I usually try to find the humor in the events of the day, but of late there has been much to bring tears to the eyes of a laughing Catholic.

Rotten cops shoot innocent Blacks.  Black thugs shoot innocent cops.  At least that is what I see on the news.

Alleged solutions abound:

• More gun laws.
• More training for police.
• More police in problem neighborhoods.
• Hiring cops from the problem neighborhoods.
• More aggressive prosecution of hate crimes.
• More jobs for urban Black males.
• Better schools.
• Free college for all.

I watched a semi-moderated discussion on Fox News and the language reminded me of the nonsense I heard in the early 1970s on the campus of the University of Illinois, from which I earned a couple college degrees.  Oh…there was such passion and conviction.  There was such caring.  People really, really want everyone to hold hands and sing kum ba yah.  Why can’t we all just be friends?

Everything that is wrong is the fault of someone else.

The passionate demands pour forth:  The President should act.  Congress must act.  The states must act.  Maybe we need the United Nations to intervene.  And blah, blah, blah.

The racial strife and debate over gun control are tragic, but only symptoms of our greatest failure:  we have not taught our children well.

Ask a young person who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were – and what they stood for.  Ask them to explain Martin Luther King Junior’s “I have a dream” speech.  Ask them why their ancestors fought – and many died – fighting evil during World War II.

They likely won’t know.

Ask a young person who Jesus Christ was – and is – let along Moses, David, Peter, Paul and John.

Ask why the US Constitution was written to keep the government out of your life, not consume you.

Ask whether they can recall at least five of the 10 commandments.

As you certainly suspect, I’m not confident about the responses these questions will generate.  It isn’t that young people are stupid; they are ignorant and we are to blame. We have not taught them right from wrong.  We have not passed on the faith of our fathers.

We have taught them that problems are solved by laws and regulations…we have not taught them the natural law.

Without the knowledge of right and wrong, the moral foundation to take virtuous action, we see the only way to solve problems to be the creation and enforcement of laws that make people behave.  This approach is doomed to fail and we’ve proved it.

My home, Chicago, has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation – and has become America’s murder capital.

We have hate crime laws, but I have yet to understand why if someone kills me whether it matters how much they abhorred me at the time.

So I fear that we’ll have all sorts of new laws passed to show action and how much we really care.  They won’t make an iota of difference.

Half a century of ignoring, sometimes ridiculing the American Dream, making fun of the Christian faith and letting kids decide for themselves how much two plus two equals – all this silliness has left us with a serious problem.  Our culture is post moral.

It will take us half a century, courage and persistence to turn things around.  The sooner we get started, the fewer body bags we’ll need in homes, schools and city streets.