A story in the Saturday edition of THE STAR told the tale of a man who was reportedly caught with chairs belonging to a church in Montego Bay. Although the man pleaded guilty and is to return to court for another mention, this case should trigger some thoughts.

This is not the first case of this type to be brought before the court. In fact, sacrilege is unfortunately, a fairly common offence. What this represents is a total lack of respect for the things that are supposed to be held in high esteem. In past times, it would be unthinkable for anyone to steal a bible, let alone anything else belonging to a church.

What is even worse is that this lack of respect for things that should be sacred has become so bad, that people have even been shot and killed on church grounds. Such an overt disrespect for the church was never something of the past, and this clearly represents a decline in our morals and values.

When a person decides to kill another in the house of God, or steal things that in essence, belong to the Lord, we know that things are really bad. If God is being robbed, what does it say for the rest of us? Nothing positive.

We need to realise that things are going downhill and very fast too, and the religious ones among us would surely describe these occurrences as signs of the end times. But a blatant disregard for all things holy, can only be described as that.