Losing the Good Portion

Today's featured book is Losing the Good Portion by Leon Podles, an in depth exploration of why men are alienated from contemporary Christianity--one of the best, and only, books exploring this crucial problem, which is aptly summarized in this cliphttps://t.co/lfDpamJ37p pic.twitter.com/zvXue4fusD

— Rogue Scholar Books (@RogueScholarPr) May 22, 2021

Something from 2015

Recent Statements by Cardinal Raymond Burke on the “Man Crisis” in the Church – Dr. Leon Podles

Sacrilege by Leon Podles

A post from last October by Rod Dreher on the book.

Interview with Leon Podles

The New Emangelization: Discussion with Dr. Leon Podles – Author of “The Church Impotent – The Feminization of Christianity”

Audio

A 2014 post by Msgr. Charles Pope in which he tries to play it safe and moderate.

Podles' new book which may be published this year by St. Augustine Press; unfortunately the publisher has a reputation for delays.

How many Latin Catholic men, after viewing photos and videos of Pope Francis and reading transcripts of his remarks, would give a no confidence vote based on his speech and mannerisms? How many non-soy men would do so? I suspect that any natural "charisma" he may have is perceived only by women and it is not based on his words behavior but on a well-crafted image that appeals to emotion.

Some More Thoughts on Podle's Next Book

You can find the link to the excerpt here.

Was Nietzsche correct in characterizing Christianity as a "slave morality" which men with spirit should rightly reject? How should St. Paul's admonishments be understood, then? As an implicit approval of slavery? (Or approval only of just forms of slavery and not "chattel" slavery?) How long did it take for slavery to disappear from Rome? Is it correct to say that serfdom replaced slavery? And how was the rise of serfdom linked to changes in the societies of Germanic tribes?

How should the reaction of those unjustly oppressed or "disrespected" by traditional elites (landowners) be understood? Did the elites commit the first sin by failing in charity and Christian fraternity? Could the Christian churches have acquiesced in the rise of medieval kingdoms, followed by the modern nation-state, in different ways that would have prevented the emasculation of their men?

An interesting thesis from Leon Podles

Though I have my doubts; it is one thing to reject Christianity because it has been feminized. But it is enough to do the demonic things done by many of the leftists during the Spanish Civil War. Even if Christianity is no longer part of one's identity, what of country or king? Or upholding the aristocracy?

Still, if women were in charge of the spiritual formators, that is a problem, and reveals that if there was a form of patriarchy in Spain, it was lacking in something very important with respect to the role of the fathers, who should have been in charge of religious education and the primary exmeplar of a Christian life. Did they abdicate this role because they preferred some idol or pagan way? Or was it due to something else after the Reconquest and then the decline of the Spanish Empire. And are there parallels with Spanish-speaking territories in Ibero-America?

Roots Of Spanish Anticlericalism by ROD DREHER

The landowners thought they were good Christians because they gave charity to the poor; but what the poor, especially the men among them, wanted was respect. The men saw that the Church, the priests, could attract women and would interfere in male sexual pleasures, even in marriage. The revolutionaries were not ideologists, but wanted recognition, independence, and respect, so that they could be respected by others as men and respect themselves as men.

Would they even care for the words of St. Paul? And would the words of St. Paul concerning the relationship of slaves and masters even be relevant?

Issues, Etc. Interview with Leon Podles

2. Recent Statements by Cardinal Raymond Burke on the “Man Crisis” in the Church – Dr. Leon Podles, 1/12/15 (via Mere Comments) - podcast

It has always been thus...

In the Constantinian Church?

Or, the Church of believers vs. the Church of numbers. (per Fr. Louis Bouyer)

Rod Dreher links to a comment by Leon Podles on a previous post.

I have been reading about popular Catholicism in the medieval and Counter-Reformation periods, and it has made me less alarmist about the current situation.

Peasant societies had their own ideas about sex and marriage, and largely ignored the teachings of the clergy on the sacrament of matrimony, on the sin of fornication – and on the seriousness of homicide.

The clergy tried to repress the animal spirits of young men (half the male population of Dijon at one time seems to have engaged in gang rape) by preaching self-control and condemning anything that might excite young men, including fireworks and dancing. I feel sympathy for both the Jansenists who wanted Catholics to be morally serious, and for the populace, who wanted some joy in their short lives of hard work.

Moralists can sometimes sound like kill-joys, but we need them, and the clergy often have that unenviable and unpopular role. But if they want to be a s rigorous as the Curé of Ars, they had better be as austere as him, or no one will take them seriously.

Adam DeVille writes in the current thread:

I would second Podles. A little history goes a long way. I’m just finishing John O’Malley’s superb new book on the Council of Trent, and the cases of corruption it had to try (not very successfully, at least initially) to deal with make today’s Vatican scandals look like a “glee-singing contest in a garden suburb” (to quote Waugh’s Brideshead). That’s not to justify any of them, of course, but simply to introduce a little sobriety to those inclined towards what I call apocalypticism on the cheap–Benedict’s resignation is the end of the papacy, Church, civilization, etc., etc.

Those who contrast the pious with the morally lax might distinguish between "true" Christians and "nominal" Christians. Others might talk about sinners who seek recourse in God's grace and the sacraments and sinners who don't. Rather than focusing on the blame that is due to those who knowingly commit sin, should we ask not ask whether there is something that we as members of the Church and instruments of Christ can be doing better in order to aid in the salvation of the world? Given that God wants us, in union with Christ, to participate in His saving plan, if we were less lukewarm and strove to grow in charity, could we remove some obstacles in the human heart to Christ?

Were things different in the early Church, before the legalization of Christianity? (What do we make of the severe penances given to sinners?)


Related:
John O'Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council - his opinion on Vatican II.

More from Rod Dreher on Fr. Groeschel

The Groeschel Memory Hole

He mentions the book by Leon Podles on the subject of the clerical sex abuse scandal, Sacrilege.

Imitatio Christi?

Joe Carter, Jesus is Not a Cagefighter

Should men look for an exemplar of masculinity in Jesus Christ? If so, upon whose portrait of Christ should we rely? Contrasting images are conjured up by those who believe sola scriptura, as evidenced by the essay and the comments box. It also underscores the difference between an overemphasis on the imitatio Christi as opposed to participatio Christi.

Are there situations when Christian men should be courageous and take up the defense of themselves and others? Indubitably. One may question the use of MMA as a form of spirituality in itself, but learning and practicing self-defense is a licit moral activity that can be done out of charity.

Leon Podles leaves this comment:

The wimpy Jesus has a history in the Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart. Jesus was seen as a gentle, non-threatening, understanding man, everything that ordinary men were not. The Jesuits were the main propagators of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, but they were not happy with its effeminate overtones. Franz Hattler. S. J. in 1894 described the image of Jesus in the Sacred Heart cult as “a matchmaker” with a “flirtatiously bowed head, longing eyes, a mouth puckered with kisses,’ and “foppishly crimped hair.” Otto Pfülf, S. J. found the devotion “too sweet,” “like a pious fantasy,” that was “more suitable for the souls of women.” Richard Burton describes the nineteenth-century French Christ as “curiously androgynous, with his wispy beard, does-like eyes, and delicate, soft-limbed body.” In 1899 in the United States an historian described the image of the Sacred Heart as “a young man in flowing gowns, with soft face, large eyes, small delicate out, slightly parted lips, small thin nose, downy beard, long curly hair parted in the middle and falling gracefully to the shoulders, slender hands,” or, as another critic called the image, “a pink painted Valentine.”

The feminine softness and sympathetic gaze of Jesus established a bond between them and those who sought his aid, that is, “ primarily women and children.”

This was a major change, as David Morgan points out from the original image of the Sacred Heart; it substitutes “closeness and delicacy of feeling for the older passion, devoted personal relationship for penitential anguish.”

Can we distinguish between the devotion and its artistic representation?

Items of Interest, 27 July 2011

Mike Davis, The Coming Economic Disaster (via collapse.net)

Tomb of St. Philip the Apostle Discovered in Turkey

Rorate Caeli: Roberto de Mattei and "The Lefebvre affair"

Mere Comments: "The Church Impotent' Now On-Line, Plus Fireworks

The Great Tradition: Reading Ourselves Back to Cultural Sanity
by Robert M. Woods

John Robb, ON BECOMING A RESILIENT INDIVIDUAL

Franklin C. Spinney, Afghan Sitrep: We're Here Because We're Here Because We're Here...

Jeffrey St. Clair, The Politics of Make-Believe: Barack Obama, Changeling

Barnyard Irony
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer, Mulligan Books

‘Totnes: what the past can teach us about the future’: a new film by Rob Hopkins

Leon J . Podles, Men and Religion

Another one thanks to MB.

Leon Podles, Santo Subito? (via Life After RC)

May is still far away... who knows what could happen then. And iirc, beatification is not guaranteed to be infallible, unlike canonization.

Holiness cannot be separated from the concrete exercise of the virtues and the fulfilling of one's duties, according to one's role and function in Creation.

The Thinking Housewife: Mealy-Mouthed, Effeminate Christianity


Sacrilege, by Leon Podles

Men & Religion: Jesus Christ & the Pattern of Christian Manhood, by Leon J. Podles

In delineating a male spirituality, does Mr. Podles take it a bit too far. What he writes may resonate with the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, for example, but what of St. John of the Cross?

Leon Podles, Unhappy Fault
On the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life

(originally published in Touchstone)

His website: Author Leon J. Podles