You raise some interesting observations and look at my article in a unique way. Let me, right off the bat, say this; I do not hate men. I am in a traditional catholic marriage of 20 years. I am the barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and bedroom type. I homeschool my youngest son, my middle son is entering the priesthood next fall, and my oldest son is a devout catholic, preparing to enter the sacrament of matrimony in January, at the age of 22, to a wonderful young lady who plans to be barefoot and pregnant, stay home, raise a family, and respects my son as the head of their family.
I believe NO one has the right to abort a child. God is the author of life, he just allows us to participate.
It is not just the church that has become “pansified” as you put it, it is the culture itself. I am repulsed by the metrosexual man, who is worshipped today. My article pointed out nothing about making a man sensitive or pansylike, it sought to point out that marriage is a sacrament, and once entered into, unbreakable. To paint all women with this broad brush as you do, makes it seem as though there are none of us out here that value a man for being a man, knowing what a true man is, and submitting our authority to one.
Submission to our husbands is key to making a marriage work. Each week at Mass, when we both receive communion and return to our pew, we kneel and pray silently for a moment and then, we join hands and pray for OUR marriage and the strength to continue to endure in Gods will. When we are finished, I kiss his wedding ring as a sign of my fidelity and submission to his authority. He does not kiss mine. I do this publicly every week because I recognize his authority in the marriage and because I am so thankful for the gift of a real man who practices his faith without fear.
All this being said, the things you talk about ARE good material for an article. Prior to the 1960’s, the balance was as it ought to be within the church. The sexual revolution brought about alot of this change. The give peace a chance/make love not war mentality permeated the church, just as it did society, and the sexual revolution caused a paradigm shift in both. I do not know how it happened, but it was men who were in power in both the church and society, and women caused a coup in both and took over.
In fairness, your statement that absolute power corrupts absolutely goes both ways, or we would not have had treated women as property, men would not have been allowed to beat them as long as the stick width was not wider than their finger, and been denied the right to own property throughout history either. It is also very hard to submit to a man who takes longer in the mirror than you do, is abusive or devalues his wife, or worships football instead.
I absolutely see that real men today are given a bum rap. They are considered chauvanists,domineering, rednecks,and other derogatory terms designed to castrate them. They have had the right to have a say in their unborn childs life taken away, and that is tragic and must be changed (although I would be much happier if abortion was just against the law altogether since it is murder no matter who gets to “choose”). I also agree that women initiate more divorces, but, many of those are because men (at least until very recently) did most of the cheating, domestic abuse, leaving, becoming addicted to porn, substance abuse,etc. I think part of what happened was in the 60’s, men were confronted with the opportunities of sex and drug abuse in new ways and weren’t prepared to handle the pressure. If they had pushed back at that time, when they DID have the power, and squashed it, perhaps alot of these things would not be so prevelant today?
I have done the best I can to add 3 manly men to society by marrying one manly man. I am sad to see that instead of using your manliness to raise manly men, you have chosen instead to blame ALL women as well as marriage, for the failure of society. You have not helped to correct the situation by being fruitful and multiplying and training up a child the way he should go, you have left the task of doing to others. By withdrawing yourself from being eligible to marry and pass along the correct view to your children, you have weakened Gods army by the number of children you could have added to the fight. As to the Theology of the Body discussion, I have taken the course, and it is NOT in any way a teaching that a mans body is wrong and he has to submit to his wifes will, it merely teaches the couple to know when she is fertile and they can then CHOOSE to abstain from sex during that period to prevent pregnancy or to have sex and conceive. You know, God did create both sexes, and both are very different; complementary if you will. Neither is bad or wrong.
You are 100 percent correct in your last paragraph about matrimony. When it crumbles, so do our rights. It is precisely the reason I wrote the article in the first place, to explain WHY matrimony is UNBREAKABLE and to point out the importance God placed upon it and why. I am sorry you took away from it that I was a man hater from it, as nothing could be further from the truth.
Amazing post.