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  • On the Masculine Genius

    On the Masculine Genius

    This article first appeared in Humanum, Nov 2018

    DR GREG BOTTARO

    Many attempts have been made to define the feminine, and more recently, the masculine genius. Naturally, this is difficult enough in the contemporary context, so fraught is it with the dualism between the body and the spirit. By contrast, if we begin by looking at the human organism as a whole, we can actually study the physical body and find in it a deeper meaning since “the body and the body alone … makes visible the invisible,” as John Paul II said.

    We can link the basic paradigm for the masculine and feminine genius to the phenomenon of new life. The human contribution to procreation and gestation of new life necessitates a mother and a father. These human contributions are distinct, while equal in dignity, individually necessary and irreplaceable.

    In the act of procreation, the man is pointed out of himself and the woman is focused within. It is within the body of the woman that both procreation and gestation take place, and it is “inwardness” that can help define the feminine genius. As the new person comes to existence within her body, a woman is wholly focused on this new person with all of her being. The developing baby consumes her attention from within.

    A man is not as concerned about what is happening moment by moment with the developing child because it is not happening inside his body. Instead, his outward focus means that he is free to participate in the new life by ensuring the environment outside and around the child is safe. While a woman’s body is fine tuned for human connection, the man’s body is made for provision and protection. A woman’s body is made to make human bodies inside of her and a man’s body is made to make human bodies outside of him. The woman serves the child in proximity, while a man serves the child from a distance.

    On the basis of these essential, mutually distinct and complementary differences, we can find a “genius” relative to each.

    Just a word on the concept of “genius.” Many discussions of the feminine or masculine “geniuses” open themselves up to anecdotal rebuttals about particular men or women who defy the characterization. Here we do not define “genius” as something essential to each of the sexes, such as capacity for motherhood or fatherhood, but, rather as: “a set of characteristics, and proclivities that derive from those essential and mutually distinct capacities.” The feminine genius, therefore, is the set of characteristics that a well-formed woman will display with a particular proclivity due to her capacity for motherhood. The masculine genius is the set of characteristics that a well-formed man will display with a particular proclivity due to his capacity for fatherhood.

    As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World,

    It is appropriate … to recall that the feminine values mentioned here [a capacity for the other] are above all human values: the human condition of man and woman created in the image of God is one and indivisible. It is only because women are more immediately attuned to these values that they are the reminder and the privileged sign of such values.

    The same could be said for the masculine genius, which is a set of characteristics that are ultimately human values, attainable also by women. The integration of both sets of human values leads to human flourishing, beautifully exemplified by the father of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, described by her thus: “Hard as he was on himself, he was always affectionate towards us. His heart was exceptionally tender toward us. He lived for us alone. No mother’s heart could surpass his. Still with all that there was no weakness. All was just and well-regulated.”

    With these preliminaries in mind, we will now turn to the masculine genius.

    The Developing Genius

    Conception through Childhood

    Beginning in utero, testosterone triggers genes that will lead to a newborn boy’s behaviours. While newborn girls focus on faces and eye contact, boys are tuned in to movement.[1] Testosterone, vasopressin, and cortisol drive the urge towards aggression and competition. Regardless of cultural influence, boys will spend 65% of their free time in competitive activity while girls spend only 35% on the same. When given typically female toys like dolls, boys most likely turn them into weapons. They have been found to use domestic items as tools or weapons six times more than girls.[2] In the toddler male brain, the hypothalamus is forming to initiate competitive behaviour and work towards victory. In this early play, bluffing, posturing, and fighting can be observed. Researchers have observed that by age two boys’ brains are better able to recognize social hierarchy and they are driven towards physical and social dominance.[3]

    The male brain is more naturally suited to work with objects in the environment. By age five, the major cognitive difference between a boy’s brain and a girl’s brain is the ability to mentally rotate and manipulate objects.[4] The female brain can access these same circuits, but they have to be intentionally activated. These phenomena give boys a head start on learning how to manipulate their environments and ultimately best serve the external needs of a family.

    Discovering the Female

    Beginning around age nine, the most significant development in the male brain involves a twenty-fold increase of testosterone.[5] The male hypothalamus, where the neural circuits for sexual pursuit are located, grows twice as a large as a female’s. Here develops the physiological correlate to the characteristic of the masculine genius to pursue and initiate.

    The increase of testosterone, along with vasopressin and cortisol, also makes the male brain more sensitive to threats against status or territory. The male’s sympathetic nervous response (the “flight-or-fight” system) is fuelled by this combination of hormones.[6] These changes give rise to behaviours typically observed in a teenage boy such as a greater need for privacy—personal domain to have control over—and conflict with authority. While discipline is necessary, looking through the lens of the masculine genius deepens our understanding of misunderstood behaviours.

    Teenage boys also learn how to better anticipate threats in the environment posed by other people. Vasopressin works in the male brain to interpret aggression in others’ faces. Even neutral faces will be interpreted more frequently as negative or aggressive when vasopressin is increased.[7] (Girls, by contrast, will interpret neutral faces as friendlier under the influence of increased vasopressin.) The amygdala and hypothalamus in the male brain are primed with greater sensitivity to hormonal increases, leading to aggressive alertness and activation of the sympathetic nervous system.[8]

    Procreation

    As testosterone increases, visual circuits relay information about a woman’s fertility through unconsciously perceived traits. The hypothalamus takes over much of a man’s behaviour at this point, as everything in his brain is geared towards procreation. The drive towards fatherhood is imprinted in the man’s brain. Olfactory receptors are tuned in to pheromones that communicate beneficial traits in a woman for sexual compatibility and the generation of children. Sensory neural circuits connect to the release of oxytocin and an increase of testosterone, further amplifying the drive towards bonding. [9] Due to his increased ability to take risks, lower fear of consequences, and greater drive towards finding a mate, a man is built to initiate sexual relationships.

    Physiologically, the sexual encounter ends for a man at the point of ejaculation, while for the woman this moment is potentially the beginning of what will happen in her body. Whereas the man’s brain is tuned into the fertility of a woman, his desire being amplified when his neural circuits detect her pheromones, the woman’s brain is tuned into the personal character traits of a man, ones which give her a sense of whether or not he will remain committed to providing for and protecting the potential child born of an encounter. Though these character traits may become distorted in some way, they are typically strength, courage, leadership, loyalty, and respectability. These are the very same traits men are neurologically disposed to observe and attempt to emulate in their environment from boyhood.

    Parenting

    Throughout the process of gestation and birthing a child, the changes in a man’s brain are not as obvious as they are in a woman’s brain; but in some ways they are just as drastic. Fathers have emotional, physical, and hormonal changes that occur along with those in mothers. During the last stage of pregnancy, male testosterone levels decrease over 20% and prolactin levels increase 33%.[10] Researchers believe that pheromones released by the mother help to initiate these shifts in the father’s brain. Prolactin helps fathers respond more sensitively to their newborn babies. Their hearing sensitivity increases as does their empathic response.[11] The ability to tend to the new baby does not come as quickly for the father as it does for the mother. Even though it is not immediately active, the father’s brain is wired to experience the same attunement for the baby, even if it is not manifested in the same way. The more contact he has with the baby, however, the greater the effect of dopamine and oxytocin in increasing bonding and the ability to feel greater empathy for his new child.[12] His amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and insula will respond with greater sensitivity to the cries of a new baby as time goes on.

    This is a fascinating neurological correlate to the observation made by JPII in Mulieris Dignitatem:

    This unique contact with the new human being developing within the mother gives rise to an attitude towards human beings—not only towards her own child, but every human being—which profoundly marks the woman’s personality. It is commonly thought that women are more capable than men of paying attention to another person, and that motherhood develops this predisposition even more. The man—even with all his sharing in parenthood—always remains “outside” the process of pregnancy and the baby’s birth; in many ways he has to learn his own “fatherhood” from the mother. (emphasis added)

    A man who is already attuned to his wife will follow her lead in being attuned to the child, and as contact increases, so does his ability to develop his own empathy and tenderness. A man’s brain changes, in some ways developing the characteristics women have at the outset, as his disposition towards his own child grows. He becomes a better father for it.

    Fathers’ sympathetic nervous systems are not activated to the same extent as mothers’ when children are playing, and so they take risks with their children, entrusting them to masculine strength and confidence in ways that typically surprise new mothers. This type of play has been shown to form self-confidence in boys and girls as well as the ability to socially engage in healthier ways with peers.[13] Men’s voices have also been shown to register differently for children, especially in areas of attention and obedience.

    The Communicating Genius

    Neural Connectivity

    The feminine genius correlates with greater trans-hemispheric communication. Women are better able to connect feelings to words and use language to express interior experiences and memories.[14] This helps them communicate verbally with others, which builds relationships.

    Greater connectivity also gives women a much deeper sense of intuition. Intuition is differentiated from rational analysis as a method of understanding. It allows women to communicate with a kind of transrational understanding of another person’s needs or experience.[15] Here is another way that a woman’s body is made to make persons inside of it. Through intuition, the female brain is able to understand the needs or experience of a baby, either pre-born in the womb or post-natal, before the child develops the use of rationally based language. My wife (without necessarily knowing how) will immediately know why our baby is crying, while I have to think through a checklist to figure out what the problem might be.

    There is less connectivity between the right and left hemispheres in the male brain. This allows for greater compartmentalization. At the same time, there is actually more connection between the front and back of each hemisphere in the male brain. These two realities contribute to the masculine genius. Men are better at spatial organization and abstract thinking, both of which utilize intra-hemispheric communication. These qualities dispose a man to make decisions and solve problems that are related to the external environment. Intra-hemispheric frontal-lobe modulation is more natural for men, which makes it easier to detach from the emotional considerations of a situation.[16] These qualities generally predispose a man toward a greater use of unemotional, rational thinking. At times when a certain emotional distance is required to make decisions for the wellbeing of a family, a man’s brain is particularly well suited.

    It is important to note that the feminine complement to the masculine trait of rationality is not irrationality, but transrationality, as described above. Far from being a weakness, the fact that the female brain is less physiologically dependent on rationality than the male brain indicates that women are not limited by the need to communicate with structured and rational constructs. Women, indeed, could be said to be more sophisticated in the way they communicate. Unfortunately, our world has come to elevate the idea of rational above the idea of intuitive. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.”[17] We have come to worship the servant and defile the sacred gift. Still, as we elevate the qualities of the feminine genius to their proper dignity, we must do the same for those qualities proper to the masculine genius.

    Conclusion

    These are the physiological realities of every healthy man and woman, whether or not a new person is actually conceived. As a woman is totally focused within on the new person developing in her body, knowing how to care for new life intuitively and transrationally, man is built to forge the way forward, providing for the needs of mother and child, and protecting against any outside threat to either. Together, man and woman form the unity that God intended for the sacred collaboration of creating new life. These observations identify only a few of the physiological realities that illuminate what it means to be male and female. It is a step towards a truly integrated model of the human person as male and female.

    [1] Wright, C. L., S. R. Burks, et al. (2008). “Identification of prostaglandin E2 receptors mediating perinatal masculinization of adult sex behavior and neuroanatomical correlates.” Dev Neurobiol 68(12): 1406–19.

    [2] Lever, J. (1976). “Sex differences in the games children play.” Social Problems 23: 478–87.

    [3] Archer, J. (2006). “Testosterone and human aggression: An evaluation of the challenge hypothesis.” Neurosci Biobehav Rev 30(3): 319–45.

    [4] Keller, K., and V. Menon (2009). “Gender differences in the functional and structural neuroanatomy of mathematical cognition.” Neuroimage 47(1): 342–52.

    [5] Larsen, P. R., ed,  Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, 10th ed. (2003).

    [6] Archer, J. (2006). “Testosterone and human aggression: An evaluation of the challenge hypothesis.” Neurosci Biobehav Rev 30(3): 319–45.

    [7] McClure, E. B., C. S. Monk, et al. (2004). “A developmental examination of gender differences in brain engagement during evaluation of threat.” Biol Psychiatry 55(11): 1047–55.

    [8] Giedd, J. N., F. B. Lalonde, et al. (2009). “Anatomical brain magnetic resonance imaging of typically developing children and adolescents.” J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 48(5): 465–70.

    [9] Savic, I., H. Berglund, et al. (2001). “Smelling of odorous sex hormonelike compounds causes sex-differentiated hypothalamic activations in humans.” Neuron 31(4): 661– 68.

    [10] Storey, A. E., C. J. Walsh, et al. (2000). “Hormonal correlates of paternal responsiveness in new and expectant fathers.” Evol Hum Behav 21(2): 79-95.

    [11] Swain, J. E., J. P. Lorberbaum, et al. (2007). “Brain basis of early parent-infant interactions: Psychology, physiology, and in vivo functional neuroimaging studies.” J Child Psychol Psychiatry 48(3–4): 262–87.

    [12] Leckman, J. F., R. Feldman, et al. (2004). “Primary parental preoccupation: Circuits, genes, and the crucial role of the environment.” J Neural Transm 111(7): 753–71.

    [13] Grossmann, K., K. E. Grossmann, E. Fremmer-Bombik, H. Kindler, H. Scheuerer-Englisch, and P. Zimmermann (2002). “The uniqueness of the child-father attachment relationship: Fathers’ sensitive and challenging play as a pivotal variable in a 16-year longitudinal study.” Social Development 11(3): 307– 31.

    [14] Gasbarri, A., B. Arnone, et al. (2006). “Sex-related lateralized effect of emotional content on declarative memory: An event related potential study.” Behav Brain Res 168(2): 177–84.

    [15] Stern, K., The Flight From Woman (New York: Macmillan, 1965).

    [16] Gasbarri, A., B. Arnone, et al. (2007). “Sex-related hemispheric lateralization of electrical potentials evoked by arousing negative stimuli.” Brain Res 1138C: 178– 86.

    [17] Samples, Bob, The Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness 26, (Reading, MA.: Addison-Wesley, 1976), 26.

    Dr. Greg Bottaro is a husband and father of five children. He is the founder and director of the CatholicPsych Institute, whose mission is to bridge the gap between Catholicism and Psychology.

  • What is a man? What is a woman?

    What is a man? What is a woman?

    FR D. LONGENECKER | This article first appeared in dwightlongenecker.com, 12th April 2018

    I was reading Phyllis Zagano’s book about women’s ordination and came across a peculiar thought. Ms. Zagano argues that there is “ontological equality” between men and women because both are created in God’s image. That seems fair enough.

    But then she goes on to say that this truth implies a “single nature anthropology”. I’m not quite sure what that means because I am not the academic theological bright spark that Ms. Zagano clearly is.

    However, what I think it sounds like in ordinary people talk is, “Men and women are not only equal but they’re the same.” I don’t know how else to interpret the mysterious phrase “single nature anthropology”. But what does this mean? I can’t get my head around it because if there is a “single nature anthropology” then at some point outside of this life does that mean that our masculinity and femininity doesn’t matter or that it ceases to exist? Does that mean in heaven we are all androgynous ghostly beings? If this isn’t what it means, then I’m stumped.

    Anyway. I got thinking further about this and asked myself, “Well, what IS a man anyway?” and for that matter “What IS a woman?”

    How would you define a man or a woman?

    So I came up with an answer: “A man is a father or a potential father. A woman is a mother or a potential mother.”

    Think about it. Biologically a man is defined by his male genitalia and hormones. A woman is defined by her female reproductive system and her hormones, so these factors determine biologically what a man is and what a woman is, and these defining characteristics’ purpose is reproduction. In other words, to make the man a father and to make the woman a mother.

    If you take “father” and “mother” out of the equation, then how do you define “man” and “woman”?

    Try it. See? It’s tough. Try to define what it is to be a man without the concept of “Father”. Try to define what it is to be a woman without the concept of “mother”.

    Then I remembered that after he created man and woman as equals, the Genesis story says God gave them the first commandment: “Be fruitful and multiply.” In other words, “Adam – you become a father. Eve – you become a mother. That’s what I created you for.”

    So, if I am correct that a man is a man because he is a father or potential father, and a woman is a woman because she is a mother or a potential mother, no wonder our society is so confused about gender identity.

    For the last fifty years we’ve been so busy trying to turn off the babies and NOT be mothers and fathers.  Because so much of society has decimated the role of mother and father for all sorts of reasons, a fallout from that is that people not only don’t know what mothers and fathers are they also don’t know what men and women are.

    There’s more: why are we in this state? Because of a contraceptive culture. Because of artificial contraception and recreational sex and abortion as contraceptive, a whole generation have also lost the idea of what their reproductive organs are for.

    That equipment is for being and fully becoming a man and a father and being and fully becoming a woman and a mother. But if those organs are used as pleasure toys, then we forget what they are really for and so we deny and block out being mothers and fathers and we therefore forget what it really means to be men and women.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming Phyllis Zagano for this bizarre state of affairs, and I don’t think her strange notion of a “single nature anthropology” is consciously connected, but it is philosophically connected. I think she’s jumped on the feminist bandwagon and is promoting (consciously or unconsciously) a trend toward a kind of neutered humanity in which there is no longer a distinction between men and women.

    Perhaps I am overthinking it, and maybe I’ve got it completely wrong but there it is, for what its worth.

    But just to be on the safe side, I’m going to keep my beard.

  • Fathers: The Great Adventurers of the Modern World

    Fathers: The Great Adventurers of the Modern World

    CLAYTON C. BARBEAU | This article first appeared on catholicexchange.com 28th June 2016

    The great adventurers of the modern world: with these words Charles Péguy, the great French Catholic poet of the early twentieth century, honoured the fathers of families. Péguy was killed in the first of the modern world’s global wars, but if he were alive today, he would probably feel the need to underscore his statement.

    What soldier of fortune faces a greater challenge than that confronted by the father, in partnership with his wife, navigating the ship of the family through the currents of modern life?

    Erupting from the depths of life’s sea, raging storms — seen only as warnings on the barometer in Péguy’s day — now crash full against the seams of the family ark, tearing at its white sails of holiness, pounding against its bulwarks that are the unity and indissolubility of marriage. If at any given time the parents underestimate the danger or fail to respond adequately to the challenge, the ship may founder.

    ”There is only one adventurer in the world, as can be seen very clearly in the modern world: the father of a family. Even the most desperate adventurers are nothing compared with him. Everything in the modern world is organised against that fool, that imprudent, daring fool, against the unruly, audacious man who is daring enough to have a wife and family, against the man who dare to found a family.” – Charles Péguy

    “The Great Adventurers of the modern world,” indeed. And called to an adventure of no little importance: the pitting of ourselves against all the enemies of fatherhood; the warding off of all the daily advances of a multibillion-dollar advertising industry devoted to making us and our children avaricious, lustful, and proud — all of this, yes, but more.

    Ours is not only a defensive action; we must at the same time take the offensive. We fight against storms, but for the sake of arriving at our destination. The enemy without must be held off while each day sees new attacks of the enemy within.

    And yet, for all this, the call to sanctity remains and is one conditioned to each person’s state in life: for fathers of families, it is in and through our fatherhood that we are to achieve our fullest holiness. Not in spite of marriage and our family will we become holy, but because of them. Our parental work, when performed in Christ, is our holy work, as holy a work as that of any celibate religious who works full-time in a parish ministry, cares for the poor, houses the homeless, or prays unceasingly in a cloister.

    There is particular relevance for us, as fathers, in that incident which occurs in the Gospel of Mark: And He sat down and called the Twelve; and He said to them, ‘If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’

    It is in and through the experiences of marriage, and in the labours of rearing a family, of welcoming God in the children we are given, that we are to advance in the spiritual life. We were called to the vocation of Christian marriage. We are laypeople, and our care for our families, our domestic churches, is at the very heart of the life of the Church as a whole.

    Our daily work, whatever it may be, our bill-paying and our bedtime reading, is holy already; there is no need for us to think up ways to make it holy. It remains for us only to remember the holiness of all that we are about, to recognise and appreciate this fact and celebrate it in ways natural to family life.

    This is the glorious adventure upon which we are embarked. Yet, how often we fail! Our resolutions seem so quickly shattered under one or another of the day’s poundings. We are human beings, not angels; we are the sons and daughters of the fallen Adam and Eve, and we ache with the bruises of all our own falls. “Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord . . .” and cry we must, but we must not become discouraged, for our major conquest is intended to be ourselves.

    All of the pounding to which we are submitted on the anvil of our daily lives is intended to form us in the image of Christ. Like iron that, to be shaped, must be heated and pounded, heated and pounded, so we are heated with the flames of daily life and shaped by the life of God in us.

    “It is for discipline that you have to endure,” the letter to the Hebrews says. “God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? . . . He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; yet it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

    In Christ, even our failures become a source of grace when we accept them in imitation of His humility and courage; even our anxieties become a path to holiness when we ally them with His sufferings. All that we do and say, if it is done and said in Christ, is done and said well, for true wellness is life in Christ.

    In light of this, the father’s recognition of the way in which his family impinges upon him, far from being the source of any malice toward those who are a drain upon his resources and time, is seen as the way in which he is being transformed in Christ. Such a man takes joy in receiving the living souls entrusted to him with patience and kindness, remembering the words of Jesus: “I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

    Our homes become schools of love for all who live there, a love that of its nature radiates outward, first to the receiving of all guests as Christ and then to the meeting with equal love those who lack sympathy with our beliefs and our way of life. We can will the good of all our enemies. All those who are dedicated to ideals destructive of all we hold dear have a call upon our prayers.

    Perhaps through the love we hold for such people, the example we set for them in Christ, we will one day be privileged to hear the words that St. Augustine addressed to St. Ambrose: “I was not convinced by your arguments, but by the great love you showed me.”

    Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter in The Father of the Family, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

  • St Joseph the Great

    St Joseph the Great

    Dr. Tom Neal | 19th March 2020 | This article first appeared at wordonfire.org

    St. Joseph: foster-father of God’s Son and spouse of the God-bearer.

    When I ponder the fact that he bore the fearsome role of being the earthly image for Jesus of the heavenly Father, it fills me with wonder and awe. When Jesus first said Abba, he meant Joseph. And, as with all fathers, the vocation of Joseph was to provide for Jesus as seamless a transition from father to Father as possible. Joseph was a craftsman, working by the sweat of his brow and teaching Jesus the dignity of doing the same. He was a just man, a man who walked in dark and pilgrim faith, the protector of and provider for his family and a man of humble silence.

    All that said, what stands out to me most, especially in our time, as most remarkable is that he was placed as guardian of his bride’s God-sealed virgin chastity, which he secured, no doubt, by the furious virtue his own heroic chastity. The joyful burden that this must have placed on him to love the Tota Pulchra (All-Beautiful Woman) in purity of body and soul must have been immense.

    But his singular call to such manly virtue toward the Virgin Mary is by no means unique to him.

    All men are called by the eternal Father to guard women’s chastity by guarding first their own, and here I mean chastity in the broadest sense of placing one’s red-blooded erotic desire in service of the full truth of human sexuality as it exists in its God-given meaning. And for men, this can be a cause for great, great heroism. In fact, I am absolutely convinced that men who commit themselves to this work of chaste guardianship can become, though much prayer and fraternal support, great saints of postmodernity in suffering its often great demands in the face of a super-eroticized culture.

    Here I would also add that men who indulge in pornography, extra-marital sex, abusive/using sex, or contraception have gravely compromised the guard-post God entrusted to them and have failed to be men of St. Joseph. To such men the Church of Jesus Christ, son of Mary, says: Repent and pray fervently to this patron of heroic chastity!

    And yes, obviously women have their own distinctive, essential, and unique role in this guardianship of chastity—but I am speaking of men, as a man.

    Last Thought

    St. Teresa of Avila had a special devotion to him, and argued that Joseph, the man of listening silence, was a special patron of the “interior life,” that life of seeking God in the deepest centre of our heart. And let me also recommend to you St. John Paul II’s inspiring Apostolic Exhortation on St Joseph here.

    I’ll let St. Teresa finish my thoughts :

    I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings which he can obtain from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services who did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival and I have always had it granted. If my petition is in any way ill directed, he directs it aright for my greater good.

  • Logan and the Necessity of Fatherhood

    Logan and the Necessity of Fatherhood

    Fr. David Stavarz | 31 March 2017 | This article first appeared at wordonfire.org

    Some critics believe that one reason Logan, the latest instalment of the beastly X-Men mutant hero, Wolverine, did so well in the box office was the film’s grittier, bloodier, R-rated flavour.

    Given the phenomenal performances from both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, and with this movie being their last testaments to the Wolverine story, I would say that it’s certainly the best movie of the series. However, while Logan is a captivating Hollywood symphony of violent entertainment, I think the movie’s real attraction and success come from it’s deeper message on the necessity of fatherhood.

    At the beginning of the film, we find a beaten, conflicted, mentally and physically exhausted Logan, situated somewhere along the Mexican border in the year 2029. At this point, Wolverine is riding through life as a limo driver, while taking care of an aged Professor X, who needs medication to prevent the mental lapses and seizures from a degenerative brain disease. Prof. X has been a father to Logan over the years so he sacrifices to take care of the Professor.

    Logan, as he responds to a request for his Uber-inspired, futuristic chauffeur service, comes into contact with Laura, an 11 year old girl who, as he later finds out, is his own daughter. Laura is a product of the Transigen Corporation’s laboratory grown and tested mutant program. After their forced introduction, Logan, Laura, and Prof. X find themselves running from a Transigen cyborg named Pierce to a place called Eden, an alleged place of sanctuary for mutants who escaped the laboratory. Logan, at the pleading of Prof. X, begrudgingly leads Laura to this place of sanctuary so she could meet up with her mutant friends who also escaped.

    Throughout the movie, we see Logan in a continual struggle – physically and psychologically. It’s a struggle he undoubtedly endured most of his life. Despite his beastly appearance and demeanour, Logan is a man who, like all men, yearns and struggles in life to find true identity, purpose, and intimacy. He hates the man he has been and, deep down, wants to be someone better.

    Over the years, Logan has learned to look out only for himself and tends to reject any close relationships, because of his relationship with violence and brutality. Yet, we find Logan on a journey where he has to take care of and protect an 11 year old girl and a 95 year old man. In an interview asking about a new side of Wolverine the audience would see in the film, director James Mangold explained that, “…the goal was to go intimate with Logan… to try and get at the very things that scare him most…which aren’t villains, the end of the world, or his own life, but intimacy, love, [and] connection with others.”[1]

    I do find it interesting that when movies with massive scale and impressive CGI start to bore us, stories that display the depth of humanity never cease to grasp our attention and leave a lasting impression.[2] I would argue – which I think is the greatest truth the films brings out on multiple levels – that Logan is a story of how an enhanced, Adamantium-filled, beastly mutant faces and conquers his fears of intimacy and love, by finding his purpose in fatherhood.

    A crucial series of scenes in the movie come when Logan, Laura, and Prof. X encounter a Christian family. (The movie, despite it’s darker, violent tone, really has a considerable amount of strongly positive Christian imagery.) When the family’s horse carrier breaks open on the highway due to the sudden motion of an automated semi-truck which pushes both their vehicles off the road, the three unlikely travellers end up helping the family to corral their horses. Logan wanted to leave the family to deal with the situation saying, “Someone else will come along.” Prof. X retorted, “Someone else has come along.” He must have reading Luke 10:25-37 in the car beforehand.

    Logan, Laura, and Prof. X end up joining the family at their home for dinner as an appreciative gesture. That night as Logan tucked Prof. X into bed, he told Logan, “This is what life looks like; people who love each other, a home. You should take a moment… feel it. You still have time.” This line reminds me of Chesterton’s view of the necessity of the “common man, with his common family, with his common house” kind of reality. The simple and loving Christian family truly is the foundation of a healthy society. Prof. X has come to know this truth in his heart and, because he is a father to Logan, knows that it’s this truth that will satisfy Logan’s aching heart.

    After this moment, we particularly see Logan shedding the skin of the man he used to be as he realises the fatherhood he knows he is called to live out. At first, it appears that Logan was taking Laura to Eden because of a $50,000 compensation for getting her there. But as it plays out, we see Logan eventually protect and care for Laura for more than just the financial compensation.

    Logan’s journey to true fatherhood comes to a climax when he sacrifices his own life to protect Laura and her friends from the head Transigen doctor, Dr. Rice, who wants to kill them off. In an emotional moment while Logan dies from being thrown onto and pierced on a tree root by X-24, a Wolverine look-alike mutant weapon released by Pierce. (Consider, here, the tree of sacrifice that is the symbol for Christianity.) Dying, in his last moments, he whispers to Laura, “So this is what it feels like…” Logan, for the first time, after sacrificing his own life for his daughter, experienced human love and intimacy. He experienced what he feared. He experienced what it meant to be a father.

    Masculinity is essentially and inherently tied to fatherhood. Fatherhood is not an option for a man. It is a requirement. Fatherhood is the purpose for which God created man. And what do I mean by fatherhood?

    Certainly, raising children is important to fatherhood, yet it is not absolutely essential to having a fatherly heart and living as a father. Not all men have biological children. Priests, religious, and consecrated single men don’t have physical children. In truth, the call to sacrifice and unselfish love is the foundation of fatherhood. Unselfish, sacrificial love is what makes a man a true father, whether their children are physical or spiritual. This is what Christ showed us all on the cross, as he gave his own life for his salvation of God’s own children.

    It was necessary for Logan to know and experience fatherhood on his journey to fulfilment and purpose. He came to know this as he sacrificed his life for Laura and in his relationship with Prof. X. In that relationship, Logan also learned how to be loved and guided by a father as he helped to physically take care of that fatherly figure. Early on in the movie, when Logan was being snappy with Prof. X after one of his mental seizures, the Professor said, “I always know who you are, it’s just sometimes I don’t recognise you.” True fathers recognise their children no matter how confused they or their children become. The connection between father – and for that reason mother – and child is unlike any other force in the world.

    Today, we live in an age of fatherlessness. Society often tells men – boys really – to live for themselves and their various own desires – partying as much as possible, sleeping around with the most attractive women possible, and making as much money as possible. Said another way: Just live as a savage, self-serving beast. Yet, we see that that way of living is getting men nowhere. Divorce rates are through the roof, countless children have no fathers or, at very least, a confused sense of fatherhood, and the pornography industry and hook-up culture are acceptable alternatives to family life. Men are allowed to act like beasts.

    In years to come, the modern world will definitely feel major ripples in its societal structures because of fatherlessness and, furthermore, its promotion and glorification of fatherlessness. Scientific studies can even support this fact.[3] 

    But the reality is that when masculinity is detached from fatherhood, men will continue to remain lost, weak, and unfulfilled. A life of loving, fatherly sacrifice will satiate the desire for purpose over any other way of life. Furthermore, without fatherhood – which leads to and grounds the family – our society will fall apart.

    [1] http://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi595441177?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_2

    [2] http://screenrant.com/deadpool-logan-success-r-rating/

    [3] http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/06/19/the-importance-of-fathers-according-to-science/

  • Fathers, Reflect the Dignity of God’s Fatherhood

    Fathers, Reflect the Dignity of God’s Fatherhood

    21 June 2020 |From The Catholic Family Handbook by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik

    Nature and Christian Tradition tell us that the father is the head of the home. That alone should suggest the dignity of fatherhood.

    Your dignity as a father rests, first of all, upon the fact that Almighty God has bestowed upon you the privilege of cooperating in the greatest natural mystery: the creation of human life.

    Sons and daughters are yours in a sense that nothing else you may ever possess can be called your own. That thought carries with it a unique honour.

    Even modern society, which has striven to forget the sanctity of marriage, retains this basic recognition. Your children are your dependants. They bear your name. They imitate many of your mannerisms, gestures, and modes of thought.

    Much more: if you are a worthy father, and they are worthy children, they carry with them through life the training in virtue that you alone can impress on their young minds.

    Pope Leo XIII reminds each father that he is “the head of the family” and stresses that “the right of property which has been proved to belong to individual persons must also belong to the man as the head of the family.

    This follows logically, because “it is a most sacred law of nature that a father must provide food and all necessities for those whom he has begotten, as well as what is necessary to keep them from want and misery in the uncertainties of this mortal life….

    The father’s power is of such a nature that it cannot be destroyed or absorbed by the State, for it has the same origin as human life itself.

    St. Thomas Aquinas  wrote, “The father according to the flesh has in a particular way a share in that principle which is in a manner universal found in God…. The father is the principle of generation, of education and discipline.”

    Exert your fatherly authority early on

    You should exert your authority as a father even when your children are babies. Your word should be something strong, good, and a little to be feared.

    If your children learn to respect your authority even from their tender years, they will find that authority a tremendous power to guide those difficult, almost uncontrollable years of adolescence.

    But if you let your wife do all the bossing, and are content to be another child yourself, you will be able to make only a feeble protest to youth’s tendency to disobedience and independence.

    It is never too soon for you to take up your position of authority as a father if you wish to have it established as a guide for your youngsters later on.

    Reflect the dignity of God’s Fatherhood

    Your children should enjoy the strength of your kind paternal authority. It gives them security. What is more, they are given security by the knowledge that their mother and father are united in matters of discipline.

    It is dangerous when a child can obtain from a softer parent something that he has failed to obtain from a stricter one, or when parents quarrel in front of children over points of conduct.

    In the full program of domestic education, you must take great care that you use your authority properly.  Pope Pius XI said that normally a vocation to the priesthood is the result of the example and teaching of a father “strong in faith and manly in virtues.”

    Therefore, fatherhood is a vocation in God’s service, to be held not lightly or frivolously, but with the serious determination of serious men.

    Since it is a life’s work in His service, God offers His aid at every important step along the difficult road.

    On your part, though, He expects cooperation with grace, which in turn calls for persevering good will, a spirit of sacrifice, and conscientious observance of God’s law made known by the Church.

  • Reclaiming a Father’s Presence at Home

    Reclaiming a Father’s Presence at Home

    John A. Cuddeback | 21st September 2017 | This article first appeared at ifstudies.org.

    I would like to make what is perhaps a radical suggestion: we need to rethink, re-imagine, and reinstate a different model of family life.

    At the centre of this model is a husband and father whose very success in life is fundamentally, though not solely, seen and judged in terms of what he does in the home. Indeed, a central measure of his manhood is the quality of his presence in the home.

    A New Look at an Old Understanding of Household

    Let us go back to Aristotle. Setting aside some notable shortcomings in his understanding of the household, the man that Thomas Aquinas calls “the Philosopher” nonetheless expresses its fundamental principles with remarkable clarity. In life itself, as well as in the more particular areas of human action, the good man must put first what is truly first, that is, the end. In other words, his intention of the true end should be the driving and guiding energy behind what he does.

    Oikonomia is the Greek word for the art of ruling or ordering the household (the oikos), and, at least traditionally, a father’s duty as head of the household was to excel in this art. The central question that Aristotle and Aquinas would have us ask about one who exercises the art of oikonomia is, what should he intend?

    What is the end the willing of which gives meaning and concrete direction to what the husband and father does in the household? In commenting on Aristotle’s Politics, Aquinas writes: “Aristotle infers that the chief intention of the householder concerns these two relations of persons in the household,” namely, the relation of husband and wife, and the relation of parents to children.1

    It sounds so simple; but the power of this truth can shatter false conceptions of family and household. What is the principal concern of the husband and father of a family? His relationship with his spouse and their relationship with their children. Through his providence, his work, and his presence, he is the first principle of real human flourishing in its most foundational instance, namely, the flourishing relationships that are the core of a household. Aristotle’s profound assertion is rooted in the simple truth that a wife or child or husband who stands in such healthy relationships is verily an icon of human happiness.

    We can be so bold as to ask, if a married man is not succeeding in these relationships, how can he be said to be succeeding as a man?

    Our second point from Aristotle is his conception of the household community as, in the words of Aquinas, “a community constituted by nature for everyday life, that is, activities that have to be performed daily.”2 What at first seems a rather pedestrian point begins, on further examination, to shine like a diamond.

    Humans are made to live in relationships and in community. There is one community which, by its very nature, reaches into almost every corner of life. It knits together our days by being the place, the context for living together every day. The very notion is thrilling, even though the word “quotidian” – literally, “daily” – has the connotation of the pedestrian and mundane. We get to live with certain people, every day! When a young man and a young woman fall in love, what better can they imagine than being able (being allowed!) to be together every day – literally, to make a life together.

    There are indeed human activities that require a broader community, such as the village or the state, but by and large, those activities are not daily ones. Eating and working, and the resting and playing that punctuate the working – these are done every day. And they are done together with those with whom we share a home. This is where life happens every day.

    What is the principal concern of the husband and father of a family? His relationship with his spouse and their relationship with their children.

    An Historic Transformation

    If we are to grasp and address the situation of the family today, it is crucial that we note certain significant changes in family and home life that have been anything but random. There are certain readily discernible patterns in this transformation. And Aristotle and Aquinas can give us an excellent vantage from which to consider them.

    Christopher Lasch was a noted historian and social critic who gave much attention to the plight of the traditional family. To many, his findings might be somewhat surprising. Lasch writes: “The history of modern society, from one point of view, is the assertion of social control over activities once left to individuals or their families.”3

    Lasch sees what he calls the “socialisation of production” as a fundamental, even if oft-missed, cause of the demise of the traditional structure and practices of the household. In essence, this “socialisation” refers to how, on the whole, the day-to-day work that produces the material things needed for human existence left its native soil – the household. One can recall here how Aristotle and Aquinas conceived of the household as a place where precisely such work was done. A hallmark of this “socialisation” was the migration from farm and workshop, themselves often attached to households, to employment in the factories of the industrial revolution. While in recent generations factory work has been largely replaced by other industries, the fundamental reality remains, as men – and also now most women – are engaged in work that is neither in the context of the household nor has any real connection, other than through the money it produces, to life therein.

    It is the stock-in-trade of defenders of the traditional household to decry the general movement of women out of the household and into the “workforce.” Most, however, are mute on the issue of the parallel and prior male exodus. And yet the very notion of the “workforce” as something fundamentally outside of the household (significantly, women are said to “leave” the home to “join” it) exemplifies a fundamental shift from both the theory and practice of household life once standard in our civilisation.

    This change – the demise of the household as a centre of production – is one that many defenders of the traditional family either dismiss with a shrug, or even approve with a nod in the direction of “economic progress.” Yet I think it is clear that, regardless of an admixture of genuine advantages, this shift was a blow to the very essence of the household community as, in Aristotle’s words, “constituted by nature for everyday life.”

    Why? Work, especially in the sense of the production of things necessary for human life, is the very stuff of daily human life. Though not the most noble or important activity done in the household, it is naturally the skeleton around which other activities spring – be they meals, prayer, study, leisure, or play.

    Here, history can be helpful. From time immemorial, the basic structure of the household included a man and woman working together on a daily, even hourly, basis. A significant amount of this work would have been done in close proximity to, and often with participation by, children. Such work in the household likewise afforded both parents the time and context for personal mentoring of children – formation in perhaps its most foundational sense: by presence and example.

    Are we to conclude that the chief intention of the man of the household – the flourishing of relationships, especially spousal and parental – is essentially tied to work in the home? This is a central issue about which we should be concerned. The work of Lasch and others points, in any case, to a key lesson from the last 200 years. History seems to establish a connection between the daily absence of the father and the general weakening of familial relationships. It behoves us to consider how we might take a practical approach to this conundrum, turning again to ancient wisdom for assistance.

    Toward a Solution

    Economic necessity today usually requires that at least one spouse work outside of the household. Allow me to be clear: I am not suggesting that men abandon their jobs outside the home. For the vast majority of us, that will not be possible, and for some, in any case, it would not even be desirable. We must find a way to live according to ancient wisdom in our current environment.

    I suggest that we take as a starting point that the father whose main “work” is outside the household should realise that he has a handicap he must overcome, namely, the absence of substantial, daily work in the home. He does not have this obvious and natural context for contact and presence with his spouse and children. And it should be noted that “working from home” does not necessarily address this situation. Many who work from home are engaged in a labour that remains utterly distinct from and foreign to the household in every way other than bodily presence in a home office.

    A central way a man loves and is present to his children is by loving and being present to his wife.

    How then might fathers who work remotely seek to address this situation?

    Investing in Home. The first and most significant action—one within the power of any father—is to take possession of his household by investing it with his intention and attention. The old saying should perhaps be taken as prescriptive, not descriptive: “Home is where your heart should be.” The words of Wendell Berry come to mind: “I do not believe that there is anything better to do than to make one’s marriage and household, whether one is a man or a woman.”4

    To be precise, this statement needs qualification, for there are some things a person can do that are better than making one’s household. Nonetheless, these striking words point to a wisdom that we need to recover in an age in which so many men, following the lead of society itself, measure themselves by their success in business or other such areas of life.

    Loving His Wife. A critical feature of a man’s presence in the home is that it begins with his presence to his wife. When Aristotle notes that the spousal relationship is the source of the parental relationship, he is not simply referring to the fact of bodily generation. Rather, the character of the spousal relationship is especially determinative of the character of the parental relationship. A central way a man loves and is present to his children is by loving and being present to his wife. That is the natural order of the fabric of family life.

    Since most of their work today is removed from the household, fathers will need to be creative in finding the time and the avenues of presence. Here are a couple of concrete suggestions.

    • Home “Work.” A first avenue to consider is some kind of manual labour, preferably one requiring an art that can be learned and shared by family members. This includes specifically “home arts,” such as gardening, cooking, animal husbandry, etc., as well as more general arts, such as carpentry, carving, engine mechanics, plumbing, landscaping, etc. As children grow older, higher arts can be added and studied together, such as reading, writing, and the liberal arts. It is worth noting that while some of these latter arts are at times beyond the capabilities of households, some manual arts are within the competence of all.
    • Real Leisure. As Josef Pieper has pointed out, good leisure and good work are closely tied through nourishing one another, so they should be addressed together. Here is an area where any father can take the lead, even when his work often removes him from the home, by putting a priority on shared, rich activities in the household. It will be arduous. Regular meals together, which should be a mainstay of presence and communion, too often fall by the wayside. Common custom now replaces real leisure with mass-produced amusement, and communication technology intrudes into all spaces, making simple together-time difficult to achieve. We are losing a sense of how to be together in deeper activities, and more and more we turn to some device any time we have a free moment. But real freedom is in having habits of being together in richer ways – reading, singing, hiking, praying. A father’s leadership here may well make all the difference.

    I have suggested that we need to do more to rethink and re-form our family life. A deeply anti-household cultural environment should prod us to rediscover household life in its fullness. Households can still be a vibrant organ, even if the body politic is wasting with disease. To understand the ideal of true fatherhood – and the contemporary challenges to living that ideal – is already to be halfway to success. Issues concerning the role and presence of husband and wife in the household need to be considered with nuance, recognising that particular conditions can warrant modifications and adaptations. Nevertheless, exceptions do not invalidate general principles; indeed, often they corroborate them.

    At the heart of a renewal will be husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, united in the intensity of their intention to focus on relationships in the household and to embody that intention in daily life.

    John Cuddeback, PhD is chairman and professor of Philosophy at Christendom College. His writing and lectures focus on ethics, friendship, and household.

    Editor’s Note: This essay is an abbreviated version of a longer essay originally published in the journal, Principles. 

    1. Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, I, 10.4

    2. Ibid. I, 1.12

    3. Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (Basic Books, 1979), p. xx

    4. “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine” in What are People For? (Counterpoint, 2010), p. 182

  • A stepfather, adoptive father, and biological father, Thomas More is a model for all dads

    A stepfather, adoptive father, and biological father, Thomas More is a model for all dads

    Evan Holguin and William Nardi | Jun 19, 2020. This article first appeared in aleteia.org.

    St. Thomas More is remembered for his fidelity to his conscience, but his example of fatherhood is sometimes overlooked.

    Patron of lawyers and public servants, St. Thomas More is honoured today as a 16th-century martyr. As the faithful did during his life, many continue to look to his selfless example as a powerful member of the English government, but his strong example of fatherhood is often overlooked and underemphasised. 

    This year, the feast day of St. Thomas More falls on the day just after Father’s Day. It is fitting that we remember the difficult position that he was in, as a dad forced to choose between compromising his conscience for a tyrannical king or submitting to God.

    Commitment to marriage

    Many know about St. Thomas More from the Academy Award-winning 1966 film, A Man for All Seasons, which highlights the last days of his life. 

    Fatherhood begins with a strong commitment to the sanctity of marriage, something More modelled in the most powerful way – by defending the sanctity of marriage even unto death. 

    When Henry VIII and his wife couldn’t conceive a son, the king petitioned the pope for an annulment. The pope refused—he couldn’t grant an annulment for a valid marriage—which led Henry to split the Church of England from the Catholic Church, paving the way for his divorce and remarriage. 

    Pressure mounted in England to show enthusiasm for the king’s new wife, and the king required the entire kingdom to swear an oath acknowledging the legitimacy of his second marriage and the king as the head of the new “church.” 

    In fidelity to the pope and the Church’s teaching on marriage, More knew he couldn’t swear. He had already resigned from his powerful position as chancellor, one of the highest-ranking offices in the English government. When he refused to sign the king’s oath, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London, shortly to be executed for his continued dedication to the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage. 

    Discerning fatherhood

    More’s powerful dedication to the sacrament of marriage came in no small part from his prayerful discernment of fatherhood, which began long before he was married.

    A devout Catholic, More spent part of his youth discerning religious life, even going so far as to spend several months in a Carthusian monastery. But More realised he wasn’t called to be a spiritual father only – he had a deep love of family life that pushed him to realise that God was calling him to the vocation of marriage.  

    A year after leaving the Carthusians, More married his first wife Jane, and had four children with her. Undoubtedly, More’s experience discerning religious life with the Carthusians helped prepare him to be a good and holy father – one who showed dedication to his wife, with whom he had a happy marriage, and who cared for the physical and spiritual needs of his four children. 

    In the footsteps of St. Joseph

    More’s marriage to Jane was cut short when she died after just six years of marriage. Soon after, he married a woman named Alice, believing his small children needed a mother to help raise them. Alice was also a widow and had a daughter from her previous marriage. More and Alice didn’t conceive any children together, but More did find himself following in the example of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. He welcomed Alice’s daughter as his own child, treating her no differently than the four children he had with Jane. 

    More’s commitment to fatherhood extended even further. He adopted a neighbour girl after the death of her mother, and also took in another girl, bringing his total number of children up to seven.

    When he was imprisoned, his wife and children would come to visit him, even trying to convince him to give into the king’s demands so that he might return home. More lovingly refused, instead urging his family to stay strong in their faith and to flee the country. One of his adopted daughters, Margaret Clement, was his only child present for his martyrdom.  

    God is first

    More’s final words were a powerful declaration: “I am the king’s good servant, and God’s first.”

    Today, a new video series, Into the Breach, addresses the importance of fatherhood. Produced by the Knights of Columbus, an episode explains “Our culture attacks fatherhood by trying to make it irrelevant.” 

    But St. Thomas More’s witness exemplifies what Catholic men should strive for in their work and family life, and why fatherhood is more relevant than ever in today’s world. As a public servant, a husband and a father of seven, More was well-respected and admired. But he always knew that his primary role as a father was to serve as an example of Christian life to his children – a role which, in his instance, required him to face one of the earth’s most powerful rulers and give his life as a martyr … and become a saint.

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