thank you very much. i can then safely presume that you don't find a problem with teenagers boozing/drugging/and having sex en massse?
whos' the jerk?
"It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is, rather, the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake - in a word, financial decadence," Hoagland said, fed up with what he called the "bacchanalian aspects."
Read it again, this time in context.
Of course you can't presume that. Such a presumption is as stupid as your presuming to call Brother Kenneth a jerk.
As someone from a working-class home who received a scholarship to a school full of wealthy kids, I can attest to the level of humiliation experienced by a young man at a prom when he cannot afford to rent a personal limo or wear a tailored Armani tuxedo or the other hundred incidentals that go along with such a prom.
The Christian Brothers are a society who promote plainness, humility and service as part of their ethos.
$20,000 weekend rentals in posh resort communities are not consistent with the charism of the school or the society.
Brother Kenneth cannot prevent a teenager from sneaking Jack Daniels from his dad's liquor cabinet and fornicating with his girlfriend in the backseat of a car. That's his parents' responsibility and a pastor/teacher can only counsel the teen and his parents, not intervene.
What he can prevent is parents of his students' blatantly contravening the discipline and working against the message he is trying to instill - especially when they show their kids that throwing money around is the way one should proceed in life.