Catholicism And The Warrior EthosIs it possible... does it even exist?
Webster's defines warrior as a person engaged in some struggle or conflict. Webster's also defines ethos as the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution.
Unfortunately, in today's New & Improved Spirit of Vatican II Catholic Church, the words Catholic and warrior go together about as well as wholesome and gonorrhea.
Let's be honest, gang. The mainstream Novus Ordo is feminine. And by feminine, I mean that anything with even a hint of good old fashioned Pope Urban II or Pope St. Pius X style Catholicism is strictly verboten. I guess an old school John Wayne punch in the mouth is out of the question.
And even though I've brought up the symptoms of the disease, such as Altar Girls, the words "Soldiers of Christ" have been sent to the dustbin, and decidedly girlie priests whose cultivated lisp and high-pitched giggle screams homosexuality... the problem we have in the Catholic Church today is that many men refuse to act manly.
The aforementioned symptoms are some of the reasons as to why so many kids look upon The Church as a girls-only club and the only guys involved are sissies. Strong male role models are indeed rare in the mainstream Church.
But getting back to the warrior ethos, this isn't the first time I've posted on the subject (Mantillas And Murder from June, 2007). And with that said, men certainly don't have a monopoly on teaching children that being grateful and worshipping our loving, merciful and just God should be the central focus of our lives. But men do have the responsibillity of teaching children that there are certain things that deserve to be fought for. I can't think of anything manlier.
By the way... one not need actuallly carry a weapon to embody the Catholic warrior ethos. Any real Catholic woman will tell you that.
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
12:02 AM
4 Comments:
...and we are shocked when we see a Nun given authority over a Priest as they are being given in Rockville Centre?
This is the unfortunate norm in the majority of parishes. We are suffering from a severe shortage of Altar servers(I'm only using that term because my parish uses both boys and girls) in our parish and my oldest daughter recently received some serious pressure to 'step up' and help out. This is a girl who was brought up knowing her role and learning how a 'real Catholic woman' acts from one of the best, her mom. She politely declined but was a little hurt by it. I mean this is a young lady who started a teen pro-life group, first in our area and she is getting slack for not wanting to join the ladies club up on the Altar. She understands why also. She is 14 years old and developing into a young woman, which makes her a potential distraction for any male Altar server. Hell, we've seen how some of the girl servers have gotten girlie giddy with my son when he has served with them.
So how does this effect the boys? My 16 year old son, who has served since 3rd grade, has learned to serve the TLM and is actively praying for a vocation, recently trough past the notion that he, 'might consider lectoring' instead of serving at the Altar. But how can you blame him? To call our ever dwindling supply of Altar servers a problem would be an understatement. The next closest male in age is three, maybe four years younger and the males are fewer and more far between the girls. I guess being a lector, while still being outnumbered by female lectors, might provide him with at least an ounce of dignity, since he'll be up there reading by himself, instead of being flanked by a couple of younger doe-eyed girls. My heart goes out to him and I really don't know the right way to council him on this dilemma. He knows that the Altar, as manly a place as there should be has become a womans place, where men are becoming less welcome.
...and some wonder why we have a vocation crisis.
Honestly, in the Novus Ordo they could do away with servers alltogtether. They really have no practical or functional role in the normative manner in which the Novus Ordo is said. I would argue that churches would be far better served to do away with kiddy acolytes altogether than to allow the contradiction of female acolytes.
As for everything that Caveman wrote, I would just add that I do not think the problem with the Church is that it is too femine, I think the problem within the Church is that it has become feminist. There is a difference. The latter is an ideology and not a human trait. The ideology lacks objectivity and common sense and it is about as feminine as mysogony is masculine.
Ironically, the most feminine women I know also happen to be wonderfuly faithful and Traditional Catholics. The Church in actuality needs much much more of true femininity.
Then get boys reading St Bernard of Clairvaux's " In praise of the new Knighthood" about Military Orders. Or "The Grunt Padre" by Fr Daniel Mode, or again the book that is cited so much in The Grunt Padre; "Radiating Christ - an appeal to Militant Catholics" by Raoul Plus S.J. No use whinging about something if we can't at least attempt to provide solutions!! And I write as an ex-soldier and current Police Officer, which doesn't give any more weight to my opinion, but I do have an insight as someone who has tried to reconcile the two concepts of warrior and Catholic.
Jakob, I can assure you that there are those who frequent here have gotten their hands dirty in addressing such problems within the Church. You really don't get much done on a blog other than pass some info, share views and vent some frustration. Sorry if it comes across as whining. That being said, many here know where the battlefield is and have been on it. Thank you for the book references though.
Confiteor, great points on femininity. I think part of the problem is we get hooked into accepting the secular definitions of femininity instead of stressing what virtuous Catholic femininity is.
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