Finding the real manly identity

I very much enjoyed writing this story up about Fr. Mark Slatter's recent Theology on Tap here in Ottawa. Here is an excerpt from the Western Catholic Reporter, which gave it a nice full page treatment:

Father Mark Slatter says some groups helping Catholic men explore male identity risk becoming parodies.

These groups promote a "hyper-masculinized version of what it means to be a man," the moral theologian, street minister and Saint Paul University professor told a recent Ottawa Theology on Tap.

Such hyper-masculinity can include speaking loudly, praying loudly, filling the room with one's presence and "taking the leadership reins," he said.

Slatter described this approach as bad psychology and bad theology. It twists the words of Jesus and can halt real transformation.

He also took aim at ways men allow themselves to be defined by women. If men think women want a man who cries, they will cry, he said.

Misandry - a hatred or contempt for men - in society at large is also attacking male identity, especially in the depictions of fathers on popular TV shows, he said. Such programs show them as "hapless, incompetent, clueless boys who haven't grown up with their toys."

Men need to find their identity as sons of God, but this requires the death of the "ego."

"My primary identity is as a child of God," he said. "My relationship with God the Father tells me who I am."

"He is the only one who gets me, who gets you."

But coming to understand that real identity involves facing the interior "civil war between the real me and the B.S. me," Slatter said.