The War on Christian Men Part V: What We Must Become

This is the final installment of a series of 5 articles titled The War on Christian Men: A systematic examination of how modern culture attacks masculinity.

I recommend you read the first installment here, and then continue with the rest.

After examining the systematic emasculation of men at the hands of modern culture, last week we finally started to crawl out of the mud and fix our gazes upon the masculine models that have been the bedrock of the Church since it was founded. But looking towards the past for inspiration—while useful—, isn’t enough: we need to distill the practical lessons that the lives of these great saints and martyrs teach us, so we can take purposeful action and actually do something to further God’s Kingdom, right here, right now.

The critical question is thus, what do we do? How do Christian men fight back and actually win?

We’ve seen that there is a real, coordinated, relentless war against Christian masculinity. But, in his haste, the Enemy has overplayed his hand, creating a generation of weak, confused, and miserable men who are actually hungry for something real and ready to do whatever they have to do to find it.

In the last installment we saw how the saints prove that Catholic masculinity thrives even under persecution. And this should fill us with hope. We can still win this spiritual war. What we need now is a strategy to guide us.

Step 1: Reform Yourself First

You can’t lead until you master yourself

Before you can even think about making an impact on your family, church, or culture, you must take a long hard look at yourself and fix those glaring problems that haunt you. Weak men cannot build strong institutions. Confused men cannot provide clarity. Spiritually impotent men cannot lead spiritual warfare.

Start by purifying yourself from sin. The fight against sin will last your entire life, but for you to start making an impact, you need to at least climb up to a solid baseline. You need to at minimum learn to control those obvious, scandalous sins that are so common nowadays: the sins of the flesh. Quit p*rnography and practice chastity. Stop being a slave to your flesh by practicing asceticism, fasting, and abstinence. Remember: this is the very first step, and it’s a critical one. Mastery over yourself is the bedrock of virtue, and in order to become a man ready to fight back against the external enemy, you need to win first the battle that is going on inside of you.

We’re not looking for perfection (yet), we’re looking to restore ourselves to a neutral baseline, to climb out of the abyss of rampant sin so we can at least be aware of the temptations we face and of the vices that drive us into it.

Then, you can start pursuing virtue actively. You can start taking your physical training seriously, not out of vanity, but understanding that physical strength and competence builds mental resilience and commands natural respect.

Again, the goal here is not to become a bodybuilder, but to reach a minimum level of fitness that will make your body your ally instead of making it a burden to bear: basic fitness, functional strength and athleticism, and at least a decent ability to defend yourself and others is what we’re looking for. You need to understand that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and your physical health and prowess is linked to your intellect and to the health of your soul.

Physical virtue is important, but nowhere near sufficient. Just like you are now taking your physical training seriously, you can start to take your spiritual life seriously as well: you can (and should) begin each morning in prayer, to offer the day and its fruits up to God, doing a thorough examination of conscience at night, and keeping Him present in everything you do. Beyond that, you need to be an active participant in the Sacraments, by going to confession frequently (which will also help you defeat sins and vices), and attending Mass and Eucharistic adoration at the very least once per week.

Additionally, you should be reading Scripture frequently as well as other fundamental theological texts to strengthen your faith rationally, and to not let your beliefs be dependent on your fleeting emotions. This is even more important when you understand the weight of calling yourself a Christian (and even more, a Catholic): that title comes with certain expectations, one of which is to understand why you believe what you believe. That means that you need to study your faith, so you can defend it and share it properly. Read the Catechism, study apologetics, and read about the saints. Take your theological study seriously, so you can stand firm when the onslaught of the world comes for you.

The physical and the spiritual need to be supported by the rational and intellectual too: make it a daily practice to read, so you can sharpen your mind as well.

This is just the first step. Self-improvement falls short because it stays here, forever pushing you to improve yourself for no real reason beyond a selfish desire to earn recognition or feel good about yourself.

A man of God understands that his responsibility extends far beyond himself, but he also knows that he needs to build a solid foundation before he can go and share the Gospel with the world.

Step 2: Prepare to Lead

After improving yourself up to a decent baseline, you can start to think about developing the qualities of the leader that God wants you to become.

It’s important to understand that you don’t start leading only when you’re married. Single men can and should be developing leadership skills now, not waiting until marriage to do so (that’s a recipe for failure).

You can start developing the skills that will help you lead others towards the light of Christ: by taking the initiative when no one else does it, volunteering for decision-making roles, taking on more responsibilities at work and mentoring younger siblings or friends you might have.

This will help you learn critical leadership skills like decision making under pressure, taking responsibility regardless of the outcome, communicating clearly, and following through with the commitments that you make.

Proper leadership skills are important whatever your vocation is. Whether you are to become a priest, or whether your vocation is marriage, eventually your leadership skills will be put on display, regardless of if you want them to or not.

If you’re spiritually weak now, you’ll be spiritually weak as a husband and father. It’s better to build the practical and spiritual skills that all righteous leaders require before you have a whole family or congregation depending on you.

Step 3: Impact your Church and Community

As you become a man fit for leading, God will start giving you more and more opportunities to lead. But only after you’ve put in the necessary work to become a better man across all areas of your life and learned to deny yourself, and sacrifice your whims and wishes for a higher good.

The world is desperate for leaders who are actually ready to bear the burdens of leadership. You’ll see that this is true in your parish, in your extended family, and in every and all institutions and communities. The world is ripe with opportunities and positions of influence to be filled by men of strong will and hopefully even stronger commitment to honoring God in everything they do.

So after working on yourself, you can now look for those opportunities.

Leading in Your Parish

You don’t need to start very far: just look at your local parish or congregation and identify opportunities:

• Start a men’s group: Gather Catholic men and lead meetings focused on formation and apostolic mission, not the mere socialization that has become the standard in such groups.
• Volunteer strategically: Find retreats, events, charities, or other volunteering opportunities where masculine leadership is needed.
• Attend meetings and speak up if necessary: Suggest activities and spaces that speak to and motivate the masculine heart to return to a courageous kind of faith, and if necessary, with prudence, challenge feminized programming without causing scandal.
• Support good priests: Build relationships with solid clergymen who can guide you in your spiritual journey and who can serve as your advisors for personal matters too.

Beyond the Church

Beyond the work you can do in your parish or congregation, there’s great opportunities for social impact in the secular world.

• Encourage masculine development among your friends: Push your friends to do masculine activities together, to start creating brotherly bonds with them and strengthen yourself against the effeminacy and brainwashing of the world.
• Start speaking up clearly and with courage: Refuse to play the rhetorical games of the radical left and start calling things for what they are instead of lying in the name of an ill-conceived “charity”. Don’t play the pronoun game, don’t play the feminism game, live by your values and stand by them even if it causes you to be criticized by the world.
• Live your faith in public: Don’t do this out of pride, but don’t hide your faith for fear of criticism either. Say grace before meals (even in public), pray the rosary in public if you have to, talk about God freely. We’ve been silenced by the angry mob and we’ve cowardly made our faith something we are ashamed of. No more. Always use prudence and discernment, but don’t ever let fear of the world make you hide your faith. Something very important needs to be said here: if you start living your faith in public, there will be people who will scrutinize your life to find reasons to call you a hypocrite. Be ready for that, and don’t give them any ammo by living impeccably, even in your utmost private life.

The goal here is to take all the things you’ve learned in your process of self-reformation and start using them in the world. Your responsibility as a man of faith is to share that faith with the world, so Christ’s light can shine through you and touch the hearts of many. Even small actions bear good fruit if they are done with this intention: a small act of leadership, a responsibility carried well, a promise kept, and all those other little acts of integrity are what make a man a great leader.

Step 4: Build and Support the Right Institutions

The truth is that most existing institutions are compromised. Secular institutions —and many Catholic ones— have been infiltrated by anti-masculine ideology, which means we must build parallel structures.

In Education

• Build homeschooling networks with other Catholic families.
• Use classical education models to recover rigorous, masculine education.
• Share expertise among Catholic families. There’s great wisdom to be found in groups of serious, committed believers.

In Business

• Build Christian businesses: Nowadays it’s fairly simple to start and grow a business using the internet and technology. You can start building a business that glorifies God and simultaneously plays an active role in promoting Christian values and in creating new employment opportunities for other men.
• Support Christian enterprises: Spend money strategically, and at least choose not to fund those institutions which are openly and actively anti-Christian.
• Choose your job wisely: If possible, find a job in a company that doesn’t go against everything you stand for.

In Media

• Consume (and create) alternative media: Support and create Catholic content. This is very much a volume game. Just make sure your intentions are the right ones and you actually have the minimum required knowledge not to lead people astray.

In Politics

• Engage in local politics: School boards, city councils, state legislatures and the like. Be active in the political life of your community.
• Use a Christian framework for politics: Vote and advocate for Catholic principles first and foremost.
• Build political networks: Connect with other Christian leaders. Iron sharpens iron.

All of this helps in building a parallel economy so we are not limited nor controlled by the monopoly of the woke corporations. You don’t necessary have to participate in all fields, not at all. Some will be more suited to participate in politics, others in business, others in media. But the important thing is that you take the talents God gave you and you put them to use out there, where they are most needed.

We need to be in the arenas of this world, and wrestle back control from those who so deeply despise God’s order.

Step 5: Win the Generational War

It’s no secret that this is a long-term game, and we’re planting trees we may never sit under. These efforts we are making we might never see rewarded. This is no reason to despair, but just a necessary reminder that honor and recognition in this world might elude us altogether.

The enemy thinks in decades, and so must we, by raising sons who won’t capitulate and building institutions that stand on the principles of Our Lord.

For the Next Generation

Everything depends on how we raise our kids. For us to do a good job, we need to become men who can teach them virtue (that’s step 1 and 2 of this article). We need to be men who showcase virtue in all they do, so we can teach our boys by example first and foremost how to live as courageous, honorable, disciplined, faithful men.

We need to also protect them from the cultural poison that plagues our everyday life, by being wise and prudent when allowing them access to media and other influences, while simultaneously helping them strengthen their spirit to resist the pressure and schemes of the enemy.

Beyond making sure our kids are prepared, we can aid them in their fight by leaving them structures built on solid values. Like we said in the previous step, we can make sure that there’s something tangible for the world to remember us by after God calls us to Him. We can extend our legacy beyond ourselves, and leave our kids the necessary tools to make an impact of their own.

We can also be diligent and disciplined with our finances, and build a material foundation that will aid them and the all Christian cultural efforts. We can’t take anything out of this world, but we can absolutely leave things for those who will come after us.

It’s key to play the long game with a sacrificial spirit, understanding that we will not be the ones to see total victory. Perhaps no human will. But that doesn’t absolve us from the very real responsibility we have to struggle against the lies and schemes of hell right here, today.

Be patient and accept slow progress, don’t burn out by trying to fix everything yourself, and most importantly, remember to trust God’s timing and providence throughout it all.

Step 6: The Spiritual Warfare Dimension

This is ultimately spiritual.

All the aforementioned practical strategies mean nothing if we forget that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

Thus, our weapons are prayer and fasting, weekly confession and daily Mass, devotion to Mary, and the St. Michael prayer. We must protect ourselves and our future families spiritually through sacramentals, spiritual warfare prayers, recognizing supernatural attacks, and finding priests who understand this battle.

But the most important thing of all is to maintain hope by remembering that Christ has already conquered.

The gates of Hell will not prevail because God promised us they wouldn’t. Our job is simply to be faithful warriors in this moment of history, trusting His providence while actively fighting for His truth. When discouragement comes, remember the outcome is already secured, whether we’re here on earth to see it or not.

We’ve been on the defensive for decades. We’ve apologized, accommodated, and retreated and we’ve let them make spineless cowards out of us. It’s time to stop.

The devil fears masculine Catholic men more than anything else. Why? Because we’re the ones who build cathedrals, establish orders, convert nations, and raise sons who do the same. We’re the ones who refuse to bend the knee to cultural idols and give our worship to God alone, instead of the false idols of the flesh, ideologies, money, or power.

We need to be more than just casualties of this cultural war on masculinity, and become the men that our families, our Church, our age and our God desperately need.

God is calling us forward, out of the abyss of sin and vice and out of the prison of fear that we’ve so obediently entered into. He calls us towards the fire, towards the arena, towards an unclimbable hill.

He needs men who answer, men who are willing to die for Him, men who understand and truly live not for this world but for the next.

We can be the ones who answer.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
— Isaiah 6:8