necessary to spend 30 years of His life hidden, in
humble and laborious circuмstances, it was to teach us what our
Christian homes must be like. Let us live up to His expectations, and
glorify Him by putting all of our zealous energies to work, in order
to live in imitation of the Holy Family.