The Catholic Gentleman
Sam Guzman, a 29-year-old who works in marketing at Covenant Eyes, a company helping people recover from pornography use, felt there has been a lack of clear norms for masculinity for his generation. In college, he began reading a site called The Art of Manliness, designed to revive vintage manhood and the value of a virtuous life, holding up icons like Teddy Roosevelt and Benjamin Franklin. After Guzman joined the Church in 2013, he found a lack of resources for Catholic men, although since then, many new masculine apostolates have been created. "One day, while praying St. Maximilian Kolbe’s consecra-tion to Mary novena and praying that I might be used in some way, I had a clear mental picture of a site for Catholic men called The Catholic Gentleman," he said. "It would move the reader from natural virtue to super-natural virtue and hold up the saints as models." Guzman immediately began the site.
According to him, being a Catholic gentleman means that you are faithful and a man of virtue. "We must practice things like self-control, honesty and self-discipline," he said. "We find that the happiest people are the holiest people." Guzman points out that we have daily opportunities to choose between selfishness and selflessness and to follow Christ, which is what being a Catholic gentleman is about.
Men’s conferences
Men’s conferences also have grown in recent years. On Feb. 3, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia spoke to more than 1,500 men at the Catholic Men’s Fellowship Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
He challenged them to live a "new knighthood," making it holy by committing to prayer, courage and chastity and devoting themselves to serving the Church and its people. "Our first weapons should always be generosity, patience, mercy, forgiveness, an eagerness to listen and understand others, a strong personal witness of faith and speaking the truth unambiguously with love," he said.
John Henz, a husband of 50 years, father to three sons, and a catechist, attends the conference annually. "We are hoping to find a bigger venue," he explained, "because the 1,560 tickets usually sell out within four hours."
The conferences are opportunities for men to recognize the importance of marriage and the role of men within the family, he said. (to be continued)
Patti Maguire Armstrong OSV Newsweekly 7/3/2018