Not manly enough?

Not manly enough?

Summary:

I’m not sure what Eric criteria were since I’m not an NCR subscriber and don’t have the whole column, but a recent Caveman post on the LA Religious Education Congress had the following snippet:

At the L.A. Edjumacation Congress, is Liturgical Pole Dancing one of the subjects taught? Possibly this is just a flashback to my beer drenched younger days in The Corps, but I’m all of a sudden gettin’ a hankerin’ to whip out a handful of dollar bills. Is it just me, or does this chick look about ready to start sliding up and down those poles strategically placed around her? Spiked heels, a sexy shirt and tight pants… the only thing missing is a heavy bass guitar beat.

Look, I like the Cavemen and the other blogs he named, but if the definition of Catholic fatherly manliness is stripper jokes and calling people names and posting photos of nearly naked models who profess to be Catholic and seconding Ann Coulter’s insult of John Edwards as a “faggot” and other locker room behavior, then I think you can count me out. (Clarification:  “photo of the model” does not refer to the LA Religious Ed Congress photo on the Cavemen’s blog. It’s something else I saw on another blog some time ago.)

Jay Anderson at Pro Ecclesia links to the latest National Catholic Register weekly blog column by Eric Scheske (subscription required). Eric’s topic this week: “Real Men Don’t Write Blogs Do they?”

His thesis: There aren’t many Catholic men writing manly blogs. Huh? He even singles out the finalists for last year’s Catholic Award for Best Blog by a Man as not emphasizing “the sort of fatherly virility I’m talking about here”: Jimmy Akin, Mark Shea, Dale Price, Gerald Augustinus, and me. (Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that Jimmy is neither married nor a father and that Gerald was only just married in the past year and does not yet have kids.)

Does Eric actually read these blogs? Just in the past week, Mark has written about his oldest son and his pride at seeing him leaving the nest on a missionary journey and Dale was just writing about building a model tank with his son. Both men often write about their children and families. For anyone paying attention, Jimmy is clearly a real Texas cowboy and a Catholic gentleman. Eric does give Gerald a partial pass based on looks alone, I guess.

What is Catholic manliness?

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