The Cult of Softness

 As this article explains:

"In the past few hours, Agenzia Fides has published the document “Statistics of the Catholic Church 2025.” Once again, the numbers reveal a bleak picture: vocations continue to decline. Yet there is an unspoken truth that no statistic dares to confront: the problem does not lie with young people, but with the places where vocations should be born and grow.

An archbishop who has dedicated decades to vocational accompaniment, visiting seminaries, listening to formatorsand priests around the world, confirms this. These days — he tells us — he is engaged in a series of visits to various seminaries in Rome and across Europe. His analysis is clear and unsettling: “The crisis of vocations does not arise from the absence of young people willing to give themselves, but from the toxic atmosphere dominating the very places where vocation should mature.”

Seminaries — at least in many cases — are no longer places of discernment, but of selection. And today’s selection is not oriented toward freedom and maturity, but toward docility and dependence. They welcome fragile, confused, often psychologically unstable young men, as if the institution needed patients rather than disciples. It even seems that the search is for “those who need to be healed,” in order to later “save” and control them.

The Cult of Fragility

In recent years, seminaries have stopped attracting balanced, creative, intellectually alive individuals. Not because such people no longer exist, but because — in a system that fears freedom — maturity becomes a defect. Many rectors and formators end up accepting only those with obvious troubles, those needing constant guidance, those willing to be “molded” according to uniform standards. The implicit idea is that a more fragile person will also be more faithful, more obedient, less likely to question authority. It is a pedagogical illusion that borders on ecclesial pathology: no longer forming the man, but manufacturing the dependent. Even aesthetics plays into this perverse game: preference is given to candidates who are unassuming, poorly groomed, under the belief that they will “cause fewer problems,” “draw less attention,” as though a lack of outward appeal guarantees a “safer” path, free of risk.



Behind this mentality lies an ancient fear and a subtle distortion: the fear that, should a priest one day fall, his fall would be all the more scandalous if he once inspired sympathy, charisma, or esteem. Conversely, if a young man is handsome, articulate, intelligent, socially adept, and perhaps has a following on social media, suspicion arises immediately: he will be too liked. Should he enter the seminary, his path will be strewn with obstacles — from unwanted attention to jealousy, envy, and accusations of “special friendships.”



Behind all this lies a criterion that is anything but Gospel-oriented yet deeply human: power prefers what it can control and distrusts what shines with its own light.

The Flight of the Free

The prelate observes: “Let us ask why so many priests who cause real problems in our communities — those who spread gossip, division, and tension — also display an external and personal disorder. They are overweight, troubled, and suffer from their own condition. Yet no one dares say anything, though they represent the true drama of dioceses now on the verge of collapse. The atmosphere has become unbearable: not only do young men refuse to enter seminaries, but even those inside seek to transfer, while bishops no longer know how to govern such realities.



Often, these are the very same men who show inappropriate attention to seminarians or confreres and, once rejected, react with slander and innuendo, attributing to others what in fact describes their own behavior. Paradoxically, these are often the ones who love to cover themselves in vestments, hiding behind form the emptiness of substance.” For this reason, many truly called young men — emotionally mature, with healthy friendships, passions, and interests — choose not to enter the seminary or leave once inside. Those with critical thought, cultural tastes, artistic or athletic pursuits, or healthy relationships outside the Church environment, find the seminary not a place of growth but a cage full of serpents.



Where one would expect a journey of freedom, one finds a climate of suspicion: spontaneity is read as disobedience, freedom as rebellion, maturity as danger. Many priests now advise young men who express a vocation to stay away from seminaries, warning that they would “come out worse than when they entered.”



Thus, the numerical data on vocations is deceptive: it is not that vocations are lacking, but that trust is lacking — in the places meant to nurture them and in the people the hierarchy appoints as “guardians” rather than formators.

Related reading

here.

Goodbye, Good Men here

Priest shortage: An engineered crisis

Father John Zuhlsdorf writes:




I’ve written many times about the situation of vocations to the priesthood. We all know that there are certain parishes in dioceses which produce more priests. We all know that there are certain dioceses which produce more priests. We all know that there are certain religious groups which produce more priests. They have factors in common.

And yet, do other parishes and dioceses and religious groups change what they are doing?
Not much.  It is [as] if they really aren’t committed.

In life I have found that when I am going in the wrong direction, I have to, first, stop going in the wrong direction, turn around, go back, and then go in the right direction.
Right? Does that make sense?  Is that your experience too?  It’s not hard, right?

At California Catholic I read…

Why aren’t other dioceses looking to Lincoln?
[…]
According to the Official Catholic Directory and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Lincoln, NE is the only diocese in the United States to place in the Top 20 for the ratio of ordinands to population in every survey conducted from 1993-2012.
Despite having a Catholic population of only 97,000, the Lincoln diocese ordained 22 men from 2010-2012. Only seven dioceses in the entire country ordained more. One of those, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (with a Catholic population over 4.2 million) ordained 34 men during those same three years. In other words, L.A. only ordained four more men per year on average despite having a population 44X greater than Lincoln.

The Lincoln blueprint can be narrowed down to a few foundational elements:
Orthodox Bishops[Yep.  This is a big one.]

Against all odds and the prevailing winds of the post-conciliar Church, Lincoln has avoided the craziness and irreverence that has afflicted so many other dioceses. This has largely been achieved through the stability and orthodoxy provided over the last fifty years by three men: Bishop Glennon Flavin (1967-1992), Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz (1992-2012), and Bishop James Conley (2012-present). They succeeded despite the occasional scorn of their brother bishops, and by making the Church’s perennial priorities their own.
The National Catholic Reporter (known as the Fish wrap to Fr. Z readers) [And not only to Fr Z readers…. pretty much everyone now calls it that.] once bemoaned that it was as if the “reforms” so prevalent in the aftermath of Vatican II had missed Lincoln altogether. Exactly.

The Male Only Sanctuary

To a large extent, Lincoln has preserved a male only sanctuary. In this area the diocese has simply given more weight to tradition and common sense instead of “modern sensibilities” that are more secular minded.
 

The diocese remains the only one in the country to maintain an altar serving policy of boys only.
 

Lincoln also utilizes installed acolytes and lectors for the Holy Mass. Since it is an instituted ministry, the role of an acolyte is only open to men. Both of these instituted ministries commenced during Bishop Flavin’s time during the 1970’s.

Tradition Friendly

Those in Lincoln will speak of the lack of Catholic tribalism and the absence of the liturgical wars so prevalent in other dioceses. In large part this is due to the environment established by Lincoln’s bishops. Reverent Novus Ordo liturgies have served the faithful well, preventing the frustration that so many encounter in other dioceses.
[… good stuff… but I want to keep this short… Suffice to say that during my last visit to NYC, I had a church full of young people from a High School in Lincoln.  They were reverent, received Communion on the tongue, kneeling, without batting an eye… impressive…]

Liturgical Continuity

As stated previously, the Lincoln diocese has intentionally avoided the modern tendency to clericalize the laity by delegating liturgical roles to the faithful. Thanks to its use of acolytes and lectors, instead of the more common excessive use of readers and extraordinary ministers, the diocese has not blurred the lines between ministers and laity, or between sanctuary and nave. It’s obvious to see how this would reinforce the ministerial priesthood in Lincoln, as well as the continuity between both forms of the Roman Rite.
Proper liturgical orientation has been further reinforced through the manner in which many masses are offered in Lincoln: with the priest facing toward the liturgical east, or Ad Orientem.
A Catholic Education
While I have saved this for last, in many ways education is the primary ingredient to Lincoln’s recipe for success. Bishop Glennon Flavin’s vision for a diocese that allowed its children to go to Catholic school at an affordable cost and to be taught authentic Catholicism by religious sisters and priests is integral to the diocesan mission.  [One of the parent/chaperons of the aforementioned group from Lincoln told me that tuition was in the neighborhood of $1200 per year. ]
[…]

Read the whole thing there.  It’s pretty interesting.
Here is the bottom line.
The percentages of men to be ordained, and who are now active, against those who are retiring or dying are getting grim.  I was recently in a diocese in Louisiana where some half of the priests are set to retire in the next five years.  Disaster, right?
Well, friends….

That percentage didn’t just happen.
It was engineered.

And the numbers in Lincoln, and in certain parishes, dioceses and religious groups known for good numbers of vocations didn’t just happen either!

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It has been entirely engineered.  The Diocese of Worcester has some sort of animus against men who feel called to the priesthood but who accept, promote and defend the Church's Magisterial teaching.  There really is no denying this.  As a cradle Catholic who lives a sacramental life, and who promotes and defends the Church's authentic teaching, especially in the area of sexual morality,  I am not permitted to even apply for the priesthood and begin a discernment process.

This is most unfortunate.  Dr. Germain Grisez explains that, "Since the ordained priesthood and diaconate provide the necessary ministries of the word and sacraments to the whole Church, every member shares a common duty to foster vocations to this service."

This duty, which pertains to all Christians, is codified in Canon Law:

"A duty rests upon the entire Christian community to foster vocations so that sufficient provision is made for the needs of the sacred ministry throughout the entire Church; Christian families, educators and in a special way priests, especially pastors, are particularly bound by this duty.  Since it is principally the concern of diocesan bishops to promote vocations, they should instruct the people entrusted to them concerning the importance of the sacred ministry and the necessity of ministers in the Church; therefore they are to encourage and support endeavors to foster vocations by means of projects especially established for that purpose." (Canon 233).

Paragraph 2 of the same Canon also states, "Moreover priests, and especially diocesan bishops, are also to be solicitous that men of a more mature age who consider themselves called to the sacred ministries are prudently assisted IN WORD AND DEED and duly prepared."

When I contacted the Worcester Diocese to express my interest in DISCERNING a priestly vocation, I received no response whatsoever.  When I wrote Bishop Robert McManus expressing my interest, again, no response.  This is promoting vocations?  This is being "solicitous" for mature vocations while assisting such in "word and deed"?

Of course not.

Every so often local parishes will offer a prayer intention for vocations.  But without any real effort to promote and foster vocations to the priesthood and religious life, such prayer intentions amount to little more than a dog and pony show.  Bishop McManus apparently has such disdain for me (pesky magisterial Catholic that I am) that when I phoned him to inform him that my "pastor" at the time (Fr. Joseph Jurgelonis) and his "pastoral staff" wouldn't schedule a Mass for my departed father, he actually laughed.

Feel the love of Christ Jesus.

Folks, if we really want to turn the tide within and outside of the Church, we will need to be more accepting of men who are orthodox in their faith and who feel called to the priesthood.  The laborers are few.  Can we afford to prohibit men faithful to the Magisterium from having a place at the table?

Diocese of Worcester: Healthy men need not apply?  See here.

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke on the war against masculinity

In an article which may be found here, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke says,  "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..."

Now I've been saying this for years at this Blog.  The Cult of Softness has infected the clergy and Christianity is increasingly being effeminized.

Dr. Leon Podles, in his book entitled "The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity," notes that, "Many Catholic dioceses actively discourage vocations to the priesthood, in a transparent attempt to put pressure on Rome to allow the ordination of women, or at least of married men...Because Christianity is now seen as a part of the sphere of life proper to women rather than to men, it sometimes attracts men whose own masculinity is somewhat doubtful.  By this I do not mean homosexuals, although a certain type of homosexual is included.  Rather religion is seen as a safe field, a refuge from the challenges of life, and therefore attracts men who are fearful of making the break with the secure world of childhood dominated by women.  These are men who have problems following the path of masculine development..." (p. XIV).

Dr. Podles cites a study by Lewis M. Terman and Catherine Cox Miles, which included a Masculinity-Femininity test, writing, "Terman and Miles gathered data from three groups: Catholic seminarians, Protestant seminarians, and Protestant ministers.  As one might expect, men attracted to the religious life differed strikingly in their masculinity from the general male population: 'The Catholic student priests score at a point far less masculine than any other male group of their age; in their early twenties they are more feminine than the general male population at middle life.  The Protestant theological students in their middle tewnties are, however, more feminine than they and exceed in femininity the sixty-year-old man of equal education.  The adult ministerial group is barely more masculine than the Protestant theological students and less so than the student priests.  They exceed in femininity the college men of the seventh decade.'  Terman and Miles concluded that 'some dominant factors must be present in all three groups to make them, without regard to age, conspicuously and almost equally lacking in mental masculinity.'  Interestingly enough, the similarities between the Protestant and Catholic groups and the Catholic group's slightly higher scores ruled out celibacy as a major factor in a lack of masculinity..." (P. 9).

Effeminacy (and here we are not necessarily speaking of homosexuality), has become the forgotten vice in seminary formation.  This as many masculine men continue to be excluded from pursuing priestly vocations and masculinity itself is banished to the margins of the Church.

I should know.  I'm one of them.

Update on Clark University's "Freethought Society"...It's "okay" to mock Christianity

It was brought to my attention by a student at Clark University that Paul Agne, a Clark Student and member of the Christianophobic "Freethought Society," wrote the following:


"Even if we do criticize/mock Christianity, there is nothing wrong with that. If I see irrational dogma, bigotry, intolerance, etc it is not exempt from criticism/ridicule just because it is someone's religious (or political/cultural/etc) be...lief. And furthermore, as Christianity is the dominant religion in the US, and inserts itself into our lives daily it will of course be more relevant to us, and we will have more to say about it than, say, Jainism."

There you have it. Members of the Clark University "Freethought Society" have such a hatred toward Christianity that they justify mocking the religion.  Christian dogma is presented as "irrational," "bigoted" and "intolerant."

Ironically, many who commented in the discussion thread of a previous post, asserted that Clark University is "tolerant" toward religious viewpoints.  Yes, I can see that.  An individual who posted a comment as "Dr. Halpern" wrote: "As a Clark University alum, I can honestly say that in my 4 years there I did not encounter any anti-Christian sentiments. I would describe the atmosphere at Clark as supportive, intellectually stimulating, and encouraging of healthy, thoughtful debate... As an alum concerned with investing in the future of the institution, I would like to counter BostonCatholic by ENCOURAGING Christian parents to send their children to Clark. It is through inclusiveness that we learn about the world we live in, and everyone's viewpoints are equally important in that learning process."

Oh boy.

Molly Burman wrote, "I am a Catholic student at Clark University. I learn and live in an accepting environment. This acceptance includes people of all faiths, sexualities, and races. One of our mottos is "Categorizing is not something we do here." This means not judging a person based on his or her sexuality OR religion."

Unless of course that religion is Christianity.  Then it's "okay" to mock.

Yesiree, healthy, thoughtful debate is alive and well at Clark University.  That's why I was called an "ass...." for simply challenging Clark University professor Abbie Goldberg.

With friends like that...