Catholic Candle note: In our corrupt times, men have “forgotten” how to be men, just as women have “forgotten” how to be women.  The article below is a beginning of a “reminder” and examination of conscience for men, regarding what God expects of them. 

In a way, the article below is a “companion” article to these articles for women:

❖  https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/02/the-role-and-work-that-god-gave-to-woman/

❖  https://catholiccandle.org/2020/10/01/the-importance-and-need-for-stay-at-home-moms/

 

There is a spiritual and moral crisis we see all around us in civil society and in the human element of the Church.  All other problems, such as crime, dysfunctional families, a broken education system, disastrous economy, etc., flow from this.

One way to assess the root cause of all of these problems is that they are caused by men, much more than by women or children.  If men did not fail to be true men, these problems would not have occurred in society or in the human element of the Church.  Further, if men did not fail to be true men, there would not be the big problems that also exist in women and children.

Men are more responsible because of the leadership role God gave to them as part of His Providential plan, and also because He made them the protectors, defenders, and advisors of the rest of society. 

Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas explains this truth:

Men are wiser and more discerning and not so readily deceived as women are.  …  Man is the head and counselor of the woman.[1]

So, men have failed themselves as well as failed the women and children by allowing society and the Church’s human element to become so corrupt.

St. John Chrysostom denounced men who are like this, who are so weak as to not only fail to lead their wives, but to be led by them.  Here are his words, speaking to men:

You are the head of your wife, and she has been created for your sake; but you have inverted the proper order; not only have you failed to keep her on the straight and narrow but you have been dragged down with her, and whereas the rest of the body should follow the head, the contrary has in fact occurred, the head following the rest of the body, turning things upside down.[2]

There is a secular proverb which points out the same greater responsibility of the men for what happens in society (and in the human element of the Church).  It shows that men are more blamable than women or children for corrupt times:

Weak men make hard times.  Hard times make strong men.  Strong men make good times.  Good times make weak men.

In other words, men who are soft and self-indulgent cause bad times, i.e., a deterioration in society.  Such bad times test and toughen men’s character, pushing them to be virtuous and manly (as they always should be).  Virtuous and manly men cause society to become more peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous.  Peaceful and prosperous times cause men to become weaker and more self-indulgent.

Doctor of the Church, St. Hilary of Poitiers, taught the truth that peaceful and easy times tend to weaken a person’s virtue.  Here is how St. Hilary teaches this truth, focusing on the Virtue of Faith:

When our Faith is attacked, it increases.  Therefore, in dangers, our Faith is secure; in security, our Faith is in danger.[3]

Another common proverb points to this same truth, in a general, secular way:

From blue collar, to white collar, to blue collar in three generations.

This means that a man in difficult circumstances, who uses determination, sacrifice, and hard work, causes his sons to have education and opportunities that he (their father) did not have.  This results in greater affluence and ease for these sons and for their own families.  Such affluence and ease tend to cause a softness and self-indulgence in the children of those families.  Thus, their characters are weaker than their grandfather’s – undermining what he tried to instill into his descendants. 

So, we see that men’s failures are due to their becoming soft, unmanly, and self-indulgent, as commonly happens when times get easy and everything is peaceful.

Although God created men to lead their families and to lead society, the feminists want men to be led by women.  Pope St. Pius X fought the earlier part of the same satanic feminism.  Here is one way he warned against a variation of this evil:

Women in war or parliament are outside their proper sphere, and their position there would be the desperation and ruin of society ….[4]

These words of Pope St. Pius X echo the principle set forth by the prophet Isaias, who measured the extent of the perversity in Israel, by saying:

As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them.

Isaias, 3:12.

St. Paul shows that God created men – not women – to be the leaders of society.  Here is one way he infallibly declares this truth:

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

1 Corinthians, 11:3.

St. Paul’s analogy here is that, just as the head of a physical human body is its source of direction, so likewise, God made man to direct woman.

Further, a woman is not the head of her own family.  She must obey her husband.  St. Paul taught: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord”.  Ephesians, 5:22.

As perverse as it would be for a woman to be head of her family and to rule over her husband, how much more perverse it would be for a woman to be the ruler of a country and have authority over all of the men of the country!

This authority of man over woman is not only part of the revealed Divine Law and the teaching of the Church, but it is also part of Natural Law.  St. Thomas Aquinas shows this when he cites St. Paul (regarding the Divinely Revealed Law on this issue) and then cites the great philosopher Aristotle regarding this same principle in the Natural Law.  Here are St. Thomas’ words:

According to the Apostle [1 Tim. 2:11; Titus 2:5], woman is in a state of subjection: wherefore she can have no spiritual jurisdiction, since the Philosopher [i.e., Aristotle] also says (Ethic. viii) that it is a corruption of public life when the government comes into the hands of a woman.[5]

We see the “tail” of the devil in feminism.[6]  Satan and his servants hate God and they hate the Natural Law which He created.  They hate His creation and in particular how God created manhood and womanhood.

The devil seeks to destroy womanhood through the evil of feminism and he seeks to corrupt women by twisting them into an unnatural equality[7] with men and into being unwomanly caricatures of men. 

Similarly, Satan and his tools are trying to destroy men and their manhood.  The devil tries to make men unmanly, soft, emotional, and self-indulgent.  He tries to make men into unmanly caricatures of women.

We know that Our Lord is especially the model for all men (just as Our Lady is especially the model for all women).  The magnificent St. Gregory Nazianzen, Doctor of the Church, taught us one aspect of Our Lord’s example to men.  He said:

There is in Him [i.e., Christ] nothing womanly, nothing unmanly.[8]

We see from St. Gregory Nazianzen’s wise words that it is a mark of perfection for a man to be a manly man and to be in no way womanly. 

Leftists Portray Men as Helpless and as Needing Women to Show Them How Men Should Act and How Men Can Avoid Being Failures.

The lies and perversions promoted by the leftists are everywhere.  The leftists twist manhood “upside down”, saying that women should teach men how to be men.  Leftists say that “men are in crisis”.[9]  They declare that “men are lost”.[10]  For example, the leftists promote a rabid feminist (Christine Emba) to give men (as the Washington Post says) “a map out of the wilderness”.[11]

Leftists tell men that male traits are harmful.  Here is one way they spew that anti-God poison:

Traditional masculinity – marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression – is, on the whole, harmful.[12]

Leftists tell men that men should stop being like men.  Here is one way that they promote that evil idea:

Achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence, … these standards are damaging to mental and physical health.[13]

Leftists tell men that men should be like women.  Here is one way that they say this, attempting to destroy the manhood which was created by God:

To the extent that any vision of “nontoxic” masculinity is proposed, it ends up sounding more like stereotypical femininity than anything else: Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt ….[14]

So, turning manhood upside down, the leftists say that a man is strong when he is acting like a woman.  Here is one way the leftists state their oxymoronic position:

There’s a lot more of an effort now to broaden the idea of what masculinity really can be, … and how there can be strength in doing some things that ordinarily would be considered feminine – like talking about your feelings or crying in front of others.[15] 

Plainly, we see the wickedness of this leftist attack on Nature.  This is an attack on all of society.  But in particular it is an attack on each man who does not resist and guard himself from becoming a wimpy shadow of a woman, instead of a real man.  By this destruction of what God made him to be, he becomes a failed pile of wreckage and an unhappy freak of Nature. 

General Traits of Men – in Contrast to Women

We must now look at what True Manhood is, as God and Nature intend it to be.  Such manhood is the only way a man can be happy.  It is the only way he can make a success of his life (in all of the important ways) and attain the true goal of his life, which is Eternal Salvation. 

Let us start by considering traits of manhood.  Men have many prominent traits which contrast with the traits of women.  For example, they tend to be:

➢  Larger and stronger in body;[16]

➢  Greater in physical endurance;

➢  Wiser, stronger in mind, with clearer powers of reasoning;[17]

➢  More focused on ideas and abstract matters;

➢  Less focused on persons and their individual differences;

➢  Less focused on details and more focused on the “big picture”;

➢  More focused on a legacy of accomplishment in the world and less focused on his children being his legacy;

➢  More focused on causal reasoning and less on intuition;

➢  Less emotional;

➢  Firmer of will to adhere to resolutions made;

➢  More decisive in making decisions and more prone to stubbornness;

➢  Greater willingness to take risks, as well as more prone to rashness;

➢  Greater self-mastery;

➢  More self-reliant;

➢  Bolder and more courageous;

➢  Less prone to take social cues and less prone to act in a particular way because other people act that way too;

➢  Less concerned about his neighbors’ lives and activities;

➢  Prone to be a leader;

➢  Less compassionate and considerate of the feelings of others;

➢  Less vain and less concerned about his own appearance;

➢  Less prone to be humble;

➢  Less prone to be pious;

➢  Not graceful;

➢  Does not tend to seek to ornament himself and his surroundings and to focus on beauty;

➢  Is more competitive;

➢  More mechanically inclined and is better at designing and operating machinery;

➢  More apt at mathematics, the physical sciences, philosophy, and theology;

➢  Less generous and giving;[18]

➢  Less attentive to manners, etiquette, civility, and decency;

➢  Less home-oriented and more focused outside the home;

➢  More willing to resort to conflict and more prone to use force and violence;

➢  Greater proneness to be protective of others (as well as himself); and

➢  Greater proneness to provide for others (as well as himself).

Our experience shows us that some of these traits are more central to manhood than are other traits.  The most important trait of manliness and man’s key strength is for him to conquer and to control himself. 

In other words, the greatest mark of true manhood and the greatest strength of a man is for him to master his own lower nature.  For this reason, we see that a man who is seething with unruly passions (i.e., not firmly controlled by his reason) is a poor, weak sort of a man.  He is a slave, really.  This is true regardless of how capable he is of conquering others.   

A manly man must not be selfish, nor carried away by his emotions or passions.  He must control himself and always live according to his reason.  That is why a man can be a manly man and can show the truth of manliness even when he is 106 years old and is wheelchair-bound.  Thus, e.g., St. John the Evangelist showed manly firmness and courage when he fearlessly endured being boiled in a cauldron of oil in his later years.

One way the leftists attempt to corrupt manhood is by referring to the “feminine side of a man”.  Further, we see how disgraceful it is for a man to wear pink, wear earrings, or in other ways to blur the differences between the sexes, their roles and actions, and their clothes.

Whereas God made women more emotional, it is a great disgrace for a man to be as emotional as a woman.  This is like the great disgrace it is for a woman to lack a woman’s heart of compassion and generosity.

St. Thomas Aquinas – who is not only the greatest Doctor of the Church but also the greatest man of reason – elaborates on the salient point of manhood, viz., that God created man to be wiser than woman:

The reason for this subjection of woman to man is that the husband is the head of the wife, and the sense of sight is localized in the head — “The eyes of a wise man are in his head” (Eccl. 2:14) – and hence a husband ought to govern his wife as her head.  “The head of the woman is the man” (1 Cor. 11:3).  Then he [viz., St. Paul] brings in his example when he says: as Christ is the Head of the Church.  God “has made Him head over all the Church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22-23).  This is not for His own utility, but for that of the Church since He is the Savior of His Body.[19]

Just as Christ is the Head of the Church for the good of the Church, likewise, God made man to be the head of the woman for the good of the woman.  St. Paul shows us this parallelism in these words: 

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the Head of Christ is God.

1 Corinthians, 11:3.

As man has a duty to be wise and guide with his wisdom the woman under his care, so God made parents to be wiser than the children they are raising, so they can guide their children with their wisdom.

God gave the man the attributes of manhood in order to serve Him (viz., God) through his manhood and for the good of the woman and children under his care.  This difference (between men and women) is the wellspring from which chivalry and gentlemanliness arise, since a man is chivalrous and is a gentleman for the good of the woman, using his manhood (including his authority over her) to benefit her.

Let men serve God as manly men, teaching their sons to be real men!  Let women be womanly and show their daughters the example of how to be real women!  In this way, faithful and informed Catholics of both sexes will serve God the way He wants to be served and will be the leaven in society that God created them to be!