Guest post: The “manly” Catholic Church

January 15, 2015 • 1:30 pm

When regular reader and commenter Diane G. sent me a link to an unbelievable piece about sexism in the Catholic Church, I didn’t have time to write about it but still wanted to publicize it, so I asked her if she could write a short article. She kindly obliged, and here’s her piece:

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Feminophobic Cardinal Chirps: Women Are Ruining The Church

by Diane G.

When Professor Ceiling Cat turfed an article I’d submitted back to me and asked if I would do the write-up instead, my first reaction was, “Me, write?” But the more I delved into it, the less daunting it became, this being the classical case of material-that-writes-itself.

An article in Tuesday’s Washington Post by reporter Terrence McCoy, “Former highest-ranking U.S. cardinal blames ‘feminization’ for the Catholic Church’s problems“, naturally caught my eye.  In it McCoy  summarizes a demoted Cardinal’s misogynist lament for the Roman Catholic Church’s missing manliness, and you should read McCoy’s article if my write-up here (as it inevitably will) ends up in tl,dr territory.

Most of McCoy’s material comes from an interview Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke gave last week to Matthew James Christoff, apparent founder—and possibly the sole member—of  “The New Emangelization“  (my emphasis–you can’t make this stuff up). I spent a lot of time clicking around that site to be sure it wasn’t actually some offshoot of The Onion or Landover Baptist Church, sporting nuggets such as these:

It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of [a]  priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys.

First of all, be manly yourself. In other words, cultivate your own manly qualities, because the priest is first and foremost the spiritual father; he is a man. You need to have manly qualities of selflessness, chivalry and discipline to avoid situations improper for a priest.

But amusement dissolves when he gets to the heart of his thesis (emphases mine):

I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized.

Unfortunately, the radical feminist movement strongly influenced the Church, leading the Church to constantly address women’s issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men

Which inexorably led to:

“… a period of time when men who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity had entered the priesthood; sadly some of these disordered men sexually abused minors; a terrible tragedy for which the Church mourns.

Yes, folks, the whole pedophilia thing was just a tragedy that befell the church, entirely the fault of those radical feminist interlopers. (Where would we be without such helpful logic to explain this “tragicle“?)

And if I might add a bit of an aside…how the heck do  Burke and Christoff not realize how much their  rhetoric screams homoeroticism?  Nowhere is it more obvious than at “The New Emangelization”‘s  page entitled “The Perfect Manhood of Jesus Christ.”   There we find a page that lists “The Physical Jesus Christ” (do see the image there) where we learn that among his attributes are that  he :

-Is physically attractive

-Has a penetrating gaze

-Wore attractive clothing

-Has a powerful voice

-Is physically strong

-Has significant stamina

-Is physically tough

-Has physical charisma

-Can be physically imposing

-At times presents a supernatural physical presence

But back to the Cardinal, with one more quote from his interview:

Men are facing great temptations, particularly, as I mentioned due to pornography and confusion about sexuality and desperately need to be taught how to battle these temptations in Christ.

Men with uncontrollable sexual appetites, Catholic nuns in their burqas: does this remind you of any other religion?

Burke was apparently Pope Benedict’s acolyte, and has fallen out of favor with the “liberal” Francis, which has only made him more outspoken. Thus continueth the Sturm und Drang of the present beleaguered  Catholic Church, innocent victim of feminists.

96 thoughts on “Guest post: The “manly” Catholic Church”

  2. Me, write?

    Yes! As much as Jerry will let you.

    And that repressed homoeroticism really is simultaneously unbelievably open and painfully embarrassing and extremely disturbing. Complete with the recruitment of young boys to the manliness of the super-special manly man’s man club for Jesus’s manhood. And no cootie-girls allowed!

    b&

        1. Much as I like the song, watching this doesn’t make me want any of them. I wonder why that is . . . ?

    2. Back in the same era, Michael Palin appeared in a skit on Saturday Night Live as an English lad sent to sea aboard a “manly ship.” The double entendres, homoerotic references, and stereotypical gay jokes were unmatched before this cardinal’s article (they were a lot funnier coming from Palin and Belushi). I can’t find a video, but I did find a transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78rcowperthwaite.phtml

    3. Don’t forget that the manhood of Jesus is perfect. It’s the title of one of their articles.

  3. Suppressed homoeroticism is more like it. The Catholic church never ceases to provide comedic material for late nite television skits.

    1. Men are facing great temptations

      Among them the Jesus described above – sounds like a magical Abercrombie & Fitch underwear model and gladiator movie hunk all wrapped up in one. Methinks the Emangelist who wrote that up needed a little “bathroom break” before he was through.

      I jest, but I find repression extremely sad: my sexuality has always been such an important part of my life I can’t imagine suffering in the closet. It’s easy to forget, but these hypocrites are victims of persecution, too.

      1. Well I’m straight, but I can’t help but notice the saucy arrangement of the loin cloth in all those crucifixion paintings….

      2. I was walking up Piha beach today, admiring all the young ladies in bikinis – and a very pleasant sight they were, to be sure – and it crossed my mind, apropos recent posts, how blinkered and benighted the Wahabbis/Haredim are to deny themselves that simple pleasure. It gave an added tingle of guilt-free schadenfreude to my enjoyment – guilt-free because they’ve done it to themselves.

        I’m not sure whether Catholic priests should be added to that category.

        Mind you, if I were a Catholic, I’d have a nice long list of thoughtcrime to confess on Sunday…

  4. I couldn’t keep a straight face when “Has a penetrating gaze” was on the list…

    “Brother, how did you come to Jesus?”
    “Well, you know. His eyes, they just penetrated into me.”
    “Do you realize what you just said?”
    “It just sounded better than I liked the descriptions of his physicality.”

    1. well, per Genesis, God was about to “givest” Adam an aardvark or a spiny echidna as a “helpmeet”, so the Catholics should be grateful for us women.

      I know I’d certainly prefer an aardvark or a spiny echidna to these emangelicals….yeesh.

    1. I’m still not sure about “The Emangelization!” There are some awfully clever internet parodies out there.

      But Poe or not, he seems to have reeled in a real live Cardinal with a lot on his “mind.”

  7. Check out their posts:

    “Men, in growing numbers, prefer the effeminate comfort of perpetual adolescence, many ironically living in their father’s basements wasting their lives in trivial pursuits. Today’s Prodigals, many sired out of wedlock and abandoned by their “fathers”, reject or postpone the call to marriage, preferring promiscuity under the cover of contraception, abortion, pornography and self-indulgence. But the wastrel life has consequences: depression, suicide, addictions of all sorts and male loneliness are at epidemic levels. Post-modern Man is a spiritual bastard, intoxicated in Sin and utopian dreams, blindly living in a perpetually wasted state. Post-modern men are pathetic Prodigals” – See more at: http://www.awedbyjesuschrist.com/jesus-christ-son-of-god-2/#sthash.WQnvm5VC.dpuf

    See the pun they made on “spiritual bastard”, ’cause you know those people we want to reach were born out of a Catholic marriage (sweeping statements we pulled out from unmentionable places) and insulting them will definitely and without fail bring them to Jesus.

    1. “Post-modern Man is a spiritual bastard, intoxicated in Sin and utopian dreams, blindly living in a perpetually wasted state.”

      Well I have always aimed to reach such a lofty goal

  8. You need to have manly qualities of selflessness, chivalry and discipline to avoid situations improper for a priest.

    Note, he’s talking about being an altar boy in that paragraph, not a priest. IOW, he’s victim-blaming the altar boys for their own sexual abuse. Because if it happned, it must’ve been because you weren’t manly enough to avoid an improper situation.

    1. Or because you were ambiguously attractive due to lack of manliness. Gotta make sure that those alter boys aren’t all tempting and stuff.

  9. hahahahahaha!

    “is physically attractive, has a penetrating gaze, wore attractive clothing, etc etc …”

    another fine product brought to you by the manly art of just making sheet up.

  10. Great post Diane. No deprecation necessary.

    The suppressed homoeroticism and the misogyny is not surprising, but it is pathetically sad. It would be nice if Catholics read this shit and took it seriously.

  12. Most of McCoy’s material comes from an interview Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke gave last week to Matthew James Christoff

    Hmmm…Burke appears to be an older gentleman. I get the feeling that list is something akin to a shopping list. Or maybe a personals ad. “SWM seeks younger man with penetrating gaze.”

  13. “It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of [a] priest…” So many memories bubbling up…

    Five decades ago, I wasted an hour nearly every school day in my Catholic grade school playing altar boy. Wearing the stifling long cassock under the frilly white surplice, trying to stand motionless holding the bible while the priest read the gospel, snitching a peak down Joanie’s blouse while holding the little tray under her chin while she knelt and stuck out her tongue for the wafer, remembering to ring the chimes at just the right moment and not too loud…

    Then in the 8th (and final) grade of that elementary school, kneeling at the side of the altar, I looked out at my classmates in the congregation and had a revelation: “It’s all bullshit. The stand-ups and the kneel-downs, the hymns and the mumbling, the memorized Baltimore catechism… All bullshit!”

    Thus are atheists formed.

  14. Here’s some more excerpts I found particularly bigoted or at least telling:

    A child’s relationship with their father is key to a child’s self‑identification, which takes places when we are growing up. We need that very close and affirming relationship with the mother, but at the same time, it is the relationship with the father, which is of its nature more distant but not less loving, which disciplines our lives.

    As a father, I say: screw your stone-age misogyny and its ‘more distant’ relationship between father and son. Next:

    The introduction of girl servers also led many boys to abandon altar service. Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural. The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church.

    Yeah, nothing unequal there! Next:

    The Ordinary Form [of the catechism], if it’s celebrated very reverently with good music, can have the same strong positive effect on men. Men don’t go in for this kind of corny approach to the Mass when it becomes some kind of feel-good session, or where there is irreverence. Men are there to receive Jesus Christ.

    Getting on your knees to receive Jesus Christ. What could be more manly than that? The homoeroticism is strong with this one. Last quote:

    The dark confusion of gender theory deceives people into thinking that they can create their own sexual identities based on urges and emotions.

    Oh. My. God. You mean people are basing their sexual identity on how they feel towards themselves and one another? Horror of horrors!

    2. “Young boys don’t want to do things with girls.”

      Slightly older boys, on the other hand, ……..

      The guy has a genius for the mot juste.

  16. Booting this jackass from actively working in the Vatican may be one of the better things Francis has done.

    Unfortunately he still has that ceremonial title, which still grants him some authority among people who care about Catholic Church titles.

  17. How in the heck does anyone have any idea what was the appearance of the Jesus of the Bible (who probably didn’t even exist on this planet or anywhere else)? For all that anyone knows, assuming the improbability that he did exist, he looked like some combination of the Elephant Man and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. On the other hand, Rock Hudson may have been his clone.

    1. I think that’s the whole point in saying the description is homoerotic: because it says more about the person doing the describing than the subject.

      1. Ack! The pop-up ad on that page was, ironically, for Single Ukraine Women. Is it targeted advertising? Are they reading my thoughts?

        1. I didn’t realize that there were still people who browsed the net without adblocker software. Isn’t that kinda like leaving the house without pants?

  19. Thanks so much for all the compliments, y’all! 🙂 As noted, the material writes itself.

    And while we’re there, please mentally change that “classical” to “classic” in the first paragraph…(the things you don’t catch until too late…argh).

    Can’t tell you how many of the comments here literally made me LOL. 😀

    It could easily be just my platform, but a few items that are actually hot links aren’t color-indicating that for me: one in the third paragraph, “tragicle” in the paragraph beneath the penultimate Burke quote, and two more links in the subsequent paragraph (the last of which shows sexy Jesus). Mousing over the text worked for me.

    1. Thanks for pointing that out. Using Google Chrome, the links you mention are not colour-indicated, but mousing over works. The Tragicle video is brilliant – it took me a few seconds before I realised it was a Poe, and clearly some commentators didn’t get it.

      1. I thought ‘Poe’ as soon as he illustrated dictionaries with a picture of Webster (the insufferable kid from the eponymous TV series)

  20. Just how willfully ignorant must this priest be to believe that the abuse of children in the Catholic Church began only in the 1960’s?

    This is just sad and pathetic.

    Thank you Diane.

    1. That line about millstones must have been inserted in the gospel some time after 1960. It would make no sense otherwise.

  22. It is only fitting the church would have to blame it on the female of the species. Just following the rules in the book.

    How they frame the gay and the pedophile in the same bag of trouble only shows the incredible ignorance in the religion. Very good article.

  23. He’s a holy priest and he’s OK. He prays all night and he preaches all day.

    I wear a robe.
    I bless the wine.
    I like to eat the host.
    An alter boy
    needs my firm hand
    So I give him my riposte!

        1. I’m a holy priest and I’m okay.
          I pray all night and I preach all day.
          I sing some hymns, I wear a dress.
          I like to bless the wine
          On Saturdays I hear confessions
          For ideas on how to spend my time.

      2. I was trying to work in the kneeling angle, but I could only think ‘what rhymes with knees?’ Clearly the wrong direction.

  24. If the RCC wants to be a men’s club and all marriages to have a male presence, why the hate aimed at the gay community. Seems to me they’re living the RCC’s ultimate fantasy.
    Jealous much.

  25. The observation that the Catholic church is both homophobic and hightly homo-erotic is an old one, analyzed in great detail in the writings of gay Catholic Mark Jordan.

    I have consistently found churches with women clergy to be far more humane and open-minded in their general community.

  26. Speaking as a former altar boy, I have to say that the Catholic priests I associated with did not possess the manly qualities of selflessness, chivalry and discipline.

    They were just normal human beings put into an intolerable situation, denied the perfectly natural wish to form relationships with other human beings.

    As well as not being allowed to marry or have any sort of sexual relationships, Catholic parish priests are routinely moved from parish to parish with the specific goal of not allowing them to form any lasting friendships with the laity.

    I’m not sure if the charge of homo-eroticism applies in general, I think that Catholic priests share a lot in common with Islamic fundamentalists, they have never had a chance to develop normal adult relationships with women and tend to be sexually repressed and unable to form relationships of any sort with equals.

    I think this has a lot to do with the prevalence of paedophilia in the Catholic church, these priests are not capable of normal adult relationships and are attracted to relationships where a power imbalance exists.

  28. Yeth. A proponent of “Masculinism,” the status quo from the mists of antiquity until the present day. Let’s hear him address, as Hitch would put it, the problem of “No child’s behind left.”

    I hope that he does not get ravished by even “The Widow Thumb and her Four Daughters” for at least the next six months.

    1. “too long, didn’t read”

      Internet speak used for long articles that are skipped due to lack of attention span. Also used in jest.

  30. Great job! (Hail Diane, blessed art thou among either gender. So say a word for us sinners.)

    “Emangelization” — sounds like something (and His Eminence’s description does nothing to disabuse this notion) that the guys in stir upstate do in the shower-room while the guards pretend to look the other way.

  31. Re that list of ‘the perfect manhood of Jesus Christ’, I often wonder when I see such things, whether the perpetrators are so naive they can’t immediately see the double-entendres.

    Not to mention the fact that, in certain lurid novelettes of the bodice-ripper persuasion, I believe ‘manhood’ was used as a euphemism for male dangly bits. So they’re saying that Big J had a perfect dick.

    They (i.e. people who publish such things for general consumption) should really get it proof-read first by a suitably cynical dirty-minded old peasant. I would be pleased to offer my services for a suitable nominal remuneration.

  32. For an organization that “the gates of hell will not prevail against”, it sure seems helpless in the face of evolving social attitudes towards Women. Funny that.

  33. Great job Diana. On the subject of Catholic priests unable to form normal relationships wasn’t it Aldous Huxley who said that “…of all the sexual perversions, celibacy was the most unnatural”?

    Cheers

    1. You mean Diane. I don’t want to accidentally take credit for Diane’s awesome writing. 🙂

  34. I was a small child in the 1960s and I still clearly remember thinking, “My Dad and his friends are railing against these long-haired, bearded hippies … but, but, look at that picture of Jesus! He’s a long-haired, bearded, hippy trouble-maker. And were supposed to revere him!”

    He was always pictured as bearded, long-haired (perfect coiffure, by the way) and blue-eyed and very northern-European looking. The linked one was the very one everyone had, or extremely similar to it. There seemed to be a standard picture everyone had. Blue eyes? Seems unlikely (not impossible; but unlikely.)

  35. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

    Yup, this is the only way to express it. I think you won the Internet right there, Diane.

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