Hindsight on nature and grace

Courtesy of Mr Blake,
Lamentably Sane: Breaking glad

Reflections from an orthodox Catholic man on why he's glad he left the seminary and why the priesthood is dwindling:

"Men are willing to give their lives for a mystery, but not for a question mark."

He was unable to fly beneath the radar of the VatII Boomer establishment and keep his mouth shut.

"There came a point where I finally said to myself, "Fuck that noise." It's that kind of thinking that has led to the Church's current fugue state. That unwillingness to speak the truth, that hesitancy to declare that the emperor has no clothes has led to decades of ecumania, of a crippling lack of confidence, of grown men having to sit in silence as clip-haired, mean faced old broads in pantsuits henpeck them in umpteen committee meetings because the seminary drills you hard on whether you have a "problem with women."

Gays in the priesthood are, alas, part of that problem, willy-nilly. Yet even a gay Jesuit like the late Patrick Arnold wrote about the entrenched hostility to men and masculinity in contemporary Christianity.

Contemporary Western Christianity is deeply infected with liberalism, even among its conservatives. As ExC has realized, once you accept the existence of modern chimeras like "sexism" you have effectively surrendered to the levelling agenda of the Left. You can deny it all you like, but you will lose, eventually. The only way out is to refuse to play the game at all.

And although feminists attack Christianity as patriarchal, on the ground, in the parishes, it is a female-dominated institution. Check out the website of Catholic churches: one male pastor surrounded by a smiling resentment of females doing "ministry."

But more deeply, Catholicism has forgotten one of the seminal insights of Thomas Aquinas: Gratia non tollit naturam sed perficit. Divine grace does not erase created nature, but moves it toward its goal.

In this case, the created nature of men. Men aim for work --and a religion*--that provides them with respect, with status. That is nature's map for them. And it is what draws women to them. Fill a field or a profession with women (or gay men) and most males will flee. Mainstream Protestantism, Reform/Conservative Judaism...all these create feminized ghettos. Often filled with a lot of masculinized females.

What healthy young male would say,
"Gee, I want to be part of that!" ?

Men will sacrifice much but there has to be an exchange. That's the nature upon which grace acts. In return for sacrifice, men need to feel honored, respected. Why should a man accept celibacy, and go through long years of training and a lonely life only to be told that he is really no better than than the grey-haired lady catechist who did two workshops last summer. Lacking the honor of status, there is no point.**  And where there is no point, there will be no men.

Don't complain to me. Complain to God. That's how he made men.

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*The most patriarchal religion in the world is Islam, which means, ironically, Submission. But it is submission to the greatest power there is, in exchange for which, Muslim men gain honor and status in this world over non-believers and, very importantly, over women.

**On the "gestures" of humility and "servant leadership" by Jesus, or the Pope, see my reflections here.







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