I don’t profess to be a prophet, but you don’t need supernatural revelation to read the signs of the times.

Yesterday I read an article online about the large number of Generation Z young men who voted conservative.

Then today this on Twitteer-X

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Who are these guys?

They are the folks born between 1997 and 2012. They happen to be my children.

What do I see in my kids and their friends? A hearty rejection of the whole woke ideology and a respect for tradition, religion and conservative values. Their rejection of the woke ideology is nothing radical or following another ideology instead it is simply that they are smart and savvy and they think the whole woke thing is just dumb and that their peers who drink the woke Kook-Aid are whiny losers. Again, they are not opposed in a radical hateful way–they just look at the woke lemmings and roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and move on.

What are they moving on to? I can speak for my kids and their friends: they travel. They enjoy life. They go to church. They party and have fun but by “party” it seems that they enjoy hanging out with one another. They may be fooling me, but I don’t sense that for them “party” means drinking, drugs and dropping out.

What I see in them I also see reflected in our parish life. We have an ever increasing number of young men and women at Mass–some with young families, many on their own or with friends. We are also seeing a steady stream of enquirers from the big Protestant suburban mega churches. (Older members of the mainstream Protestant churches rarely knock on our door.)

What are they looking for? After fifty or sixty years of a culture in revolution, they are looking for stability, history, reverence and permanence and this is what the Catholic Church has to offer–but only if we reverence and promote our own venerable traditions.

We must continue to weed out the trendy tacky music, we must build beautiful churches again. We must shift our Catholic schools away from the secular curriculum and adopt classical learning. We must stand strong and sure on the Rock that is Peter.

I believe the present Vatican leadership is the last hurrah of the trendy Church that adapts itself to the way of the world. Soon there will be a Pope who understands where the culture is really headed and will take the lead.

I also sense that with the victory of Mr Trump the political situation will become more tense not less. A new kind of cultural revolution may be happening and we can expect some stormy weather.

All the more reason for folks to build their houses on the Rock that is Peter and his timeless church.