CNA Staff, Nov 23, 2023 / 10:38 am (CNA).
In his sixth pastoral letter on male spirituality, Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour says that “fatherhood is expected of all men, whether biological, natural, or spiritual.”
In the Oct. 12 letter titled “The man of God is a man for others: Some themes in men’s spirituality,” Mansour, said that there are “some worrisome trends” in the culture that “undermine masculinity under the guise of remedying past chauvinism or over-reliance on patriarchal structures.”
Mansour added that given “the absence of dads in far too many homes in our country and the need for inspiring male role models, many young men are growing up without effective guidance about how to live out their male identity.”
Expressing the desire to reach the “hearts of men” through his letter, he added that “I would be grateful if this Pastoral Letter nourishes women and youth as well because so much of this letter can be helpful to everyone interested in the spiritual life.”
Pastoral letters are often released by bishops to members of their dioceses on a certain aspect of the faith, in an attempt to guide the faithful.
The letter explores a myriad of topics ranging from a man’s disposition towards his wife and children, the use of contraception and pornography, the need for self-mastery and a life of prayer, and the call to fatherhood for all men regardless of one’s current state in life.
“Men who live as ‘chips off the old (divine) block’ are the greatest need today; women and children long for this — many men also long for this,” he wrote.
‘A man for others’
Much of a men’s spirituality can be discovered through reflecting on Jesus as “a man for others,” the letter said.
Mansour cites the Gospel of John where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. He adds that Jesus was teaching “all of us, but especially men” about servant leadership.
“Jesus wanted to teach men how to undo the sin of the first man, Adam, who after the Fall would ‘rule over’ his ‘helpmate’ Eve (Gen. 3:16),” he wrote.
Christ was making service “his privileged way,” Mansour wrote, adding that “the path of redemption would involve self-mastery rather than domination of others.”
Men and women have equal dignity, Mansour wrote pointing to Jesus’s discourse on marriage and divorce with the Pharisees.
Mansour wrote that Christ “rebutted the religious leaders of the day who were justifying divorce by referring to how Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever.”
Jesus responded by stating “that it was God’s intention from the beginning that what God has joined no human authority should separate,” Mansour wrote, adding that his new command “shattered all previous rights to male domination in marriage.”
“Jesus, it should be noted, was speaking only to men, because women did not have the ‘right,’ given by Moses, to divorce their husbands. Thus, Jesus was indicating that a woman and a man are, by nature, and by the intention of the Creator, of equal importance and dignity,” he wrote.
The call to chastity
Noting that men and women are able to give themselves as gifts to each other in the sexual embrace, Mansour said that “a man and woman need to develop within themselves the virtues necessary to ensure that they can be faithful to each other.”
Mansour wrote that chastity orders sexual intimacy to be “appropriately expressed in fidelity, love, and mutual reverence,” adding that “man completes woman and woman completes man, as two halves make a whole.”
“We can easily enslave ourselves to our desires, passions, compulsions, addictions, and whims. Pornography, masturbation, and sexual promiscuity are always sinful, as is sexual harassment or abuse,” he wrote.
Mansour wrote that if one falls into any of these sins or crimes, “he should repent of these quickly, and ‘flee’ from them, saying that professional help may be necessary in some cases.
“We should all work to rid ourselves and the culture of such ills, to make our culture and ourselves, more holy, chaste, and respectful, especially for the sake of women, girls, and boys,” he wrote.
Mansour said that one way chastity can be used in marriage is through Natural Family Planning, a method of tracking a woman’s natural cycle which can help couples either conceive or avoid pregnancy.
“If a couple for serious reasons prayerfully recognizes the need to space children, they should not make recourse to contraception but work together to achieve a healthy spacing of children in the chaste and natural way given by God,” he wrote.
On the topic of children, Mansour said that God intended “these ‘little ones’” to enter the world in the context of the marriage covenant.
“A child has the right to come into the world through this kind of marital love, embrace, complementarity, and commitment, in which the mother and father mutually pledge to love and care for the child and each other in a stable and permanent relationship,” he wrote.
Turning his attention to the single and celibate man, Mansour wrote that these groups of men are also called to live chaste lives and deny themselves.
Mansour cited Pope John Paul II, who referred to the “nuptial meaning of the body,” adding that those who forsake marriage for the sake of the kingdom can live in a “spiritual union” with God.
“This gift, in imitation of the chaste and celibate Christ, depends on and deepens one’s communion with God, and sets one free to embrace an intense and life-giving love for others,” he wrote.
A man’s prayer
A prayerful man will learn that his life’s purpose is holiness, Mansour wrote. He added that men are called to make themselves vulnerable in prayer.
Mansour notes that it can seem “contradictory” for a man who is a “protector, provider, and cultivator” to become so vulnerable in prayer, but said that to “enter into a prayerful state requires a man to now go a step even further, and to stand vulnerable before another man, that is before the God-man, Jesus Christ, and ask him for help.”
But a man’s prayer is not just for himself, Mansour wrote, it is for “all those for whom he loves and cares.”
“A good father, husband, friend, priest, or consecrated man carries the responsibility to not only answer his call to holiness, but to also help bring others to holiness as well,” he wrote.
Fatherhood “is expected of all men,” regardless of their current state of life, Mansour wrote.
He wrote that all men, biological or not, are called to “natural” fatherhood, which is “a role in which a man teaches by example, providing proof that what the father teaches is possible in one’s life.”
The biological father is a “generator of life” that will “go on to nurture other generators of life,” he wrote.
“Thus, the biological father ‘passes on the torch’ allowing his sons the potential to take on the same name, ‘father.’ Fatherhood does not end with the generation of new life, but rather the perfection of this new life through proper rearing, education, and accompaniment,” Mansour wrote.
A natural fatherhood calls a man “to showcase a virtuous life that embodies a lifestyle worthy of imitating,” he wrote.
“Whether one is both a biological and natural father or only a natural father, both roles are ordered to an even greater level of fatherhood: spiritual fatherhood. This is a fatherhood expected of all men of goodwill, focused on accompanying one’s loved ones through this temporal, earthly journey while keeping their eyes fixated on eternal life,” Mansour wrote.
The full 15-page letter can be read here.
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The masculine soul is also well-served through its beautiful and mystery-driven compliment in the FEMININE soul. So much mayhem and vexation has occurred to both men and women when, in the mid-1900’s, women cast off their feminine soul for suit pants and the bodily “liberation” made possible via the pill. I don’t think any real and complete discussion of the masculine soul could be complete with a nod to the feminine soul; its compliment. This also stands for celibate priests whose compliment is that which can be found in the feminine soul of the church, “mothering” her children and raising them, commending them, to The Father. I appreciate the work of His Excellency Mansour and love the monastic quality that underlies the Maronite Ritual and spirituality.
Pope Francis has warned against neo-Pelagian mani-rigorist intellectualism (etc.); however, the 4 dicta in Evangelii Gaudium adapt easily from and/or to the very neo-Pelagianism he is anathemizing. It has to be elaborated.
The 4 “ratio” in Evangelii Gaudium can be used to navigate the four corners of the Overton Windows for “moving forward” and can be applied to dig through the four corners of Broken Windows enough to find “nesting” inside.
The following matrix would be one particular rendition.
—————————————————————
GENERALIZATION – EMERGENCE THEORY
time/space – rule of thumb – square rule
unity/conflict – trial and error – semantic compression
ABSTRACTION – ENGAGEMENT THEORY
reality/ideas – learning curve – train of thought
whole/part – educated guess – inventor paradox
—————————————————————
The dicta are equally as handy if you just wanted to avoid the Windows. Either way, the two main headings in this adaptable matrix would be (it seems) interchangeable, substitutable and co-applicable through all the paradigms and whether on their own or by –
trans-disciplinarity
inter-disciplinarity
multi-disciplinarity
intra-disciplinarity.
In addition, there may be less elaborate ways of doing the same things and of talking about them.
Could it could be that he is trying to say that “if you are pure of heart” you can employ this thinking without falling into any sin by just simply being involved with it?
Tolkien welcomed, then warned of the last homely house, beyond which is the wild. May Bishop Mansour be the last manly man among the Apostolic witnesses to Christ, beyond which is growing disorder.
It’s not that we don’t have manly bishops, it’s that we don’t have many as direct and outspoken. Mansour immediately qualifies manhood for the priest as found in the fatherhood of Christ. A priest can assume much in regards to his own prowess as preacher and witness, until he fortuitously as he may think, but better said providentially discovers his weakness. And with Paul finds strength in the humility gained recognizing the true source of his strength in Christ. Fatherhood has its origins in natural fatherhood, the protector and provider of family.
Valor, a forgotten virtue, fortitude its close ally means physical courage. Moral courage elevates valor to the spiritual level of human acts. Here both priest and layman find an affinity as alluded to by Mansour. Although our Church remains in need of the valor associated with moral courage. Valor inferring going beyond the bounds. Here is where errors in judgment are made when act is not commensurate to its object. We find that judgment made by critics of Bishop Strickland who otherwise agree with the cause.
Although such acts may reasonably appear excessive, beyond the virtuous mean between fortitude and audacity, there are other examples of extreme courage among the saints that seem beyond the bounds. Take Damien de Veuster who swam to a Hawaii lepers island when refused passage to shore by boatmen. Or yet to be beatified, Fr Vincent Capodanno by a Vatican more effeminate than manly, Capodanno who defied military restriction and ‘hopped’ a helicopter taking marines to a fire fight in Vietnam, in which he lost his life anointing, offering succour to the fallen. His actions were judged as a violent engagement in war.
All of this.
I think the fact that society has demeaned and suppressed masculinity in men and courage in all, has resulted in a confusion of the virtuous mean and audacity. We see actions in comparison to others, and so normal courage is seen as crazy, and pusillanimity is seen as prudence.
Yes. Excellent.
Correction to my comment: the virtuous mean between fortitude and audacity, should read, the virtuous mean between cowardice and audacity. The virtuous mean between the two is fortitude. The median or mean construct of Aristotle uses the base terms excess and defect. As cowardice would be defect and audacity excess.
The media has demeaned fathers for a long time. It is high time for us men to step up as men and assume our rightful responsibility in the home, in the schools and the Church. The absence of men in the family, in our schools and the Church has to the decline of all three. It is the father who can give much needed moral guidance to children.
“He wrote that all men, BIOLOGICAL OR NOT, are called to “natural” fatherhood, which is “a role in which a man teaches by example, providing proof that what the father teaches is possible in one’s life.””
This is an extremely bad typo on the part of the author of this article and one that should’ve been caught by the editor.
Bishop Mansour states in his letter “Natural fatherhood is a role in which a man teaches by example, providing proof that what the father teaches is possible in one’s life.” There is nothing in the letter implying that men are, or can be, anything other than biological men. Bishop Mansour explains how fatherhood can be biological, natural, and/or spiritual. But MEN are all biological.
A Man for All Seasons…..Harry.. East End of Tucson