"Spiritual, not Religious": the Gnostic as Anti-Creation, Anti-Body, Anti-Incarnation and Anti-Catholic

 21% of Americans identify as "spiritual, not religious." That makes them competitive: nonreligious and nonspiritual 30%, Evangelical Protestants 23%, Catholics 19%, Mainline Protestants 11%, Black Protestants 5%. 

When someone identifies as "spiritual, not religious," I have three responses. First, I respect here a searching spirit, someone yearning for the True, the Good and the Beautiful. I note that they have not seen this in established religion and hope that they might find something in my Catholic faith. 

Second, I worry: they are isolated, atomized, alone, vulnerable, in danger; much like a small lamb wandering into a forest surging with mountain lions and wolves, defenseless against the world, the flesh and the devil. 

I grieve that he/she is a gnostic.

Gnosticism is an umbrella term indicating religious patterns prevalent in the Mediterranean world of the 2nd-4th centuries. These various forms interacted with Christianity and competed  as  alternative religions. "Gnosis" means knowledge. Salvation from evil was here found not in simple faith, repentance and decision for God and the good, acceptance of Revelation, participation in the Church or communion with the Trinity; rather in special knowledge. This knowledge: the human soul is a spark of the divine, trapped in a body that is evil. Reality is dualistic:  the deity is all good and purely spiritual; the countervailing evil power, the demiurge, is the source of physical reality, the flesh, which is inherently bad. And so the gnostic compulsion is to find release and happiness by escape from the body, the physical, the flesh.  This dualism denies creation as good from a Creator; it seeks escape from the physical, from suffering, from sexuality, from history, from the Feminine, from the institutional, and from the Jew. It exults the inner, subjective, isolated, solipsistic, autonomous Soul or Self as the "spark of the divine." 

From this primal contempt for the human body, many consequences follow:

Anti-Sexuality. Disparagement of sex goes in two extreme directions. There is disgust and avoidance of sex. We find this in the  Shakers who all embraced celibacy and predictably died out a few years ago. A different manifestation is in the emergence of new sexual identities such as "asexual," "agender,"  "demigender," and so forth. On the other hand is licentiousness justified because sex is not expressive of the soul. So, "hooking up" is a casual, trivial thing as Hugh Hefner taught us. Sexual engagement is trivialized. A husband might minimize adultery with a prostitute: "It was just sex. It meant nothing to me."  This is a strong factor in Catholic progressivism in its disparagement of "pelvic theology." When Pope Francis and Leo downplay sexual ethics in favor of social justice they are manifesting the gnostic impulse. They imply that the epidemic of porn addiction, marital infidelity, and homosexual behavior are trivial in comparison with issues like immigration, capital punishment and the environment.

Anti-History.  History, tradition, and past revelation have no value for the gnostic who lives only in the present. The Cultural Progressive in his disparagement of the past as ignorant, unjust and hateful is gnostic: entrapped in the moment and dismissive of what is given.

Anti-Institution. The "spiritual not religious" detaches from human institutions into loneliness. Institutions of course bond us to the past and future as well as the present. They embody (however imperfectly) spiritual values and join us together in them. The gnostic sits in judgement of the weaknesses and failings of human institutions and maintains an illusory sense of private, moral superiority.

Misogyny. Karl Stern (Flight from Woman) showed how Descartes and his followers were systemically and profoundly hateful of the feminine and maternal. Indeed, modernity is in its essence a rejection of the feminine (virginal, bridal, maternal, receptive, contemplative) in favor of a depraved masculinity of abstraction, detachment, control, violence, egoism and abuse.

 Antisemitism.  The second century gnostic Marcion rejected the Old Testament as divine revelation. The Church of course renounced this in accepting those books as inspired. A deep hatred of the Jew mysteriously accompanies the gnostic impulse. The gnostic despises history, the particular, and the institutional. The Jew is all three. Carl Jung held leadership positions in Nazi organizations. Heidegger, the philosophical titan of 20th century European philosophy, the heir of the Cartesian turn to the subject, was an active Nazi.  We are tragically suffering now in the USA a resurgence of antisemitism on the  Left and Right both. There are a number of contingent, current causes for this. But deeper there is an undiagnosed gnostic, spiritual-ontological resentment and disgust for the Jew.

Suffering.  For the gnostic, suffering is not the result of sin, an act of freedom; nor is it an occasion to turn to God or even share in the salvific suffering of Christ. Rather, it is an error caused by the mistake of the creation of the physical which is itself evil. Here there is no faith in the saving act of a suffering savior, rather there is search for the hidden knowledge that will bring relief.

The "gnostic compulsion" dominates the history of spirituality well beyond these early centuries and finds expression in many contemporary spiritualities.  Let's consider some.

1. Enlightenment, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy.  The very word "enlightenment" has a gnostic taste. It suggests salvation through some knowledge: in this case, the use of reason of the isolated individual as liberated from tradition, custom, authority, and the fleshly. Modernity is the turn to the subjective, the interior Self, the autonomous intellect...cut off from the real, Being, the body, history, sex/gender, tradition and transcendence. Descartes' starting point was the search for absolute clarity and certainty of thought  by the solitary, individual intellect. He assumed absolute suspicion of anything not logically self-evident. He displaced trust in the body, the Church, tradition, the feminine, the received. He rejected as suspect all that is "given"...creation, community, revelation, tradition. He rejected the realistic epistemology and the ontology of being of St. Thomas.  And so, the entire corpus of modern/contemporary philosophy insofar as it builds upon Descartes/Hume/Hegel is deeply gnostic. This applies also to the softer, subtle way of Transcendental Thomism (Rahner, Longergan) which futilely attempts to reconcile Catholicism to the Cartesian/Kantian gnostic turn to the Self and the disconnect with the Real.

2. Lucifer.  Was the first, primordial Gnostic. No, he is not an evil Demiurge, a dark deity coequal with God, and himself the source of the physical world as a fall into corruption from the divine. Rather, he is himself a creature, the most brilliant and bright of all the angels, created good in himself. Ancient non-biblical Christian traditions (neither approved nor condemned by Tradition and the Magisterium) say that he revolted when he heard God's plan for a physical universe and that God would himself become flesh of a woman. He would have considered his angelic nature superior to the human and all flesh and refused to defer to a God-Man and his especially his fleshly, feminine mother. Satan was the quintessential Gnostic.

3. Triumph of the Therapeutic.  Much of contemporary psychology is at least implicitly gnostic in that it considers the client in isolation and loneliness. This is lucid in Carl Jung who identified the religious as the interiority of the Self, as a subjectivity of archetypes, ideas, and intuitions. The subject does not relate to the real, the objective, the transcendent and eternal. There is no I-Thou. Rather, the individual goes deeply into the unconscious of confusion and chaos. The popular Joseph Cambell is more blatantly gnostic in his evident disdain for the historical religions, his antisemitism, and his infatuation with pagan, cyclical religions. Even a sane moral voice like Jordan Peterson remains a gnostic, however enlightened in a good way, by his inability to accept Revelation like a child. The therapeutic culture that took over elite society in the 1960s posited as absolute the "authentic" Self, the autonomous individual who defines himself, free of family, history, authority. The path to human flourishing was no longer found in loyalty to God/family/Church/community, but in sincerity and transparency, whatever that entailed. This is a retrieval of the Gnostic "inner flame" of the soul, freeing itself from the flesh of connections, duties, obedience and loyalty. 

4. Contraceptive Sterilization of Sex and LGBTQ Crusade.  The sexual revolution detached the "inner self" from sexual/gendered human flesh in all its consequences of intimacy, vulnerability, fertility, fidelity, and communion with creation, community, ancestors and descendants. This new "Self" is autonomous, isolated, self-determining, liberated from history, institutions, gender, and fertility. The consequence of this is the LGBTQ construct whereby a rootless, disconnected, sovereign Self chooses gender and identity, renouncing what is "given" by birth, nature and Providence.

5. Technology further isolates the self with phone, internet, and a mega-system that dwarfs the person, removes agency, and disparages the particular, the place, the immediate, the physical, the historical and the institutional. The breakdown of family, community and local Church leaves the individual atomized and defenseless against manipulation by giga-state and mega-corporation. The measured, proportioned, organic and fluid interaction of the person with immediate, concrete ambience and community is replaced by the matrix and the machine.

6. New Age and Eastern-type Spiritualities.  Lacking a theology of Creation and Creator, these offer an alternative religious path that has gnostic characteristics. Christian Zen, for example, lacks the primal reality of creation but also that of sin, freedom, redemption by crucified Christ, incarnation of God, the redemptive value of suffering and resurrection of the body. Rather, it offers "enlightenment" (that word again!) This is not a free act of turning from sin, of acceptance in faith of God's initiative in Christ, of loyalty to Him within the Church. The gnosis that saves here is noncognitive and anti-intellectual: it is recognition of the illusion of suffering, of the ego or person. It is a mystical dissolution of a false consciousness and a restoration to primal peace and union. Creation and the physical are here not evil so much as illusory and deceptive. This is accompanied by an ethos of kindness, generosity, and serenity. It retains the core gnostic belief of the real self entrapped in a hostile apparatus of ego, intellectuality and social convention. Such spiritualities ordinarily carry with them a disparagement of religion as dogma, ritual, tradition, and authority.

7. Simone Weil.  We find an extreme, even shocking case of "Christian-Gnosticism" in this young, Jewish, brilliant, philosopher-mystic who died "of compassion" in World War II. She identified so deeply with the Suffering Christ of the poor and tormented that she fasted in solidarity and contributed to her death by a spiritual anorexia. Along with a saintly intimacy with Jesus and a heroic charity, she e suffered a gnostic-type aversion to the body. She believed in Christ but refused baptism. So she inflicted upon herself a sacramental as well as a physical anorexia. She aspired to "decreation" as a radical annihilation of the self. She viewed the dogmatic and institutional aspect of the Church with contempt. She did not view the physical world as the all-good creation of a generous Creator, but as a corruption or a fall, just like the ancient Gnostics. She is at once a genuine mystic, a brilliant thinker and a deeply tormented spirit.

The Hylomorphic Communion of Body and Soul: Aristotle, Thomas, Stein, John Paul

Aristotle famously overcame the view of his mentor Plato that the soul is entrapped in an alien body. Attuned to biology, he advocated the "hylomorphic" (matter-form) that soul and body are essentially wed together to form a reality. This idea proved to be entirely compatible with the Bible's view of the human person as embodied-spirit (or "angimal" both spirit and animal in a unity). More recently, John Paul has renewed this awareness in his pivotal catechesis on the human body. Very close to his thought is that of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein.)  Stein is a striking contrast to Weil. A contemporary, she was a secular Jew who converted to Catholicism. She is again a brilliant philosopher and an authentic mystic. She is entirely Catholic all things but especially about the human body. She wrote and spoke eloquently about the "genius of woman" and herself died a martyr in the concentration camp. The contrast between Gnostic and Catholic is glaring in the anthropology of the human body.

Catholic Intuition: God's Passion to Incarnate

We know from our faith: not only does God love everything he has made in the physical universe, but he craves...madly, passionately, desperately...to incarnate himself, to become flesh, to penetrate and indwell us, in our very flesh.

He became flesh, lived, suffered, and died in Jesus. His flesh lives now eternally in heaven. But that was not enough. He wanted to remain with us, in us, in the flesh. So he is with us in the Eucharist, in every consecrated host on every altar and in every tabernacle.

He is in-fleshed, until the end of history, in the historical, institutional, hierarchical Church: the infallible teaching, the efficacious sacraments, the forgiveness of sins, the powers of the priesthood, the sanctity of marriage as a sacrament, the anointing of the sick and the dying, the holiness of saints, the repentance of sinners. 

By virtue of his own crucifixion, he is present in the suffering: the martyrs, the persecuted, the disabled, the emotionally afflicted, the poor and the sick.

He craves to sanctify our sexual yearnings, our masculinity and femininity, with generosity, tenderness, heroism, fruitfulness, and holiness.

He is incarnate when heaven penetrates earth: miracles, healings, stigmata, levitation, bilocation, incorruption, the odor of sanctity, exorcism of evil spirits, sacramentals, devotions, pilgrimages, where two gather in his name, rosaries, scapulars, crucifixes, chapels/churches/cathedrals, religious vows, acts of mercy, asks for forgiveness, pardons, sacrifices, feasts and joyous celebrations.

Heaven is not separate from earth; it is not after earth; it is here, married to earth.

Iconoclastic and Pantheist Impulse

Many of the historic, monotheistic faiths are neither Gnostic nor Catholic, but iconoclastic. They affirm a transcendent, good Creator who has intervened in history. But to protect the transcendence, they refuse to associate the Divine so intimately with the fleshly. And so: they destroy icons; they deny the sacraments; they flee from the incarnation.  This applies clearly to Judaism, Islam and most of Protestantism. Consider: is there anything more sterile, monotonous, annoying than an airport chapel or a Protestant Church. I would prefer a DMV office, a bus terminal, a YMCA gym or pool. 

On the other hand we have pantheism. Here the transcendent is denied and the Divine is located in the earthly. This can come with militant feminism in its hatred of Fatherhood, even of God. It can come as nature mysticism, including a disordered obsession with the environment, not as beautiful creation but as an idol of its own.

Conclusion

Gnosticism is flight from the flesh: sexuality/gender, history, tradition, soul/body unity, creation, institutions, suffering, and the Incarnation.

Catholicism is surrender to God's love affair with the flesh: in sexuality, ritual, institutions, suffering, sacrament, miracles. icons/sacramentals, intimacy with the poor, and the Eucharist.

P.S.  To his credit, Pope Francis addressed the dangers of neo-Gnosticism twice in 2018: in his apostolic exhortation Gaudate et Exsultate and a letter Placuit Deo.  Also, Cyril O'Reagan, the renowned Irish, Balthasar scholar of Notre Dame (who sat on my son's dissertation defense) has written volumes on its manifestation in contemporary culture. This is to assure you, Dear Reader, that Fleckinstein is not a random, lonely anti-Gnostic ruminating in his solipistic blog-world. No. He is thinking with the Church!

Where are You on The Catholic/Progressive Spectrum?

Cultural Progressivism is not the progress dynamic inherent to science and technology, nor is it the Catholic-friendly political liberalism of the Democratic Party of the postwar era (1945-65). Rather, it is a coherent, powerful ideology...philosophical, theological, political...which took over the elite institutions of the West starting in 1965, as the Second Vatican II Council ended and the Sexual Revolution exploded across society. 

The essentials of Cultural Progressivism:  

1. -distrust of the past, of tradition, of authority, and of divine revelation as ignorant and unjust;

2. -fervent trust in science and technology; and in inexorable progress, the "arc of history" invincibly overcoming pathologies of the past;

3. - faith in the therapeutic as path to human flourishing;

4. - devaluation of incompetent human life (fetus, elderly and infirm) as disposable refuse;

5. - detachment of sex from procreation in artificial contraception, technologies of "reproduction" and the cult of sterile sex;

6. - deconstruction of femininity (as virginity/bridal-spousality/maternity) and  masculinity (as virtuous virility/husbandly spousality/paternity) in favor of the neutered, sterile, isolated individual as unit of production and consumption;

7. - fundamental dynamic of society is the oppression of master/slave in male/female, rich/poor, white/non-white, heterosexual/homosexual, Israel/Palestinian, colonizer/colonized and more.

8. - sovereignty of isolated Self over claims of family, community, faith or country.

9. - absolute secularity; denial of reality of the eternal, transcendent or supernatural; banishment of religion from the public to the private.

10. - rejection of realist epistemology and ontology of being for a constructivist relativism.  

This is clearly the contradiction of Catholicism in many dimensions. 

Catholic Progressivism is the futile attempt to marry Catholic faith with Cultural Progressivism. The substantive here is "Progressivism" which is flavored with elements of the Church compatible with it. This will be distinguished from Progressive Catholic which retains Catholic integrity along with more liberal or leftwing prudential judgments. 

Since the Council, our Church has been a Culture War between Progressivism and enduring-organically-vital Catholicism. Below is a test to position yourself on the Catholic/Progressive spectrum.

Catholic/Progressive Spectrum

Answer Yes or No to each question. Each is a progressive belief that contradicts Catholic faith. At the end give yourself -1 for each No and +1 for each Yes. If  undecided or ambivalent, score a 0. 

1. A woman can be a Catholic priest.    Yes   No

2. Artificial contraception within a generous marriage is a good moral option.   Yes   No

3. War is no longer a moral option.  Yes  No

4. Capital punishment is inherently and always wrong.   Yes  No

5. Church denial of Eucharist to the divorced/remarried/not-annulled is uncharitable.  Yes  No

6. In Vitro Fertilization and related technologies are valid moral options for the infertile.  Yes  No

7. Homosexual acts are not in themselves immoral so that such unions can be blessed.  Yes  No

8. Self-identification in opposition to birthed, biological gender is a good moral option.  Yes  No

9. Sacramental practice (Sunday mass, regular confession) is not essential or necessary for a Catholic living a good life.   Yes  No

10. Living and sleeping together outside of marriage is morally ok if there is mutual love.  Yes  No

11. Legalized abortion is a good way to protect women.  Yes  No

12. Trans-women have a  right to compete in female sports.  Yes  No

13. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are compassionate options.  Yes  No

14. Religious refusal  to place children for adoption with homosexual couples or to participate in homosexual marriages is bigoted and should be illegal.  Yes  No

15. Sex work (prostitution) should be legal and free of shame and guilt.  Yes  No

16. Moderate use of porn and masturbation can be wholesome expressions of sexuality.  Yes  No

17. Catholic traditions of hermit life, cloistered convents and monasteries are unhealthy. Yes  No

18. Devils, miracles, an eternal hell and such are psychological-moral symbols, not hard, literal realities.  Yes  No

19. Catholic priesthood...male and celibate...is dysfunctional, repressive, unjust.  Yes  No 

20. Access to affordable artificial contraception is the right of every woman and must be guaranteed by the State.  Yes  No

These are simple binaries: yes or no.  It your total is in positive numbers you are more progressive than Catholic, and vice versa. Many Catholics and even priests are undecided or ambivalent on these questions. If you are such on more than a handful then you are afflicted with confusion and indecision of the intellect. Many progressives have good intention and pure, generous hearts but are in confusion. Do not be hard on yourself: Pope Francis and it seems Pope Leo also suffer such confusion and indecision. This is the ordinary state of the Church, our catechetical crisis, since the Council. 

Postscript

The original version of this test included "progressive" opinions or prudential judgments which do not contradict Catholic teaching. One might agree with these without compromising the integrity of the Catholic faith. These included:

1. White racism is systemic and pervasive in USA 2026.

2. Our international system of nations states must be replaced by a World Government.

3. American power, greed and imperialism is responsible for most world injustices.

4. Evangelical MAGA-related crusade (e.g. Charlie Kirk), sometimes called Christian Nationalism, is racist and fascist.

5. Biden immigration policy was compassionate; Trump policy cruel and immoral.

6. Corporate capitalism is corrupt and unjust and must be corrected by massive wealth redistribution and an expansive state.

7. Synodality is valid effort to include laity in Church governance.  

Agreement with these political judgments along with rejection of the moral statements above would make for a "Progressive Catholic," an integral Catholic with liberal political views. This is different from the "Catholic Progressive" described above.

 

Top Twelve Things I love About Vatican II

 1. Jesus Christ.  Refocused our Catholic faith in the divine/human person of Jesus Christ. The singular failure of the postwar Church was detachment from Christ. The entire Christian life is incoherent without roots in Christ. The pontificates of John Paul and the various lay renewal movements reinforce this Evangelical Catholicism.

2. Holiness of the Laity.  Clear call to holiness for all, laity, clergy and religious. This is not new but a refreshing and necessary intensification. The invocation of Pope St. John XXIII and the bishops for a new Pentecost subsequently bore fruit in the renewal movements.

3. Ecumenism.  Recovery of our deep unity...in Christ, scripture, and the Christian life...with our separated brothers/sisters.

4. Jewish Dialogue.  Reset of our relationship with Jews and Judaism; renunciation of antisemitism and anti-Judaism; deepened recovery of our own roots in Judaism; recognition of God's continued Providential love for the people of Israel. 

5. Freedom of Religion and Political Liberties.  Here the influence of the American model, specifically through John Courtney Murray S.J. is clear. Essential here is the inherent relationship of freedom to truth.

6. Liturgical Renewal.  Effort, not without difficulties, to increase lay participation in the liturgy.

7. "Ressourcement."  Return to the sources, broader study of the fathers and doctors. The narrow focus on St. Thomas was overcome and scholastic language avoided in the documents. But Monsignor Tom Guarino and others have shown that Thomistic metaphysics and epistemology, especially the concept of analogy, provided the underlying intellectual structure of the Council. 

8. Positive Engagement with Modernity.  The tradition of suspicion, anxiety and defensiveness was overcome with an inclination to recognize, not uncritically, what is good, true and beautiful in the broader culture and developments.

9. Appreciation of World Religions. Consideration of the good and the workings of God's grace beyond the institutional boundaries of the Church in world religions.

10. Ecclesial Clarity.  Hierarchical, apostolic structure of the Church was clarified. The collegiality of the college of bishops, always in union with the Pope, was illuminated. Also, contrasting roles of clergy/laity was highlighted: the laity bring the Gospel to the world as the ordained govern/teach/sanctify the Church. Unfortunately, that distinction has been obscured since the Council by progressive dual clericalist jealousies: lay envy of the priestly vocation (largely advanced by clerics, notably in the new cult of "synodality") and a clericalism in which hierarchs pontificate on prudential, secular, lay concerns including immigration, capital punishment, war, and environment. The properly sacerdotal and lay become convoluted, confused, and corrupted: the lay want to be priests, the popes want to be caliphs. 

11.  Biblical Revival.  Intensified academic and devotional attention to Scripture, properly related to Tradition and Magisterium, had deep intellectual, ecumenical and evangelical consequences.

12. Liturgical Renewal. Return to the scriptural sources and the crusade to engage the laity were proper concerns. Not the documents themselves so much as their disordered implementation led to excessive informality, casualness, and loss of the sacred, often in the name of "the spirit of Vatican II."

It bears repetition: the Council was not a rupture, not a replacement of an outdated Church with a new model. It is not like selling an old car and buying a new. It is more like renovation of a classy mansion that maintains all the integrity but refreshes and renews. It was not an end and a beginning. The Council was the culmination and synthesis of multiple movements of the Holy Spirit in the six decades of the 20th century, especially the two after WWII: ecumenical, liturgical, biblical, Jewish dialogue and engagement with culture, the fathers, and world religions. 

This partly explains why the documents of the Council were approved by overwhelming majorities. The bishops and popes involved recognized with remarkable unity the clear directions from the Holy Spirit. Likewise, they were for the most part received with enthusiasm and docility by the laity who recognized values they were already living.

Clearly, the Council was an act of the Holy Spirit and an authoritative declaration by the Magisterium. Yet, it was a human event, finite and vulnerable to imbalance, in need of correction and development. So now, sixty years later, we can identify problems.

1. Unbalanced Positivity and Credulity, especially in regard to modern culture. The problem here is the timing: in 1965 the Council ended with an open, warm, trusting openness to modern culture. At that precise moment, the Cultural Revolution was exploding in the West. Not only did the Council fail to prepare us for this new, fierce Culture War, but it made us weak, trusting, and vulnerable.

2. Null Curriculum. This is the concerns that are significant for their absence. 

- Communism is not mentioned. It was at that time in history the primary antagonist of the Church. In 1962, in the Metz Accord, the Vatican agreed with Russia to avoid condemnation of communism in exchange for permission of bishops from that bloc to participate in the Council. This was in accord with a broader conciliatory approach in which the Vatican hoped to appease the communists. Tragically, this same policy is now at work in China. John Paul, long a quiet but resolute opponent of communism, was to replace this with a warrior approach that (aligned with Regan's hard ball diplomacy) triumphed. In any case, a student of history reading the Council documents would get a false, limited view of the Church of 1962-5 with the avoidance of its  single biggest enemy. Could you write a history of WWII without mention of Nazi Germany?

- Sexuality. The Council properly emphasizes the unitive, along with the procreative, end of sex within marriage. It deliberately punted on the issue of contraception. This is understandable as that technology was brand new at that time; prudence dictated patience. The flaming hot issue was placed in the hands of the Pontifical Commission on Contraception. In 1966 the members voted 64-4 to allow contraception within marriage when motives are pure, generous and prudent. Pope Paul VI controversially rejected this guidance, heeding instead the minority report, championed by Cardinal Wojtyla (to be John Paul) in Humanae Vitae 1968. This was a striking decision: Paul listened to the majority and minority reports and then decided with the 6% minority. Is this the "synodal" way? Probably not; but it is the Catholic way. In any case, the Council documents give no hint that the Church was about to enter into a "forever war" over sex, gender, family and the value of incompetent human life.

- Secular Age: Loss of the Sacred.  Unintended consequences. What was happening in the 1960s in the West and especially the USA was a surge of unprecedented prosperity. This contrasts sharply with the hardship and suffering of the Depression and the War as well as the religious revival of the post-war years. With it came a sweeping secularism: infatuation with science, technology, progress; the triumph of the therapeutic; loss of a sense of the sacred, of the supernatural, of the diabolic. The Council did not endorse this, but nor did it directly confront it. There seems to have been a euphoric positivity about society and culture, an ease with this confidence, a diminished sense of the holy and the demonic. This included a disparagement of religious tradition, of authority, of the sacredness of both paternity and maternity. Here again, the Council noticeably misread the signs of the times. In its unbalanced positivity towards modernity and world religions, it became vulnerable to relativism and subjectivism. In its liturgical reform, it diminished the sense of awe, the solemnity of the Latin and an ancient rite, of communion with our ancestors as well as the Church Triumphant (heaven) and Suffering (purgatory).

And so we see that the diabolical forces already active and about to surge were minimally recognized by the Council. In fact, the unintended consequences, not only of the implementation but also of the actual documents, was to weaken the spiritual immune system of Catholicism. An entire culture collapsed in the wake of the Council, not as a direct result, but partly because it weakened rather than strengthened defensive forces: preaching on sin and repentance, confession of sin, silence in liturgy, reverence for priesthood/religious life, vigilance about the diabolical, awe of sexuality, and consideration of the last things of death/judgement/heaven/hell. Inexorably but unintentionally, especially among academic elites,  Catholic piety was being replaced by the therapeutic and social justice activism.  

Conclusion

Vatican II was an organic, complete, coherent, inspired and inspiring gestalt of mid-20th-century Catholicism, peaking exactly in 1965. At the same time, it unintentionally weakened our combative resources against the axis of world/flesh/devil that was surging to attack us at that very moment.

Now, sixty years later, we are under attack from those same forces: communism (now relocated to China), cultural progressivism (now deep within our hierarchy with Parolin, Fernandez, Cupich, etc.), and we might add Islamic terrorism. John Paul and Benedict were seasoned Cultural Warriors... clear, decisive and assertive...  against antagonists: Nazism, Communism, Cultural Liberalism, the Culture of Death, the violent irrationality of Islam, and the Dictatorship of Relativism. 

In contrast to this "soldier of Christ" militancy, we see in the papacies of Francis and Leo a return to appeasement and accommodation, a weakness in clarity and decisiveness, often summarized as "the Spirit of Vatican II." As we invoked and received the Holy Spirit in the Council and in many forms afterwards, we do well to again pray for Pope Leo, the cardinals and bishops: "Come Holy Spirit!"

Why I Think The Way I Do

It is the rich variety of influences that make my thinking...theological, philosophical, political...distinctive, particular and personal. .The strongest of these:

1. Catholic Faith of My Family.  Happily, I have retained and developed the faith of my family: Irish-American, urban, working class, post-war, liberal, devout, late-Tridentine moving into Vatican II Catholicism. The Council occurred in my high school years and was received globally in my college seminary time. It was not a contradiction, but a further expression of my childhood faith. In college years (1965-9), reading voraciously, I enthusiastically imbibed the progressivism of the post-Council Church. Sequestered in a wholesome, quasi-monastic enclave under the beneficence of the Maryknoll Fathers, we enjoyed thriving friendships that remain today after more than half a century.

2. Cursillo/Charismatic.  The singular weakness of the Catholicism of my youth was lack of an  encounter, an evangelical-experiential relationship with Jesus Christ. In Spring of 1973, age 25, with my wife I came to personally know Jesus as Lord and Savior at a Cursillo weekend. Immediately after that we joined the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and experienced the Pentecostal anointing of the Holy Spirit. For over five years we were immersed in this and influenced by the Catholic-Charismatic synthesis presented by Ralph Martin, Steve Clark and others.

3. Jesuit Theologians Joseph Whelan and Avery Dulles taught me at Woodstock Theologate, NYC, 1970-2 at beginning of our marriage. From Dulles I received a classic, balanced, orthodox-yet-ecumenical Catholicism. Whelan, himself a mystic, taught courses on Prayer and the Catholic Saints. He opened up for me the mystical depths underlying all genuine Catholic theology and introduced me to Balthasar and his own specialty, Baron Fredrick von Hugel. 

4. John Paul, Balthasar, Benedict, American Communio.  Mid-1970s, even before John Paul became pope, I was deeply reading  Communio  and the thought of these three titans mediated by David L. Schindler and the John Paul II Institute in Washington DC. These came to define my mature theological outlook. 

5. Divine Mercy Revelations to Saint Faustina as taught by St. John Paul: Mercy informed by truth, justice, not the cheaper, diluted form.

6. Culture War erupted in the 1970s around the unborn, sexuality/marriage/gender,  and other. As the DNC renounced primal Catholic values, I became a (reluctant) Republican, an anti-progressive conservative and a culture warrior against the bulk of my boomer generation.

7. Mother Theresa of Calcutta as well as Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madelene del Brell, Caryl Houselander, Charles de Focauld and others aroused a desire to befriend the poor.

8. Humble Mysticism of Therese of Lisieux, Solanus Casey, Brother Andre, Fr. Leopoldo and others awakened a desire for the "little way" of faith and trust.

9. Gilson and Maritain.  Earlier, in my college philosophy major, I read these neo-Thomists as I was studying the great 19century antagonists of Christianity: Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin and company. These deepened and clarified my Catholicism and inoculated me against progressivism

10. Ivan Illich.  Again, at the end of college and the 1960s I was deeply influenced by the radical critique of technological modernity of Illich, Schumacher, Ellul and kindred spirits. The eccentric, iconoclastic Illich combined a breathtakingly profound anarchism built upon his own mystical spirit and a disguised Thomism. 

11. 12 Steps of Bill W. In middle age, I was blessed to practice the 12 steps in regard to persisting compulsions.

12. "Neocatechesis" of Kiko Arguello, in which I walked for a few years, intensified my desire to live the Gospel radically in community.

13. OLME. More recently, Sister Joan Noreen, of happy memory, has helped us through Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist to ground our marriage in a solid Catholic rule of life around Eucharist, rosary, liturgy of the hours and other.

14. Mimetic Anthropology  of Rene Girard as presented by Gil Baile.

15. Catholic Psychologists:  Paul Vitz, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Charles Curran, Joseph Nicolosi, Elizabeth Amberly, Adrian von Kaam, Conrad Baars, Karl Stern.

16. Personalist Philosophers: St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Martin Buber, Maurice Blondel, John Paul and Benedict.

17 Catholic Fiction Writers:.  Graham Green (Power and Glory), Flannery O'Connor's short stories, Dostoevsky (Brothers Karamozov),  Myles Connolly (Mr. Blue) and movie directors John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock. 

18. Catholic Neo-Conservatives of First Things: Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, Reno. They are strong on the Culture War, the Catholic Evangelical Dialogue, and an assertive USA against aggressors including China, Russia, Iran, and Islamic terrorism. In political economics I am to the left of them. In evaluation of (Protestant) American Culture I side with the more critical, deep-Catholic view of the David Schindlers.

19. Political Toxicity and extreme polarization of the cultural left and the MAGA world drive me to the Benedict Option (Rod Dreher) in which our Catholic energies are directed more to the immediate and concrete of family, local Church and intermediate organizations. This is balanced by the "Christian Strategy" of Adrian Vermeule which detaches from ideology but inclines to cooperate in good projects with any and all  parties.

20. New Catholic Right is where I place some modest political hope. The Cultural Liberalism of the DNC is my despised antagonist.  An anti-MAGA moral conservative, I have remained liberal-leaning politically as I never became a fusionist Republican. So I follow with interest Sohab Ahmari, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, JD Vance, Patrick Dineen, Marco Rubio as they develop a populism that is Catholic-friendly in both cultural/moral and economic dimensions.

It is a blessing and honor to stand on the shoulders of such giants.

May we receive, cherish, defend, enhance and above all hand on the legacy given us.

In Defense of Irish Catholic Guilt and Hatred of the WASP

With his customary insight, reckless candor, playful irony, and mischievous affection, my Italian-Greek friend Steven Adubato scrutinizes us Irish on our toxic guilt, our historical bias against darker-skinned Italians, and  mimicry of the WASP. He argues correctly that stereotypes are largely true and helpful. So, I agree with his broad stroke indictment. By and large, Irish are bad drunks, hotheaded, good price fighters, middle distance runners, police, fireman, politicians, monsignors, and writers. I am none of these, except the last (obvi: what am I doing now?) Disregarding sociological statistics, I want to speak for one Irish Catholic: myself.

I Cherish My Irish Guilt

Irish guilt is focused on two targets: sex and missing mass on Sunday. We do not lose sleep over getting drunk, losing our temper, racial bias, homophobia, global warming or neglect in "synodality". We are guilty about what is sacred: family and faith.

Anecdote: June 1969 (height of the sexual revolution), age 21 and just graduated from college seminary, after hitchhiking from Chicago, I am stinking drunk from Hurricanes (the drink) in New Orleans with my buddy Danny Maguire. About 2 AM, walking to the rest room with a hurricane glass in my hand, I pass a pretty girl on a bar stool who says "Nice glass!" I say: "You like it?" She says "Yes." I say: "I will give it to you if you give me a kiss." She leans forward and gives me a tiny, quick peck on the cheek. I honorably give her the glass. For over half a century I have retained residual guilt, even though I am sure I confessed it. My logic: if I can prostitute my self for a kiss with a hurricane glass, I will likely do much worse if given the chance. Yes, I am in fear, not of women, but of my own concupiscence. A few hours later, Sunday at 9:45 AM I am knocking on Danny's hotel room door for us to get to mass at 10. He is hung over and furious that I am disturbing him. I am taken aback that he would miss mass.

My confessor told me I had a "sensitive conscience." He meant it neither disapprovingly or approvingly, but descriptively, like the fact that I have very sensitive feet but poor sense of smell. I would say it has served me well in that I enjoy a happy marriage and family. I wish everyone had this guilt.

Sex is not everything; it just feel likes everything about 93% of the time. Far more important, for the Catholic, is mass on Sunday. That is an ABSOLUTE obligation. Not situational. Not prudential. If you can breathe and walk you get to mass. My college age son told me "I may stop going to mass as I don't think I believe in transubstantiation." I responded: "It doesn't matter what you believe. You show up Sunday morning."

The difference between a practicing and a fallen-away Catholic is simple: shows up Sunday morning. Doesn't necessarily receive communion, or listen to the homily, or pray. You can be a hit man, a pimp, a drug dealer, a Marxist terrorist, but if you show up for one hour Sunday morning, there is hope for you.

Italians

Now, the Italian thing. Okay...coming of age in urban 1950s I heard WOP, guinea, dago, greaser, and such. That was standard low class tribalism, the "jets and the sharks." Italian bias against blacks was far stronger than Irish against Italians. The reality is that by mid-20th-century we Irish and Italians loved each other. We married and had beautiful kids. While ethnic parishes properly served the immigrants,  we were entirely congenial to the extent of our Catholic ("catholic") sensibility.

This leads me to scrutinize Italian Catholicism. It is vastly  superior in every dimension: far more saints, 70% of stigmatists are Italian, art, Dante, Rome, martyrs, Vatican, and so forth. So: why are Italians so cavalier about Sunday mass? I have known many passionately pious women...rosaries, statues of St. Francis and Mary, pictures of Padre Pio...who abstain from mass. This is Catholic insanity!

Consider Dolores (Mama) Gilli. Talented, saintly, she lived about a mile from my Irish parish (St. Johns) in Italian Mount Carmel in ethnic Orange, NJ. She was influential in bringing devotion to the Holy Face to America and was being considered for canonization at one point. Her construction business husband directed her to stay home from Sunday mass to care for the kids. She complied Her house became a center of prayer of the rosary for neighborhood immigrant women. But my point: no self-respecting, devout Irish woman would take such directions from her husband, not if he was John Gotti, Lucky Luciano or Benito Mussolini. Here we see the benefits of Irish guilt.

A strong, insightful theme in Steven's Cracks is that Mediterraneans make better "bad Catholics" than Northern Europeans with their moralism and compulsion to be good and pure. This is very helpful and very true!  And yet ... is there conversely a danger of becoming too cavalier, almost presumptuous in acceptance of our weakness and confidence in sacramental efficacy? Do not the great saints...Italians like Catherine of Sienna and of Genoa, Francis, Padre Pio, Gemma Galgani, Maria Gioretti...encourage us to despise and fear sin? Guilt is underrated!

WASP

In the postwar period, the Irish along with all ethnic groups were emulating the WASP elite. Everyone wanted to go to the Ivy's. This was pronounced at the elite level, especially academia and episcopacy. Since the Irish dominate the American Church at this level, their betrayal of working class Catholicism is striking.

Example: in 1967,  26 leading presidents of Catholic Universities signed the Land O'Lakes agreement in which they declared academic independence from Catholic magisterium and faith. At that very moment, Notre Dame and other prestigious agencies were hosting conferences funded by WASP institutions like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on birth control. The WASP perspective dominated: concern about global overpopulation (which has proven to be mistaken), the liberation of sex from procreation, and also racist (unacknowledged) anxiety about the increasing black and Catholic populations. Signers had names like Hesburg, McCarrick, Hallinan, O'Keefe S.J., Daugherty and such. These upwardly aspirational are the "lace curtain" Irish, who look down upon the "shanty" or working class.

I imbibed and retain a fierce hatred of the WASP. No, I for one do not emulate them. Actually, in almost 80 years I have known almost none. As a patriot I respect, with serious reservations,  Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Reagan,  and even the Bushes. Not so much Trump. But they are NOT my people. In my own family I learned almost zero ethnic/racial prejudice: but I knew very well I was Catholic, NOT Protestant; Democrat, NOT Republican; working class, NOT capitalist. The real enemy was, of course, Communism, and earlier the Axis powers. 

And so, even today I have affection for Judaism in all its forms, for Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism but very little respect for the WASP residues in mainstream denominations like Episcopalism.

The WASP elite has transfigured: secular, progressive, meritocratic, inclusive ethnically but contemptuous of any religious traditionalism. I  remain an anti-elite. working class Irish American Catholic.

I am proud of our grandchildren who attend prestigious schools (Columbia, Penn, Notre Dame, Fordham...and a different flavor,  Franciscan), but my hope is that they aspire, not to ascend the ladder of achievement/success/status, but to go deeper into their baptismal Catholic identity.

"Gay": Bohemian or Bourgeois?

"Gay" is in quotes because its reference to homosexuality is entirely ironic, transgressive, antiphrasic (you may have to google that, Dear Reader!) , and contradictory. The reality is profoundly sad. Even in places gay-friendly for decades (Scandinavia, lower Manhattan, San Francisco) and long free of social stigma, the culture surges with mental illness, addictions, suicide, violence, and early death. In 1970, my college roommate and dear friend George Lissandrello, then part of the emerging homosexual culture of the lower east side of Manhattan looked at me...gently, pensively...and said "The 'gay' life is a sad one." George died of AIDS about a decade later. Those seven words remain for me the abiding truth about the active homosexual life. The entire "gay" crusade (Pride, LGBTQ school clubs, priestly blessings) is a diabolic deception of global proportions.

What is "Gay?"

Quite a history: the word means happy and joyful, and then became associated with bohemian freedom and promiscuity, and then homosexuality, and now can mean strange or weird as in "...SO gay!"

It is NOT synonymous with homosexuality. There are same-sex-attracted men who live holy, chaste lives as priests, brothers or single men. They are NOT "gay." There are priests (notably in 1970-2000) who live secret, double lives and married men (particularly in the evangelical black community) who likewise live a hidden life. These likewise are not "gay" unless they so identify. The word indicates more than the sexual desire or even the active practice, it means that one self-identifies substantially with the attraction. It becomes defining. A person could be left-handed, redheaded, or work for UPS but not identify as such. Grey hair or baldness will not undo his identity. The "gay" says "this desire is what interiorly defines me. This is truly me." This is a catastrophic mistake. We know that by virtues of original sin we are all wounded in our sexual nature by concupiscence, a disorder of desire. It manifests in a vast variety of vices, sins (adultery, fornication, promiscuity, pornography, masturbation) and paraphilias (voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, attraction to animals, dead bodies and other.) 

We avoid here the word "orientation." There is no such thing as "sexual orientation." There are not two (homo and hetero), nor are there ninety-nine. There is simply man-and-woman. Sexual desire can take a million different forms. Such is not an orientation. The word comes from the Latin oriens meaning east or rising sun. So it means a direction. In Catholic life, we might speak of orientation to marriage or the vowed religious life of chastity; or we might scrutinize our direction toward purity of heart or sin. Otherwise, this idea of sexual orientation is entirely ideological and defensive of the lifestyle.

Let's first consider what causes same-sex desire.

Born That Way?

"Born that way" is not a scientific fact; there is no homosexual gene or DNA prediction. It is a myth or dogma of gay ideology. It is intuitively obvious to those indoctrinated into the faith much like  us Catholics intuitively understand realities like chastity, spousal fidelity, mortal sin, hell, concupiscence, absolution and reparation. There has emerged a scientific consensus that about 30% of this condition is caused by nature, a predisposition; the remaining 70% by nurture, experience and environment. Most, but not all homosexuals have suffered a disconnect with the father. This may contribute about 40%. Another, related factor, failure to detach from the mother, may account for 20% or so. A third factor is weak bonding with peers and male friends, including "the sports wound." And lastly, there is a bad body self-image, a feeling of being unattractive, too thin, or small, or heavy. These last two may account for the remaining 10% or more. Each person is unique of course. It is unlikely to encounter a homosexual who is entirely free of these nurture factors. 

Decision to Act; Sex is Not a Need! 

Sexual desire...for all of us...in  its complexity, variety, profundity and power...is received, not chosen. It is a "passion"...something suffered, an affliction not deliberately intended.  In puberty, the adolescent is overwhelmed by powerful, mysterious, involuntary cravings. The reality of "concupiscence" is that, since Adam and Eve, we are all wounded, disordered deeply and interiorly in our sexuality.

But the decision to act sexually is an exercise in freedom. Whether with oneself (pornography) or with another, the act is voluntary and therefore moral, or actually immoral, outside of marriage. We are already inclined, through concupiscence, to do wrong. That is our weakness of the flesh. But in this world that emerged 60 years ago with the cultural revolution we are all contagiously, mimetically (Rene Girard) drawn to self indulgence and narcissism. 

Sex is a powerful drive and desire, it is not a need. No one goes to the hospital due to abstinence from sex. In the perverse Marxist-Freudianism of the Sexual Revolution (Reich, Marcuse, Mead, Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Hefner, etc.) a defining LIE took possession of society: that we NEED sex. The defining myth emerged: repression of sex leads to pathologies of resentment, guilt, shame, hatred, authoritarianism, yada yada yada. 

(Analogical anecdote: when our son was in 5th grade the teachers called my wife to school and alleged that he was disrupting class by repetitive flatulence. When confronted, he had two explanations. First, that it had become a class joke so that whenever the sound of passing gas was heard the class erupted into laughter and pointed to him. Secondly, he admitted to a fair share in the ruckus as he had learned from a cousin that resisting the urge to pass gas was bad for ones health. (BTW did you know that the average person allows this 10 to 25 times a day?) You see the relevance here? Our culture, especially in wake of the contraceptive disconnect of sex from marriage/family/children, came to believe that self indulgence, rather than discipline and restrain, was the path to psychological freedom. The isolation and loneliness of masturbation was reconfigured as healthy  Sex was no longer the generous, life-giving, sacrificial communion with Another; it was vacated of its iconic, sacred profundity; it was perverted into a solipsistic, narcissistic, isolated release and  right of the lonely individual. The "triumph of the therapeutic!"

And so, across society and in Catholic progressivism, the cult of spousal fidelity, chastity, femininity as virginity/femininity, masculinity as paternity, and the sacred-iconic nature of sexuality was dismissed. It was replaced by the cult of sterility, loneliness, individualism, narcissism, indulgence and perversity. It was in this environment that "gay" militance flourished.

Bohemian vs. Bourgeois "Gay"

Homosexual practice and its accompanying culture has, through the ages, been a subculture, an alternative, a transgression of and rejection of both mainstream culture and Christianity. It was a Dionysian as artistic, revolutionary, substance using-abusing and often politically radical.   It was largely practiced covertly, secretly...married men or priests living double lives. In this secrecy, it implicitly recognized the moral legitimacy of the societal taboo. In small niches it was performative, flamboyant and arrogantly transgressive. It never presented itself as normal, respectable, wholesome, enlightened, or Christian. 

Let us note here that Catholicism on the whole has always been merciful towards sins of the flesh. Confession and absolution are readily available for all who seek it. Moral purity is not required, rather some degree of genuine contrition and intention to repent. While we recognize the gravity of mortal sin, we are not frightened by it. We know with certitude that sacramentally the Mercy of Christ triumphs.

Far more threatening to Catholic life than the ubiquitous sins of the flesh is the spread of moral, spiritual falsehood. This occurs when evil is reconfigured as good. This leads the credulous, the ignorant, the innocent into the disaster of sin. This is what has happened with the emergence of "bourgeois gayness." The bourgeois gay presents as normal, acceptable, admirable, and more enlightened. "Gay marriage" is the keystone of this revolution: the couple presents as respectable middle class...stable, educated, faithful, caring for children, often affluent. It is a parody of real, natural marriage of man and woman. 

Beyond that, it reconfigures the traditional Christian disapproval of homosexual activity as itself hateful, ignorant, biased, and homophobic. It presents as more inclusive, accepting, empathetic. It embraces "pride" in a flamboyantly prideful manner as spiritually/morally superior. And so, in this new gestalt or model the saints, father and doctors, the virgin martyrs are now seen as homophobic, ignorant, hateful, not intentionally of course but objectively and systemically. To emulate their concept of chastity is itself a moral depravity.

Hard Progressives and Soft Progressives

Hard progressives are aggressive, militant, indignant. They insist on moral approval of sodomy, contraception, legal abortion, female Catholic priests, and gay marriage. Theirs is a harsh moralism, a judgmentalism, an arrogance of moral superiority.

The critical mass, in our Church and society, are soft. They avoid conflict. They want peace at any price. They don't want to confront the real cultural progressives. So they vote pro-choice, approve of gay marriage, agree with woman priests. 

They want to remove sexuality from common life and reserve it as private. For example, Pope Leo recently said: "...the unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters." He is a classic soft, cultural progressive. He does not want to fight about it.  He adopts a "live and let live" attitude; he has no dog in this fight.  He welcomes Fr. James Martin S.J. as well as Courage, even  though they mutually contradict each other. He prefers to talk about borders, the environment, wealth distribution and such. The soft progressive is embarrassed about this sex stuff. This was in large measure the singular weakness of the liberal legacy we boomers received from our parents, who are in many other matters "the greatest generation." 

Consider: what is worse for a family? A father who drinks too much, works too much, gambles too much? Or one who cheats on his wife?  The integrity of the family depends upon spousal chastity and fidelity. Nothing...Nothing...Nothing is worse for the family and the entire society as the loss of spousal fidelity, especially on the part of the husband. 

Conclusion

By abstaining from the culture war, the soft progressive effectively cedes the battlefield to the hard, militant progressive. This is what happened to the largely Catholic DNC in the 1970s. This is what happened in the Vatican under the Francis and apparently the Leo pontificate. It is clear that Leo, notwithstanding all his virtues, lacks the theological decisiveness and clarity to guide us on this. He wants to look away. 

We now know that the alleged "lavender mafia" was a reality in Rome and across the Church in the decades after the Council. But McCarrick, Maciel and company by their very secrecy, which was amazingly effective for a long time, implicitly affirmed the sexual code. The new crew is a deeper threat to the Church. Paglia, Fernandez, Martin, Cupich, McElroy...they enjoy a high degree of credibility which they use to aggressively, if cunningly, undermine our traditional sexual ethos. Soft progressives like Francis and Leo become for this revolution what Marxists classically call "useful idiots" as they comply not out of malice but a deficit of intelligence.

It is true: "now we are all gay." In the 1960s sex became contraceptive, sterile, non-spousal, isolated, individualistic, disconnected from family, past/future, and the heavenly. Or more accurately, the bourgeois became gay and the gay bourgeois. Corporate capitalism and most of our elite institutions have followed suite. 

The soft progressive wants to avoid  concupiscence, sexual sin, chastity and fidelity. Rather, he wants  the Church to be united on political projects of justice and equality. This puts the cart before the horse. About political, policy issues the Church and the hierarchy have nothing particularly to offer.  The Vatican Council made it clear that this is the responsibility of the laity, especially those with such duties of governance. These are prudential issues about which Catholics can disagree in good will. But the unity of the family and the Church is built upon emulation of Christ's love for his Bridal Church. .. in marriage, priesthood, and religious life. Christlike, chaste,  tender, reverent, spousal loyalty...this is the lifeblood of society and the Church.

"Gay" is now the heart and soul of the American bourgeois: individualistic, therapeutic, narcissistic, sterile, secular, materialistic. The bourgeois, in contrast to the bohemian, is not content as a subculture, an alternative and transgressive community. It is righteous, indignant, entitled and insistent: society and Church MUST reconfigure to endorse their sexual proclivities. It is imperialistic: seeking hegemony, even as its methods are soft, smooth, pleasing.

Our battle is for the intellects, hearts and souls of our children. We can practice patience as we enjoy a confidence, a serenity, a clarity in the truth about the moral, natural and spiritual order. Let us persevere.. clear, calm, assertive and decisive...in sharing with our young the sacred legacy we have received, most recently from St. John Paul and Pope Benedict.

Male Postures Towards the Female: Misogyny, Femomania, Gynophilia

Misogyny (hatred of woman) is evil; femomania (crazy about woman) is troubling; gynophilia (love of woman) is ennobling.

Misogyny

Hatred of woman is the most pervasive, powerful, diabolic dynamic in the world. We each receive life from our mothers; so attack upon woman is destruction of the human person and race.

An ancient Catholic tradition (non-biblical, neither affirmed nor denied by the Magisterium) has Lucifer revolting when he learned that he, the superior of all creatures,  was destined to defer to a woman, fleshly-mortal-fragile, as queen of heaven and earth. The primary focus of satanic odium is: woman. 

It takes myriad forms:

In Islam we have honor killings and polygamy.

In the contemporary rightwing manosphere we have shameless contempt (accompanied by antisemitism, a related pathology.)

In sexual, contraceptive liberalism we have deconstruction of femininity, flight from the maternal, reduction of woman to careerist producer, consumer, and object of male pleasure. 

In language we have words expressive of contempt for the woman's body. The notorious F-word specifically indicates sexual violation or rape. It's casual, indeliberate usage has become widespread and acceptable; but the literal meaning is vile and demonic. To use or hear the word calmly, without emotive/moral agitation, indicates a pronounced verbal/spiritual stupidity: think "The Dude" in The Great Lebowski.

Modernity (we learn from Karl Stern's magisterial Flight from Woman)...as technical, scientific, rational, manipulating, non-contemplative, non-receptive, non-poetic...from Descartes through Sartre...is flamingly contemptuous of the feminine.

My personal engagement in misogyny was relatively benign, mostly developmental. As co-founder, at age 10, with Rich Ott and Bobby Moore, of our neighborhood "Girl Haters Club,"(shortly after my parents unjustly forced us to surrender the fort we had built to my sisters for their baby carriages!) I prevailed in my argument that our statues grant a dispensation from the "never talk to a girl rule" for sisters (I have six) in cases like "pass the salt" or "is anyone in the bathroom?" Amazingly, I kept that vow and never spoke to a girl (who was not cousin or sister) from the age of 10 to 22. This for two reasons: first, I was morbidly girl-shy. Second: in fifth grade we boys went with the Christian Brothers, in high school I was in the divinity section of all-boys Seton Hall Prep; my college was all-men seminary. Also, my jobs were all-male: caddying (there were women golfers but we didn't converse), delivering beer, construction, greenskeeper, etc. That was a time when there was a man's world and a woman's world; and there was peace on earth. (See Ivan Illich's Gender.)

My misogyny was mostly directed to the oldest of my sisters. From age 7-13 the only sin I recall confessing was "mean to my sisters" about 3 or 4 times a day, which would be 90 to 120 times if I went a month without confessing. I have always regretted this compulsion. On two different occasions in adult life I have asked her for forgiveness. To my surprise, she waved the thing off as nothing. Apparently, she was unaffected by it: her own self-esteem and affection for me, her big brother, were entirely unbothered. Amazing! This addiction happily disappeared sometime in college.

In adolescence, I realized that aside from the normal respect rendered mother, aunts, grandmothers and others and the obsessive lust/covetousness of concupiscence, I had little interest in girls who seemed silly, boring, emotional and lacking in the virile virtues I craved for myself. However, on my first date, at age 22, with my wife-to-be, I fell madly in love and recovered miraculously from my misogyny. As a matter of fact, I am passionately anti-misogynist, not unlike the Russel Crowe character in L.A. Confidential, who himself became a flaming femomaniac whenever the Kim Basinger character appeared.

Femomania 

"Crazy about women." In Spanish: "Mujeriego." This is not a wholesome, virile appreciation for and tenderness to woman, but a desperation, a need, a craving. In itself it is not a vice or sin, as it is a passion, something suffered, indeliberate. It is the emotional substratum in which sin can be conceived in free will. It is, like intense same-sex desire, an emotional disorder. At its core is a feeling of loss, sadness, loneliness, isolation. It is diffuse, non-particular, profound. It can only be intelligible as a primal longing for the mother, for the infantile loss in the oedipal passage. It can manifest as lust, covetousness, jealousy, limerence (obsessive infatuation, see Dorothy Tennov), dependency, disordered craving for feminine attention, approval and affection. It is reflected when we speak of: falling in love, crazy about you, you are my everything, I can't live without you, fatal attraction, and such. In adult life this primal sadness is difficult to identify as it comes already commingled with thick shame and guilt, with a history of actions, involving freedom even as that freedom is diminished by psychological/social dynamics.

In severe cases, this is psychologically constitutive and not entirely curable. I was told in confession by a priest that my struggles with this would continue until my body was cold in the grave four days.

In the worst case scenario, it gives birth to vices, addictions, patterns of sin: obsessive fantasy, pornography, masturbation, promiscuity, infidelity, obsessive covetousness, jealousy, resentment, and other. It is the core of sexual addiction and is best treated by multiple approaches including 12-steps, therapy/counseling, spirituality, and overall wholesomeness and virtue.

Gynophilia 

"Love of woman" here is mature, virile, ennobling, chivalrous. It is grateful, trusting, tender, fraternal, protective, and reverent.

"Grateful" in that it flows from a prior reception of the maternal as nurturing, comforting, protective. The primal enclosure in the womb, the warmth and comfort of the mothers arms/body/breasts, and the beauty of her smile (Balthasar) leave a memory, a residue of contentment, joy, peace and gratitude.

"Trust" in that this gratitude leaves confidence in the feminine as good, worthy, reliable, stable, life-giving.

"Tender" in that the male reciprocates, unconsciously, the tenderness rendered maternally, in  joyful, gentle, physical, chaste intimacy.

"Fraternal" in that the man recognizes (like Adam "...here at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh...") in woman (sister, friend, spouse) his equal, his partner in the adventure of life and the mission for the good.

"Protective" in that  male testosteronic energy and strength is aroused and surges to care for the woman as precious, fragile and vulnerable.

"Reverent" in admiration of the moral virtues so pronounced in woman: empathy, generosity, welcome, intuition, resilience, self-giving. Beyond that is the deeper intuition into the feminine as receptive of the good, the true, the beautiful and the heavenly...and dispersive of the same.

Gynophilia flows from a mature virility. It flourishes with the (more or less) successful completion of the masculine itinerary: from mother to father in the oedipal passage, to the peer group of brothers, to secondary father figures (priests, coaches, mentors, role models) and into solitude with our heavenly father. It surges all the more when the father beholds the splendor of the femininity of his own daughters or surrogate daughters.

Overcoming Femomania

For many of us, the condition of femomania is not entirely curable in this life. Recall that dying King David, no longer able to generate body heat, even with blankets, was comforted and kept warm by the beautiful young Abishag. The Bible explicitly states that it was a chaste, non-sexual relationship. In light of David's sexual/romantic history, he  probably  suffered severe femomania. This relationship, however, seems innocent. Like an infant, he was comforted in his dotage and infirmity by a comforting, life-giving young beauty.

The road for recovery from femomania into profound, fierce, pure gynophilia is exhilarating and promising, even if the end point is distant. Key aspects:

1. Leaning deeply, passionately into all gynophilic relationships: spousal, family, friends. For example, when triggered by lust, obsession or romantic fantasy, the best immediate move is to pray for the woman desired: this transfigures her from an idol, an object of desire, into a person, with needs, sufferings, vulnerabilities and infinite dignity. 

2. Strong, fraternal, reverent, intimate, affectionate friendships with other men. With emotional needs met by such wholesome relationships, there is less desperate craving for the feminine.

3. Bringing the need, the loss, the inner sadness immediately to our Lord in prayer. My favored prayer: "I come to you as a poor man, in need of your mercy and in need of your love." Devotion to our Blessed Mother is key. A good prayer: "My mother, I place myself under the veil of your purity and your holiness, your tenderness, your beauty and your love." Likewise helpful is closeness to St. Joseph, the iconic gynophile.

4. Cultivating an aversion to sexual impurity. It is good to despise sin. Hundreds of times I have confessed or confided failures in chastity and hundreds of times received absolution and pardon, reassurance, that I am loved and worthy and that honest confession is salutary. Rarely, I have received absolution with something more helpful: a subtle repugnance at unchastity. It is not that I am myself shamed. Rather, the message is: "Are you kidding me? The grace of God in your life, your identity in Christ, your marriage and family, your mission in life and your role in the community....Would you risk destroying all of this by dallying, even for a second, even only in fantasy, with impurity?" It is good to despise sin. Concretely, the first manifestation of the sadness of femomania must be responded to by a firm, immediate renunciation of the impulse to sin; by a movement to God in petition and in intercession for the object of desire.

Conclusion

If misogyny/femomania is the slavery of Egypt, gynophilia is the Promised Land. Gynophilia...tender reverence for mother, spouse, daughter, friend... is constitutive of noble virility. Conjoined with filial loyalty to father/fathers/Father, fraternity, and paternal care, it is the way we men, in Christ, glorify the Holy Trinity, in work and deed and love.