Please bear with me on this one. It comes with a warning. This is gut-wrenching and nauseating, but needs to be aired.
After having worked for seven years with teen prostitutes at Covenant House in the 1980’s, I honestly thought that I had seen it all. It’s tough to live with the memories of all that I saw, especially as I am now a father and understand the fragility of children from the perspective one can only develop as a loving parent. Mostly I try to forget, because the memories are all the more horrifying when I think of my own children. Some of the most damaging experiences our kids at Covenant House had experienced, and from which they were running, were those of incest.
Teen prostitution, incest, abortion, IVF. What do they all have in common?
Control. Callous Disregard. Objectification. Commodification.
I guess I haven’t seen it all. On their blogs this weekend, both Elizabeth Scalia and Deacon Greg Kandra covered a horrifying incident in Rosemount High School, Minnesota. From the Star Tribune:
A prank on some blindfolded Rosemount High School athletes — they were unknowingly and at times amorously kissed by their parents during a recent pep fest — is collecting YouTube views by the tens of thousands and has the principal apologizing for what happened.
Here’s how the practical joke, originated by school staff members, played out during the assembly on Dec. 8:
The captains of the school’s winter sports teams — boys and girls — were lined up and blindfolded. They were told they would be kissed and then asked to guess who was on the other side of their lips.
Some of the parents during the 59-second YouTube video are seen holding the kisses for several seconds, cupping their child’s faces or embracing and swaying.
One mother moved her son’s hand down to her behind during the encounter. Another mom has her son down on the gym floor to the delight of two male students nearby.
The hoots, screams and laughter rolled on as the students pulled off their blindfolds to realize it was Mom or Dad they were smooching.
The story goes on to tell how the principal apologized because some people were offended (not because anything intrinsically immoral, illegal, or psychologically and developmentally damaging had occurred on his watch).
The article goes on to say:
Principal John Wollersheim said he received e-mails and phone calls soon after the pep fest from people who said they were offended by the display. This week, he said, the feedback he’s received has been more supportive.
The focus here should be on the giddy delight of the crowd in the video, and the general support of the principal.
We have imploded as a civilization.
Children are not viewed as autonomous human beings from the very earliest stages of their lives, with parents freezing dozens of their embryonic babies in IVF labs, mothers and fathers (married!!!) aborting their less-than-perfect babies with poor prenatal diagnoses, and now incest-as-pep rally fare.
At its core is the view of the child as property to be disposed of at will. They have ceased being persons to their narcissistic parents and school administrators, and contrary to protests from people around the blogosphere, this is NOT an isolated incident.
The cheers of the crowd and the preponderance of support for the principal tell us just how bad this has seeped into the collective consciousness of society. Need more proof?
The Star Tribune story is most notable for what it DIDN”T report: The arrest of the parents. The firing of the school personnel responsible. The involvement of child protective services. It didn’t report these things because they didn’t happen. Even if these students were beyond the age of statutory rape, what of the younger children present for whom incest was offered as wholesome pep rally entertainment?
When we come to the broader culture with an anthropology that values all human life with an intrinsic dignity from its earliest stages and we make little headway, we need to look at the impediments to our message in the broader culture.
This story, in all of its sordid dimensionality, is a chilling and sobering look into the soul of a civilization that has completely imploded. If we are to be successful in our life apologetics, we will have to take all of this into account. We need to rebuild from the ground-up, and it can’t be done without evangelizing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
God have mercy on us all.
Coming Home 
“Teen prostitution, incest, abortion, IVF. What do they all have in common?”
You forgot a big one. Contraception – where abortion and IVF got their start.
Anybody want to help build an ark, or something very flame proof?
We are truly in the last days. Jesus said that in the last days it would be as bad as the days of Noah. It was so bad back then that God decided to destroy it all and start over again. But he promised he would never do that again, so we’re going to get raptured and the bad people are going to start Armagedon.
Evil will grow more and more until Jesus comes back and puts a stop to it.
As for the idea of child as property, that idea has always been used to justify child abuse, and to justify denying protection to the abused child. Usually the deed of ownership to a child is granted on genetic grounds, but not always. Whatever grounds it granted on, the idea is the same. The child is somebody’s property, and that person has the right to do whatever they want to the child. It’s a cold, cruel ideology. When it’s put into practice, children often die.
If children belong to somebody, maybe we need to see them as belonging to God. We are dealing with God’s property, not our own. Then we might have a little more respect and not just use the child for our own purposes.
I hesitate to bring down the second coming on this event, but I will say that the moral decay of our society is enough to make me wonder if Divine justice won’t be served upon us as a people if we don’t repent of this egregious behavior. That devastation is more than I would like to consider. It is critical that this not be seen as “nonsense”, but as “incest”, and that it remain an isolated event because of such a designation. One can only hope and pray…and continue to make it a public disgrace. May I share your post on my blog?
Please do, Kathy! Thanks.
Cecilia… The rapture is not part of Catholic eschatology. If you belong to a religious tradition which does believe in it of course you have the right to say so, but if you are Catholic, I didn’t want you to be confused about this.
I don’t disagree with the rest of what you say.
Susan Peterson
I saw this on the Anchoress’s site too. Out of curiosity, I showed it to my sophomore-in-college, sometime Protestant, very of-the-culture brother. He was so horrified he nearly threw up. So, well, that gave me a bit of hope. If he had thought it was funny or not a big deal, I would be lamenting the state of our world as well. Not that it’s not absolutely abominable, what was done to those children, (because high schoolers are still children), but I don’t think it’s the norm, yet at least, to dismiss it as funny. Or fun. Or anything but unbelievably disturbing. At least I hope so.
Let us ask God to send His Holy Spirit to aLL AND TO OPEN OUR HEARTS TO ITS GIFTS!
Cecilia, I thought God said He would never use *floods* to wipe us out? There’s many other tools out there and I wouldn’t discount the use of some of those (nuclear devices, EMPs)…
WE HAVE TO ASK GOD TO SEND HIS HOLY SPIRIT TO EVERYONE IN THIS WORLD AND OPEN OUR HEARTS TO ITS BLESSINGS !!! THIS WORLD IS OUT OF CONTROL!
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You can do something….call:
http://www.mncasa.org/who_contact.html
Pray for our country, those in leadership positions (secular and religious), and for all of us that our consciences are formed to see good and evil and to speak out about it as Dr. Nadal has done here. It is an abomination to say the least!!! No wonder Jesus wept for us…. I could not even watch the video – sick, sick sick!!! And sexual misconduct “only” happens in the Catholic Church?!?!? We are Sodom and Gomorrah revisited – woe to our nation, our society, our culture, our world. Dear Lord Jesus – have mercy on us! Our world so needs you! May this Christmas open hearts and minds to your grace, mercy and LOVE and bring sinners back. We pray for the parents, educators and most especially the children. Lord, heal them all to seek forgiveness from you and heal the children from this most grievous wound in their hearts, minds and souls. Thank You for sharing…..more need to hear about this!!! There should be public outrage throughout the land!!!
http://faithonthehighwire.blogspot.com/2011/12/school-sanctioned-incestuous-behavior.html — I have to admit, when reading several of the accounts, the comments, “it lasted less than a minute” and “no students or parents complained” were the most unsettling. I guess that makes it just fine…frightening.
I’m a Mormon and I definitely believe we are living in the Latter Days. This is proof beyond all shadow of a doubt. Not just beyond a reasonable doubt….
I just don’t get it. Why?
Has anyone heard of Tucker Max? He’s a “comedian” who jokes about his aborted babies.
So gross…
My high school did this at a school assembly twenty years ago. I remember finding it really creepy at the time!
It is one more proof that the devil is working triple overtime to take as many people to hell as he possibly can.
Usually, I have a morbid sense of curiosity that pushes me to click on things with warnings. Not this time. The descriptions were enough.
Lord, have mercy on us.
It was really that bad, CY, so it’s best you didn’t click. I normally post YouTube videos directly on the blog, but didn’t want to soil it in this case.
Meery Christmas to you and yours!
Well – at least if you look at the comment section of the video – the majority also seem to agree with the immorality of it.
By the way – has the APA also decided that incest is okay (along with pedophilia)……
“We have imploded as a civilization.”
Ya think?
[…] Abundance and Coming Home discuss a Minnesota high school pep rally “practical joke” which involved students who […]
[…] Abundance and Coming Home discuss a Minnesota high school pep rally “practical joke” which involved students who […]
Any parent who would participate in such a prank, belongs in prison. Surely there’s some sort of child molestation law that applies in this situation? Ugh.
The rapture is not part of Catholic eschatology. If you belong to a religious tradition which does believe in it of course you have the right to say so, but if you are Catholic, I didn’t want you to be confused about this
Not quite. The “rapture” is straight out of the Bible. 1st Thess 4:16-17 says, “The dead in Christ shall rise first”, and then, “we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them”. In other words, any Christians who are still alive at the monent of the Resurrection of the Righteous, get taken away by God without having to die. Solidly biblical, and solidly Catholic —
With respect to the rapture, Catholics certainly believe that the event of our gathering together to be with Christ will take place, though they do not generally use the word “rapture” to refer to this event (somewhat ironically, since the term “rapture” is derived from the text of the Latin Vulgate of 1 Thess. 4:17—”we will be caught up,” [Latin: rapiemur]). ”
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-rapture
The problem is that many of my fellow Protestants get the timing wrong. A false doctrine has been spreading like herpes through the church, that one day — any moment — we’ll be going about our normal business and our happy satisfied easy lives, and suddenly we’ll just vanish and our cars will crash without us. If only.
The cure for this thinking is to read Revelation and look for the Resurrection of the Righteous, remembering that the Resurrection of the Righteous and the Rapture are **ONE EVENT***. Well.. the Resurrection of the Righteous doesn’t happen until Revelation 20… AFTER a whole lot of bad stuff has come to pass on the earth.
In other words… this service ( http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/ ) is completely unnecessary. Although it’s funny as hell…especially since there are actually people who have signed up!!!!