A LOST WORLD
It feels like the world I grew up in has been flipped upside down. Truth is now relative. Morality is subjective. Honesty is rude. Tradition is oppressive.
I am often weighed down by the dreadful notion that our civilization is committing a slow suicide. The old order is breaking down. Our most basic truths are being questioned. Birth rates are collapsing across the globe. Yet many people, especially those who are atheist or agnostic, don’t seem to notice or care. Some even dare to call it progress.
Meanwhile, families fall apart all around us. Children grow up without anything solid to rely on. Young women are told to focus on their careers during their prime childbearing years, delaying the profound fulfillment that comes from marriage and motherhood. Young men are given a pass for extending their adolescence into their thirties, wasting more time drifting and distracting themselves than ever before. In the midst of this disorder, Catholic men are called to be the ones who hold the line, with clarity, courage, and fidelity to the truths the Church has never ceased to proclaim.
SACRIFICING TRUTH ON THE ALTAR OF POLITENESS
Walk into many settings today and you can sense the cultural pressure. The language of the wider world is careful, non-judgmental, and allergic to clear standards. Any talk of spiritual warfare or mortal sin is treated as extreme or unkind. The preferred tone is limited to love of neighbor, acceptance of what we cannot control, and the careful avoidance of offense.
The instincts most men carry to set a clear standard, speak plainly about right and wrong, and take worthwhile risks have not disappeared. They have been suppressed by the constant cultural pressure to stay quiet. Those instincts do not contradict the teachings of the Gospel. They are central to it. They are part of how the Gospel has always been lived out when men take it seriously. Our faith is to be preached loudly, and without shame.
As Jesus Christ taught us: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to the whole house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
The modern world demands that followers of Christ extinguish the fire of their fervor. Is it any wonder that young people, especially young men, are not drawn to the faith in the way they once were?
Scrambling for Solutions
Men are mission-driven. They have a natural desire to build, protect, and fight for a worthy cause. We need to return to the full truth that Jesus taught, the divine mission He set before us. We are in a battle for souls. That battle cannot be won without strong Christian soldiers.
The suppression of male instinct did not happen by accident. It has been engineered by groups who aim to remake society, who need good men to stand down and comply. As a result, many young men now direct their natural instincts toward the wrong goals. The online “manosphere” is full of grievance masquerading as strength. Young men complain about the state of the modern world. They complain about women, treating them as prizes or problems, while failing to see them as partners. They push each other to grind for material or physical perfection, all in an effort to achieve higher status in a society they already acknowledge is disordered. Looksmaxxing, gymmaxxing, moneymaxxing.
These are not missions. They are masks. Cheap covers for lust, vanity, and greed. A hard body or a flashy car will never make up for a lack of character. They are pathetic attempts to display strength on the outside when there is far too much weakness on the inside.
When those false versions of strength fail to satisfy, some look elsewhere for a more austere expression of tradition, and are drawn to the Orthodox churches. The pull is understandable, and I have every respect for our Eastern brothers in Christ. The chanting, the disciplined fasting, even the beards can make the Orthodox faith seem more manly to those unfamiliar with our Catholic heritage. These differences, however, are more superficial than fundamental. The full patrimony of masculine Christian strength, both Roman and Eastern, remains available within the one Church.
There are currently twenty-three eastern rites in full communion with the Catholic Church, all still practicing their ancient liturgies and traditions. What is required is not an abandonment of Roman authority, but a recovery of the same fortitude that has always marked faithful Catholic men.
A HISTORY OF CHRIST-CENTERED CULTURE
The Catholic Church has a long and proud history of men building a strong culture centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Ours is the home of Gregorian chant, gothic cathedrals, military orders, and the willingness to defend the faithful and holy places with their lives when they were under attack. In the eleventh century, the eastern churches called on the West for help when their borders were shrinking and pilgrims were being ruthlessly attacked en route to the Holy Land. This led to the glorious First Crusade and the recovery of Jerusalem. That spirit of ordered strength has never been foreign to the Catholic Church. It is part of our inheritance. Catholic men today are called to draw on it again, with the same clarity and courage applied to the battles of our own age.
Biblical Masculinity
The Gospels are filled with examples of masculine strength. Jesus made a whip of cords, stormed into the temple, and drove out the money-changers who had turned His Father’s house into a marketplace of liars and scammers. He spoke hard truths that got Him killed and never softened His words to keep the peace. In His own words: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” (Matthew 10:34) He never shied away from the truth just because it made some people uncomfortable.
His earthly father, Saint Joseph, may have been a man of few words, but he lived out his faith by taking responsibility for Jesus and Our Blessed Mother. He worked with his hands to provide, gave them a stable, loving home, and always honored Mary while serving both of them as a faithful father and protector. That is the kind of manliness we should all strive to embody.
Saint Peter experienced many moments of weakness. He had a short temper, lost confidence and sank into the sea, denied Jesus after His arrest, and still stood up after all that failure to lead the Church as our first pope. These men did not shrink from showing their strength. They ordered and exerted their masculinity under obedience to the Father. Fortitude, not softness, has been the ideal trait of Christian men across the centuries.
Many Catholic men already live that way today. They rise early and do honest work to feed their families. They pray with their children at night. They show up for Mass and participate fully in parish life. They are pillars of their communities. Yet modern sensibility has trained too many of them to stay quiet when the faith is mocked or when grave sin is treated as normal. Silence in the face of open lies is not humility. It is today’s soft culture still speaking through good men. The quiet strength already present in these men is the foundation. What is too often missing is the willingness to speak the truth.
True manliness is living Christ’s example without bowing to the modern age. It means speaking the truth even when the world calls it hatred. It means defending the Church when atheists and other critics spread their false histories and cynical sneers. It means refusing the soft filter that tells us to accept disorder for the sake of peace. The shameless lies are open now. The attacks on the faith are open. The response must be open as well.
A New Crusade
This is our new crusade. Not with swords, but with clear speech, daily fidelity, and the refusal to stand down. Catholic men who practice the faith openly and without apology, correct error without cruelty, and protect what is sacred will do more to save souls than any shallow performance of strength. The modern world will keep pushing its lies. We do not have to turn our cheeks to those lies. We need to arm ourselves with the truth, and that is what I aim to do. The time has come for Catholic men to stand and fight.
