The War on Men in the Church: Where have all the Young Men Gone?

Where have all the young men gone?
Certainly not to the Knights of Columbus!

Remember the anti-war song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? I read an article at Crisis Magazine this morning, No Parish for Real Men, that made me think of it and the war in the Church.

The song asks, "Where have all the young men gone?" Catholics could well ask that question of their bishops. The attack on the faith doesn't just involve an attack on doctrine, the liturgy, reverence, etc. It's an attack on manhood.

In my own parish, most of the lectors, cantors, and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist are women. We don't have altar girls, thank God, but adult men seem to have disappeared from most parish roles outside the Knights of Columbus. And even that organization looks more and more like a refuge for the geriatric set. In Europe the pews are empty except for old women fingering their rosaries. Thank God for grandmothers, but our boys need male role models vigorously defending the faith. There's a man crisis in the Church and that translates to a Catholic crisis in the family. [Read more here.]