This story sounds like I’m making it up. I’m not. It’s true. Don’t worry if it doesn’t makes sense at first. It’s actually good if it doesn’t make sense at first. Reason? Because on the surface, it doesn’t appear to make sense. And it shouldn’t make sense. The real problem is if the story does make sense.

In October 1978, I was working a midnight shift on patrol as a street cop in a high-crime area of the Niagara Region. I was a 21 year-old, 3-year cop at that time. At 6:30 am, I received a call from the dispatcher: “Domestic in progress. Two suspects. Possibly armed. Code 3. Unit to back.”  I was only 5 blocks from the house address. When I arrived, the front door was smashed open. I heard two voices screaming and swearing. Two men were in the kitchen. One guy was 58 years-old. The other guy was 35 years-old. There were 17 empty beer bottles on the kitchen table along with an empty whiskey bottle. Two ashtrays were loaded. Overflowing. The 58 year-old guy pointed to the 35 year-old guy and screamed, “I want that guy out of the house! He called me a Catholic! Get him out now!” Under the Trespass to Property Act, you don’t need a reason to kick a guest out of your house. As soon as you remove “visitor consent,” the visitor becomes a  “trespasser.” I told the 35 year-old guy he had to leave or he would get arrested. He refused to leave and called me a “pig” (with a obscenity in front of the word pig.” I told the 35 year-old guy, “Last chance. He wants you out of the house.” The 35 year-old guy said, “I want HIM out of the house.” I told the 35 year-old guy not to be difficult and leave. Then the 35 year-old guy said, “Why do I have to leave, I live here?” Then I asked the 58 year-old guy, “Do you live here?” The 58 year-old guy said, “No. My son does,” and pointed to the 35 year-old guy. I asked the 35 year-old guy, “Who owns the house?” He said, “I do.”

Police Lesson #1: Don’t assume. Ask who owns the house the moment you arrive.

At that point, father and son threatened to kill each other. Easy decision to arrest both. Father and son both resisted arrest and fought with the cops.

At the police station, I said to the son who was drunk and high, “Just so you know, I’m Catholic.” He said, “So am I.” I said, “You called your Dad, a ‘Catholic.’ What’s wrong with Catholics?” He said,”Come on…you know what they’re like.”

I talked to the Dad who was drunk and high. I said, “Just wondering… your son says he’s Catholic but he called you a Catholic. What are you?”

He said, “What do you mean? Religion?” I said, “Yes, religion. Just wondering so I make sense out of this.” Dad said, “Well, my parents said I’m Catholic. That’s all I’m gonna say.” I asked: “Just curious. I’m Catholic. Why does it insult you to be called Catholic?” Dad asked, “What? You don’t know?”

I’m writing these blogs to try to invite discussion about the decline in attending Mass. What does this story have to do with the decline of Catholic Mass Attendance? Everything. Catholic Mass Absenteeism isn’t new. It’s Old. Dual meaning. It started in the Old Days and it started with Old People. “Old Days” is defined as, “long ago when the problem started to grow.” Old People is not defined just by age. Old People is defined by fatigue, at any age. Exhaustion. Humans feel old when they can’t keep up any more. And when they can’t keep up any more, they give up more. They give up what they used to fight for. Reason? They run out of gas. And they’re too tired to admit it. Fatigue becomes the enemy of logic. Instead of making sense, they stop the fight to make sense. They settle for no sense. They find creative solutions such as bashing each other with words. Words that demand no effort, no exertion, no discomfort, no hardship. They settle for Easyship. Easyship, a word not in the English Dictionary, is one of the infinite examples of Post-Modernism. It describe a mentality that desires a marked departure from the past. Easyship is one reason why people bash each other with words that insult their religion and use it as an excuse to stop going to Church. If that statement doesn’t make sense, it shouldn’t. That’s why it’s used as an excuse.

The domestic investigation I described was part of my journey in becoming a Bashing Expert. I’m an expert in cop bashing, teacher bashing, Canadian Football-Coach bashing, Italian bashing, Southern-Italian bashing, Catholic bashing.

Cop bashing hasn’t evolved in Post-Modernism. It’s primitive. Cop bashers aren’t creative. They’re boring. They’re unimaginative. They’re old-school. They plagiarize. They copy, they cut & paste. Nothing original. During 15 years of policing, cop bashers never came up with anything original. Same old insults. “Pig.” “Pig,” accompanied by death threats, donut jokes. Nothing new. Cop bashing never evolved. Stuck in the past.

Same with teacher bashing. The day I became a college law-enforcement teacher, a cop I used to work with said, “Must be nice. Now you get summers off, March break off, Christmas and Easter off.”  Teacher bashers are primitive. No post-modernism. Nothing original. Same old teacher-bashing insults. Nothing Post-Modern.

Canadian Football-Coach bashing is boring. American football coaches call us soft. American football coaches call Canadian football coaches another bad word that I won’t use in this article because the article would have to be X-Rated. It’s an 8-letter word that starts with an “S” and ends in a “K.” Same old Canadian Football-Coach bashing. Nothing new. Nothing original. Nothing Post-Modern.

Italian-bashers are the worst copy-cats and plagiarists. “Dago,” “Wop.” “Greaseball.” “Spaghetti-bender.” All copycats. Plagiarism. Even when they put “Dumb” in front of each insult. Nothing new. Nothing original. Primitive. Nothing Post-Modern.

Southern-Italian bashing by Northern Italians? Same thing. Old. Nothing new. Nothing Post-Modern. Slanderous low stereotypical insults. Dual meaning: Low IQ and low character.

But Catholic bashing is a different story. It’s creative. It’s Post-Modern. It’s evil. Pure evil. Don’t Google, “Catholic Bashing,” it’s traumatic. You won’t recover easily from what you read. Resist the temptation to Google, “Catholic Bashing.” Resist the temptation on all of your social media newsfeeds. It will take you six weeks to recover. Minimum.

Do not Google, “Marco Rubio American Secretary of State.” Secretary Rubio is Catholic. On Ash Wednesday last week, he appeared on cable TV with a cross on his forehead after receiving ashes at Mass. He kept the ashes on during the entire international, TV interview while talking about global issues—for the entire world to see. If you Google, “Marco Rubio,” you won’t have to type “cross on his forehead” because it appears automatically. Warning: Do not read the vile comments. Vile and evil have the exact same four letters for a reason. They are scrambled for a reason—because they will scramble your mind and your thinking. Do not let your children or any adult loved ones Google, “Marco Rubio.” Save their minds from poisoning. Reason? Post-Modern Catholic Bashing has reached next-level. The good news is that Marco Rubio had the guts to do it. He had the guts to put his Catholicism on full display in front of the entire world. More good news: He’s part of the solution to this serious problem of low Mass attendance. But his message has been obscured because of Post-Modern Catholic bashing.

Word bashing is an expression of internal pain that is intended to cause external pain. Bashing with words is a solution used by immature, weak minds that are unwilling and incapable of finding a mature solution to a problem. What problem? Their Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is the inner-conflict caused by contradiction… by crossing your heart, by ignoring your conscience, by knowing better but not doing better. Left unchecked, Cognitive Dissonance becomes a lifestyle of deception, a lifestyle of abandonment, a lifestyle of abdicating responsibilities. Left unresolved, Cognitive Dissonance burns relationships from the inside-out. Relationships with self, with other humans, with your conscience, with your soul, with The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Values, beliefs, character, and morality are abandoned. Then relationships and then health in mind-body-soul. A Cycle of Despair results from the vortex of lies, alibis, and denials.

Word bashing is a subconscious and conscious attempt to separate from whoever and whatever causes pain that results from obligation. When obligation causes pain, the human mind searches for an escape, regardless of who gets hurt during the escape. Pain is transferable. Someone’s pain-relief becomes someone’s killer-pain. The cycle is embedded in the economy of Pain Exchange as pain becomes currency…  spent or saved at anyone’s expense in order to justify a lie, any alibi, or any denial.

The human mind bashes any person, any culture, any organization whose structure is based on accountability. We bash anyone and anything that threatens our desire to do whatever we want without consequences, without repercussion, without permission. Bashing is a defence to an offence… real or imagined. When we fear getting caught, we bash those who want to catch us. Then we hide behind freedom-of-speech, regardless of the expense. Free from guilt no matter what or who gets killed. Multiple meanings.

When we want to create distance, we attack relevance.

Separate, then berate.

And vice-versa.

Another slight, another fight.

And vice-versa.

Bad news: Bashing is one of the steps along the dangerous continuum that connects contempt with hate.

When I was a detective, I spent too many hours in interrogation rooms, sitting across from violent criminals—who were arrested for unspeakable crimes—for one purpose: Get a confession. Just like on Saturdays at St. Patrick’s at 4 pm.

There was one common / uncommon denominator that characterized every violent criminal: They were filled with hate. Hate that manifested in physical violence against the Hated One. Hate is a dangerous Change Agent. It dangerously alters worldview and workview. When you hate someone to the point that it consumes you, perspective is lost. Logic is lost. Sanity is lost. Value for decency is lost. Value for human life is lost.

What’s the solution? Can’t solve any mystery until you identify the problem with 100% laser accuracy.

And admit it.

Confess.

No lies, no alibis, no denials.

It’s impossible to change when you won’t admit it. It’s always tough to admit it because every confession acknowledges guilt. And neglect. And commission. And omission. Absolutely zero positive change will ever happen without admitting culpability.

We did it.

We’re guilty.

We all know exactly what happened.

All marked departure from past culture is the outcome of weakening. Multiple meanings. Same with broken relationships. Weakening won’t work. Dual meaning. And vice-versa. Weakening leads to abandonment. And vice-versa. When it’s deleted from our personal list of Basic Survival Needs, we abandon it.

My generation weakened family security.

We abandoned what needed to be taught and taught what didn’t need to be taught.

We abdicated our responsibility to teach the Core Values that our ancestors taught.

We relinquished our moral obligation to teach our families the same Core Values our parents taught. Ambushed and attacked the structure our ancestors built.

We handed over Core-Value teaching responsibility to those outside the family. Outsourced it. Delegated the teaching of it.

We rebelled against the families that raised us. Shredded our upbringing, tore it apart.

We didn’t even protect the economy for our own families. Made it almost impossible for our families to have the lifestyle that our ancestors fought and built for us.

Our own families likely will never buy or own a house, never afford to feed themselves and their families in the same way we did.

Catholic Faith and Catholic Mass attendance are just more casualties of the mess we created. We know the solution but we won’t admit it. Why? When you admit to a problem, you have to commit to the work to solve it. It’s easier to complain about the problem than try to solve it.

Good news: We can fill the seats at Mass. How? It’s a long story but here’s a start. It’s already happening. There’s a blueprint. These two links explain a wide-spread Christian revival by young people that’s in-progress, right now in 2025:

https://cbn.com/news/entertainment/ohio-state-notre-dame-players-share-hope-theyve-found-jesus-ahead-championship

https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/2025/01/21/ohio-state-notre-dame-football-national-championships-faith/77849913007/

On the surface, both articles appear to explain only the outcomes, not solutions. But if you read deeper, you will see the evidence that solves the mystery of how to fill the seats at Mass. The rest of the solution is a long story.

Continued in part 7.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

March 15, 2025

In October 2005, one of my college law enforcement students asked me for a meeting. He was also a football player on my Canadian college football team that I coached, a non-profit team sponsored by my wife and me. The team was called the Niagara X-Men. We played exclusively in the USA for the singular purpose of helping Canadian student-athletes reach the next-level and the next and the next. At the beginning of the fall semester, this student told me his dream was to earn a football scholarship to an American University. I told him, “Your dream is now my dream.” At this October meeting, he said he had to go to his sister’s wedding in Aruba. He asked me if he could write all his fall mid-term exams before everyone else. I told him, “No, because we would both get fired for committing a scandal that would make headlines.” Additionally, he stated he would miss two football games and asked if he could keep his starting linebacker job when he returned. I said, “No, because we would both get fired for committing a scandal that would make headlines.” The following conversation ensued:

I asked him, “Does your sister like living in Aruba?”

He said, “She lives in Canada.”

I asked, “Why is the wedding in Aruba?”

He said, “It’s a “Destination Wedding. They were getting married on a beach and over 100 people were flying to Aruba for the wedding.”

I told him, “Nice try.”

I told the student I didn’t believe him. I said that I had been a cop for 15 years. I told him that policing made me an expert lie detector. I wasn’t easily fooled. I said that “Destination Wedding” was 1 of the top 26 craziest fabrications I’d ever heard of, including all the professional lies and alibis made up by violent criminals I had arrested and interrogated.

Two hours later, I said at a faculty meeting, “Kids these days. A student just lied through his teeth about missing exams and 2 Gamedays. He’s going on vacation to Aruba but covered it up with a made-up story about a Destination Wedding to get sympathy. Can you believe it? Destination Wedding! Can you imagine? Getting married on a beach a thousand miles away? Come on. There’s no end to student lies.”

Someone in the meeting said, “It’s true. Destination Weddings are becoming a big deal.”

The first thing I thought was, good thing people got married in a Church in The 60s. Destination Weddings in The 60s would have cost me a fortune in lost Wedding-Money altar-boy income. Destination Weddings would have caused a recession—receding altar boy income.

The second thing I thought was having to move away from Port Colborne or Ontario or Canada, if my wife and I had been married on a beach. What does that mean? There’s an Italian phrase called “Che Vergogna.” Translation. What an embarrassment. Not just any embarrassment. Next-Level Embarrassment. 5th-Degree Embarrassment. The type that would force you to have to move out of the community, far away, out of sight. Long distance move. Maybe to Aruba. Why? My poor illiterate Southern Italian parents Antonio and Maria were not Post-Modern parents. In Southern Italian Culture, you got married in a Church. A Catholic Church. No sand, no beach, no sun, no fun. With a Priest. A Catholic priest. The same priest you received communion from every Sunday, no…matter… what. The same priest you confessed all your sins to every single Saturday at 4 pm, no…matter…what. Then, you all said, “I do.” Then, you did. Then you did it the same way that everybody did it. You did it the same way because the same way worked. Dual meaning. It got the job done and you got the job done. Culture was a Magnetic Force back then. Culture attracted. Culture was a Gravitational Force that kept you grounded. You didn’t take flight away from a fight. Or for a Destination Wedding.

Antonio and Maria didn’t compromise their faith for no one, including me. They weren’t easily influenced by Post-Modern peer pressure to abandon their faith or their culture or their principles or their values. They were minimalists, immune to trends, spending sprees, and luxury. They taught me the 3 Basis Rules of Italianomics:

1. Do the most with the least.
2. Earn the most and spend the least.
3. Say the least while you work the most, earn the most, save the most.

Italianomics was based on the deep-rooted Southern Italian mentality called Arrangiarsi—the will and capacity to endure, no matter what, no matter where, no matter when. No matter how hard it got. No matter how little you had. No matter the risk. No matter how impossible it looked. The Southern Italian Culture had zero tolerance for Code-Breaking. There was only one C.F.L. in the Southern Italian Culture—Consequence-Full Life. You paid for your Culture Crimes. No leniency. No defence. No presumption of innocence. Just presumption of guilt, dual meaning. Guilt without a trial and trial resulting from guilt. Guilt was a driving force back then, dual meaning. Guilt drove you to High Achievement or drove you crazy. It depended on Cultural Worldview and Workview, and what effect it had on you.

The heresy and controversy of me getting married on a beach would have been the equivalent of Canada changing it’s flag colours to red, white and blue. I would have faced the same outrage we Canadians are feeling at the thought of becoming the 51st State. That outrage would have led to rebellion. To protest. To exclusion. I would have had to immigrate to another county or another country. I would have become a dual citizen: second-generation Southern Italian and first-generation immigrant to wherever I would have moved.

Imagine the outrage today if your favourite hockey team changed their uniform colour from blue to green. Imagine what Toronto Maple Leafs fans would do if the Leafs abandoned their culture and ditched their iconic blue uniforms for green or purple or yellow. Or if they played their home games on a beach. Or in Aruba. Or away games on a beach. Or in Aruba. There would be a rebellion. Online and offline. There would be protests. Online and offline. The economy would collapse. People would book off sick…indefinitely. No one would work, nothing would work. The health care system would collapse. Hockey fans would fight back with deep, profound passion trying to preserve Leafs Culture. That’s why Cultures endure—by fighting, not taking flight. By fighting for beliefs and for The Leafs, not taking flight from beliefs or from The Leafs. By fighting to follow their conscience, not fighting against their conscience.   

My poor illiterate Italian parents Antonio and Maria were not hockey fans or sports fans. They were Culture Fans. There were fanatic about Southern Italian Culture that was based on 3 F’s: Faith, Family, Fatica. In Italian, “Fatica” means gut-spilling work. Manual labour. Lifting heavy weight, carrying heavy weight. “Fatica” is the essential element of building structure, triple meaning. Structure of family, structure for family to live in, structure for family to work in. “Fatica” is also the essential element of building Structure of Faith. It works for you when you work at it. And vice-versa.

Faith, Family, Fatica start with the same two letters for  a reason. “Fa” in Broken Uneducated Illiterate Southern Italian means “do.” It means “do it forthwith, do it consistently, do it passionately, do it without complaining, do it without excuses, do it to endure, do it as an expression of love for God and for family, and Do It No Matter What.” The 3 Fs were unconditional, non-negotiable, and binding. Dual meaning. The 3 F’s bind the conscience, and the 3 Fs bind God with family and with Fatica. When it works and when humans work at it, the 3 Fs bind for life. Binding life-time contracts. No escape clause. No exceptions, no appeals, no grievances. Binding agreement. Binding alignment. Binding assignment.

Bad news. No bind, starts to unwind. Result? Big Mess, no success, just a lot of stress.

The 3 Fs were Basic Survival Needs for Southern Italians. Like oxygen. Every strong relationship, personal or professional, with humans or work or activities, needs oxygen to survive. Same with faith. No oxygen, suffer asphyxiation. Any relationship without oxygen asphyxiates. When you need it like oxygen, you will fight for it. It becomes a matter of life and death. When you don’t, the relationship suffocates. Every human builds a personal List of Basic Survival Needs composed of Fixed Needs and Flux Needs. Fixed Needs are universal prerequisites for all human survival: food, water, shelter, love. Flux Needs are the changing needs, good or bad, that each individual customizes through positive or negative growth, to form Personal Ethos, their distinguishing character, that defines identity through intensity of consistency. In the 60s, the 3 Fs were indelibly etched in the psyche of society’s collective Basic Survival Needs Lists. There was no “delete” function. The 3 Fs were saved on your Inner Hard Drive forever. Hardwired and Wired Hard. Bound together, dual meaning. The 3 Fs remained culturally-based until Post-Modern Society launched an attack against them, starting a War of Worlds—a war on your world and a war on the world of your Loved Ones.

Bad news, we are not our ancestors. We didn’t fight back. We took flight. Why? Comfort. Complacency. Weak. Spoiled. Soft. Reason? Weak struggle. Our struggle was weaker than the struggle of our ancestors. We struggled less than our ancestors because we were given more. When you’re given more, more is expected. Except when you get comfortable, complacent, spoiled, soft, fragile and weak. That’s what happens when you get it handed to you. You get it handed to you. We had it handed to us. We handed more to our kids. They handed more to their kids.

My generation had unprecedented comfort handed to us. Then we gave the next generation even more comfort. More comfort, less effort. And vice-versa. Applies on/in Any Field. Replacement Therapy took over. Indulgence and affluence replaced perseverance, endurance, and adherence. There’s a direct relationship between degree of struggle and degree of faith. It’s one of the Laws of Proportion. The more struggle you face, the more faith you practice. And vice-versa.

Our struggle and sacrifice never has and never will match the struggle and sacrifice our ancestors. Instead of honouring the sacrifices and struggles of our ancestors, we dishonour them. We made it easy, now it’s become hard.

Hard to believe, dual meaning. Hard to believe in what our ancestors believed in, and hard to believe the mess we’ve created. It’s hard to believe that we let other people tell us and our families what to believe and not believe. It’s hard to believe that we let our culture die. It’s hard to believe that we find it so hard to believe. If our ancestors were alive, they would find all this hard to believe.

Lost the struggle, lost faith. And vice-versa. They removed First Generation struggle for us. We removed Second Generation struggle for our families. They removed Third Generation struggle for their families. Now we all struggle when there’s real struggle. Now we all struggle when there’s life and death struggle of our culture. Now we all struggle to show up. Why? Because of the Law of Unintended Consequences: by removing struggle, we added struggle. We added struggle to show up when it’s time to step up. And vice-versa. We added struggle to step up when it’s time to show up. No wonder Post-Modern Society doesn’t show up. It’s the consequence of evolution. The strong keep showing up, the weak don’t. We became a victim of Darwinism… the strong survive, the weak get eaten alive.

Our ancestor’s culture got eaten alive. We surrendered without a fight. We replaced our ancestor’s values with the values of government who told us what to think, when to think it, and where. We voted for it, we celebrated it, we promoted it, we spectated it, we became fans. We sat in the stands at a standstill. Stuck in neutral. Lost our backbone, lost our nerve, lost our strength, lost our faith. We got tired easily. Got out-of-shape in mind, body, and soul. Screen Size shrunk Life Size. Our lives shrunk to the size of our screens. Miniature Lives. Artificial Lives. Superficial Lives. Stressful Lives.

We became Blind Conformists in exchange for anything free and legal. Vote for me, I’ll give it to you legal and free. Didn’t have to pay for it, then we paid for it. Now we ask, “Where did they go? Where did it all go?”

Answer. We watched from the sideline. We abandoned the frontline. In less than one generation we wasted our Cultural Inheritance. If we had  protected our Cultural Inheritance with the same energy as we protect our financial inheritance, we would show up. They would show up We would enjoy Attendance Abundance. Places would be packed like they were in The 60s. Instead, my generation got soft and weak, easy to defeat. We made the next generation softer and weaker, easier to defeat. We should have ignored Post-Modern influence that warped and twisted our mind’s and our Loved One’s Minds. On Small Screens, on Big Screens. We voted against our conscience. We voted against our faith. We selected and elected superficially and artificially. In less than one generation, we destroyed the structure that an entire culture had built over centuries. Why? Laziness.

We were warned. But we didn’t listen, dual meaning. Didn’t listen to our conscience. Didn’t listen to our culture. Reason? Ignorance and arrogance. We think we we’re smarter than our parents. Our kids think they’re smarter than us. Their kids think they’re smarter than our kids. Ignorance and arrogance is contagious. Left unchecked, ignorance and arrogance spread easily, dual meaning. Ignorance and arrogance goes viral and then spreads the dangerous. It spreads the dangerous lie that life will always be easy. That life will be easier because of more technology. That life will be easier with Artificial Intelligence. That life must be easier because of the lie that we are entitled to an Easy Life. We have become Enablers of Entitlement. Then we complain about it. Don’t complain about that which you tolerate. And vice-versa… don’t tolerate what you complain about.

We were warned long ago. St. Thomas Aquinas warned us that laziness was a symptom of Acedia way back in the13th Century. There was no artificial intelligence back then. There was “real intelligence.” Spiritual intelligence. Generations listened. They listened and warned us. So did our parents. Even the ones who were illiterate and uneducated. Reason? They had to work for it. They had to work for their spiritual intelligence. They had to work for all their relationships. Our ancestors didn’t discard relationships when the work got too hard. Including Spiritual Relationships. Post-Modern Society has normalized Disposable Relationships and Decomposable Relationships. Can’t relate, don’t tolerate, just terminate.

We’ve normalized superficial and artificial relationships, intelligence, excellence, strength, and character. When relationships became disposal, character followed. Character became disposal, superficial, and artificial. And weak character easily followed Post-Modern Leaders who taught us to abandon faith, to vote against it, to vote it out, to cut it out. My generation allowed our kids to be taught to ignore the voice of their conscience in exchange for campaign promises to make life more comfortable, more pleasurable, regardless of the cost. Now the cost has skyrocketed just like the cost of houses, food, clothes, cars, gas. And Destination Weddings.

I got paid a lot of money to show up for funerals in The 60s. In My 60s, we all are paying for the Death of Character. And the cost keeps skyrocketing just like the cost of living in a Canadian economy that is unaffordable. It’s hard to believe how much it costs to live, to eat, to survive, to thrive. No wonder it’s hard to believe that it’s hard to believe.

Good news. There’s a solution.

Bad news. We already know it.

We already learned it.

But we keep failing the test.

Continued in Part 6.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

March 4, 2025

Church isn’t the only place they don’t show up to anymore.

In The 60s, attendance was governed by the 90-10 Rule. At least 90% showed up. Less than 10% were absent. This applied everywhere. Church, school, practice, work day, Training Day, Gameday. In my 60s, the 90-10 Rule reversed—t became the 10-90 Rule—10% showed up, 90% didn’t.

I coached football for 40 years. Over 90% of my football coaching career was governed by the 90-10 Rule of Attendance. Training Day was packed. Practice was packed. The Gym was packed. Same applied to College law-enforcement teaching. I was a College Law Enforcement Professor for 20 years, including 13 years as Program Coordinator of 2 programs. Over 90% of my teaching career was governed by the 90-10 Rule of Attendance. College classrooms were packed. Over 200 students per class. Jam packed. All of it was Life Size. Full of life. Until Post-Modern Society shrunk Life Size to Screen Size. My conscience is clear. I taught over 25,000 student-athletes before life shrunk to the size of the screens they were attached to most and longest. Many listened. Some didn’t. Those who did listen grew Life Size and reached the Next Level.

Life shrunk, attendance shrunk. And vice-versa. At football practice, at the gym, in College law enforcement classrooms, attendance shrunk. Same with Church. The 90-10 Rule of Attendance from The 60s reversed to the 90-10 Rule of Absence. All of it Emptied Out. Multiple meanings. Emptied Out in passion, drive, will to work, minds, bodies, souls. Emptiness—dual meaning—didn’t just happen. Nothing just happens.

Fifteen years in policing taught me that nothing happens coincidentally, randomly, accidentally, through osmosis, or overnight. Good or bad, nothing just happens without reasons, reactions, and actions. Everything, good or bad, happens purposely. Triple meaning. On purpose, with purpose, or without purpose. Remove purpose from life, watch what happens on purpose. Including crime, stress, anxiety, fear, pain and agony that causes crime and results from crime. Including the crime of “Fail To Appear.” Church, practice, gym, class wasn’t the only places. They made “Fail To Appear in Court” a criminal offence. They issued warrants to arrest those who “Fail To Appear in court.” They hold them in custody until they appear. The law even gives authority to use force if necessary, if the offender resists. Parents in The 60s used the same authority to prevent Fail To Appear at school, work, practice, and Church.

  

Post-Modern Emptiness is not exclusive to Church. Post-Modern Emptiness has spread anywhere that effort and exertion are needed in mind-body-soul. More work demanded, more emptiness. Post-Modern Emptiness has become an epidemic any place where relationship-building needs work. Post-Modern Emptiness became both a problem and a solution. Emptiness and absence became solutions in the minds of student-athletes and adults who had been taught to not show up when it was time to work hard. And then they were rewarded for not showing up. Absence has been rewarded with Absence of Consequence in the Post-Modern C.F.L.—Consequence-Free Life. How did it happen? Kids made adult decisions. Adults made kid decisions. AssBackward Mentality. Result? Life shrunk, attendance shrunk. The attendance-absence ratio reversed. Decision-making authority reversed. Result? Culture Shock.

Culture Shock is a state of disorientation that leads to dysfunction. Heading up the list of dysfunction is dysfunctional relationships starting with personal relationships of mind, body, soul. When mind-body-soul are not aligned, you align with no one else and with nothing else. No alignment, no assignment. Disconnected and fragmented. Dual meaning. What was valued in the 60s in not valued today in My 60s. Showing up was valued by over 90%. That’s why over 90% showed up. Presence was valued, absence was not valued. Absence carried consequence that worked from the inside-out, starting with the conscience. In the 60s, the most compelling consequence for absence was intrinsic. Your Inner Self felt the intrinsic consequence. In the 60s, it was called “guilt.” Back then, guilt worked. Dual meaning. When guilt stops working, conscience stops working. And vice-versa. Then, the will to work stops working. Result? Life shrinks, attendance shrinks.

One immutable, irrefutable fact has existed since the beginning of civilization: human development cannot occur though self-directed learning. Children are incapable of learning a strong Moral Base through self-directed learning. Same with adults. Self-directed learning is a myth, propagated by self-professed experts to avoid the brutally hard work of teaching inherent to every single form of leadership including the coaching establishment, the education establishment and most importantly, parenting. The only thing humans are capable of learning on their own is the wrong choice. Wrong choices lead to building neural pathways that wire you up to keep doing the same wrong thing repeatedly until you consciously decide otherwise. All elements of human development—physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual—depend on which type of Performance Demand the mind makes on the body and soul.

There are two types of Performance Demands: good and bad. Here’s the good news and bad news. We supply what we demand, good or bad. And vice-versa. It’s humanly impossible for children to learn how to make mature, productive, moral, functional Performance Demands full of meaning and purpose, without being taught;  without a continuum of prerequisite external Performance Demands made by mature, responsible adults who have been Divinely Called to lead.

Post-Modern Society has taken its turn at using child development as a Social Experiment, using us all as lab rats. Reason? Post-Modern Society believes it’s smarter than anyone in the past. They even think they’re smarter than Most High God. We elect them, we hire them, we entrust them to make decisions about what our children will learn, how they will learn it, and from whom. They know more than any of our ancestors. Why? Because we have more screens. We can stick any size screen in front of a kid using the false pretence of learning, child care, babysitting, or anything else to reduce the Leadership Workload.

Leadership Fatigue. My generation suffers from it. We gave up leading, teaching, coaching, mentoring. We compromised. We sunk to Deep Complacency. We are all guilty of Code-Breaking. We broke Cultural Codes because of one simple reason: conformity. We conformed to Post-Modern Beliefs just to fit in. Why? Fear. Fear of being different. Fear of being original. Fear of hard work. Fear of being disliked. We lost our backbone, our nerve, our guts that we inherited from our ancestors who accomplished more than we ever have or ever will, with less.

The only thing we do better than our ancestors is complain. Make excuses. Blame. We complain about “kids these days.” We complain about how much it’s changed from The 60s to My 60s. But, we let it happen. We were handed a fortune by our ancestors who spilled their guts and their guilts building structures, multiple meanings. Instead of building on their structures, we destroyed them. We abdicated our leadership responsibility. We abandoned our cultural education and replaced it with Post-Modern Education that has dramatically increased illiteracy. Dual meaning. We can’t read or write. We can’t read the signs. We can’t even see the signs. Synchronistic Spiritual Promptings have been drowned out by our screens. We have relinquished discernment in favour of screens, hoping to fill voids and emptiness—intellectually, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Remove struggle, nothing improves. One of the top 26 reasons why attendance shrunk at practice, in the gym, in class, is absence of The Struggle. Same with Church. The human mind is work-averse. The Weak Mind associates struggle with real or imaged pain that will exceed it’s pain threshold. Left unchecked, the mind habitually responds to any challenge by pushing the wrong switch. It pushes the Flight Switch instead of the Fight Switch. Our ancestors fought. Our ancestors were fighters—we are Flighters. We’ll take any flight—dual meaning—to any destination, at any cost, affordable or not, to escape.

Here’s what I’ve taught over 25,000 student-athletes: there’s no escape when you take Flight. There’s just more Fight, dual meaning. 1st meaning: the degree of difficulty of the challenge you escaped from, gets worse. 2nd meaning: the Inner Fight manifests in Extreme Cognitive Dissonance when you ignore the voice of conscience. We pay a price that no one can afford with Killer Stress when we contradict our conscience, when we know better but don’t do better. The price skyrockets just like the price of houses, price of food, price of gas, price of education, in this out-of-whack Canadian economy.

Here’s the irony. Life shrunk to the size of screens. Attendance shrunk. But the cost of living didn’t.

Good news. Solutions are not shrinking.

Bad news. Voices are shrinking.

Continued in part 5

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

February 25, 2025

I knew it was a sin, but I prayed for no one to show up at Church.

Back in The 60s, there was a 3-tier curriculum for teaching “sins” at St. Patrick’s School. The Religion teacher taught the Basics of Sin. Venial Sin and Mortal Sin. A kid in our class started a rumour that Mortal Sin meant you would die on-the-spot. The next level of sin curriculum was taught by the Principal. The highest level of sin curriculum was taught by The Priest during his regular visits. They taught us that intent mattered. Dual meaning. Did you mean to do it? And it was a sin if you intended for it to happen, even if it didn’t. Sin of Intention: praying for a bad intention or even just hoping for a bad intention. No one asked the teacher or the Principal or The Priest what type of sin it was if you intentionally hoped or prayed for a bad intention. We didn’t want to know. We rationalized that not knowing the classification of the sin sounded better and felt better.

I knew that hoping and praying for no one to show up for Benediction was a sin but I did it anyway. The altar was packed for Benediction. The Church was almost packed for every Benediction. Not one, not two, three altar servers were need every Benediction, every…single…Sunday. I prayed for an empty church hoping The Priest would cancel Benediction so we could show up on time for street-ball to prevent being harassed and insulted by public school street-ball teams for going to Church too much. In The 60s, everything was packed, including streets. Every sport, every season. And neighbourhoods were packed with kids—street-ball-aged kids.

Neighbourhoods had their own teams. All teams were territorial. Each team identified themselves with by their level of insults. In The 60s, insults were socially acceptable. And expected. They didn’t start calling it “trash-talking” until the 80s. Before then, they kept it simple. Dual meaning. Simple insults. And they simply called it “insults.” The 60s weren’t complicated. Getting to the point mattered. Being offended wasn’t recognized in The 60s. Insults were governed by an Exchange Rate. You were expected to exchange insults at par or higher. Showing up late for street-ball because of Benediction guaranteed intensity of insults exchanged.

My prayers were never answered. They showed up. Almost packed Church at 1 p.m. Nothing cancelled Benediction. No snow days, no heat days, no storm warnings, no outbreaks. There was no Weather Network. Just 13 channels if you had a modern antenna. And there was no air conditioning. Not one Benediction was cancelled. Not during the pre-season or regular season or post-season. Benediction affected street-ball every season.

Prayers didn’t work. They showed up. We asked ourselves, “Why?” Public school kids asked us, “Why?” Why did they show up for Benediction just an hour after 11 o’clock Mass? It was a mystery to us but not to them. They knew why they showed up. The real mystery would have been if no one showed up. That was answer to “why.” No one wanted to be part of a mystery back then. Being part of a mystery contradicted Culture. Whatever mysteries you had in your mind were private. You didn’t publicize your mysteries in The 60s. Mysteries were to be solved, not avoided, and never participated in. Reason? Alignment and assignment. The absence of mystery led to agreement, to shared beliefs, principles, and values. And vice-versa. Agreement lead to absence of mystery. The Culture Code was simple: don’t be a mystery but be a mystery.

There were no Screen Addictions on The 60’s. You didn’t walk around with screens. You didn’t stare at screens. The only screen that mattered was the one in the confessional between you and The Priest. Alignment and assignment. In The 60s, weekly Confession was the solution to all your sins, intentional or otherwise. The outcome of the intended sin didn’t matter. Even if they showed up, you showed up at 4 p.m. every Saturday. Lined up, fessed up. Sins added up but you weren’t allowed to add them up and go once a month or once a year at Christmas or Easter.

The religion teacher at St. Patrick’s School taught us not to lie about Sin Quantity or Sin Quality. Never diminish the severity of the sin. And never diminish the quantity of sins. Honesty out, honesty in. And vice-versa. Count them up because they all counted. Like with compound interest, lying about the number of sins multiplied Sin Quality. And they taught us that a low number of sins was suspicion of holding back sins. They taught us that The Priest was trained in Sin Credibility. So we padded the Sin List. It didn’t feel like a sin to lie about a higher number of sins. We rationalized that lying about sins you didn’t commit just to be credible to The Priest was good practice just in case you forgot some sins or underestimated the bad things you said or did or didn’t do. It always made you nervous, confessing to praying for an empty Church. You worried about being identified by The Priest. There was enough room on the left side of the screen in the confessional to sheild your face hoping to prevent facial recognition. Other “protect your identity” strategies were discussed with classmates: lowering your voice or whispering; using a fake accent; blocking your face with your hands. Mumbling, like when you forgot Latin during Mass, wouldn’t work because you had to confess that you mumbled during Mass when you forgot your Latin lines.

Even the incense was packed. None of us really knew the purpose of Benediction. If we were taught, we forgot. One reason was that Benediction made you nervous. Some kid spread a rumour that the incense would explode and kill you if you packed too much and too tight. They used to use incense pucks. Then they switched to powder. Or the other way around. They taught you to pack incense up to a line that was visible only on the inside of the Incense Holder that The Priest swung. And you were responsible for tightening the Incense Holder. Some kid spread a rumour that it was a Mortal Sin to play a practical joke by not tightening the Incense Holder. If the incense pucks flew out, you would die on the spot. Public school street-ball teams insulted you for smelling like incense. So did the Catholic street-balls teams. Incense Insults unified religious denominations.

Be careful what you pray for. They stopped showing up. Benediction was cancelled. Nothing is packed any more. Not church, not masses, not confession, not weddings, not funerals, not even streets. Street-ball disappeared about the same time as 1 pm Benediction.

Fifteen years of policing taught me that you can’t solve the mystery of absence with the absence of evidence. And before you search for presence of evidence, you need to identify the cause of absence. All absence boils down to a Relationship Break-up of some kind. There are 26 main causes of all relationship break-ups. The top four causes are:

1. Someone said something,
2. Someone didn’t say something.
3. Someone did something.
4. Someone didn’t do something.

Every change in a relationship boils down to a change of words and works. Too much and not enough. Too much of the bad kind or not enough of the good kind. Wrong choice of words, wrong choice of works. Pain versus pleasure. It’s easy to blame change on isolation and in isolation. But in reality, all change for good or bad always happens contextually…there’s always context, there’s always a complex interaction of tangible and intangibles that build an emotional network of inducement that affects intention. Intention to appear and intention to disappear.

All change, good or bad, is promoted by need. Needs change. We change needs. Every human shares a common list of Basic Survival Needs. Then we customize our own  individual list by constantly adding and subtracting Personalized Basic Survival Needs. When Basic Survival Needs align, places get packed. When they don’t align, emptiness happens. Multiple meanings.

Change alters needs. And vice-versa. Result? Adaption or extinction. Get stronger or get weaker. Applies on or in any field. The fight between adapting to changing needs and need to change is not won by the weak-willed. Lose the fight and the result is an extreme case of Cognitive Dissonance, defined as the painful inner conflict that burns inside an individual, a team, or an organizations when actions contradict beliefs. And vice-versa. And when works contradict words. And vice-versa. Cognitive Dissonance is inner conflict caused by crossing your heart, by believing one thing but doing another. Knowing better but not doing better. And vice-versa. Left unchecked, the Downward Spiral Effect. Structure breaks. Culture shatters with it. Cognitive Dissonance is a change agent. It forces change to relieve the psychological pain of inner conflict. There are only two choices to relieve Cognitive Dissonance: i) confess. Admit the truth; or, Or ii) justifying by lying, denying, and alibying. One choice raises the standards, the other lowers them.

The strength of every relationship spiritually, professionally, personally, and with self, always has been and always will be dependent on a four-letter word that frightens Post-Modern Society: work. Work strikes fear because of real or imaged pain of struggle and sacrifice. The easiest way to clear out any Post-Modern Room is mention work. Work complicates and threatens more relationships than any other tangible or intangible factor. The more it complicates, the more debates. The more debates, the more chance a relationship terminates. And vice-versa.

Good news. The Plain View Doctrine helps solves any mystery of absence. And of presence. There’s a 90% chance that the most compelling evidence is in Plain View. The evidence in Plain View is directly connected to Worldview and Workview. When attendance is down to a few, the problem is Worldview and Workview.

Good news. There’s a solution. I’ll explain in part 4.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

February 19, 2025

It would cost me a fortune to be an altar boy today, compared to The 60s.

Back then, they taught us it was a sin to pray for more funerals. And for more weddings. It was tempting. But I don’t remember ever praying for more funerals or more weddings. Reason? There were always plenty of both at St, Patrick’s Church. It paid off—dual meaning.

Five dollars in the 60s has the equivalent worth of $53.29 purchasing power today. Over 10 times the equivalent worth made it worth it to be an altar boy at St. Patrick’s in the 60s. No one ripped you off in the 60s. They paid for it. The “Youth Minimum Wage” in the 60s was 90 cents. The starting minimum wage for Altar Serving at weddings and funerals in the 60s was Five Bucks. Over 5 times minimum wage made it worth it to be an Altar Boy at St. Patrick’s in the 60s. It caused passive aggressive envy and jealousy among relatives and classmates who were altar boys at St. John Bosco and St. Theresa. Most of them called us liars. They didn’t believe we got paid 5 bucks per wedding and funeral. Even back then, money caused conflict with our peers even though we knew it was a sin and it contradicted our Cultural Code of Financial Silence. We all learned the Code of Silence: never talk about how much you make, never ask how much anyone else made, and never, ever show off that you made more. They called it “show off” back then. No one used “narcissist” back then. The word wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary because it wasn’t allowed. Everyone was aligned back then. There was zero tolerance for narcissism. No need to even talk about it. Dual meaning. Narcissism or money.

I’m not making this up. A week never went by in The 60s without a wedding or funeral or both at St. Patrick’s Church. They paid for it.

Five bucks per wedding. Five bucks per funeral. Masses weren’t short back then. One hour. Guaranteed. Weddings, funerals, Sundays. All 4 seasons. Hot or cold. 60 minutes. There was no Altar Boy union. No Collective Bargaining Agreement. Just Honour Code. They paid in full every time. Not one grievance. Not one labour dispute. They paid on time, every time. They paid as soon as the bodies left the church. Dual meaning. Funerals and weddings.

They never paid by cheque or direct deposit. No credit card, no Debit card. Cash only. They always put the cash in an envelope. Southern Italians called it “La Busta.” I never threw away an envelope. Not one. It was part of my Italianomics degree that I learned and earned from my poor illiterate, southern-Italian immigrants, Antonio and Maria. We recycled in The 60s. And re-used. And re-sold. It all added up in dollars and cents. And sense. Common sense was taught back then. And used. And enforced. So was Common Cents. Sense and cents added up. The objective of Common Sense and Common Cents was to earn Uncommon Sense and Uncommon Cents. Alignment and assignment. Everyone was aligned back them. Our assignment was to  improve. Don’t rest and don’t rest on past wins and successes. When you did a great job, it was expected. So was doing it again and doing it even better.

Bank savings-account interest in The 60s was 5.75%. It was the same interest rate for a Canada Savings Bond. If you invested just $5 in 1965 and left it, it would double every 14 years. It would be worth over $80 today. They never gave altar boys T4 slips back then. I don’t know for sure what my career earnings were as an altar boy but it was a lot. I thought I was rich. My altar boy career earnings combined with manual labour jobs helped me buy a used car, in cash, when I turned 16. And it helped me buy a house when I was 20. I’m not making this up. I paid the cost of a 2025 tank of gas for my first used car. People laughed at it. They called it a piece of junk. But it fit Italianomics Principles: buy only what you need, buy only what you can afford. Cash only, no showing off. Just get the job done, don’t try to impress anyone.

A lot of people died in The 60s. And a lot of people got married. Every funeral, ever wedding was packed. Jam packed,. Standing room only. The more people, the bigger the mess, the bigger chance of financial success for altar boys. They paid to clean up messes back then. Bigger the mess, bigger chance of a tip or bonus. Littering wasn’t an offence back then so they threw rice at weddings. All four seasons. Inside the church and out. Rice Clean duties started during pictures. Windy days blew the Kleenex flowers off parked cars all over King St, Victoria St., West St. Kent St., Adelaide St. The bigger the mess, bigger the financial success. Tips, bonuses. Double, even triple income. People tipped 100% back then. No tips less than 5 bucks. It was tempting not to make more mess by ripping flowers off cars and throwing more rice when no one was looking. We discussed it. But it was a sin back then. And there were consequences. In The 60s, there was no such thing as The C.F.L. (Consequence Free Life). Everyone paid for it. Dual meaning.

Double-header weddings in The 60s were common. So were funerals. 10 am and 2 pm. Back to back weddings and funerals often earned $40. Cash. Two separate “Bustas.” Funerals were the only way to legally skip school. All you needed was a note from the Priest. The adrenaline rush was palpable before Sunday Mass when The Reader made the First Publication of Marriage. Three Publications were The Law in The 60s. Three announcements of who was getting married and when. You did the math with very Publication. Five bucks plus tips. But you had to be careful not to break your focus about the Latin reading at the beginning of Mass if you were named “Starting Altar Boy.”

When I forgot the Latin words, I learned how to improvise by either mumbling or speaking Broken Italian words I learned as my first language from my poor illiterate Italian immigrant parents. It was easy to get away with mumbling or speaking Broken Italian instead of Latin because of the Upper Deck. The Upper Deck at St. Patrick’s was jam-packed with the choir on the left side and those who arrived late on the right side. The full-blast singing was always loud enough to drown out Latin, mumbling, or Broken Italian. If you felt guilty enough, you added it to the list of sins during weekly confession at 4 pm… every, single, Saturday. In The 60s, I learned the 10-90 Rule of Sin: if there was a 10% chance it was a sin, it was 100% a sin. You were too scared to miss confession. Rumour spread that The Priest recognized every voice. Rumour spread that if your voice was missing, parents would notified. Alignment and assignment. Everyone in your world lived by the No/Go Principle.

No days off from confession.

Go to confession.

No days off from Mass.

Go to Mass.

Guilt was big back then. Dual meaning. Your conscience made you feel Big Guilt. And guilt was a Big Deal. Guilt was fashionable and acceptable in The 60s. No one sheltered you from guilt. Alignment and assignment. You were on your own, having to deal with your conscience 365-24-7. In The 60s, there was no WiFi Connection. They taught you Conscience Connection. It didn’t matter what language your conscience spoke. You learned how to translate, communicate, and relate with your conscience. Your relationship with your conscience sounded the same, looked the same, and felt the same as with every other relationship. Alignment and assignment.

Voices were big in The 60s. Dual meaning. Voices were loud and loud voices were a Big Deal. They were fashionable and accepted. In The 60s, everyone’s voice sounded exactly the same as the Voice of Your Conscience. No difference. Parents voices, family voices, relative’s voices, teacher’s voices, principal’s voices, guidance counsellor’s voices, school cleaning staff voices, Priest’s voices, boss’s voices, TV voices. Even news, sports and weather voices. They sounded the same as the Voice of Your Conscience. No confusion. No frustration. No temptation. Sure there was temptation in The 60s but No Temptation was the joint social mission. Alignment and assignment. Temptation was strong in The 60s. Just as strong as in 2025. Maybe stronger. But the Voice of Your Conscience was stronger because it was part of a Team. A Fighting Team. Alignment and assignment. Every voice was aligned with your assignment. Every voice taught you to fight temptation and not fight with your conscience.

It was never an easy fight back then. But they never backed down. No matter how tired they were, your Fighting Team never suffered exhaustion. They never suffered Fighting Fatigue. Alignment and assignment was big in The 60s.

There’s a big difference between The 60s… being “in The 60s” and being “in My 60’s.” St. Patrick’s Church isn’t packed any more. Why? The 60s Voices are not big any more.

Good news. There’s a solution. I’ll explain in part 3.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

February 4, 2025

There’s a big difference between The 60s—being “in The 60s”—and being “in Your 60s.”

Back in The 60s, you couldn’t Google, “Latin translation into English” or vice-versa. There was no “Latin App” to teach you how to speak conversational Latin in two weeks. You learned the old-school way. They handed you a Mass Missal written in Latin and you had to memorize it. They gave you until “next Sunday, 11 a.m.” They didn’t use the words “stress” or “anxiety” back then. You just felt nervous until it went away on its own or by force.

Back then, you were not handed an application for the job of “Altar Boy.” The Priest came to St. Patrick’s School and told you where to sign up. Teachers and principals told you where to sign up. Parents told you where to sign up. No discretion, no choice. Alignment and assignment. They were connected—dual meaning. The alignment and assignment were connected together and society was connected by alignment and assignment.You couldn’t tell parents, teachers or principals, “I’ll think about it.” Or, “I’ll get back to you sometime next week.” Or, “I’ll try it out and see how I feel.” And you couldn’t tell them apart. They all sounded the same. Exactly the same. Same voice, same message. You signed up for the assignment because of alignment. Then, you fell in line. No discretion, no choice.

If you Google the origin of, “It’s not fair,” you’ll find that it originated after The 60s. Back in The 60s, there was no one to complain to that it wasn’t fair. “It’s not fair,” wasn’t part of anyone’s language, not English or whatever language your parents spoke. No one understood, “it’s not fair.” Reason? Alignment. Everyone was aligned with the same mentality, same ideology, same philosophy, same principles, same beliefs. Parents, families, relatives, neighbours, teachers, principals, bosses, coaches, Priests, doctors, dentists, business owners, media, all of them were aligned. They all sounded the same. No contradiction, no confusion. You heard one message. One voice—dual meaning—the voice of your conscience sounded exactly the same as every voice in your life. No mixed messages. No ambiguity. Alignment was straightforward and kept you moving straightforward. The place didn’t matter—home, school, street, Church—you heard the same voice as the voice of your conscience. Everywhere you went, you heard Same Voices.

There was no selection process, no interviews, no testing. You memorized your lines and sat on the bench until you became a starter. St. Patrick’s Church had two benches that met at 45-degree angles, on both sides of the altar. You sat on the bench and watched the starters until you made the “Altar Boy Starting Line-up.” They taught you the basics and gave you a uniform. A surplice and robe.

Until writing this article, I thought surplice was spelled “surplus.” Google taught me that I had said it wrong and spelled it wrong from The 60s to My 60s. I’m positive they never called it a “robe.” They called it a “surtan.” I think. But there’s nothing on the internet about a “surtan.” They told you: you wore a black robe on ordinary Sundays, you wore red robes on Christmas and Easter. Back then in The 60s, every Mass was packed like Christmas and Easter in My 60s. No exception. Every Mass in the 60s was jam-packed. Standing-room only. Ushers did traffic control, inside and outside. There were traffic jams on King St., Victoria St., Kent St., West St,, even Adelaide and Catharine Streets.  And there were traffic jams inside St. Patrick’s Church in The 60s. Big difference now in My 60s.

Being an Altar Boy was a matter of life and death. They warned you, “Don’t burn down the Church” when they taught you how to reach the candles with the 5-foot candle-lighter, at “exactly five minutes before Mass Time.” The chalice had to be filled, placed in the tabernacle, “and don’t ever touch the Host. Ever.” No one asked what would happen if you did touch the Host. No one wanted to know. Two small glass bottles had to be filled with wine and water and placed next to a towel folded according to code. Then they showed you how to ring the bells, when, and for how long. They warned you not to get your surplice caught in the bells so you didn’t drag the bells across the altar. No one asked what would happen if you did. No one wanted to know. You weren’t allowed to go back into the Sacristy after Mass started. Not even to use the bathroom. Not even if you got sick. No one asked what would happen if you did. No one wanted to know.

You had to go to Confession every Saturday before Sunday Mass. Every Saturday, 4 pm. No choice. No discretion. “Bless me Father for I have sinned,” followed by your list of weekly sins. Back then in The 60s, you always got at least 5 Our Fathers, 5 Hail Mary, and 5 Acts of Contrition as minimum-sentence penance. There was no leniency. No exception. Until things changed sometime after 1970. You suffered Culture Shock the first time the Priest said, “One good Our Father and one good Hail Mary.” That was about the same time they changed the “Host Rules,” allowing you to take the Host in your hands at Communion. When we started our Altar Boy careers in The 60s, there was no Host-to-hand Communion transfer. Two Altar boys held a table cloth between the Priest and the person receiving Communion. In case the Host missed the mouth. Even then, they taught you, “Never touch the Host.”

There was no 4-year Altar Boy career like high school, college or university. I tried to quit when I started grade 6 at Holy Cross. My resignation was rejected. By everyone. Alignment and assignment. Everyone back then in The 60s said, and understood the word, “No.” My poor illiterate, Italian Immigrant parents Antonio and Maria were uneducated. They spoke only Broken Italian and Broken English. But they knew how to say, “No.” Like every other voice in your life, including the voice of your conscience. No voice was afraid to tell you, “No.”

Sick days from serving Mass?

No.

Vacation days from serving Mass?

No.

Skip Mass to sleep in?

No.

Any request to Fail To Appear?

No.

Quitting the Altar Boy job?

No.

We asked veteran Altar boys how long we had to be Altar boys. Some said, until you got a driver’s licence. Some said until you left home. Others said until you got married. One guy said, “for life.” I’m not making this up. Grown men, ex-Altar Boys sometimes made a surprise appearance on Christmas, Easter, or when the Bishop showed up for Confirmation. I started to worry that there was no way out. No retirement, early or otherwise.

When you made the starting lineup, you had to worry about two things: forgetting your Latin Lines and Stage Fright. Back then in The 60s, every seat was taken, every Mass. You felt all eyes on you. There was no privacy. Your workplace was public. In plain view. No reasonable expectation of privacy. I admit it. In My 60s, I talk about how tough it was in The 60s. And how easy they have it in My 60s. We had to serve Mass in front of a sold-out crowd, every week. They got it easy today.

There’s a big difference between The 60s—being “in The 60s” and being “in My 60s.” No traffic jam. Outside or inside St. Patrick’s Church. Why? No alignment, no assignment.

Good news. There’s a solution. I’ll explain it in Part 2.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

January 22, 2025