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.
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
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.
And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him and, plaiting a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. (Matt 27:28)
Pilate said to them, “Here is the man.” (John 19:5)
This is a staggering painting. In real life, it measures twelve and a half feet by nine and a half feet.
Remarkably, the scene is ‘framed’ from behind, a technique that places the viewer squarely within the canvas, inside the praetorium, as a complicit observer, just steps away from the centre stage. This significant reversal of perspective strews breath-taking light across the background of the painting, where the glare of the sun reflects off the colossal government building and picks out individual faces in the crowd, as if they are the protagonists.
Inside the cooler, darker chamber all but one of the characters’ faces are turned away from the observer; their inner thoughts veiled and left to the imagination. Strangely, the one illuminated and centrally-sited character is not actually the focus of the painting; he appears transparent and disembodied, his clothing merging with the edifice in the background.
A number of directional techniques within the painting compel us to look around, perpetuating the impression that we are really present: the position of the chequered floor tiles tells us that we are not face on to the enormous throng; our eyes are quickly drawn from them to a distant point at the end of the crowded thoroughfare. The pillars take our gaze both upwards and outwards to the groups in each annex of the chamber – the praetorian guard to the left, representing the military power of Rome, and perhaps a cluster of lawyers to the right, one with a legal scroll in his hand, representing its judiciary.
The glances of the peripheral characters cause us to wonder what has caught their attention and we follow their stares; the guards scan the rooftops for signs of trouble while the lawyer appears to give a last look over his shoulder before departing. Maybe he knows his case holds no water. Finally, the gesticulating hand, as the point of convergence for the whole painting, re-centres our attention and introduces us to the man whom all the fuss is about.
In contrast to everyone else – except, perhaps, the woman by the pillar – he remains still and composed. Standing by the soldiers, his stature, his naked torso and the scarlet military robe reflect something of their own temporal masculinity and power. Yet his hands are tied and his head is bowed; it’s not clear whether his eyes are open. We know his story: he’s on trial for crimes for which the authorities can find no evidence; he’s been brutally flogged, humiliated and denounced, and the people are baying for his blood. But there is neither hopeless resignation in his bearing nor belligerence or resistance, simply acceptance and compliance.
Behold the man. Behold him. Hold-him-in-being. Hold him before you and ponder. Wonder at him.
Amongst all the surrounding opulence, power and moral high ground, what possible examples of manhood are we to take from his meek acquiescence?
Everything we’ve been taught about what it means to be a successful man, about achieving status, authority and riches is turned on its head by this otherworldly defendant: “If my kingship were of this world”, he says, “my servants would fight that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world”.
Yet silhouetted against the bright, open sky, bearing the marks and crown of his mistreatment, his presence remains imposing.
Compare this to the governor in the centre of the scene, frantically occupying the crowds’ attention. Despite asserting his supremacy, (Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?), does he appear manly and authoritative? Other than a foot, the back of his head and a gnarled hand, his spectral body is dressed in a translucent robe robbing him of substance.
Look at the vacated space around him. Note how distance has been placed between him and his throne, which he has abdicated in favour of pleasing the crowd. You would have no power over me, says the quiet man, unless it had been given you from above. The governor wavers, isolated and afraid.
Note too, the same distance placed between him and the woman standing tragically behind the pillar; his wife, whose desperate plea he has just ignored: Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much over him today in a dream. Her face, the only one wholly in view in the entire painting, carries the anguish of all abandoned and rejected women.
Two men – two models of manhood.
One, a classical representation of worldly supremacy, a tyrant in the limelight, abandoning his duties as leader and husband and hanging on to his power in a moment of self-preservation by condemning an innocent man to death.
The other, a sacrificial lamb poised quietly in the wings, ready to fulfil a purpose in life that will literally bind him on a cross in duty to God and to the love of his spouse, above any temptations of worldly kingdoms or possessions.
Later, the epistolist will write, “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. This silent man will give himself up, totally, freely, consciously, decisively and with unwavering resilience, right to the agonising end. He does not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, he does not open his mouth, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
“For this I was born”, are the few words he says, “and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice”.
From our vantage point on the stage of the praetorium we hear the governor’s question, “What is truth?”.
We can be grateful to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for taking up the reply,
God is truth itself, the sovereign and first truth. This formula brings us close to what Jesus means when he speaks of the truth, when he says that his purpose in coming into the world was to ‘bear witness to the truth’. Again and again in the world, truth and error, truth and untruth are almost inseparably mixed together. The truth in all its grandeur and purity does not appear. The world is ‘true’ to the extent that it reflects God: the creative logic, the eternal reason that brought it to birth. And it becomes more and more true the closer it draws to God. Man becomes true, he becomes himself, when he grows in God’s likeness. Then he attains to his proper nature. God is the reality that gives being and intelligibility. ‘Bearing witness to the truth’ means giving priority to God and to his will over against the interests of the world and its powers(Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth).
So I invite you today to look to Christ. When you wonder about the mystery of yourself, look to Christ who gives you the meaning of life. When you wonder what it means to be a mature person, look to Christ who is the fullness of humanity. And when you wonder about your role in the future of the world, look to Christ. Only in Christ will you fulfil your potential.
Image: Poe Dameron and Finn from The Rise of Skywalker
I’m not a great fan of the recent crop of Star Wars films but, during the Christmas holidays in 2020, I took my family to see the finale of the trilogy of trilogies, The Rise of Skywalker.
As expected, it was a curate’s egg, with even the good elements struggling to lend it gravitas. Nonetheless, a recurring theme that interested me was the desperate need for friendship among the characters and for the skill, courage and – above all – the inspiration and hope of others in order to win the day.
Of course, it was all underscored with emotional cries of, “We’re not leaving you!” or “We’re coming with you!” or “I can’t do this on my own!” – but it was a quote from Poe Dameron, as a newly promoted General discussing plans for the final stand, that really struck me. He said, “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. We’re not alone. Good people will fight if we lead them.”
Replace The First Order with Satan and you have the key to the devil’s mission – isolate and conquer.
In the Garden of Eden, God saw that it was not good for man to be alone and so created him a helpmate. Satan’s immediate response was to come between Adam and Eve and to tell them they could be gods, omnipotent and without the need of anyone’s help. But one can only feel godlike by separating oneself from those who are not, leaving them abandoned and isolated in their own way; as always, the devil makes godlike separation an attractive proposition, but the reality is a spiral into self-centred isolation and lonely despair.
Men, in particular, can fall for this ‘godlike ideal’. At one end of the scale, there is the independent, self-sufficient, invincible alpha male, with his high-flying job, trophy wife and expensive, secluded homestead. But it always surprises people when the more extreme of these types turn on their wife and kids and then shoot themselves in an act of despair when their lives go horribly wrong, often through debt or divorce. They can’t handle the isolation, sudden vulnerability and loss of control – and helplessness quickly becomes hopelessness.
At the other end of the scale there is the man who wants a sedate, comfortable and uninterrupted life, with his TV, Playstation and takeaways, happy to let his wife carry the burden of raising the family. And somewhere along the spectrum there may be the man who buries his head in work, or travel, or hobbies, or in some other way avoids engaging with the reality of other people.
Not all men are like this, of course. And many Catholic men have their isolation imposed on them when they find themselves just about the only male attending Mass. Despite a strong desire for fraternity, they are frustrated by the complete absence of men, let alone those with whom they might share real friendship. Their loneliness stems from being abandoned rather than having deliberately withdrawn themselves from fraternity.
Yet try to convince Catholic men to join a men’s group and you often meet an extraordinary level of resistance: “I’d love to come but I can’t! The wife, the kids, the job, the house! I have no time! Now is not the right time!” It’s as if we have become too comfortable in the isolation-we-know to muster the strength to commit to the fraternity-we-don’t! Busy individualism has become the new normal to the extent that leisurely fraternity looks like madness.
Subconsciously, I believe, the real reason is that men know that fraternity will make humbling demands of them. It will challenge them to do the things they should be doing as men, but don’t because there is no one holding them accountable. Isolation makes us inert, inertia makes us susceptible to temptation and sin, and sin further isolates us from our brethren and from God. Ask any man addicted to pornography and he’ll tell you it becomes a lonely and shameful hell. But, surrounded by the deceptive comforts that money and technology bring, we kid ourselves that life is good and that we have all we need to keep loneliness at bay.
So what’s to be done? You can’t force anyone out of their isolation, but sometimes it takes a devastating or rock-bottom situation to do it for them. A man has to see how awful it is to be alone before he chooses to either end his life or to find it again in the company of others.
When he comes to that point, however, will there be others ready and waiting to give him hope? As Poe Dameron says, “They’ll come if they know there’s hope”.
“I’m just a father of two children that’s frightened of their future!”
On the one hand, I was drawn by the heartfelt measures he was prepared to take to protect the future of his children: joining a group of protesters causing disruption in the city to such an extent they were getting arrested. Would I lie on the tarmac to prevent cars passing throughif it meant the government would allay the fears over my children’s future?
On the other hand, I was disturbed by his shaking, emotional outburst while cowering on the floor. It was an image of despair and helplessness; defeat and suppression underscored by his cheek pressed against the asphalt. Would I want my children to see me in this state? I have a feeling that would make them fear more for their immediate future than the possibility of environmental collapse.
For a long period of their young lives, most children are able to look up to their fathers as bastions of strength and immutability, regardless of the circumstances. When my car broke down on the highway at two o’clock in the morning, on our way to a six o’clock ferry at the start of a holiday, my children were understandably fearful and in tears. I was panicking inside, especially when I found out that my breakdown cover hadn’t renewed and, being the end of the month, I had few assets left in my current account. But it was my job to reassure the kids that everything would be okay, that steps would be taken to resolve the matter and that we’d soon be on our way. And, of course, that turned out to be true (and they didn’t need to know how much it cost me).
Several years later, my children remember the occasion as one where catastrophe was systematically averted by daddy calming everyone down and going through the steps of getting us rescued, repaired and back on the road for a later ferry. We then had a fantastic holiday. For one of my sons in particular, it was a valuable lesson in bringing his fears under control.
I have no idea whether we are on the verge of extinction or not but, even if we are, I’m not sure I’d lie on the floor and cry.
As a parent, a teacher and a leader I’m well aware that my despair or my resolve, my hopelessness or my courage, my depression or my optimism quickly rubs off on those in my charge. Then everyone becomes either desperate or resolute, despondent or courageous, depressed or optimistic. As a father, it’s my job to use my masculine attributes to alleviate immediate problems for my family to the best of my capacity. Where the problem is greater than my ability to solve it, I look for help and demonstrate a resilience for my children to emulate. If every father, every man, took that line, we might just find ourselves in a very different set of circumstances.
Perhaps that was the motive that drove our Extinction Rebellion father out onto the streets? However, what troubled me about the image of him crying on the floor was that, by that stage, he had so surrendered to his own fears he was bereft of any capacity to safeguard his children’s future.
Maybe I’m being unfair! After the picture was taken, he might have jumped straight back up, dusted himself off and vigorously rejoined the demonstration. However, if the abiding image we have, as children, is one of our father’s impotency, if we see that our own fathers have broken down in the face of adversity – those strong, immutable men – what message of hope does that leave us?
In contrast, the Catholic man is obliged to present a very different image. Even if we are on the verge of extinction, we have hope! We know there is more to life, more after life, than the material world we inhabit. That’s not to excuse any negligence in looking after our planet; on the contrary, we should shoulder our responsibilities as stewards of creation. However, we shouldn’t be mawkish about the state of the world around us but instead, as St Paul exhorts, “… boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”.
And, because the Lord God helps us, we will not be disgraced. We will set our faces like flint, for we know we will not be put to shame. If ever we find ourselves in a momentous or catastrophic situation, what abiding image will the world have of us? As I write here, our task as Catholic men is not to give up, but to get a grip!
Catholic Man UK recently attended the very joyful March for Life in London. One of the workshops before the main event was entitled, What it Means to be a Pro-Life Man. This article aims to extend the argument provided by the speaker, that we need to transform the narrative of male involvement in abortion and the abortion debate before we will see any real change.
March for Life, London 2019 Workshop 5 – Summary
WE already know that pro-abortionists use the arguments of misogyny and male oppression to create some kind of moral justification for their position. They paint a calculated picture of men as predatory, heartless monsters, abusing the rights and freedom of women. Their deliberate and inevitable conclusion is that men have no right discussing the topic; they should be disenfranchised by total exclusion from the debate. No uterus, no opinion.
But let’s re-frame the argument. Abortion is a male issue because abortion is essentially about the dethronement of fatherhood.
While feminists have long railed against the patriarchy, men
themselves forget they have systematically shelved their paternal responsibilities
and put their women and children in terrifyingly untenable situations.
How many of the 56 million abortions, annually, around the world have arisen from a lack of fatherly love, duty and commitment to the woman and child involved? Far from it being about women’s freedom; women and children have suffered unimaginably from men’s overwhelming urge for recreational sex, irresponsible one-night stands, sex trafficking, abandonment of ‘unplanned’ pregnancies, their desire for material possessions that encourages a woman to pursue career over family, and their juvenile and selfish behaviours that can’t handle the thought of being responsible for another human being, particularly if it might require special sacrifices.
56 million abortions represent 56 million occasions where a man has not stepped up to the mark. Every year.
Take a typical AGI* list of reasons for having an abortion and ask, to what extent has the man so failed in his responsibilities of leadership, protection and provision, that the woman felt she had no other choice but abortion?
Rape and incest need little explanation. But what about the
mother being too immature or young to
have a child? Well, where was her own father in all this? We know that an absent
father has a huge impact on whether his teenage daughter gets pregnant. And
even if she was simply a wilful child, despite the best parenting, her father
is still obliged to support her regardless of the shame, aggravation or expense
it might bring him. That’s what men must do. And who was the irresponsible
young man sleeping with a teenage girl anyway? Where was the education and
discipline from his father with
regard to paternal duties and responsibilities?
Other reasons
women give for having abortions clearly implicate the man: the husband or partner wants her to have abortion; the woman’s parents
want her to have an abortion; the woman has problems with her relationship or
wants to avoid single parenthood; she doesn’t want others to know she had
relations or is pregnant.
Where in all this
is the committed, sacrificial support of a man? If a man had been present and
faithful, would the woman have felt the need to get rid of the child? If her
father had been less concerned about family honour, would she have felt the
pressure to abort?
What about
reasons for having an abortion that could be classed as a woman’s selfish lifestyle
choice? She has all the children she
wanted or all her children are grown; she is concerned about how having a baby
would change her life; having a child would disrupt work or education; she
can’t afford a baby now; she feels unready for responsibility; there is a
possibility of foetal health problems.
In all these instances, the woman is still having sex. With a man.
Where was his objective discussion with her about pregnancy? Where was his mature decision to hold off intercourse or to continue and commit to what might result? Where was the manly weighing up of the consequences? Where was the masculine genius of planning ahead and apportioning resources? Where was his calm assurance that all would be well? Again, had the man shown love and fidelity, would the woman have felt the need for an abortion?
Finally, even in that most emotive and difficult situation regarding the life and health of the mother, the faithful support of a good man would provide some courage and confidence in the decision to keep the child.
At this point, it would be foolish not to reinforce the fact that the circumstances leading up to an abortion are fraught and complex, making it challenging to decide where the faults lie. There are also many exceptions to the rule, where the man has desperately wanted to keep the child and to provide for it, but where the woman has remained adamant that she can’t or won’t, even with the help of a faithful man.
Are we to blame men here? It would be hard to judge how far an environment in which many men have deserted their paternal responsibilities subconsciously impacts a woman’s fears about bringing a child into the world.
So, it may well be right that men are shut out from the debate about what a pregnant woman can or can’t do with her body. At this stage, the horse has already bolted.
The real debate should be about what a man does to a woman and her body before pregnancy even occurs!
This is where the narrative around men’s involvement in the matter must change. Men need to hear from other men that abortion is a man’s issue, because abortion is the consequence of a man’s abandonment of faithful husbandhood and fatherhood.
Abortion stems from a man’s ungoverned sexual impulses. Abortion is the result of a man’s lack of self-control. Abortion is the product of a man’s immaturity and his desire for ease. Abortion is caused by a man’s lack of fidelity and commitment. Abortion arises from the absence of trained and disciplined fatherhood. Abortion happens because men do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Abortion endures because men have not been properly fathered, don’t know how to father, and don’t want to father.
In creating the conditions for abortion, men have surrendered ownership of their nature as fathers. They have allowed abortion to dismantle fatherhood, and now fatherhood has been erased from the debate. The way to make sure a child is never aborted is to rebuild the narrative of men as committed fatherly protectors, disciplined, defensive warriors of the family.
Abortion is unquestionably a man’s issue and the narrative must be changed by courageous men.
* The Alan Guttmacher Institute is a research and policy organisation for sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States. www.guttmacher.org
Definitions of the word ‘manhood’ more or less agree that we’re talking about a state or condition of being an adult male with the associated qualities and responsibilities.
Today’s debate on masculinity has come about because we have
lost a fixed point of reference for those qualities and responsibilities. Being
a man is no longer about virtue and duty, tough physical work, commitment to
marriage and a family or sacrifices for the greater good of society.
Modern attitudes – and luxuries, often in the form of technologies – have removed many of the requirements for men to perform their traditional duties. Modern thinking tells men to detach themselves from ‘out-dated’ aspects of being a man, and sadly equates – and broadcasts – the expression of negative male behaviours with the sum of the essence of manhood.
True, men exploit their masculine characteristics and strengths through violence: to abuse, rape, intimidate, rob and murder. Good men must do their utmost to prevent this exploitation and, on behalf of all men, should ask forgiveness from our women for the uncountable occasions where this behaviour goes unchecked and unpunished.
But this is not manhood! This is not what authentic masculinity is. Those many individuals who do abuse their power, strength, wealth and sexual desires aren’t men. They are boys. We aren’t suffering a crisis of masculinity so much as a crisis of boyhood, where more and more men in our society are crowding around the doorway of mature manhood unable to step over the threshold.
These immature boys are leaving their wives and families because they can’t handle their manly duties; these boys are turning to violence and crime to prove their manly worth; these boys are only interested in pleasure and entertainment; these boys remain depressed and anxious in their 20s, 30s and 40s because they haven’t been initiated into their true masculine roles and responsibilities.
Males gravitate towards extremes. When we allow extremes to become our expectations for behaviour, we turn away from our real purpose. On the excessive end of those extremes, manhood is equated with brutality. But on the deficient end we have mediocrity—being unmotivated, bland and weak. Both of these extremes are considered by one group or another to be the norm for manhood and both result in an inability to take on real responsibility, to commit to a job or to a relationship.
So, having lost our points of reference about what it means to be a man, where does that leave a Catholic understanding of manhood?
Firstly, Catholic
manhood knows its roots
When masculinity is so cut adrift from its purpose today, we need to find some absolutes. Is it possible to reach back to a fixed point where we can say, this is the basic principle for what manhood is meant to be?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church suggests it is. It
states:
In creation, God laid a foundation and established laws that remain firm, on which the believer can rely with confidence, for they are the sign and pledge of the unshakeable faithfulness of God’s covenant. For his part man must remain faithful to this foundation, and respect the laws which the Creator has written into it. [CCC 346]
So, what firm laws did the Creator write into the foundation of manhood? Let’s go back to the beginning, to Genesis. Here are the laws: God told Adam to procreate (be fruitful and multiply); God gave him primacy or dominion over creation; He told him to protect (to keep or guard) His creatures and the creation covenant, and to provide for himself and his people (to till the land). Procreation, primacy, provision and protection. Those are the laws stitched into the fabric of manhood.
And what does that still mean for men today? Scott Hahn develops this in his book, A Father Who Keeps His Promises, by stating that God’s first and foundational covenant was a marriage covenant between Adam and Eve, the first couple. The fruit of their covenant love was children. It means that men are meant to be a father of a family (biological or spiritual); men are meant to lead that family, to provide for them and to protect them, within the covenant of love established by God. By default, fatherhood also means commitment, responsibility and fidelity.
Those are your absolutes for being a man. Manhood is not
defined by occupation but by vocation.
Catholic manhood knows its reason
Why is it that men are created to be fathers? Pope St John Paul II tells us in Familiaris Consortio that human fatherhood is meant to ‘reveal and relive on earth the very fatherhood of God’ [FC 25].
What does this mean? It means that we men have the inconceivably terrifying and breath-taking task of transmitting the reality of God’s paternity to others – specifically to the children in our care – so that they come to know who God the Father is! Through us! God has let us loose with His paternity! We are the primary manner by which others upon this earth come to know God the Father.
The human father is a link between God the Father and His children. He is the voice of the Father that our children cannot hear, the face of the Father that our children cannot see, and the touch of the Father that our children cannot feel. If fathers turn their hearts to their children, their children will turn their hearts to God. If fathers listen to their children, their children will know the listening heart of God. If fathers show mercy to their children, their children will discover the merciful heart of God. The human father is indeed the visible icon of the heavenly Father.
Why do we so desire a father’s approval? Because we want to be approved by God the Father. Conversely, when we struggle with our belief in the presence of God, in the love of God and in the faithfulness of God, it is because we have struggled to see presence, love and faithfulness in our own fathers.
Paul Vitz, in his book, Faith
of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, discovers a startling
pattern: atheism arises in people with absent, deceased or abusive fathers. Disappointment
in one’s earthly father frequently leads to a rejection of God. By contrast, prominent
defenders of religious belief – and he includes Blaise Pascal, John Henry
Newman and G.K. Chesterton – were blessed with attentive, loving and caring
fathers.
Look around at the world today. An increasingly fatherless world is an increasingly secular world. Look at the absence of men in church, and the ease with which their children disappear from it once they hit their teens. Look at the research which shows that, if the father is the primary church-goer and living example of faith, his children have a greater likelihood of practising the faith into adulthood than even if both father and mother regularly practise their faith. Where just the mother attends church, there is the least likelihood that the children will continue practising their faith into adulthood.
Why? Echoing St John Paul the Great, Cardinal Ratzinger provides an answer:
“Human fatherhood gives us an anticipation of what [God the Father] is. But when this fatherhood does not exist, when it is experienced only as a biological phenomenon, without its human and spiritual dimension, all statements about God the Father are empty…” [Palermo, 2000]
‘Fatherhood experienced only as a biological phenomenon’: this is sex without considering the consequences, feckless fathers leaving behind single mothers, sperm donors turning fatherhood into a commercial transaction. Any biological act that is not followed up with the commitment and duty of fatherhood.
‘All statements about God the Father are empty’: how can we say that God the Father is good, when our own father abused us? How can we say that God the Father is loving, when our own father left us when we were children?
Cardinal Ratzinger continues:
“The crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons and daughters.”
Interestingly, one of the antonyms of ‘dissolution’ is ‘inauguration’. It’s a wonderful thing that true manhood helps inaugurate – invest or initiate – others into the family of God. It’s a very majestic term and a very stately activity. Indeed, St Paul says, “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom all paternity in heaven and on earth takes its name”.
Catholic manhood knows its responsibilities
Let’s return to St John Paul the Great and the quote from Familiaris Consortio. Here is the line in context:
“In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family: he will perform this task by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife, by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the Church.”
Let’s pick this apart for the next few paragraphs. What actual duties of mature Catholic men are described here?
He ensures the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family
A Catholic father corrects, disciplines, teaches, treats everyone justly and with fairness; he exhorts, encourages and provides opportunities to experience new things in life. He allocates chores and duties and provides rewards and celebrations. He looks for the strengths in his children and develops them; he looks for their weaknesses and strengthens them. He establishes a family culture, family times and seasons and helps to contain any extremes in the ebb and flow of family life.
He exercises generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother
A Catholic father is present and committed. He welcomes conception. He kicks his selfish boyish habits and gives the ensuing time and energy to his family. He settles the baby, feeds it, wipes its bum and changes its nappy. He gets down on the floor to play; he takes the children into the garden, the workshop, the countryside; the resources he has and the money he earns he pours into their needs rather than his own.
He has a solicitous commitment to education
A boy’s successful transition to manhood comes about from learning how to be a man from other men, and then having his masculinity affirmed by those men. A girl will learn likewise from her mother. In practical matters, a father and a mother should teach skills and virtues necessary for the rounded education of both sons and daughters.
However, it is in spiritual matters that the father has a primary responsibility to educate.
St Augustine emphasises the father’s spiritual headship of his family in his Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. He goes so far as to compare the father’s role in the home to that of bishops in the Church:
“Discharge our office in your own houses. A bishop is called from hence, because he superintends, because he takes care and attends to others. To every man, then, if he is the head of his own house, ought the office of the Episcopate to belong, to take care how his household believe, that none of them fall into heresy, neither wife, nor son, nor daughter… Do not neglect, then, the least of those belonging to you; look after the salvation of all your household with all vigilance”. [SSL XLIV]
Or St Paul to the Corinthians,
if you like:
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16: 13-14).
His work should never be a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability
The modern working world doesn’t make it easy for us, but a Catholic father will try to find a job close to home, a career that allows flexible hours or opportunities to work from home. He will make prudent decisions about how much overtime he does, about how much travel he undertakes, about whether the extra cash from that promotion is really worth the additional hours away from the family. Men have a tendency to define and affirm their masculinity by their careers and incomes, or use their hard work to excuse their lack of presence to their families. Man is not defined by occupation but by vocation.
He gives witness of an adult Christian life
An adult Christian life is a life of virtue. Did you know that the Latin word for man is vir, which is at the root of the words virtue and virility? In using vir to denote ‘a man’ it also implies those qualities and properties which constitute a man. Vir is used in the Latin as a term of respect and it often signifies, emphatically, a hero.
Virtue and virility are the core foundations of becoming an authentic adult Catholic man. Virtue is about being a good man, and virility is about being good at being a man. Virtue is what makes virility noble. Virility is what makes virtue active.
Aristotle’s Golden Mean states that any virtue – let’s take courage as an example – sits between two extremes: a deficient vice and an excessive vice. The deficient side of courage would therefore be cowardice and the excessive side, recklessness.
Giving witness to an adult Christian life is a continuous, heroic determination to move away from those extremes and towards virtue – or, as The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it, “a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.”
Virility brings us back to the four divinely appointed
laws of primacy, procreation, provision and protection and to some extent also describes
our capacity in each area. The
degree to which we have developed our capability in all four roles is the
degree to which we might be considered virile, or good at being a man.
He introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the Church.
What
is the living experience of Christ and the Church? It is the unrestrained,
limitless, unbidden and unprompted, gratuitous abandonment and sublimation of
oneself and one’s own desires for the good of another. In short, complete
self-sacrifice.
And how does a father introduce his children into this living experience? Through his love of their mother.
Marriage, as someone once said, is an ongoing, vivid illustration of what it costs to love an imperfect person unconditionally … Just as Christ loves us. Through a selfless love of their mother, the father shows his children how Christ loves us and His Church. As the Venerable Fulton Sheen says, “Suffering and responsibility – these are the hallmarks of masculinity”.
And it ain’t easy – my wife can be as annoying as hell, and I struggled for many years of our marriage expecting her to love me as I wanted to be loved and resenting her when she didn’t. Love became conditional – I would only repay it if I felt I was receiving it.
What I didn’t realise is that, to love as a man like Christ is to always make the first move: to be the first to express sorrow, the first to forgive, the first to show a sign of affection, the first to break the cold wall of silence. St John the Evangelist writes: ‘We love, because He loved us first’!
St. John Chrysostom exhorts husbands:
“… And even if it becomes necessary for you to give your life for her, yes, and even to endure and undergo suffering of any kind, do not refuse. Even though you undergo all this, you will never have done anything equal to what Christ has done. You are sacrificing yourself for someone to whom you are already joined, but He offered Himself up for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him.
In the same way, then, as He honoured her by putting at His feet one who turned her back on Him, who hated rejected, and disdained Him, as He accomplished this not with threats, or violence, or terror, or anything else like that, but through His untiring love; so also you should behave toward your wife.
… So the Church was not pure. She had blemishes, she was ugly and cheap. Whatever kind of wife you marry, you will never take a bride like Christ did when He married the Church; you will never marry anyone estranged from you as the Church was from Christ. Despite all this, He did not abhor or hate her for her extraordinary corruption …” [Homily XX]
It’s easy to wallow in resentment and self-pity in our relationships. It’s easy for men, like the first Adam, to blame the woman for all the trouble and strife in their lives, but that’s a boyish response. The battles between the sexes will only ever be over when we men love first, when we take our computer games, our fast cars, our banter, our addictions, our lewdness, our desire for power, and nail them firmly to the Cross of self-discipline and self-denial. Then with our arms wide open and our hearts pouring out our love, we will hear our wives and our children say, “Behold the man!”
Afterword
Like committing to the gym after years of inactivity, committing to authentic manhood after years of juvenile indolence is a challenge.
Firstly, we don’t feel like we have the energy! This all sounds exhausting! Where do I start?! Secondly, once you hit the gym, it’s depressing how much further ahead other people appear to be, and how much work you have to do to get there. And finally, it’s not until we put ourselves in a position of duress and vulnerability that we find the righteous anger and the inner wherewithal to deal with and root out our apathy.
But start small. St
Josemaria Escriva writes:
“Will-power. A very important quality. Don’t despise little things, for by the continual practice of denying yourself again and again in such things — which are never futile or trivial — with God’s grace you will add strength and resilience to your character. In that way you will first become master of yourself, and then a guide, a chief, a leader: to compel and to urge and to inspire others, with your word, with your example, with your knowledge and with your power”. [The Way, 19]
If you’re reading this feeling the inertia and the exhaustion of what you need to do to be a man, know that someday, somewhere down the line, those innate masculine laws will break through and you will go, dammit, something has to change! I will get off the couch, I will go to the gym – I will step up and become a man.
Even if you are not yet a father, or that time seems a long way off, there is much you can do to prepare, to cast off your boyish habits and to take up your responsibilities.
But know this also, to take your fitness for manhood seriously, you need to be taught how to do it correctly, you have to start light, you need a coach to guide you and to hold you accountable, you need to work on areas that are injured or weaker than others – and you will plummet to depths you never knew were there and rise to summits you never imagined. And you’ll need buddies along the way to cajole and motivate you, to laugh at and with you and who push you to achievements beyond your expectations. Manhood is a challenge, but men are built for challenges
Let me end by paraphrasing a quote from Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois. Where he is speaking of Catholicism, let me reference manhood:
“The age of casual Manhood is over, the age of heroic Manhood has begun. We can no longer be men by accident, but instead be men by conviction!” [cf Sermon, 14th April, 2012]
Adapted from a talk given to the Catholic Medical Association young peoples’ retreat, St Dominic’s Church and Rosary Shrine, London, 9 Feb 2019
Fatherhood is the essence of authentic masculinity.
Men are biologically predisposed towards fatherhood through their capacity to generate new life. Their sexual drive makes them hardwired to establish their paternity, often as soon as they are able; their specific physical and cognitive talents give them the tools they need to support the consequences of their actions as they raise their families.
Wealth and prowess, though integral and conducive to raising a family, are secondary outcomes of a man’s biological capabilities; they are not his primary purpose. No, men have been designed with one innate function in mind: to be a father.
While nature and society have influenced the role of the father, faith acknowledges that fatherhood is directed by a divine hand. Men are meant to be fathers because, through their visible and corporeal presence, they reveal to their children the invisible and mystical fatherhood of God.
Fathers are conduits of God’s paternal presence on earth.
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