Men and (Christian) religion

Bringing men back to church | Deseret News National:





It's funny. I had emotionally worked through my disappointment in Catholicism for not accepting me as a gay man. Indeed, had come to understand that it could not do so and in fact, if it were to be itself and any use to the world, must not. To sanctify sex between men would unravel an ancient but embattled moral code, with nothing at all to replace it.

That meant, of course, that my parting of the ways was personally permanent. But --not that it matters to anyone but me-- my attitude toward the faith in which I lived until I was almost 40 became positive, supportive, appreciative. Even if it was for primarily cultural reasons of intellect and aesthetics. Hell, I even appreciated Pope Ratzinger, who had been the straw on my gay camel's back in the 80's.

Well, that is all crumbling fast.

What now blocks my vision of almost anything else about Catholicism --and Christianity in general-- is that it has become a place toxic to men and to the European peoples who created it.

I recognize that most ordinary guys were ambivalent about the Church. And I confess shamefacedly that I mostly went along with the feminism in it in the 80's. For which sin I most heartily repent. Although the Apostolic Churches --Catholic and Orthodox-- will never ordain women, their local churches are, priest excepted, dominated by females. Men stay away, understandably.

And as I have argued elsewhere, while the Church can and does make clear and compelling arguments about the coherence of its sacramental system --why only bread and wine can become the Eucharist, not beer and ricecakes, or why only water will baptize, not sand-- it fearfully refuses to enunciate the obvious reasons why only men can be priests.

Even advocates for men in the Church have been cowed --a good metaphor-- to the point where the author of "Why Men Hate Going To Church" denies that he is interested in "male dominance." No, of course not. That would be CrimeThink. Just "male resurgence."

Pussy. It's like the Mormons who respond to queries about their Temple ceremonies by saying, "It's not secret, it's sacred." Have people no real shame? Well, I guess our culture makes not room for it. All we can have is the fake ritualized shame of racism and sexism and CaitlynJennerphobia.

The rage of the young Nietzcheans and Odinists cuts too close to the bone, that Christianity's current betrayal is embedded in its universalist and slave-worshipping DNA, its ineluctable destiny,  and is, as the kids say, not a bug but a feature.

Indeed, the autoimmune virus of Western liberalism has become so much the default mindset of the Church --including this spectacularly facepalmworthy Pope--- that The Camp of the Saints is not only not being resisted by the Church, but actively enabled and celebrated, as if that grim novel were not an apocalyptic warning but a tactics manual.  As if Pope Leo had gone out to meet Attila and given him the keys to the city. Or Pius V had surrendered at Lepanto and welcomed the "immigrant Turks" behind the very same Leonine walls that his predecessor had built to keep the Muslims from sacking St Peter's a second time. It is deeply shameful.

Maybe some day my sense of connection to the Christian faith will re-awaken. Hey, I got to respect Ratziner. For now, I can't imagine it. These last realizations --the racial replacement one especially-- are a knife in the heart.

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