There was a time when the word counterculture called to mind images of scruffy hippies, outlaw bikers and other conspicuous nonconformists going about the highways and byways of America doing their “own thing.” These groups varied in their particular interests, causes and activities, but they were bound by a common thread: They rejected the morals and standards of The Establishment.

Those days are long gone. But the counterculture of the late 1960s did not disintegrate. On the contrary: It grew older, put on a respectable face and worked its way into the mainstream. Gradually, it became the mainstream. “Free love” led to the normalization of cohabitation. “Trust no one over 30” turned into widespread mistrust, if not reflexive dismissal, of authority. Abortion became just another form of birth control. And on and on. 

If yesterday’s counterculture is today’s mainstream society, it follows that those who reject mainstream morals and standards are today’s counterculture.

The dominant culture of our day —  secular and secularizing — is the mission territory of the New Evangelization.

Read our lead story in this issue’s Culture of Life section and you’ll see that, whatever your particular interests, causes and activities, you’re in very good company. You’ll also get some great ideas from some leading Catholic personalities on ways to “do your own thing” as a member of the new counterculture.

It’s a story that does what the Register likes to do: arm the revolutionaries — I mean missionaries.