Mailvox: Absolution for the Boomers

A Catholic Boomer suggests how Boomers can seek absolution for their sins against the succeeding generations:

I am a traditional Catholic and a boomer who agrees with you that as a generation, the boomers are a wicked generation. No fact is needed to prove this beyond the reality of the boomers having murder tens of millions of their children by abortion. What I want to write here is what boomers should do to repent of this sin, and all their other sins, in the years of life they have left— so as to obtain God’s forgiveness and absolution. I will use as model the Catholic “sacrament of reconciliation” or “penance.” The first step is repentance: to truthfully admit the sin and feel sincere sorrow for the offense to God and for the harm it is has caused to others. All traditional Catholic spiritual writer and all Saints emphasize what Vox has emphasized: stop making excuses or looking at the sins of others and concentrate on your own sins and correcting your own faults.

Sincere repentance requires restitution: if I have stolen another’s money, I must restore that amount to him, or at least as much as I am now able; to refuse to make the restitution I am able to make means I have not yet sincerely repented, I have not yet seen the seriousness of my sin. The boomer generation has stolen so much from future generations, there is now no way to pay back in full; but the repentance of each boomer should include at least turning over assets like their second homes to children and grandchildren and start leading a simple, ascetical life (for example, no cruises) in order to leave as much inheritance as possible.

Sincere repentance also requires a firm decision to cease committing the particular sin; included in this firm decision is avoiding the near occasions of sin: an adulterer must agree not to voluntary meet with the partner in sin; the alcoholic renounce going to bars, a glutton avoid expensive restaurants, etc.  Finally, receiving absolution includes accepting an appropriate penance: that is, accepting to increase the time in prayer, of reading Scripture and “good” spiritual books; also to practice the types of asceticism that will free me from the habitual tendencies that lead me towards particular sins.

Finally, saying a generation is wicked does not mean every individual within it is wicked. But even the “non-wicked” or the relatively good must answer this question: why did I fail to stop the wickedness, why did I fail to cooperate with the graces God was sending to turn this generation from its sinful course. Considering our many sins of omission, even the relatively good boomers still have much for which to seek God’s forgiveness and absolution.

Frankly, I am extremely dubious that any Boomers will repent of their collective crimes, much less actively seek absolution of the sort he recommends. But it would certainly help both them and their children and grandchildren if they were to do so.

As for me, I would settle for simple silence and staying out of the way while the younger generations attempt to salvage what can be salvaged from a broken society and a severely wounded civilization.