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Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland
  Orange Standard

We Need To Reach Out to Our Young People

Article 1 ~ December 2006

Among the many problems that beset modern Western societies, and ours not least, is the lawlessness, thuggery, thievery, and wanton destruction that is reeked on them by children and young people. Our society is affected in so many ways by a criminality that demands in responses what takes away from those services which are of utmost importance to its welfare. When we pay for the often horrific effects of lawlessness we spend what is needed to tackle weaknesses and deficiencies so apparent in education, health and social services especially.

We are well acquainted with the thinking of experts, and ordinary people, on the reasons for the bad behaviour of children and teenagers - lack of parental control, of discipline in schools and communities, too lenient treatment of convicted offenders - are used frequently. But to know the reasons for what is going on is to question what needs to be done to change a situation which brings suffering, distress and despair to many of our most vulnerable people. As an organisation with a commitment to high ethical standards of conduct and behaviour we deeply deplore what is happening in this society.

We contribute to its well being in advocating and maintaining attitudes to life based on the Christian Faith and what it gives to us and demands from us in the practice of that faith. Junior Lodges have encouraged youngsters to appreciate values that make for good character and conduct and to avoid what is hurtful to them and to people generally.

Our contribution is the reminder that a loss to this society has been the lessening of the influence of organisations, mostly church centred, whose influence for good, in their strengths, was inestimable. The reasons for their disappearance in many places are well known. Time was when the churches had their effect on the lives of nearly everybody. Now in the urban situation the churches may have little or no influence on the life of anybody.

Whatever else may be said on the matter the reality is that as the influence of the churches has been eroded and so society has lost ethical values which had been the enriching of it in other days. This means that the churches, if they are to survive in an increasingly secular society, must do much more in their efforts to make the Christian message meaningful to people; to emphasise the life changing and enabling power of Christ and the benefits of the faith in the everyday and everyway experiences of their lives. We have looked at the problem and we ask what can we do to change the awful situation confronting us?

We can use our influence as citizens in supporting every effort being made to help affected parents to fulfil their obligations to their children, to road them in the right directions, while recognising the hard struggle they have in environments entirely unconductive to proper parenting.

There is always need for sympathy and sensitivity people to parents, that goes, also, for teachers and schools in their extraordinary difficult task to teach the sometimes determinedly unteachable. Appreciation and congratulation may be called for when there are successes and some are educated in spite of their difficulties and dangers.

While children can be changed, redirected, we may hope for the future. Because Christianity is at its best when it is at its most practical we must support and help, in whatever way we can, those plans and purposes of government. Local government and all other agencies who are working for the well being of this society and for the peace and prosperity of all its citizens.

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