Catholic MANifesto - 1. The Introduction: The Crisis in Masculinity and the Catholic Man's Response

Introducing a new project!

We hope to produce a regular video aimed at Catholic men.

In this episode I talk to Catholic businessmen James Leatherland, Alex Cooper and Sam Baker. 

We aimed to cover the following topics, which we sort of did, even though we may have achieved it in a meandering way: 

1. Establish what we know: that masculinity is in crisis. Even the secular world is wringing its hands about it but can’t necessarily put its finger on the cause or the solution. It often focuses on mental health issues (the symptoms) and advocates men’s groups as a way of getting in touch with emotions. Men like Andrew Tate promote an aggressive appropriation of perceived masculine values, such as wealth, power, prowess and strength as a way of re-establishing male integrity. Somewhere in the middle are a few groups and individuals recognising that a lack of present fathers and good fathering is what is tearing society apart. They’re often working frantically on the frontline with young offenders, the homeless, school dropouts, the socially deprived, to desperately shore up a virtually non-existent social infrastructure. Meanwhile, the family is farmed out to government agencies, often at great expense. 

2. From the Christian perspective, we see the absence of mature masculinity as a destructive, satanic influence: a fatherless society is a faithless society. People have no way of connecting with God the Father – who they cannot see – through their own fathers – who they can but who might be absent or abusive/neglectful. Human fathering is a means by which the Heavenly Father leads His children to Himself. We recognise the face of the Father through the loving gaze of our own father; we understand created/creative order through the loving paternal order of our own fathering. “Society goes by way of the family, and the family goes by way of the father” – so societal breakdown, whether that is secular or religious, is a direct result of the breakdown of fatherhood. Satan does not want the father to lead the family of God back to the Kingdom of Heaven. Feminism is a route by which these demonic ideas were channelled into society – Satan again uses the woman as the weakest link, and men have sat back and let him get on with it, like their forefather Adam. Technology has also divorced men from their need for hard work, manual labour, the outdoors, problem solving, challenges – i.e. from his salvific punishment ordained by God after the Fall. 

3. While much has been lost in a few generations, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel of what it means to be a man. The tools for this are already out there. Take a look at the male body – the genitalia and sexual drive indicate the role of initiating new life; the strength of the muscles show the need to protect that life and provide physical security; the problem solving capacity further shows the ability to provide, but also to lead and to overcome difficulties. The simple answer to the crisis of masculinity is: learn skills, get a job, find a wife, have children, pass on knowledge and wisdom to the next generation (spiritual as well as practical). “Action follows being” – a created being was made with a purpose and, morally, ought to carry out that purpose, both for its own sense of fulfilment and for the benefit of the things it was created for. However, it needs self-knowledge and self-discipline to acquire the capacity and freedom to work alongside the Creator in this role. A man needs to actively better himself in order to participate fully in his created purpose. Manhood is achieved through the active pursuit of the virtues, supported by an active progression in virility. Men must inform themselves about what excellence looks like in the 4 P’s of Manhood: Primacy, Procreation, Provision, Protection. They must pursue that excellence through education, acquisition of skills, building physical strength and stamina, financial prudence, gentlemanly behaviour. And, for the Catholic man, through understanding the Faith, the sanctity of the Sacraments and the need for salvation, and passing it on to the next generation.

4. Where do we go from here? The primary obstacle is that the infrastructure of knowledge/good example of mature manhood has all but fallen apart. Many men don’t know how to acquire excellence in manhood because they don’t know what it looks like. There are too few men demonstrating it. Another obstacle is that men have been so conditioned out of manhood that they are too crippled by their condition too see how to get back into it: physical ineptitude, mental health issues, negative self-perception, poor masculine skillset. This is compounded by the entitled belief that they are fine just as they are, and how dare anyone say they need to change. CMUK&I has tried to address these issues through education (conferences, workshops, website and social media, sharing articles on masculinity), fraternity (online groups, physical men’s groups, retreats, pilgrimages) and building a community network.