The Cult of Softness and its fruit: Hatred of masculinity

Over at The Wanderer, we read:


"Terry Mattingly writes a blog site called On Religion (tmatt.net). His column on October 18 is worth your time. It is titled, “Why So Many Men Think Church Is for Women.” Mattingly is not a Catholic, but he explores a phenomenon many Roman Catholics have noted in recent decades, but hesitate to discuss in public for fear of insulting the many good women active in the Church.

What phenomenon? Well, I know there are admirable exceptions that many readers of this column may point to, but isn’t it true that you don’t find many young men who play sports, work on cars, and hunt and fish, active in our parishes any longer? That is my experience, at any rate, where altar servers tend to be girls, as are members of parish youth groups. I can’t read the minds of the young men who shy away from Catholic parish life, but I think it safe to say that they now see it as…well, soft, too overtly pious, not a “guy-thing.” The priest sex scandals have increased this perception..."

Addicted to homosexuality and effeminism, the Cult of Softness has a deep and abiding hatred of real men and anything even remotely resembling masculinity.  I've addressed this truth often at this Blog.

In the New Church, which will accept the Man of Sin, the Cult of Softness will be the New dogma.  Already there is preparation on so very many levels.

The Latin Vulgate (see the Douay-Rheims Bible) indicates that the effeminate will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10). But the New American Bible, which is used by the USCCB, omits the word effeminate:


1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (Latin Vulgate):

Verse 9: "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers:

an nescitis quia iniqui regnum Dei non possidebunt nolite errare neque fornicarii neque idolis servientes neque adulteri

Verse 10: Nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor railers nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.

neque molles neque masculorum concubitores neque fures neque avari neque ebriosi neque maledici neque rapaces regnum Dei possidebunt."


1Corinthians 6: 9-10 (New American Bible) posted online by the USCCB:

Verse 9: "Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites

Verse 10: nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Why do you think this is so?  The Latin Vulgate, which we have obtained from the great St. Jerome, is the most precise translation of the Sacred Scriptures available.  There are many other problems with recent translations of the Scriptures.  But my focus here is on this passage.  Why has the word "effeminate" been dropped from 1 Corinthians 6?

Dr. Leon Podles writes, "Walter Ong, having been formed in a masculine, Jesuit, clerical milieu does not seem to be aware of how feminized Christianity had become even before the 1960s, but he saw a rapid shift in the Catholic Church in the 1960s toward even greater feminization...The contrasts of Christianity, grace and sin, life and death, have been toned down with a considerable loss of emotional power.  Without this power, the popular appeal of the liturgy has declined (even with a more accessible language) and church attendance has plummeted...Even the change from Latin to the vernacular was also a symptom of feminization, according to Ong.  Latin had been a means of maintaining a Latin culture in the Roman Catholic clergy.  A language restricted to men is common; it is a sign of masculine separation from the feminine world.  After it became a learned language, Latin was learned almost exclusively by men.  The system of education that used Latin and centered around Latin literature was centered around contest and disputation and was confined almost entirely to men.  The disappearance of Latin was part of the demasculinization of the clergy.." (The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, pp. 133-135).

So crippled by radical feminism and effeminate clergy, the Church often finds herself incapable of either giving or receiving fraternal correction.  The Cotton-Candy "Church of Nice" (not the Church founded by Christ Jesus to deliver hard truths and thereby save souls), is the Church of "Who am I to judge?", the Church of empty, bland New Age homilies-  Chicken Soup for the Chicken Catholic. Because I had the audacity to stand up to several women at a parish in Baldwinville, Massachusetts who were disrespecting Our Eucharistic Lord by talking loudly and laughing before the tabernacle as people attempted to prepare for Holy Mass, I was told by the priest that I am a "large man" who is scary and that I would be "ostracized." See here.

This is a favorite tactic of liberals to silence authentic men who are not sissified and who actually possess backbone.

The Cult of Softness permeates the entire Church.  It is passive aggressive and desires total control of everything it comes into contact with.

But it cannot fight head on or on solid ground. That is its weakness.  And it is there we must take the fight.

It was Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke who correctly noted, "I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized.

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; the importance of the father, whether in the union of marriage or not; the importance of a father to children; the importance of fatherhood for priests; the critical impact of a manly character; the emphasis on the particular gifts that God gives to men for the good of the whole society.

The goodness and importance of men became very obscured, and for all practical purposes, were not emphasized at all. 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.

All of those virtuous characteristics of the male sex are very important for a child to observe as they grow up and mature. The healthy relationship with the father helps the child to prepare to move from the intimate love of the mother, building a discipline so that the child can avoid excessive self‑love. This ensures that the child is able to identify himself or herself properly as a person in relationship with others; this is critical for both boys and girls.

A child’s relationship with their father is key to a child’s self‑identification, which takes places when we are growing up. We need that very close and affirming relationship with the mother, but at the same time, it is the relationship with the father, which is of its nature more distant but not less loving, which disciplines our lives. It teaches a child to lead a selfless life, ready to embrace whatever sacrifices are necessary to be true to God and to one another.

I recall in the mid-1970’s, young men telling me that they were, in a certain way, frightened by marriage because of the radicalizing and self-focused attitudes of women that were emerging at that time. These young men were concerned that entering a marriage would simply not work because of a constant and insistent demanding of rights for women. These divisions between women and men have gotten worse since then.

Everyone understands that women have and can be abused by men. Men who abuse women are not true men, but false men who have violated their own manly character by being abusive to women.

The crisis between man and woman has been made much worse by a complete collapse of catechesis in the Church. Young men grew up without proper instruction with regard to their faith and to the knowledge of their vocation. Young men were not being taught that they are made in the image of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These young men were not taught to know all those virtues that are necessary in order to be a man and to fulfill the particular gifts of being male.

Making things worse, there was a very fluffy, superficial kind of catechetical approach to the question of human sexuality and the nature of the marital relationship.

At the same time, in society, there came an explosion of pornography, which is particularly corrosive for men because it terribly distorts the whole reality of human sexuality. It leads men and women to view their human sexuality apart from a relationship between a man and woman in marriage.

In truth, the gift of sexual attraction is directed toward marriage, and any kind of sexual union belongs properly only within marriage. But the whole world of pornography corrupts young people into believing that their sexual capacity is for their own entertainment and pleasure, and becomes a consuming lust, which is one of the seven capital sins.

The gift of human sexuality is turned into a means of self‑gratification often at the expense of another person, whether in heterosexual relations or in homosexual relations. A man who has not been formed with a proper identity as a man and as a father figure will ultimately become very unhappy. These poorly formed men become addicted to pornography, sexual promiscuity, alcohol, drugs, and the whole gamut of addictions..."