Unless I missed something, this type of post has not yet been taken up here at Virtuous Pla.net. But I say, what good is having a community of witty, intelligent and somewhat like-minded individuals if you can’t engage in some friendly debate among yourselves?
With that in mind, I have a bone to pick with one of the lovely Bright Maidens, Elizabeth Hillgrove. Her recent post, “Cathdudes, We Need You!” made me want to stab my eyes out.
I’m intentionally using this phrase not to attack Elizabeth, , nor to indulge my own penchant for hyperbole, but to try and convey (and explain) the visceral response I and so many of my fellow Catholics have to certain types of evangelization tactics.
I absolutely understand and support her intentions in writing the post. I applaud her for reminding Catholic men that they are gems among men, that we need them, and that we love them.
But here’s the thing. I read the article, and this is what I saw in my mind.
Those of you have seen this movie know that it is supposed to be a satire. It isn’t. I lived that. Lest you think I am exaggerating, I lived through girls in my high school organizing “prayer circles” for me because they just knew that I had not been saved. I lived through youth group leaders repeatedly taking me aside and impressing upon me just how fulfilled they were by being faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. The phrase “Wow, God is awesome” was thrown around in reference to everything from someone’s daughter being healed of cancer to me getting free blond highlights in my hair. It came to mean nothing, and only signified how righteous and holy the speaker thought himself or herself to be.
Living through all this had one cumulative effect on me: I ran. I ran fast and hard in the other direction. First I ran away from organized religion, then away from God totally.
I ended up at a Catholic college where I found something I had never seen before…fully human beings. They were Catholic in every sense of the word. They enjoyed violent rugby games followed by beer pong, they stayed up late into the night discussing theological references in modern poetry, they hung pictures of GK Chesterton next to their Interpol posters. And they never, ever, not once, took me aside and impressed upon me how fulfilled they were.
They simply were fulfilled. And it impressed me.
In the end, I came to them. I asked my friend to take me Mass. She was never pushy or overbearing, and she never actively tried to convert me. She just went about living her Catholic life, and that silent witness said more to me than all the words I had ever heard.
I’m certainly not saying “don’t evangelize.” We should. But I think it’s also important that Catholics, particularly cradle Catholics, realize how pervasive the “saved” rhetoric of the Evangelical movement is in our culture and what negative reactions it can (and almost always does) elicit from the mainstream culture, not to mention from Protestants who have run from it. Evangelizing to others through words is a tricky and often slippery slope. But no one can accuse you of falsehood, hypocrisy or condescension when you evangelize through your life.
I think that if Dr. House came across a “Cathdude” taking aside his cousin and telling him that God is awesome, he would absolutely not be impressed. He would probably be highly amused and make short work of tearing the guy apart, fairly or unfairly.
But I wonder what Dr. House would do if confronted with the silent witness of the Trappist monks who died in Algeria, choosing not to leave the Muslim people to whom they had dedicated their lives? They didn’t convert them. The community remained Muslim. The monks remained Catholic. And yet the community begged them not to leave. In the movie portraying the events, one villager says, “You are the branch; we are the birds. If you leave we will lose our footing.” The monks didn’t use words to impress upon the villagers how fulfilled they were by Christ. They simply loved and served them.
That, I think, would really take House aback. Maybe that’s what we should be doing in our own lives, whether we are men or women…not actively seeking people to guide, but actively seeking people to serve and love. Maybe that’s the real change that would begin to show the world what it is lacking, what it needs, and what it deserves.
And maybe, my Catholic brothers, instead of whipping out your ratty old robe and slippers (because let’s face it, there can only ever be one dude),
You should instead aim to live a fully Catholic life and let that be your witness. It’s been tried before.
Again, I want to reiterate that this is in no way an attack on Elizabeth. In our day and age evangelization and the proper approach to it should be an important topic for conversation. I come from a much different background than the Bright Maidens, so my response to this type of evangelization is to see shadows of what drove me from God in my youth. Not all Catholics will see the influence of the mainstream Evangelical movement in Elizabeth’s post, but I assure you that all Protestants will. Most of those with no religious background will. And they will collapse together Evangelicals and Catholics in their minds, dismissing them all as one and the same, which of course is far from true. That’s the danger I’m trying to get at.
19 thoughts on “Re-Thinking "CathDudes"”
Calah, I loved this post. While I think we can all agree that the world desperately needs the influence of good Catholic men, I also have a negative reaction to most evangelization through words, and I say that as a cradle Catholic who has had fairly limited exposure to Evangelical Protestants.
These “Cathdude” posts have made me reflect on my husband. He is kind to everyone, honest, and gentle. Everyone who knows him knows he has a wife and daughter at home whom he dearly loves. He goes to Mass every Sunday. He doesn’t spend his time acting like an overgrown adolescent. And he’s obviously very happy with his life. To me, that is evangelization in its purest form. I think he does a way better job of it than I do!
I realize that there are a wide range of personalities out there, and some people have the remarkable ability to talk about God and religion in general conversation without being off-putting. But I think that is a rare talent, and if a guy feels totally uncomfortable talking about how God is awesome, it’s going to show.
Both you and Elizabeth (a friend of mine as well) bring up very good points. I especially like your point about Evangelical cultural folkways invading Catholic space; there have been times when that kind of language has struck me as inauthentic (or, to revert to the language of my youth: “Dude, it was like a total pose-a-thon, you know?”). But even more, I like how respectfully you addressed Elizabeth. For that, I tip my hat to you.
“They simply were fulfilled. And it impressed me.”
Calah, this is my husband’s MANTRA. He, a cradle Catholic. Me, a convert, drawn to the idea of the Church by family ties. Drawn to the Real Church by his incredible witness. In the love of humor and beauty and good food. In his generosity and devotion.
And you know what’s most incredible? People GO TO HIM. He doesn’t wear Jesus t-shirts or carry a Roman missal around yet people who barely know him practically flock. Demand to know more about his faith. Sometimes even in anger because they can’t believe a person can be so genuinely…happy.
My husband is a good, happy, ridiculous man who has evangelized more people by simply living a good, Catholic life than many will ever know.
Thank you for this post.
Thank you for the dialogue, Calah! I love it!
I don’t want to appear to be backing down from my post nor do I want the image that popped into your head to survive!
As a cradle Catholic, I take for granted the quiet evangelism implied when we hear queues to show our Christianity. For the most part in my post I meant to ask Cathdudes to show the influence that Christ and the Love of God have had on their lives. The reference to pulling aside their cousins was a focus on that specific demographic: people who have to Love you and whom you will encounter again.
I have seen “Saved” and it blew my mind because I suspected people and places like that really do exist. I’ve had run-ins with YoungLifers who screamed at me for certain things I’ve said, outrightly told me why I wasn’t going to Heaven with them, and pulled my sister into the other room to pray over her rotten soul. I do NOT condone any behavior like that.
I want to see men step up, take some pride in the faith that drives them to read blogs like VirtuousPla.net, and stand out as men of Love. That kind of presence is alluring and it’s something our brothers desperately need to increase to offset their dull peers.
I would challenge you here: GK Chesterton, for example, did not live out a fully Catholic life as a good, quiet example. He spoke out and was generous with his words upholding the Truth of the Magisterium. I guess we need to look at why his evangelism tactics are different and approachable enough not to inspire you to stab yourself in the eye 😉
Loling here…hahaha. Especially at Anthony: “pose-a-thon”! That’s great! My husband complains about this all the time, about how fake and insincere efforts at evangelization can seem. Not to hate on the Protestants too much, but their faith expressions are often very scripted and very sterile–whereas Catholicism is real life, lived like there’s another one following it.
Great post. 🙂
These are good discussions to have about how to evangelize, and there’s truth in both of your perspectives. Different situations may call for different actions. I heard a priest say once that the two Great Doctors of the Church, St. Bonaventure, who said theology is a theology of love and St. Thomas Aquinas, who put the emphasis on understanding and intelligence, were friends and saints who appreciated each other even though they came at the issue from different perspectives. Love that!
Hmmm… I didn’t get the reaction you did when I read E’s post, but I am a cradle Catholic, even though I have experienced the “Have you been saved?!” talks throughout my school years.
I think you make a great point that it’s about actively living life in a fulfilled way – which is what I got from Elizabeth’s post too. However, I think that some ideas of what it means to be “fulfilled” are contrary to what we should be doing. Especially with our culture telling us from every which direction that fulfillment lies in money and success and partying and drinking and free love, it’s important to live the Catholic faith, as well as being open to speaking about it. I’m not saying we have to run to all the street corners and talk to everyone we meet about Christ in the Eucharist, but more that we need to be open – and be prepared – to talk about our faith when someone who is impressed by how we live our lives approaches us with questions. Because it does happen, at least to me, quite a lot and I’ve been caught off-guard and wasn’t ready to answer. So I think we need both – actions and words!
Great dialogue, though 🙂
I’m sure that a different approach needs to be considered for each person. Currently I am much more interested in keeping Catholics Catholic. With the fallen away Catholics I know many of them left because no one ever spoke about how good God is in their life. They were surrounded by Catholics who were silently living their faith but they now go to protestant churches where people talk about it. I also have to stand by Sheen, a man who would get in a cab and ask the cabbie about the state of his soul. Of course Sheen’s execution of these things was very different than what you’ve described, Callah.
I also think that there are protestants who would be willing to have such conversations with Catholics.
But I totally appreciate your experience and wisdom. I will have to remember your words, “Most of those with no religious background will. And they will collapse together Evangelicals and Catholics in their minds, dismissing them all as one and the same, which of course is far from true.”
You know, now that Bonnie mentions it, my husband is the type who will talk to the cabbie about his soul. He can do that and not sound like a nut.
I loved E’s post, I really did. But I so appreciate Calah’s approach too. I have to echo her thoughts at least a little. I was a student at a small, Catholic college, and was really struggling with my faith (as a cradle Catholic). The people who accepted me and ultimately got me back to church and to learn my faith were the ones who yes, attended daily Mass, but they also smiled and said hello to me each time I passed them in the dorm. They let me (and everyone else) know through their actions that I could approach them with my questions or struggles. So I did. As Calah says, they just lived it.
Meanwhile, there were other students who were visibly and often vocally Catholic, a tactic (if I can call it so) which made myself and others feel very uncomfortable around them. Such to the point that when I did approach one or two of those folks with some questions, I was seriously scolded.
I think we all know which works better! Great posts ladies.
OOps, previous comment posted as my MIL’s name. It’s Sarah B.
Execution, of course, is key. But so is attitude and background. The problem—apart from the insistence on inventing neologisms that seems to afflict everyone under the age of thirty-five as if it were a plague—is that the entire discussion does not have any proper frame of reference. When a group of women stand in a room (be it physical or virtual) and start talking about how men should best display masculine virtues, alarm bells ought to sound.
Of course, it is not entirely surprising that the discussion is being had by women, because the things being talked about are, in large part, feminine. The invasive, emotiveness that the original post extolled, with its forced Protestant exuberance, is not rooted in any genuine masculinity: it’s an essentially feminine model of behavior dressed up with the sad rags that we today drape over the corpse of virility. So the deeper problem becomes not merely whether a man should act like a Protestant or a Catholic, but whether he should act like a man at all.
A man might stand up on a soapbox in Herald Square and harangue the masses; he does not gush to a relative about his feelings. A man might have a private conversation with a close friend on a private matter; he does not presume to turn the ordinary events of life into a drama with which to bother others. A man might speak with eloquence about the importance of God’s mercy; he recognizes that neither television characters nor the word dude (much less, Deus quod avertat, a portmanteau using it) are resources that he will require in that task.
We live in a society that has, as a result of five decades of concerted effort, lost every conception of what a gentleman ought to be. We are so thoroughly in extremis in this regard that women, who ought to be able to live in a world in which men behave appropriately as a matter of course, have to sit about and flail helplessly for insight into why they do not live in such a world.
Let us propose a simple rule of thumb: when attempting to answer the question, “how should I live?,” operate on the assumption that the last fifty years did not exist. Yes, we can all point to saintly Grandfather Stanislaus as an example in living memory. But he is quite the exception: we live in a wasteland, and must look for points of reference beyond the expanse in order to find our way out of it.
I applaud Mrs. Alexander on a fine essay, though I lament the necessity of the conversation.
Loooove this post. Thank you. As a “revert”, it was the lives of the Saints and the depth of the lives of Catholics around me that ultimately inspired me to embrace my Catholic faith. I very much appreciated the evangelical approach too… it helped me find my way back to Christ during a dark time… but it didn’t “stick.” I have a very melancholy temperament that tends to balk against too much “Whoa, God is awesome” all the time (hec, I’ve gone through phases where I was downright livid at God, and needed a different approach). I’ve also seen many others balk at some evangelical styles of evangelizism. I’ve mentioned it here before, but my brother-in-law was evangelized by both Catholics and Protestants that way, and didn’t begin to consider Catholicism until he met a very holy priest who didn’t use that style at all. This is why I think it’s important that different personalities evangelize the way that comes naturally to them, according to their God-given gifts. Not all will want – or be able to – have theological discussions on the faith late into the night and not all will want to engage in spontaneous prayer circles. I think God works through our different gifts to touch people with different needs, interests, backgrounds, biases, etc.
Titus: I challenge you to point out the specifically feminine characteristics I’m pulling for in my post. Men are most masculine when living their faith and accepting their vulnerability and gratitude for their Father. What is feminine about that?
I’m sorry my use of the word “dude” got lost somewhere. My intention was to call men of the world (rather than those cloistered in monasteries with no access to the secular culture) to engage their faith with those they encounter.
Thanks for the great dialogue, everyone! And special thanks to Elizabeth for being such a good sport!
Elizabeht, of course I never thought that you were advocating “Saved”-esque tactics. It was just the tone of the thing, i think, that brought that to mind. I’ve been thinking about what you said about Chesterton and you’re absolutely right that he wasn’t a silent witness. He was very vocal. What made him different? I think it’s that he never appealed to popular culture and never tried to gain followers. His true value lies in his unshakeable common sense in a world that had gone mad (still has). Everything he’s written reads like something we’ve known deep down but forgotten. His words are, for me at least, like an “aha!” moment, but not “aha, now I know something I didn’t”, more like, “aha, now I understand something I’ve always known.” I guess what I’m saying is that he used Truth to evangelize, but in my experience of reading him he comes at it not from a “This is God and He is true” angle but a “this is Truth and it will take you to God” angle. That makes a difference to certain people. To others, they will need to see it the other way around. Does that make sense?
I agree with all the points about evangelization needing to be personalized depending on the person. As far as Fulton Sheen, I’m not gonna lie, if a priest got into my cab and asked me about the state of my soul I would start crying. But if a lay person got into my cab and asked me about the state of my soul I would ask them to get right back out again. Priests have a certain power about them (I’ve written about it before) that laypeople don’t, and when laypeople try to act like priests or address concerns about people that really should only be between that person, their confessor, and God, they come off looking and sounding like self-righteous holy rollers. To me, at least. Maybe others see it differently.
Titus, I see what you’re saying (although I’m not going to lie, I had to read your comment a few times before I could work it out. You write like my husband). I actually disagree with you, though, that invasiveness, emotiveness, and exuberance are feminine models of behavior. Certainly they’ve traditionally been found more in women in the last two hundred years, but I, as a woman, have always been uncomfortable with invasiveness and forced exuberance. Not emotiveness, because I emote with the best of them. The incredible explosion in invasiveness and emotiveness is probably a result of the last thirty years of “self-esteem” conditioning, coupled with the lack of privacy with which we live our lives now (online, for all to see). And while I understand your point about living in a wasteland, I would argue that fifty years is not remotely enough time in which to destroy all ideals of masculinity. At the very least, masculinity has been under attack for the last two hundred years (along with femininity), but I would say that the roots of the modern disconnect between men and masculinity and between women and femininity date back to the Reformation, when we suddenly learned that what we are is essentially evil. Since then, men and women have been struggling to either reject themselves because they are so depraved or struggling to reconcile a proper understanding of the essential goodness of the human person with a world which tells them that it does not exist.
Evangelization must always be to bring people into a closer relationship with Jesus our Body and Blood, and with the Church that His Church. No other Church can make that claim, and evangelization must always bring them to see Christ is still present and active in His Church in an eternally “relevant” way, such that no ther church out there can ever offer.
In my opinion, being a Christian man means you to stand on principles and suffer for them. You need to speak the truth and be willing to receive scorn. You need to make sacrifices for your faith and not be swayed by falsehood. You need to be an example to the world of what the Catholic faith really produces: men of strength that comes from the love of God, men of wisdom that comes from the knowledge of God, men of rock-hard endurance that comes from trust in God. A Catholic presence cannot be formed around accepting and tolerating the pantheism around us, because it will win because we do not fight back, because we are afraid of persecution and martyrdom, and therefore we do not actually live the faith we preach.
A recent ad I saw tells us that the early Church lived in a world full of false signals and messages, of advocates for homosexuality, legal abortion, state-sanctioned murder, extrajudicial trials, bribery, extortion, wars and plagues. And yet fishermen converted the whole world. Because they were willing to die for that faith. Evangelism cannot succeed unless we have men who stand up say “Christ alone is my king” against every false teaching of this world, the same way that Polycarp, Lawrence, Boniface, Justin, and all the martyrs did.
“They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.”
That’s the true definition of masculinity.
btw if you think Saved is a scary yet truthful look at evangelical brainwashing by the blind, you should wash the documentary Jesus Camp. You will have mixed feelings about it, I guarantee.
I think at the heart of both yours and Elizabeth’s posts is a desire to see men live out the love of Christ in a real and noticeable way.
You represent two schools of thought, with regards to evangelization, that are often at odds with each other, one often finding the other ineffective and/or counterproductive.
Over the years I’ve been exposed to both methods of preaching. The fastest way to turn me off to your message is to, as a complete stranger, approach me and try to engage me in some salvation banter. Seeing as I have a distaste for passive-aggressiveness I will probably dismiss you rather bluntly, albeit politely. Still, I always leave those interactions wondering if I did the right thing, or whether I can learn something about their enthusiasm and gung-ho attitude.
On the flip side, I’m constantly disappointed by fellow Catholics who seem to be a bit too concerned about how the world would view them should they step out for their faith. I read your post, Calah, thinking, “I really couldn’t care less what House would think about my attempts at evangelization!” Nor would I preoccupy myself with what the world would mistakenly conflate my Catholicism with.
We’re in the business of getting rejected, mocked, humiliated, and yes, sometimes killed. These are blessings and badges of honor. And far too many Catholics spend too little time “getting in people’s faces” that I think they aren’t ready to witness if and when someone inquires about their “fulfilled but silent” life.
So, as an early 20s Catholic man who has been sucker punched by Truth, beaten down by Love, and drowned in Grace, I take it upon myself to live a life that consistently and increasingly bears the fruits of the spirit, is devoted to and in defense of the Church, and periodically, albeit unintentionally, attracts derision.
I won’t push the envelope, and I can take a hint, but it doesn’t matter if you’re family, a long-term friend, a coworker, a classmate, or someone I’m having a conversation with at the El stop. If you give me a large enough opening, I’m going to take it, best I can.
Calah (not disagreeing with you, just pointing out) your observation about the power of a Priest (regarding hopping in and out of cabs) really only applies to Catholics. Protestants are al laypeople, or at least the vast vast majority. So, to be approached by a fellow plain-clothes Christian and engaged in religious dialog is not nearly as odd to them as it is to Catholics. At least, it wasn’t when I was growing up around them.
My husband has gone to sit and eat lunch with adults he’s spotted in restaurants, unsuspecting bystanders who happen to have a Bible on their table, or (worse) a stack of books about the Bible. The conversations never last less than 20 minutes. It’s always out of the blue, it always freaks me out when he does it, and still, he never fails to get some kind of result out of those conversations. There’s something to be said for invasiveness. 😉