“Womanpriests”, “Pope Joan”… and a side of PC

Lately, I’ve come across several stories, websites, conversations, etc. about ‘womanpriests’.  [Some of the websites claim to be in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  They aren’t.  No matter their claims, they aren’t.]  One story is about a movie that’s out, exclusively in Europe right now, about the legend of a female Pope that lived during the 9th century.  This claim is unsubstantiated and completely fabricated.  One story, which I saw posted on Facebook, spoke of a ‘womanpriest’ from the St. Louis area who is pregnant.  “The first female Roman Catholic priest to be pregnant in history.”  What is the obsession with women being priests?!?!

I think the obsession is the false understanding of freedom in our culture, mixed with a heavy dose of moral relativism, topped with a false sense of equality… served with a side of PC.  In our culture, fairness has been turned into a “if they get one, I deserve one too” system.  Society completely distorts the understanding of gender, gender roles, equality, fairness and the intention of God in regards to gender and sexuality.  The world has turned everything into a competition and some people believe that in order to be considered ‘equal’, they must have the same opportunities as everyone else.  Think about that – it doesn’t make sense.

Why is it, that as soon as a man is allowed (created) to do something, some women automatically insist that they should be allowed to do the same?  The insistance includes many such things that are outside the scope of a woman’s role.  See, when a man is ordained a priest in the Catholic Church, he becomes the spouse of Mother Church.  Plain and simple.  No apologies here… politically correct or not.

Being politically correct is not Catholic.  It’s not charitable, it’s not what Jesus did, it’s not what we should do.  Being politically correct asks us to waterdown our faith, to become “tolerant” of everything that’s going on around us – whether morally acceptable or not.  No thanks.

As always, I’m not diggin’ on women.  I’m not trying to deify men.  What I’m saying is that we were each created for something great, as a man or as a woman.  Those things can be (and most likely are) different.

Stand up for the dignity of each person.  Respect life.  Respect what God created you for.  Stand up for Truth.  Stand up against the notion of tolerance.  Ruffle feathers, if that’s what it takes.  Christ wasn’t a fairweather prophet… He didn’t take the position of “acceptance”… See, what Christ did (which is what we are supposed to model our lives after) is that He loved sinners too much to allow them to stay where they were.

TrueMan up!

Supposed To Do

I just returned from a weekend trip to a private midwestern university where I gave a talk on manliness and Christian brotherhood.  I mentioned the topic of Adam from the creation story in Genesis.  In the story, Adam disregards the command that God gave to him to “shamar” the garden.  From his neglect, sin entered the world.  This, naturally, led to discussion about gender roles.  During the Q&A session, a young man in the front row asked me “what do you mean when you say ‘what a man should do’ and ‘what a woman should do’?”  I think it’s a great question and deserves some explanation and distinction here on the site.

When I say one of those statements (‘what a man (or woman) should d0’), what I mean is that men and women have been called to a specific role in humanity.  (For instance, fatherhood, or motherhood.)  The young man wanted to know if I thought that women shouldn’t work, or be in leadership or do anything outside of mothering children, cleaning and cooking.  Obviously, I am not of that opinion.  I can understand the question though, because our society tells us constantly that it’s either one, but not both.

Being called to a specific role in humanity means that a male or a female is embracing their nature.  Men are naturally designed to protect, guard and care for.  We are more rugged.  Our bodies are made for laborious tasks.  Women are naturally more nurturing, motherly and tender.  These differences aren’t pointed out to say one is better than the other, only that they are different.  John Paul II said many times, “Men and women were created equal in dignity, but different in role.”  This is an important distinction.

For men to be TrueMen, we must embrace what is naturally placed on our hearts by God and follow the commands that God has given to us.

TrueMan up!