I recently read a lament about fathers not attending Mass and failing as role models for their kids. Of course a much worse tragedy is that millions of kids do not know their dads.

I was a long-time friend of a recently deceased elderly couple. They regularly attended St. Mary’s Parish, and their three daughters were baptized and raised Catholic. My friends lived long enough to witness the following horrors occur for reasons they could not fathom.

Their eldest daughter experienced terrifying bouts with the devil such that the whole house shook at night. Her father had difficulty getting an exorcist, but that priest could do nothing for her. She worked as a teacher until her marriage broke up, and then committed suicide despite heavy medication.

Their second daughter married, had two kids, and then divorced. She went to church until she became severely disabled and bedridden. Her two children went off the deep end, no doubt harmed by lacking a dad. One ended up in jail several times in his early teens and was disabled by an accident while using drugs. He’s over 30 years old and weighs 350 pounds, substituting food for God. He had three kids out of wedlock, one disabled with spina bifida. He mopes around on SSI evidently with no life purpose. His sister, a year younger, is also 350 pounds. She has had three teenage lovers, resulting in four kids. One of her young lovers had Type-1 diabetes and refused to be medicated until dying emaciated. She has an 11-year-old son who is into gaming all night. Two daughters came from that deceased teenager and are fatherless. The fourth child is a baby whose teenage father was sitting around surfing his cell phone when I last visited. The money to support this particular family comes from government welfare at about $3000/month. Their house is all paid for, thank God.

Their youngest daughter has displayed more common sense and since her parents’ death has assumed financial dictates of survival for this chaotic family. However, she lives with her boyfriend, frightened of marriage and horrified at the prospect of having kids who might end up like her niece and nephew. She limits her visits because they’re so upsetting. Her exasperation is understandable.

Although the daughters were raised nominally Catholic, something was sorely missing. Religious instruction is not what it was in the 1950s at inexpensive parochial schools. Then there’s the impact of technology since the birth-control pill and television. Parents have much less influence over their children than TikTok videos do. Today’s kids do not turn to their parents for advice and consolation but to chatbots that feed them twisted consumer propaganda, politics, and fashionable libertine garbage. This sums up the ugly decline and fall of America the Beautiful that we oldsters once knew as kids.

Circling back to the aforementioned family: The 7-year-old great-granddaughter must think I am her father’s substitute. I bring her little gifts on my infrequent visits. She hovers by me as I chat with her sick grandma. When it’s time for me to leave, she hugs me at the front door and will not let me go — a heart-gripping moment. I feel so sorry for her not having a daily dad to be there for her.