Wanted: Real Men as Husbands and Fathers

I met an interesting gentleman at Mike Voris' talk, Carlos Caso-Rosendi. He sent me a great article today using the cruise ship tragedy at Giglio Island as a metaphor for our disintegrating culture. The article is great and I urge you to read the whole thing here. But the excerpt below had me saying, "Right on, Carlos!"

In my view the disdain for human life begotten by the perfecting of preconception since the late 60's has created this Priapos mentality: man as a sexual predator and a Nimrod of sorts. It is appalling to see how many women these days seem to admire that "dangerous guy," the alpha male lately personified in Brad Pitt and others like him. How far we have wandered from the likes of Cincinnatus, the strong farmer, decisive warrior, cautious man of state, capable to serve, impervious to adulation, incapable of theft. The serene strong masculinity of Cincinnatus is hard even to imagine today. Only George Washington comes to mind when those virtues are enumerated. Virtue: a little word that comes from the Latin vir meaning a man. 

This absence of natural manly virtue, this general lack of true manhood has created a vacuum, a silent crave for the image of that real man that can be trusted to lead and preserve the family in times of trial and in the daily fight for survival.
If there is a failure of manhood, there is an epic failure of fatherhood. I am sure I am not the first to define Modernism as a rebellion against fatherhood. The last assault started in the heady days of 1968. Those days saw the end of the old model, the good American father who returned form the hell of World War II to continue serving as the world's most productive male. Robert Young in Father Knows Best evolved to be the androgynous Brady of The Brady Bunch, where two butchy females run the house with him remaining in a feminoid passive role. From there is downhill all the way to Homer, the father-as-village-idiot of The Simpsons. People feed on those images and then it is impossible to surmount the expectation that fatherhood is rooted in failure. Thus we arrive to the final stages of the androgynous society. Gone are the Beatles' sideburns and mustaches, or Sinatra's womanizing ethos... now the model is Justin Bieber, a girly kid who would look like a 60's female teenager if he could only grow breasts.

Happy Father's Day!

There's something especially appropriate about celebrating Father's Day on the Feast of the Holy Trinity. After all, the family is the best image on earth for the reality of the Holy Trinity. The love of a father and mother generate new life like the love between the Father and the Son generates the Holy Spirit. What a blessing that we lowly humans can participate in the creative love of God Himself. What an incredible delusion the devil has spawned to convince people to destroy their capacity to be "like God" in creating new life!

I am especially grateful today for godly men and husbands who "love their wives as Christ loves the Church" with a sacrificial love that puts their families ahead of their own selfish inclinations. I am so blessed to be married to one! And I have two sons and three sons-in-law who are great daddies to their combined nineteen children! Thanks, dads from a grateful gramma.

I am also most grateful for the other fathers I know who gave up marriage and family to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the flock. When I think of the good priests I know (and have known) who not only serve but suffer for their people, I'm edified and humbled. I want to imitate their self-sacrificing love.

May St. John Vianney intercede for all priest-fathers today and may St. Thomas More, that so faithful Catholic layman and father, intercede for all daddies. Mother Mary, I place all their needs at your feet and ask for your powerful intercession for them before the throne of God. "Hail Mary, full of grace...."