In a recent article of The Sunday Business Post On-line (Ireland), Kieron Wood discusses how the feminization of Catholicism could mean the end of the Church.
I think we can intuitively agree that healthy, thriving church communities are built around families who worship and live the Christian life as a stable unit. On the other hand, when only one of the two parents practise their faith, startling differences are found in the faith commitment of the children:
"Ten years ago, the Swiss authorities conducted a survey to find out how religion was passed from one generation to the next. The poll found that in families where the father was a regular churchgoer and the mother was non-practising, 44 per cent of the children eventually became regular churchgoers.But if the father was non-practising - even if the mother went to church regularly - only 2 per cent of their children would become regular worshippers, while more than 60 per cent of the children would never attend church."
Startling indeed. Clearly, a mother's influence is important, but regardless what the mother says or does, the vast majority of these children pick up on the discrepancy. Since fathers don't participate, all the huffing and puffing by mothers does not change the fact that the father's example means that Church is not important. But why are so many fathers driven away from the practice of their faith?
"American writer Leon Podles, author of The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, said: 'In attempting to demonstrate to the feminists the importance of women in the Catholic Church, the current Pope, for all his excellencies and orthodoxy, has undermined the role of men in the Church. He talks about mutual subordination, but has never mentioned the father as the head of the family.Western Christianity has become part of the feminine world from which men feel they must distance themselves to attain masculinity. That is why men stay away from church, especially when they see that the men involved in church tend to be less masculine.
Psychological studies have detected a connection between femininity in men and interest in religion. There may even be a physical difference. Among men, football players and movie actors have the highest testosterone level, ministers [of religion], the lowest.
By driving men away from the Church, this feminisation has undermined Christian fatherhood. A man cannot be a Christian father unless he is a Christian first, and even fatherhood has been undermined in the Churches. In parishes, fathers are ignored or denigrated. Priests boast that they became priests because of their mothers. Don't they have fathers?' "
For the love of God and the life of the Church, this trend must be reversed. We always talk about how we can make liturgy "more relevant" for those in the pews. So, how about it? How do we make the liturgy more relevant for the men who are supposed to be there, but think it's a waste of their time?
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this appears to be a mirror image of the pre-feminized liturgy, where many women felt excluded, due to language-based gender issues, etc. Fine. Clearly, I'm not advocating we hire Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor as chief liturgist. That kind of push-pull approach to liturgy has already shown to be better at alienating parishioners than inspiring them.
Where is the middle ground? I'm sure if I advocated a return to traditional liturgy, I'd be quickly dismissed as reactionary. So how about it? How do we bring back the men who have been chased away in recent years?
I think it has to begin with (1) a restoration of the rightful role of the father as the head of the family in our society. Until that happens, we'll be spinning our wheels on anything else; and (2) a campaign of education for men, that teaches them of their primary responsibility as guardians of faith in God in the home. In other words, children are equally subordinate to their parents in all things; then the mother and children are subordinate to the authority of the father, primarily but not exclusively, in spiritual matters. But first, the father needs to freely subject himself to the authority of God and the Church. Only then will the mother freely subject herself to him, and the children in turn by example.
It's analogous to the relationship of Christ and Our Lady with the Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Infinite Perfection. Our Lady, being perfection through grace, freely subjects herself to Christ. In turn, the entire Church subjects herself to Our Lord through Our Lady's excellent example and intercession. However, because we are less than perfect beings, getting this proper ordering kick-started in the home is a difficult proposition. It takes co-operation and substantial effort on all sides. Think about it.
