Catholicism Lite and Inoffensive?

Something pertaining to what I wrote in an earlier post.

Today I watched episode 8(?) of Fr. Robert Barron's Catholicism series, which covered the saints.

One of the CM teachers remarked that it was interesting that all of the four saints who were featured were religious, and asked why there weren't any lay saints. Another teacher said it was relatively recent that lay people were told they could be saints (Vatican II). A third teacher said that religious were more likely to get promotion by their orders after they had passed away, while lay people were not. There is something to be said about the lack of local cults to lay members of the Church, though - a sign of the decay of the local Churches in many respects. Where are the flourishing Catholic parishes? The Catholic ghettos are mostly gone.

But there was something else about the episode that went unremarked. The four saints: Ss. Katherine Drexel, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), and Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta. All female, all religious. You would think that if the intended audience is likely to be half male and half female, that half of the saints represented in this episode would be male. But not, they were all female. Why is that? A not so subtle nod to "Catholic feminism"?

Two were contemplatives, two were in the active life, both of whom founded a new religious order. All were set aside by God for these tasks, taken out of political society for God's special purpose and the good of the Church. Some of their communities may be flourishing now, some may not be. (How are the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Katherine Drexel's order, doing?) It is interesting that Fr. Barron spoke of St. Katherine Drexel as exemplifying a higher form of justice. (I forgot his exact words.) What justice? A lefty notion of justice perhaps, one I would hesitate to call "social justice" lest it continued to be co-opted by the lefties. Her apostolic works were primarily for Native Americans and African-Americans. It fits a certain nationalist narrative and understanding of the United States but I think it is erroneous. Again, the problem of scale, and if one is set aside by God to do His work, political notions of justice are no longer applicable.

Then Fr. Barron talked about the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux - becoming like a little child who is dependent upon God in all things. Yes, this is true, but can it really appeal to men as much as being an adopted son of God (which Opus Dei has at least brought back to discussions of Catholic spirituality)?

I suppose St. Augustine is too far in the past to be considered a relevant example for men, even though a movie was recently made about him (and dubbed in English). And besides, he was a bishop. Do we have no role models for lay men, and how to order their lives in Christ? We'd have to get into a discussion of the role of men in community and in families, especially with respect to their wives, but who is going to tackle the last topic in a way other than Theology of the Body? Who is going to preach against feminism, even in a more moderate "Catholic" form, when it subverts the family and the role of men?

There are those on the political "left" and "right" who praise Fr. Barron and his videos but I remain unimpressed. They may be sufficient as remedial catechesis to a degree, but is he willing to tackle what ails us? I suppose I'd have to see the episode that discusses marriage, if there is such an episode.