Transcription
Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Matthew Petrusic, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you for joining us.
Despite the enduring progressive narrative that society favors and privileges men, the sociological data reveals a far different picture. In reality, men have experienced and continue to experience devastating declines in education, earning power, economic mobility, relationship stability, and physical and mental health. Often vilified by secular culture as toxic merely for existing—something that used to be called bigotry—men overall are often far sicker, poorer, more addicted, more depressed, more incarcerated, and more likely to commit suicide than women.
Notwithstanding these ongoing challenges, however, there do appear to be signs of renewal in a reversal of previous data. For example, more men than women now regularly go to church. Numerous religious movements have been founded with the aim of helping men overcome their spiritual, mental, and even physical weaknesses. A new class of Christian men has been emerging on the political and cultural scene, unapologetically calling for a return to traditional biblical values—a movement one commentator has called "Macho Christianity."
How should we interpret this apparent masculinization of the faith and its effect on revitalizing the role of men in society? What insights does the Church offer, particularly in the examples of her male saints, on authentic versus unauthentic ways to be a man? And what can we all learn from this cultural moment to better evangelize both men and women?
Here to discuss is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
Thanks, Matt. Always good to be with you.
Today we're discussing a challenging topic, but also a potentially hopeful one. It's the challenges that men have been facing in secular society and also some potential spots of renewal. But before we get into that, what's been on your plate recently?
Well, let's see. I got back from the Senate and was so grateful to be home. It was just nice to get back to my chancery office and to get caught up a little bit. I've been to the USCCB meeting in Baltimore, which is our annual big meeting of the year. Now, you know, getting ready for the Christmas season.
To set the table for today's conversation, I want to cite a few startling statistics about the current state of men in the United States and then ask for your reaction.
According to a New York Times article by David Brooks, here are some of those shocking stats: one in three men with only a high school diploma have completely dropped out of the workforce. That means they don't even show up in the unemployment statistics. So we're looking at over 30% of men there not working, and these are not people on disability either.
Men are earning about 10% less in real terms nowadays compared with a generation earlier, while women are earning 33% more in that same time period. The decline in male enrollment in college is seven times higher in men than women.
That's amazing, isn't it?
Yeah, and so it's going down across the board, but it's seven times higher for men specifically. Approximately 15% of men now say they have no close friends. One in five fathers doesn't live with his children. Three out of every four deaths due to suicide or drugs—what we often call now "deaths of despair."
And here's one final statistic. This wasn't in the article, but it's worth highlighting: according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 93.3% of all inmates are men—the vast majority.
So, Bishop, you have lots of pastoral experience. You also do a lot of work online, and oftentimes the audience there is predominantly male. Have you been seeing this sort of malaise at the anecdotal level?
Yeah, it's a kind of malaise, I suppose, is the word you might want to use. Men have fallen into a kind of depression, a loss of direction, a loss of meaning and purpose. But it is startling when you see it laid out in black and white like that. It does seem to be focused on men.
There's something particular, right? Generally speaking, in our culture, there's a lot of despair that's born of the loss of God, and that's underneath a lot of that stuff too. That applies to everybody, absolutely. But there's something about men, though, that's worse, and there are reasons we have to search out for that.
Let's dig into that a little bit deeper.
There are some complex underlying economic factors we could isolate, like the loss of manufacturing jobs. But Bishop, what's your sense of some cultural changes or shifts that have taken place that might be at work as well?
You know, I don't want to be badmouthing feminism in itself because at its best, feminism is a fine thing. I mean, to call for the rights and dignity of women and so on—there's nothing in the world wrong with that. But are there exaggerated forms of feminism that have made their way into the mainstream culture that kind of demonize men or see men as a problem?
That phrase that's thrown around a lot today—"toxic masculinity"—are there a lot of men who internalize this? They feel, "Yeah, there's something the matter with me," and if I'm assertive in any way, I'm a problem, so I better just kind of withdraw into a more childlike form of life.
Is it a lack of confidence? I think of the sharp decrease in those attending university. Is it acceptance of living at a lower level? I wonder if that's part of it—an exaggerated feminism that's made its way into men.
A person that comes to my mind a lot when we talk about this is Leonard Sax, the psychiatrist and physician. His books came out maybe mid-2015, 2016. One was called "Boys Drift," the other was called "Why Gender Matters." He put his finger on this.
It's a tenet of sort of feminist orthodoxy that there are no differences. Men and women are all equal, and any assertion of difference means you're trying to be superior. So that everyone's equal is a basic tenet. He just brought forward, based on lots of his own clinical experience and research, that it is simply not the case.
We're not playing a game of better or worse; we're playing a game of difference. There really are differences in the way, let's say, boys and girls experience the world, process information, and relate to each other. His books are really helpful.
One that comes to mind is that young girls love the prospect of sitting in a circle of conversation and talking about their feelings and their relationships. They thrive on that, right? Boys tend not to thrive on that. Boys like projects; they like something to do together. They like that together we're working on a project or even together we're watching a game or something.
He made the point that a lot of education, beginning in the last part of the last century, became very feminine. The way all kids were treated was more conducive to girls' learning styles, and the boys would get bored or distracted.
He called out the way we're medicating especially boys, what we identify as ADD and so on. It might just be this restlessness born of boredom because the boys aren't being engaged.
I remember an example he gave that stayed in my mind. In high school, the book we all read was "Lord of the Flies," remember that wonderful novel by Golding? It's about these well-behaved English school kids whose plane crashes, and they're on this desert island. Before you know it, it turns into a Hobbesian nightmare.
We all know that story. He said in high school they would typically teach it to both boys and girls, but what was the method chosen to process the book? "Let's talk about the personalities and motivations of the characters."
Well, okay, fair enough, but the girls responded much more to that kind of approach, and the boys often got bored. "Oh, those boys, they're stupid," or "those boys are distracted." No, a clever teacher decided, "I'm going to invite everybody to make a model of the island."
So based on what you're reading in the book, "What does this island look like? Make a model of it. Where's the lagoon? Where are the mountains? Where are these people?" Well, the boys got engaged right away because it's a project, and it's out there. "Hey, together we can work on this."
To me, that was very instructive, and I thought, "Dead right." In my experience, my instinct says yes, that's the difference.
Then I thought of my own years in seminary formation. I'm coming of age in the 70s and 80s of the last century. What was the standard way of doing seminary formation? It was to sit in a circle and talk about our feelings.
Well, all right, we all did it because we were called upon to do it, but that's much more conducive to a feminine way of processing the world. Young men, I think, responded not so much to that. They responded to John Paul II, who himself was a kind of adventurer, took young kids on kayaking trips, and proposed to everybody.
But I think young men got on this beam, proposed a difficult and dangerous mission. There's something we need to do to transform the world. Well, men, I think, respond to that better than "let's sit in a circle and talk about our feelings."
Now again, I'm not badmouthing that. I mean, that's a legitimate thing to do, but it's probably more suited to a feminine style. The empirical evidence on that is overwhelming. The case is closed on what everybody already knows: men and women are different.
We ignore that to our peril, and when we try to flatten it out or favor the feminine, men get lost.
I often think of Sax's book, "Boys A Drift." What have they become? They become young men adrift, and all those stats kind of bear that out.
I think that's certainly at play in this thing. We've got to be attentive to the very different ways that men and women process the world.
You're noting different ways of interpreting feminism. Of course, there is one brand of feminism that has made the case that men and women are fundamentally equal—not only morally equal but equal in all regards.
Yes, we're equal, of course, when it comes to moral worth and so on, but there's no sexual differentiation in terms of anything we've been talking about.
Now, I'd say there's another wave of feminism that would say no, men and women are ontologically different, and men are worse—men are somehow inherently defective. Have you seen some elements of that?
Yeah, maybe that's some of the toxic stuff. There's something aggressive about men. Of course, the thing is, there's something aggressive about men, but the idea is to channel that—not to eliminate it, but to teach a young boy how to handle that and to channel that aggression in a good way.
Here's another example from Sax's book I remember: the ADD phenomenon. These young boys seem like they couldn't sit still; they couldn't concentrate. There was a program based in Africa where they brought these young kids from the West and worked with tribesmen hunters on the savannas of Africa.
They taught them how to track and hunt animals. The master would say to this young boy from the West, who couldn't sit still in school, "Stay right here. Don't move until I tell you you can move."
Hours would go by, and this kid who couldn't sit still in an American classroom had a mission. He had a project; he had something to do that was drawing him out of himself. He wasn't focused on how he felt about it; it was, "Oh, there's something to do, and this master is expecting me to perform."
That model is a classic one. Go back to the whole literature on education and formation. That's a classic model: you find a difficult, demanding mentor who gives you a project and then draws the best out of you.
Men, I think, respond to that kind of challenge.
I think too, you know, we all know this today. In our woke world, the "safe space"—oh my goodness, I can't even hear a counterargument without being given a puppy to calm my nerves, and I need a coloring book because someone has an opinion different than mine.
Well, look, men don't like safe spaces. We like relatively dangerous spaces. We like challenging spaces. Give me something that's hard to do.
When I was going through childhood, I loved sports. I played all sports all the time. We had all kinds of coaches. What did they do with us? We didn't sit around to talk about how we felt about each other. We were given competitive exercises.
So, okay, you've got the basketball, and one-on-one, let's see who can score. Boom! You're playing football now; you're going to go head-to-head and see who can push the other out of the way.
That's not toxic or aggressive; it's a channeling of some of that energy in a way that men respond to.
Now take that and sublimate it to a higher plane—spiritual challenge, moral challenge. There are a lot of people in this world that oppose our understanding of things.
Well, how do we engage them in a way that's appropriately aggressive, if you want? We don't want safe. I don't want a safe space. Occasionally, I want to just let my guard down, but I don't want a safe space. I want a challenging space. Men respond to that.
How should we respond to someone who says, "Okay, Bishop, I grant you that men and women are different and men thrive in different kinds of spaces, but here's the problem: society forever has been set up in such a way that men thrive and women don't. What we have nowadays is sort of a comeuppance. The tables have turned, and that's a good thing. It's permissible, if not praiseworthy, to discriminate against men because society's been stacked against women for so long."
Well, no, I'm sure that's a motivation for some people, right? That's a mark of our time, I think—a very unhappy mark—that the only way to correct past discrimination is by present discrimination.
In Catholic teaching, we'd say no, you don't do evil that good might come of it. So, no, that's repugnant to our moral teaching.
I think it's an honest recognition of what the Church calls complementarity. There are real differences between men and women. There are basic equalities, yes indeed, like moral dignity and so on, freedom.
But there are real differences, and they're not competitive; they're cooperative. They're mutually implicative; they're complementary. I think that's a much healthier way to get at it.
Let men be men, women be women, but they're meant to find a sort of equilibrium. We all know, like married couples, that represent a beautiful balance of the feminine and masculine energies.
Can we learn from each other? Of course. This little kid, Bobby Barron, who used to love playing football and knocking people around—I hope he moves beyond that, maybe to different types of engagement and so on, and learns from.
Indeed, I'll say something nice about my seminary formation. Learn indeed the value of not repressing your feelings, etc. Fine, fine. We can benefit from each other, but we don't benefit from an elimination of those differences.
We'll turn in just a moment to exploring what appears to be a renewal of masculinity in the culture. Before we do, let's get a little deeper.
We can even see a theological level of this difference, this idea of complementarity, from the Catholic point of view of male and female. So, Bishop, tell us a little more about the moral significance, and we could also say the ecclesial significance, regarding salvation about the Church's affirmation, which we see in Genesis: that male and female He created them—not just generically human, but male and female. God seems to like that kind of differentiation.
He doesn't like sheer uniformity, and the biblical authors recognize that from the beginning. It makes life more interesting, and it makes it richer.
I think that's a fundamental bit of Catholic anthropology. We don't want to flatten out anthropology or find the least common denominator. No, let each man be a man, each woman be a woman, and they complement each other. That's a much healthier biblical anthropology.
Beautiful.
So that's a look at these cultural developments. I'll list a few things that have been happening on the scene and then ask for your reaction.
In a surprising reversal of long-established historical trends, more men—especially young men—than women are now going to church. This increase in the pews has been accompanied by the emergence of some very high-profile men in the cultural and political realm who unabashedly promote traditional biblical values and the importance of restoring masculinity in culture.
Men like Protestant Charlie Kirk and Catholics Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles. At the same time, numerous religious movements seeking to assist men to break free from destructive habits and to ground their lives in relationship with Christ—including our own Word on Fire Institute Men's Community—have also appeared on the scene.
One cultural commentator has said the surge, or we could say maybe reawakening, of masculinity—Macho Christianity.
So, Bishop, is this trend, the sort of remasculinization of Christianity, something that you've been noticing? Have you been picking up on this?
Oh, for sure. Everything carries a shadow; everything can go bad. But I think in itself, it's a really good development. You see it, and you didn't mention Jordan Peterson, but he's another key player there.
A lot of these men in the podcast world—that's where young people, or most of us now, live—they've found these things we've been talking about. They discovered what appeals to men. They knew that masculinity is not in itself toxic but can be called forth and sort of spiritualized.
They've articulated that in a way that young men find very appealing, and I applaud it. I think it has indeed had an impact on the churches.
What's typical of Peterson and company is adventure language; it's project language. It's "Go out on mission," and you've got a work of protection and achievement to do.
Men going out from the known into the unknown—the sort of hero's journey, which has been talked about from time immemorial. Why do we still find Tolkien and all those people, Star Wars, so appealing? Because they're all about that theme: how do you go forth?
You don't just stay in your domestic space where it's safe and comfortable. You go out from that space into the uncomfortable world, then conquer it and make that inhabitable. That's the great hero's journey.
Then you rest for a little while, and then you go—there's more to conquer. If we just emphasize safe spaces, God help us; we'll never make any progress. Anyone that's ever accomplished anything has left a safe space, by definition.
I think that's what these people have found, and they've also seen it as a strong religious overtone. It's an ingredient in the great texts of our religion. Think of all the heroes of the Old Testament. Think of Jesus—the embrace of the cross. "Take up your cross and follow me."
That's pretty bracing stuff. I've said several times, I said it at World Youth Day in Lisbon, a religion that puts at the center of our preoccupation a man nailed to a cross is not a religion that's interested in safe spaces or is not putting a priority on safety.
Men like that language.
What's the famous example? Remember the South Pole explorer in the 19th century who put up the ad in England: "Exceedingly dangerous mission, unlikely to survive, heading to the South Pole"? People signed up right away.
Make it as hard as possible, and people respond to it.
You hear these stories too or read accounts from World War II where there were boys, you know, 15, 16, 17, lying that they were 18 so they could go to war.
Adventure and a project and a mission—that's what men tend to respond to.
Are you seeing this trend also within seminary culture?
Yeah, for sure. I know a lot about seminary culture, having been involved in Mundelein for a long time, having been rector there, been out in L.A., St. John Seminary, Camarillo, now my own seminarians whom I see a lot.
Yeah, they respond to this sort of thing. They like Catholic identity the same way maybe a soldier would put the uniform on and be beneath the flag. He's got his mission to do.
Those are the people who are responding to the call right now of the Church, and I think that's a positive thing.
You noted that masculinity, of course, can have its shadow side, and I want to just address that very briefly. I think we see that paradigmatically in a figure—I don't know if you've heard of him—Andrew Tate.
Yeah, I don't know much. I've heard the name, but I don't know much about him.
He has become, I think his influence is probably waning at this point, but for a significant amount of time, he was highly influential among young men. Certainly, he's not a Christian, but he celebrated vanity, exorbitant wealth, and sexual promiscuity.
Yeah, that ain't it. That's not what we're looking for.
So the next question is, okay, so we can identify the category of masculinity that can go wrong. What resources can we offer as the Church to have a healthy sense of masculinity?
Masculinity that doesn't get reduced to—how about the saints and the great biblical figures?
Right. I mean, sexual promiscuity and all that, and violence and aggression—those are signs of deep immaturity and self-absorption. It's a channeling of the masculine energy in a really unhappy direction.
For the saints, it's usually something like a mission to battle evil and accomplish some great good. It's a mission to protect—a mission to achieve a great good in the world. That's what all the saints have in common.
Every one of them recognizes something in themselves we call the gifts of the Holy Spirit. With those, think of like a superhero in any movie. They discover a power. Spider-Man—you know, "With great power comes great responsibility."
That's an age-old bit of wisdom. With this power, you're not to serve your own ego; you're not to abuse people with it. That's toxic. No, now you have great responsibility. You go out and improve the world and battle evil.
That's a sermon I give often in the confirmation class. I have a confirmation tonight as we record these words, and I'll share that with the kids.
You're being given gifts of the Holy Spirit, but they're not for you; they're for the mission.
The resources would be the saints. Think of all the great stories of masculine saints who've accomplished these great things heroically—many giving their lives for it.
What's that doing? It's conquering dangerous territory for the kingdom of God. That's what the saints did. Maximilian Kolbe, saying, "Take me; I'll die in this man's place."
As far as I'm concerned, you can keep Spider-Man. I mean, that's a hero. That's someone who lived his masculinity, if you want, in a very salvific way.
So that's what we—that's the model.
You have this excellent series on the pivotal players. It's part of the Word on Fire canon. Another saint that came to mind in this context is St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was a soldier, right?
Can you give some, as we're drawing close to time here, some other concrete examples of male saints that have been personally important for you?
John Paul II, you know, for my generation. He became Pope in 1978; that's the year I entered the seminary. I was an 18-year-old kid joining the college seminary, and John Paul became Pope.
I remember I was in Washington at Catholic U, and the Pope—this is 1979, I guess—he comes to Washington. I'll never forget it. We're on the mall, and the Pope arrives.
He comes up along the side, and he had the white cassock and the red cape. This was the young, vibrant John Paul. A lot of people just knew him as an old man, but this was John Paul Superstar.
As he came along the road, the sun came out, and it was like something out of a comic book or a movie—the superheroes arrive. That was evocative of what he meant for a lot of people in my generation.
John Paul in Warsaw, standing in front of the Polish government, which had the Soviet tanks and atomic weapons behind it, just like a man, speaking of God, speaking of human rights, and in your face.
He brought down that empire; he brought down the Soviet Empire. There's a man using his considerable gifts not for his own ego but to battle evil and accomplish a great good.
That's a man. Pick your masculine saint, and say, "That's what I want to do."
So finally, Bishop, help us to now point this directly in terms of practical advice for evangelization. Of course, it's great news we have more men going to church, but they're passing the women who are heading out the door.
How can a healthy sense—what can the Church provide to the world in terms of a healthy sense of masculinity that's going to be effective for evangelizing men and women alike?
It's that heroic sanctity—that's what a saint is: a person of heroic sanctity. Holiness, yeah, but not in this sort of mediocre way. The Church is not interested in mediocrity; it wants everyone to be a hero.
If a man—and you know it doesn't have to be a hero on the world stage like John Paul II—can be a man, a husband, and a father that sacrifices for his kids and for his wife.
You live that way, and you will evangelize by your life. I think of my own father, who died many years ago but was a great hero to me because he embodied that in a quiet way.
He was not an ostentatious person at all, but unambiguously, you saw in him this heroic dedication to his wife and his kids. We knew instinctually—I say it without hesitation—he would have died for us.
I say it without hesitation, and not to make a big show; it's just true. It's just true, and we knew it.
Well, that changes you when you see that. In my own life, heck, trying to live up to him has been my goal.
So it's time for our listener question, Bishop. Today we have Nick from New York asking about how to understand the creation of men and women from the Book of Genesis.
Hi, Bishop. Thank you so much for your time. This is Nick from the Bronx, New York. I was wondering what theologians like yourself thought about God making Adam a companion. Why not make it another man, removing the sexuality aspect of it and the procreation thing?
Even just why would God make a woman as opposed to just making another man? Thank you for your time, and God bless you.
Yeah, thanks for the question. We kind of touched on it, but it's important to mention that again. The complementarity—there's something beautiful about the difference between men and women.
If the world was just men, it would have certain perfections, but not all. The fact that it's men and women, and each brings something distinctive to the table, is part of the beauty of it.
We find each other. It's Plato's old image of the two halves of the circle trying to find each other. A lot of life is the quest for the complement to my own life.
We all realize, you know, I've got certain gifts and abilities, but I don't have all of them. I live inadequately in many ways until I find friendship—in my case—or, in the case of married people, a spouse who complements you.
Again, God seems to like different qualities coming together to enhance each other, and I think that's the meaning of Adam and Eve.
Thank you, Nick, for reaching out to us. If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question for a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com. That's askbishopbarron.com. We'd love to hear from you.
You made it to the end of another show, Bishop. So many gems, as usual. Thank you.
Always great talking to you, Matt.
Thanks, that does it for us today. Thanks for watching us on the Word on Fire show. If you're interested in learning more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others, and work for the common good, consider joining the Word on Fire Institute.
Check us out at institute.wordonfire.org. That's institute.wordonfire.org. We'll see you next time.