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It is common knowledge that Mexico is a fragile State. Its many problems include pervasive criminality, maladministration, corruption, the politicisation of justice and other problems of this ilk. Historians blame Mexico’s shambolic system of education for all these woes.

Upon independence in 1821, liberal masonic (later left-wing) governments not only dismantled important institutions of education but also imposed in the new State schools the principle that the State had absolute authority over the education of its citizens. Children were declared the property of the State, with parents fulfilling only their function of State delegates.

This megalomaniacal drive reached its zenith under Caudillo Plutarco Calles and it created a heavily polarised society that degenerated into a vicious civil war in the 1920s.

These speciously progressive laws were a futile attempt to catch the wind in a net, for a child’s first classroom is his mother’s lap. This is a truth universally acknowledged, and it is sanctioned, not by the words of some pope or philosopher, but by the machinations of biology. For nature has ordained that the child slips out into its mother’s lap, not into the government’s, and draws its first nourishment, material and mental, from the bosom of his mother, and from no one else.

Any system of education that ignores this principle is defective. Unless both parents and teachers collaborate, children will be the first to suffer, then society, and finally the State. It is in schools that children, the citizens of tomorrow, start to acquire a judicious but critical respect for authority, and this is the foundation of a healthy society.

For children at school learn not only academic skills but they are also socialised to achieve healthy and equitable relations with their peers, teachers and others. Young children that learn respect for one another and for society are the major factor necessary for a stable and harmonious society.

But when schools peddle material that is at odds with the values and beliefs of the parents, a schism is created that first repulses the child and then tears society apart. It is a direct consequence of the disastrous experiments with education for so many decades that Mexico is a society in virtual anarchy in a dysfunctional and corrupt State.

On a smaller scale, Malta had similar experiences in the 70s and 80s. In those years, some zealously strove to nurture a socialist generation. One of their initiatives was the imposition of the Arabic language in schools. Although this is a worthy pursuit in its own right, it was only imposed for dubious political goals.

For this reason, it engendered widespread resistance among children and their families. I still remember the expressions on the faces of my parents that day I took home the Green Book by Colonel Gaddafi, which had been distributed to us at school. My parents solemnly warned me to ignore whatever I was being taught at school even as I was to appear fully compliant lest I be punished for my dissent.

However, the gay lobby and those politicians allied with it have underestimated the ferocious strength of the maternal and paternal instinct

These days, ideological experimentation in our schools is once more rearing its ugly head. Soon, we shall see books like The Princess Boy and others distributed at primary schools to inculcate children in the ways, or the ideology, of homosexuality, according to their inclination.

There is no limit to the zeal of this new crusade. A man is brave indeed to voice dissent, for such a man will be greeted with shrieking accusations of homophobia and the threat of prosecution for hate crime held high over his head.

However, the gay lobby and those politicians allied with it have underestimated the ferocious strength of the maternal and paternal instinct. It will not be the bishops that will foment rebellion against the State because now the institutional Church has rendered itself all but completely impotent.

But rebellion it will be, for fathers and mothers that have begotten their children in the boiling crucible of heterosexuality will not hand over those children to the homosexual lobby to corrupt. And this rebellion will be nurtured in silence, behind the closed doors of sullen parents whose thoughts neither the State nor Gaby can reach or change.

I know that these books will incur the displeasure of many parents and many will consequently order their offspring to disregard whatever they are told at school. This will confuse children but they naturally hold a higher allegiance to their parents than to their schools, and, once more, we shall have another cycle of widespread resistance to schools and education on the part of many children.

Is it worth discrediting education in the eyes of another generation of children simply to prematurely push onto them material that is best delivered when these children are older and more mature? And lest anyone think that only Catholic parents will take this course of action, there are many Maltese Muslims that clearly take their faith very seriously, and Muslims are far less likely to tolerate the shenanigans of the LGBTIQ lobby and its political backers.

There may come to be a strong backlash against Maltese institutions by children brought up to hold the institutions of the State in contempt. Let us hope that it does not come to this.

Fr David Muscat is a priest from Mosta.