Catholicism – Too Feminized?

[PPeterson]

Nice find on the pre-ascension jpII quote. V impressed.

 

[EasterJoy]

Where’d you get that impression?
I’ve never seen that in any of her posts.

Correct me where I’m wrong, but she seemed to be saying in the post I responded to that complaints about any adverse effects in the form of over-emphasis on the feminine that could be traced back to an preponderantly-female lay presence in the sanctuary and on liturgy committees automatically implies that an all-male episcopacy was an opposite evidence of over-emphasis against the feminine.

Our all-male episcopacy is not a matter up for debate. It is a definitive and permanent feature of the Universal Church, and it has been the constant belief of the Church that this feature was intended by Our Lord, rather than being the arbitrary and reversible decision of the males in the Church.

 

[PPeterson]

I haven’t eaten lunch with anyone from Iceland during the last 3 years. And lo it is manifest that no Icelandic person could partake in the eating of lunch with me in the future.

 

[EasterJoy]

No, actually I think that’s the approach Cardinal Burke is taking. Cardinal Burke would presumably have seen the prevalence of women among Jesus’s followers and in the early Church as a sign of “feminization.”

Did you read the original article? It is quite interesting. Mind you: I am not defending everything the cardinal said, and I would very much like to ask him to clarify his meaning. I think his message is not being delivered well at all, to the point that I can hardly say whether I can agree with him or not!

He did not say that including women with men in positions open to the laity was a bad thing. No, he made it a point to say he was not saying that. He was saying, however, that he thought lay men were being discouraged from participating in roles open to all of the laity in some places because specifically masculine things such as the Knights of the Altar were being actively suppressed by those enforcing a feminist and feminized agenda.

That is his main thesis: The full participation of lay women in the Church, while a good thing, has been carried out badly and infected with influences that discourage the full participation of men in the Church, which is a bad thing. The emphasis of the importance of women, while a good thing, has been done at the expense of men in the LAITY hearing about the importance of the vocations of men in the LAITY. The importance of the laity has also been emphasized at the expense of recognizing the importance of the priesthood. As a result, men are turned off from recognizing the importance of their vocations, both as husbands and fathers and as priests.

Some of these things he was complaining about, unfortunately, have no direct connection to women or even to radical feminists. I find the pverall confusion of the turning off of men with “feminization” to be a very serious and counter-productive line of thinking.

For instance, he said that men are disproportionately turned off by priests who infuse their service at the altar with their own personal marks, making the Mass about themselves rather than de-emphasizing themselves in order to emphasize the sacred.

This has to do with the general topic of changes that have occurred in the Mass that are, as the cardinal thinks, more popular with women and less popular with men. This is what he meant by “feminization,” but I think that was an extremely poor choice of words that fuzzes up the whole matter.

The cardinal seems to be attributing all the errors of modern thought to feminism and yet does not credit feminism enough for some corrections made to past errors in thought. He doesn’t seem to realize that there are many parallel lines of thought that have emerged since WWII or so, not just feminism, and that these lines of thought have influenced both each other and the Church in ways both positive and negative.

As an example, take the whole area of self-advocacy and the value of self-expression, a modern idea I’d say is more responsible for some of the cardinal’s complaints than an increased emphasis on women and on the laity. The axiom, “artificial barriers to the activities and roles of women ought to be removed” and the axiom “individual uniqueness ought to be emphasized at every turn” have no necessary connection. It is perfectly possible to accept one and reject the other. A person might hold, for instance, that certain barriers on self-expression are necessary and good and yet also hold that most or all of these barriers ought to apply equally to men and women.

The cardinal is chalking up priests who make the Mass about themselves, which he says turns men off disproportionately compared to women, to “over-feminization.” It turns off men more, but it isn’t femininity that is turning them off. It is inappropriate self-expression, and that is not, strictly speaking, something that belongs solely on the plate of the feminists. I think if you look at reactionary thinkers who are “masculinists,” they make the very same mistakes! How can that be an error in thought based on “over-feminization,” then?

More to the point: the cardinal doesn’t seem to get that the feminine cannot be defined as something that women like more than men. The masculine is *not *something that men like more than women. Therefore, changes in the Church that disproportionately deter the participation of men *are not automatically *changes in how “feminine” the Church is. He is confusing the effect–more women than men in the pews and volunteering to help at the altar–with the cause, which even the cardinal says has to do with how much individuality the priest has elected to inject into his role as a priest!

 

[Xantippe]

EJ,

I finally made it through that. Wow! Yes!

I’ve also finally made it through the orginal article. I’ll pull out some quotes from Cardinal Burke and comment (with occasional bolding for emphasis).

“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”

Is that even true?

I was just scanning through the main page for the USCCB, and that’s not really the emphasis that one gets from the main page.

usccb.org/

It’s not WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN at all. Ditto the page on the laity, marriage and family:

usccb.org/about/laity-marriage-family-life-and-youth/

"This is despite the fact that it was a long tradition in the Church, especially through the devotion of St Joseph, to stress the manly character of the man who sacrifices his life for the sake of the home, who prepares with chivalry to defend his wife and his children and who works to provide the livelihood for the family. So much of this tradition of heralding the heroic nature of manhood has been lost in the Church today.”

PPeterson had a fair criticism that this talk about lack of devotion to St. Joseph misses the fact that there is a prominent male figure in the New Testament who is mentioned at every single Mass who is noted for heroic self-sacrifice.

Also, St. Joseph actually does have a pretty big role in the Advent and Christmas season.

Come to think of it, is heroic self-sacrifice actually all that attractive? There are, of course, heroically self-sacrificing superheroes in popular culture, but here’s a very important fact about superheroes–they never have to do anything BORING. Or if they do have to do boring stuff, it’s gotten through quickly via montage.

To paraphrase Chesterton, maybe it’s not that Catholicism has not been tried and found feminized, but that it’s been tried and found difficult.

“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."

Like at least one previous poster, I wonder if that’s quite right. Whether or not kids are altar servers has way more with what their parents make happen–adjusting family schedule, getting to Mass on time, providing transportation, etc.

Another issue that comes to mind is that older boys may drop altar serving because they have fallen into solitary sexual sin and may feel hypocritical about it.

"Overall, the Church had become “feminised”, the cardinal said. He continued: “Women are wonderful, of course. They respond very naturally to the invitation to be active in the Church. Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved…Men are often reluctant to become active in the Church. The feminised environment and the lack of the Church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out.”

Agan, repeating previous discussion, what is this “feminised environment”? Is the Church really more “feminized” than, say, a modern corporation or any other typically modern space (like Starbucks)?

“Cardinal Burke also lamented the “terrible loss of home life”, demonstrable in the fact that families don’t share meals together anymore.”

“Families should have at least one meal together each week where the whole family is together."

???

 

[Xantippe]

The cardinal seems to be attributing all the errors of modern thought to feminism and yet does not credit feminism enough for some corrections made to past errors in thought. He doesn’t seem to realize that there are many parallel lines of thought that have emerged since WWII or so, not just feminism, and that these lines of thought have influenced both each other and the Church in ways both positive and negative.

As an example, take the whole area of self-advocacy and the value of self-expression, a modern idea I’d say is more responsible for some of the cardinal’s complaints than an increased emphasis on women and on the laity.

Yes.

I think one of the major errors that one often runs into on CAF and elsewhere is the belief that feminism was a sort of act of God or bolt from the blue that just happened, without women actually having had any real grievances.

 

[Mordocai]

Has the book “Church Impotent” been mentioned?

I would only offer my thought that a lot of the music played at Mass is not appealing to men… If they don’t connect to their religion in a masculine way then they won’t connect. I think men need to see authentically masculine Priests who come across as strong, virile fathers. Men need to have a cause to fight for which needs to be proposed to them by a strong shepherd. Men need inspiration.

 

[Yeoman]

I’m not with you, because of course we aren’t Protestants or Mormons, but how often does that really come up in daily conversation at a Catholic parish?

Is someone trying to take out the kneelers to make room for cup-holders in the pews?

This referred to public school, not the parish.

 

[Yeoman]

Has the book “Church Impotent” been mentioned?

I would only offer my thought that a lot of the music played at Mass is not appealing to men… If they don’t connect to their religion in a masculine way then they won’t connect. I think men need to see authentically masculine Priests who come across as strong, virile fathers. Men need to have a cause to fight for which needs to be proposed to them by a strong shepherd. Men need inspiration.

On music, I heard a teenager the other day say “what makes them think that bongos attract teenagers?”, this regarding a “Teen Life Mass”.

That might seem unconnected to the original point in this thread (which has a lot of diversions by this point anyhow), but it really isn’t completely. I’d note once again that I think the current group of teenagers not only is far more informed on everything (in spite of what they may or may not be doing with that knowledge) and they are therefore more adult in some ways by the time they’re in the second half of their teenage years. I don’t know how it is everywhere, but at least at my Parish the “Teen Life Mass” seems to be something that’s sort of circa 1974 and therefore pretty much guaranteed to turn off serious teens as well as any males not stuck in 1974. Sort of hippyish, in other words, which hasn’t attracted teens since about 1976.

That sort of taps into something that I didn’t address earlier but will here. Most active parishes have a lot of ministries. Many of those ministries are going to be basically gender neutral in how they present to people. I.e., visiting the ill, etc. In some parishes there are going to be some social ministries that are sort of dominated by folks who have never really left the late 1960s. A lot of that stuff really turns men of any younger generation off. I guess what I’m saying in regards to that is that, in addition to what I stated earlier (which agrees with your other points here) if men are to feel a personal bond with the parish and the Church, we might want to think of some things that are directly traditionally fairly male.

 

[pianistclare]

On music, I heard a teenager the other day say “what makes them think that bongos attract teenagers?”, this regarding a “Teen Life Mass”.

That might seem unconnected to the original point in this thread (which has a lot of diversions by this point anyhow), but it really isn’t completely. I’d note once again that I think the current group of teenagers not only is far more informed on everything (in spite of what they may or may not be doing with that knowledge) and they are therefore more adult in some ways by the time they’re in the second half of their teenage years. I don’t know how it is everywhere, but at least at my Parish the “Teen Life Mass” seems to be something that’s sort of circa 1974 and therefore pretty much guaranteed to turn off serious teens as well as any males not stuck in 1974. Sort of hippyish, in other words, which hasn’t attracted teens since about 1976.

**This again? There is no such thing as a “LifeTeen” Mass. It’s a curriculum, approved for use, and not a liturgy.
But, I suppose the musicians are to blame for EVERYTHING, :banghead:
**

That sort of taps into something that I didn’t address earlier but will here. Most active parishes have a lot of ministries. Many of those ministries are going to be basically gender neutral in how they present to people. I.e., visiting the ill, etc. In some parishes there are going to be some social ministries that are sort of dominated by folks who have never really left the late 1960s. A lot of that stuff really turns men of any younger generation off. I guess what I’m saying in regards to that is that, in addition to what I stated earlier (which agrees with your other points here) if men are to feel a personal bond with the parish and the Church, we might want to think of some things that are directly traditionally fairly male.

 

[Xantippe]

pianistclare,

I figure if I mentioned it, but our local Life Teen Mass (I believe that’s what it is) features what sounds like a professional Country Western band that just happens to sing church music. They’re really, really, really good, and of course this is actually Texas.

Whenever I hear them, I think “Wow! They’re really good!” and “They’re so good that it’s distracting.”

But in general, I feel that the quality of Catholic Church music in our area is (on average) much better than when we lived up North. For whatever reason, a lot of Northern US parishes that I’ve been around seem to have an aesthetic of mediocrity. That’s not actually a “feminine” thing–while teen age girls’ pop music test is not impeccable, you don’t see them singing along to out-of-tune boy bands.

I think that talking about “feminine” and “masculine” taste in church music is probably barking up the wrong tree. I’ve seen an awful lot of guys in lousy parish folk ensembles. It obviously appeals to THEM. And on the other hand, obviously, there are a lot of women that are classically trained musicians.

 

[Xantippe]

I also think there’s a lot of thinking by conservative males along the following lines, “XYZ appeals to ME, therefore it’s masculine and it will appeal to other men.”

That does not follow.

Also, I have to say that whenever I hear that, if I actually like XYZ or am friendly to it, it makes me question my liking for it.

You don’t sell Coca Cola as “the masculine soda” when you’re trying to expand market share among men.

 

[Xantippe]

Not to monopolize the thread, but I think actuarial facts and a gender split in volunteering probably contribute a lot to gender disparity among active parish volunteers.

A lot of active parish volunteers are late middle aged/early elderly people. At that point, health issues are starting to take a toll and there are starting to be relatively young widows. (A surprising number of guys start dropping dead after 50–Steve Jobs died at 56.) So, some of the men aren’t around not because they are being excluded or marginalized, but because they’re ill or dead.

Also, come to think of it, among younger church-goers, men are more likely to do things like have long deployments or frequent business travel, both of which would interfere with a schedule of regular volunteering.

Also, I finally looked it up, and women (on average) do more volunteering in the US.

rti.org/newsroom/news.cfm?obj=429C1F1D-0B08-428E-A69F74EEB74EA1DB

“Researchers found that more than 65 million Americans, almost 29 percent, performed a volunteer service in 2005, an increase of nearly six million people since 2002.
In every state, females volunteered at significantly higher rates than did males. Nationally, more than 32 percent of women volunteered, compared with 25 percent of men. The research showed that the most committed age group was Americans 35 to 44 years old.”

““We also discovered that the busier people’s lives are the more likely they are to volunteer, be that through their workplace, church, community or children’s school,” said Nathan West, M.P.A., RTI researcher and lead author of the report.”

(I think that the 35-44 group is probably catching school and extracurricular volunteering by parents.)

Note that volunteering is a minority activity, and that in that minority, there are more women than men. So, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise if women are more visible in volunteer or leadership roles in parishes–that simply reflects the overall national facts about volunteering.

 

[Xantippe]

Again, not to monopolize the thread, but I think that there’s a very important issue that Cardinal Burke doesn’t address: namely, the clerical abuse scandals.

The abuse scandals can’t help but have an effect on the following areas:

–how Catholic men feel about the Catholic Church (it was, after all, nearly all male victims)
–less committed Catholics’ ability to feel proud about being Catholic (men want to feel pride, right?)
–Catholics’ confidence that Church leadership has their best interests at heart
–Catholics’ ability to look to official Church leadership for leadership and inspiration.

There was a lot of damage done and I think that any account of men in the Church that focuses on altar girls and doesn’t mention clerical sex abuse has some very serious errors of emphasis.

 

[on_the_hill]

I don’t agree with the Cardinal. The supposed dwindling number of boys serving at Mass is likely not influenced by girls’ serving. It is more likely, in my opinion, to be the consequence of boys’ wider disengagement from participating in community service overall. My guess is that there are fewer Boy Scouts than there used to be, and fewer boys involved in similar organizations.

Boys spend their non-school hours either in organized sports or in front of screens.

This whole problem of “feminization,” in my opinion, has little to do with the Church. People are trying to find ways to alter the Church as if the problem emanated from the Church, as if they can fix what went wrong. It can’t be done. The problem isn’t with the Church. If there’s any problem at all it is cultural or societal. Men have disengaged themselves from all aspects of public life, and from many responsibilities of private life.

Is this he result of radical feminism? Or is it a consequence of men choosing to drop out?

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t agree with the Cardinal. The supposed dwindling number of boys serving at Mass is likely not influenced by girls’ serving. It is more likely, in my opinion, to be the consequence of boys’ wider disengagement from participating in community service overall. My guess is that there are fewer Boy Scouts than there used to be, and fewer boys involved in similar organizations.

Boys spend their non-school hours either in organized sports or in front of screens.

This whole problem of “feminization,” in my opinion, has little to do with the Church. People are trying to find ways to alter the Church as if the problem emanated from the Church, as if they can fix what went wrong. It can’t be done. The problem isn’t with the Church. If there’s any problem at all it is cultural or societal. Men have disengaged themselves from all aspects of public life, and from many responsibilities of private life.

Is this he result of radical feminism? Or is it a consequence of men choosing to drop out?

I think you’re right about a lot of that. And that’s a reason not to be too critical of families that are sports mad–if that’s the only connection to community involvement, you can see why parents cling to it and go overboard.

Your guess about Boy Scouts is correct, by the way.

“The Boy Scouts of America’s youth membership fell 7.4 percent last year, continuing a decade-long decline for one of the nation’s oldest youth organizations, a spokesman said Friday.”

news.yahoo.com/boy-scouts-membership-falls-7-percent-decade-long-213730107.html

 

[pianistclare]

I don’t agree with the Cardinal. The supposed dwindling number of boys serving at Mass is likely not influenced by girls’ serving. It is more likely, in my opinion, to be the consequence of boys’ wider disengagement from participating in community service overall. My guess is that there are fewer Boy Scouts than there used to be, and fewer boys involved in similar organizations.

Boys spend their non-school hours either in organized sports or in front of screens.

This whole problem of “feminization,” in my opinion, has little to do with the Church. People are trying to find ways to alter the Church as if the problem emanated from the Church, as if they can fix what went wrong. It can’t be done. The problem isn’t with the Church. If there’s any problem at all it is cultural or societal. Men have disengaged themselves from all aspects of public life, and from many responsibilities of private life.

Is this he result of radical feminism? Or is it a consequence of men choosing to drop out?

Excellent points. After googling the good Cardinal, I can see why boys don’t particularly desire to be like him. He’s all done up in overdone vestments, gloves at Mass, yards of velvet and satin, funny slippers, a chasuble with a train . I can totally see the neighborhood boys not wanting to be associated with church.
I remember as a child, being asked if I wanted to be a sister. I kind of did, but I didn’t like the notion of wearing that wimple all my life. I was a child. The devotion, the love of Christ, the work of the Church, wasn’t a consideration for me as a little girl. I knew so little about that. I just knew I wasn’t going to go around in that hat all my life.

 

[PPeterson]

I think men need to see authentically masculine Priests who come across as strong, virile fathers.

I think the problem that comes up with this is that attempting to appear “virile,” or “authentically masculine” comes across as fetishy, “tries to hard,” and weak.

on the other hand any priest who is confident, holy, and there for his flock can attract men and woman, regardless of his personal style.

 

[Xantippe]

I think the problem that comes up with this is that attempting to appear “virile,” or “authentically masculine” comes across as fetishy, “tries to hard,” and weak.

on the other hand any priest who is confident, holy, and there for his flock can attract men and woman, regardless of his personal style.

That is a very interesting point.

One of our pastors is a very self-effacing, but obviously sincere, conscientious and devout Asian-American priest.

He does just fine.