FYI, Mozilla does not recognize dashes as an excuse to create a line break.
But a good post.
Good line, "The men aren't there -- it doesn't take a resume." It didn't take a resume for Cardinal Heenan either, when he predicted that the New Mass would alienate men. From the Fall 2002 issue of The Latin Mass magazine "Men: The Great Casualties of Liturgical Reform" by Leo Darroch, quoting Heenan, 'At home it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come to Mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday in the Sistine Chapel we would soon be left with a congregation of mostly women and children.' ...
Many factors no doubt play a role, but one significant point is that the modern church no longer teaches clearly that the man is the head of his family. This teaching has been more or less abandoned only in the last generation. Unfortunately even the Pope has sought to distance himself from this teaching. For a trenchant critique of the Pope's views see this:
http://www.catholicintl.com/
epol..._Dignitatem.asp
Personally, I have only ever heard the teaching twice in recent years - both from traditional Latin mass priests.
If men aren't offered their proper traditional role in the church and family, they are less likely to be interested in church activities.
I am an Australian, so I can't be sure of the American Catholic Church's situation, but it sounds even worse for men than here.
Julian
I am on our parish religious ed committee (excuse me, Faith Formation). We have one man (me) with 7 women (them). We have 1 man teaching CCD (me) and 15 women (them). Next year I will be the president of the committee and my goal, if we are still there, is to recruit more men to be teachers and maybe even run for the committee. The problem though is that I will be asking them to teach CCD using a curriculum based on the Gospel according to Precious Moments. A lot of time has been lost, but it is really our fault. The parishes are run by women because there aren't any men there. Most of the failures of our Church have been the failures of men, and it is time we stood up and re-claimed our place in the Church (domestic Church and parish church). If we are ready to do this then I think enduring a Precious moments curriculum (or crafting your own like I have) is the penance we need to bear for failing for the last couple generations.
Marc:
I envy you. I've been volunteering to do anything -- and I said "anything," like xeroxing or antying else -- in our RCIA program for four years. No dice. The ladies, apparently, can't use the help.
Another good article on this subject can be found on the Latin Mass Magazine's web site: http://
www.latinmassmagazine.com...masculation.asp. This is an important topic, given what we are faced with all around us in the breakdown of the Church and the family, with a pope who cannot bring himself to strongly reiterate the Church's teaching on the family headship of the father and who cannot take the time to write an encyclical on "The Dignity of Men," with the American Bishops contemplating -- I kid you not -- writing a document on "The Collaboration of Priests with Women."
Excellent post Dale! I am looking for your part III. I also talked about the article you referenced on our blog, and really I think it comes down to creating your own men's group and go from there. Check Www.dads.org (St Joseph's Covenant Keepers): they give some good ideas on how to start a small Men's group.
SAM-
I found that one can start by befriending the young seminarian who's dispatched to the parish for a year or so. Ours was very eager to have a men's group started, and all it took was to have a Men's bible study on the 7 last words of Christ. Amazing how good men just showed out of the woodwork. he became the link between us and a pastor too distracted by other activities. Now we're thinking of organizing a mens' conference, getting father-son activities. All it took was talk with the seminarian ...
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