Even as we Catholics are facing a crisis of culture in America, so too are we facing a crisis of conscience in regards to our children and our Catholic schools.

Whether conservative elders of the 'old school' or 'children of the 'Sixties,' we parents, teachers and administrators have experienced firsthand the erosion of faith, morals and academic standards in both our Catholic and public school classrooms.

While the seeping of cultural decay into Catholic enclaves is disturbing, it is neither new nor unexpected. Catholic children watch the same TV shows, are taught by the same teachers, and are left home alone by the same parents as public school children--us.

Catholic administrators see the same decline in entrance scores and the same emotionally scarred students who come from broken families and impossible personal lives.

In a 10-year Middle States review of a local Catholic high school in which I tabulated the results of a demographic survey, 40 percent of the students were registered as being from single-family homes--the same percentage as the national average.

The roots of the problems facing us in our task to educate our children in the Catholic tradition include the fact that our schools have been largely financially and spiritually unsupported by a lukewarm laity (not just parents), unmonitored by shrinking church bodies, and unaffordable for the vast majority of children, especially those of devout families who choose to live on only one salary.

The literal abandonment of our schools has left a void which has been easily filled by children with special needs on the one hand and not a few teachers and administrators on the other hand with belief systems and agendas distinct from Catholic educational and religious tradition.

Religious education is administered, as in one Catholic high school, by religious who tolerate abortion. As one parent on the board of directors of a particular secondary private Catholic school was told by the administration, 'Our contributors insist that we teach that every woman should have a 'choice.' '

Theology is also taught, as at another Catholic private school, by ex-religious or ex-Catholics with deep issues against the Catholic Church and faith. Now heterodox, they feel very comfortable changing the church from within by educating youth.

Younger friends of mine, who are parents of Catholic high school students, heartily support abortion and the 'diversity' of faculties at their childrens' schools which include openly practicing homosexuals and one transvestite (that I know of personally).

My older friends either stand in judgment and condemnation (alienating the very people they are trying to help), or they wash their hands of the problems they see all too clearly.

While most of us parents are too busy working and feeling too guilty to believe everything may not be fine, grandparents have been seduced by the American retirement culture which says, 'I did my part--it's their turn now.'

No matter what age, we are all in the same denial created by surrendering our hearts to a culture obsessed with achievement, success, pleasure and freedom of expression.

Who's to blame? I am. You are. We are all guilty of the neglect and abandonment of our children to intolerable classroom environments that they do not even recognize as such, and to after-school detention facilities known as child-care centers.

In the name of tolerance and fear of criticism we have also abandoned our duty as Christians, educators, religious and parents to discern, admonish and rebuke when necessary to safeguard the hearts and souls of our children who are in intimate intellectual contact with those with decidedly anti-life and what might be called post-heterosexual agendas.

Even if we are in the great minority, and even if we have been consistently criticized for speaking out on these issues to school boards and church hierarchy, we have the moral obligation to defend our children.

What is needed is not a holy war or 'witch hunt,' but rather a revolution--a spiritual revolution. Through community prayer, grass roots organizing, and leadership in discernment and admonishment, we can hold all persons in authority over our children accountable for the moral and religious environments which are our schools.

Our children belong in the care of only those persons who love and are committed to Christ and his teachings. They have a sacred trust which they must not betray.

Discernment and admonishment in the task of a national Catholic school reform movement should not spring from a spirit of judgment and condemnation. All of us know the Gospel injunction to 'hate the sin but love the sinner.' We must continue, above all, to 'put on love,' as St. Paul tells us. We must not descend into innuendo, gossip and judgment (as we all have).

What, then, should be our response? It appears when the system fails, a new system would be in order. Can we organize to start new schools? The costs will be high. Can we home school? Who is at home to do this?

A revolution is in order: not a social or educational revolution, but a revolution of love. Hearts must change before anything else can.

It was the deep love that Paul felt for his flocks that caused him to admonish the churches in his charge. It was love that caused the early church to, first, go to each person in known error or sin to implore them to repent, and then to the authorities to resolve these situations.

If we are to salvage the schools our children attend, we must first convert the hearts of the majority of parents. Starting a parents' prayer group is an important beginning. In weekly prayer groups, parents and grandparents will finally learn of their childrens' problems and begin to break the barriers of silence and denial. They can form helpful connections for after-school care and forming community in a culture that discourages it.

We must reject the 'ain't it awful' syndrome that keeps you and me on the phone with sympathetic friends, complaining about the evils of the church. If we have time to talk, we have time to pray or do something about them.

We can pray that the Holy Spirit continue to lift up clergy, religious and laity who have been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit to teach, discern and heal, and deliver the clergy, teachers and religious who now are reaping the serious physical, emotional and spiritual consequences in their own lives of having raised their heads above the yoke of Christ.

We have also reached the grave point where many of our children need healing and deliverance from their influences. This healing and change, however, will only begin as we ourselves repent and open our own wounds which we only ignore by focusing on the problems and not the solutions.

Lastly, and most importantly, we must return to our families, our schools and our churches en masse to stand in the gap. Belonging to the PTA is not enough. Belonging to the parish council is not enough.

Our children need us and that web of infinitely small precious lines of love that we weave by our constant presence and concern and small acts of love.

This web was lost when our religious left the churches and schools, our mothers their homes and our fathers their duties to both. This web of love is the only shield there is from the deadly influences of our age.

It will mean giving up full-time work for mothers or fathers, sacrificing essentials, moving back home with grandparents if we are single parents, moving from a house to an apartment or to a group house.

As a single parent, I know the lack of time, money and moral and financial support that kept me from being there for my own daughter (until I went to part-time work and unemployment and started to live a poor but sane life again).

If we keep our children in school, let's be at school every day. Let's put the Blessed Sacrament back into school and pray in front of it every day. Let's help (not criticize) the teachers by being teachers' aides every day.

Let's help with the soccer team, basketball team, cheerleaders, student councils, student prayer groups, retreats and religious events every day. Let's volunteer or tutor in the library every day. Let's be home when our sons or daughters get home every day.

Let's offer to take back our single-parent grown children into our homes if we are grandparents. Let's stop blaming teachers (most of them are dedicated, underpaid and either ignorant or held hostage by the school cultures they are in).

Let's stop criticizing, lecturing and reminiscing. With God's help, let's start over and start now to take back the children we gave away.