The Vatican ~ Feminism blamed for ‘erosion of manhood’

I'm a lapsed Catholic and an agnostic but sometimes even the RC patriarchs can get something right. How close to the nail is this one. I'd say its aim is quite accurate. Radical Feminism itself admits men are nothing more than sperm donors and some, if they had any real inventors in their sisterhood, would try and eliminate us altogether by synthesizing sperm. (they don't have real inventors however, - men invented most everything throughout history and it appears to be a long term trend :>) These are quotes from some of the radfems (some of my colleagues are bold enough to call them feminazis) but when you read their works you can see the hatred of men jump off the page. Marilyn French actually uses a nazi anaolgy in one of her books.

“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women's Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.”

Sheila Cronin, in Radical Feminism - “Marriage" (1970), Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., HarperCollins, 1973, p. 219)

“The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.”

Shelia Cronin, National Organization for Women Times, Jan.1988

“Men are from another planet, sent here by spaceships to copulate with female earthlings and propagate the species—a task for which science has rendered them all but redundant. We need keep only a handful of donors on a sperm farm for that purpose, where they can subsist on pizza and beer and Playboy magazine.”

Rose DiManno-Toronto Star, January 11, 1999

and the recently departed (thank goodness) Marilyn French:

"My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter."

Marilyn French, Author "The Women's Room"

MJM

By Lito Zulueta
Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 03:58:00 01/24/2009

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090124-185270/Feminism-blamed-for-erosion-of-manhood

MANILA, Philippines—A high-ranking Vatican official currently in Manila has warned of the erosion of manhood and the “crisis in fatherhood” that have resulted in millions of children worldwide without a father or enjoying emotionally healthy relations with one.

German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” the Vatican dicastery (or administrative agency) on charity, aid and relief, blamed “gender mainstreaming” and “radical feminism” for attacking biological manhood and insisting that “sexual roles are learned.”

He said men are demeaned and what is held up as an ideal is a man who is feminized and emasculated, one who, in a European study, is held up to be “a sweeter man.”

Fatherhood in crisis

“Is male identity then nothing other than a product of a special culture and the consequences of social circumstances?” Cordes asked in his speech, “Fatherhood-An Auxiliary Role?”, which was his doctorate address Friday after receiving an honorary doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.

The doctoral hat and cape were bestowed by UST Rector Magnificus and former Commission on Higher Education chairman Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, O.P.

Witnessing it were German Ambassador Christian Ludwig Weber Lortsch, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, CHEd chair Emmanuel Angeles, and former Philippine Ambassador to the Vatican Henrietta de Villa, who is now consultor of the pontifical agency headed by Cordes.

‘The new man’

Cordes said statistics around the world “confirm that today the self-understanding of manhood and especially fatherhood is in crisis.”

He said a Catholic Charities survey in the United States showed that 24 million children are living in homes without a father. He said “fatherless boys are twice as likely to be in prison; they are more likely to drop out or be expelled from school; they account for 63 percent of suicides, and 90 percent of those who run away from home.”

He said in his own country, the German newspaper Frankfurther Allgemeinen, ran a story with the headline, “The Insecure Man.”

Cordes blamed the loss of manhood and fatherhood to liberal and secularistic legislations to invent “the new man.”

“We have grown accustomed to hearing about legislation undermining the role of the father, such as adoption by gay so-called ‘parents,’” Cordes said. “A bill passed recently in Britain (‘Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill of 2008’) allows two lesbians or single mothers to conceive a child without a father; all that is needed is ‘supportive parents.’

Some newspapers hailed this as ‘the end of fatherhood.’”

He said a survey of German universities recently showed that while there were 98 university chairs “for deepening questions on womanhood,” only one existed for men.

“In Europe, psychologists and anthropologists have labored to diminish masculinity,” Cordes said. “New investigations such as that published by the Council of Europe in 1998 claim that the ‘new man’ is ‘sweeter.’

Men and fathers should be led to become more like women and mothers in their behavior and reactions. They also advocated ‘flexibility of the sexes’ in the education of children.

Cordes said the erosion of manhood and fatherhood has a negative impact on “boys’ self-understanding,” adding that even girls form their self-understanding by their relationship with fathers and men.

Fathers as anchor

Fathers are “an anchor for us in cases of loss and danger,” said the German prelate. When children try to carve out their own autonomous existence from their parents, it is the father they look up to.

“From the presence of the male body, something is transmitted to the ‘I’ that makes the child blossom,” Cordes said. “Whoever as an individual has never been generated or raised in the way by his father or his fathers will have a limited self-esteem.”

Cordes said the loss of masculinity and the crisis in fatherhood have bearing on Christianity, which calls God as Father. “The lack of a human father makes it difficult to grasp Jesus’s teaching on the heavenly Father,” he said.

One part mom, one part dad: the equal parenting debate

FEATURE
by ~ Chris Morgan	Maurice Vellacott, MP London Scene Magazine - May 7, 2009 London, ON -- Most parents who have been through a divorce will acknowledge that reaching equitable child custody agreements are in the best interests of everyone involved. Yet all too often, joint custody in Canadian courts means one parent is allowed regular, sustained access to a child, while the other parent is denied the same right. This is largely the fault of outdated federal and provincial statutes in family law that generally presume mothers will be the primary caregivers following a marital breakdown. But times are changing, and the definition of family – as understood within statistical, sociological and legal realms - is changing as well. On April 16, Saskatchewan Member of Parliament Maurice Vellacott announced the results of a March Nanos Research poll on equal parenting after divorce. Equal parenting – a term used by advocates to describe the shared rearing of children following a divorce – has long been a passion of Vellacott’s, and he has devoted significant time and resources to the cause. “The results indicate that four out of five Canadians continue to support equal shared parenting after divorce with almost no difference by gender, region, age group or party affiliation,” Vellacott said. “The poll was commissioned in conjunction with the work I’ve been doing to advance equal parenting through private member bills and motions.” A similar survey conducted in 2007 yielded nearly identical results to the one performed in March this year, suggesting the outcomes are part of an ongoing trend which favours equal parenting. Vellacott is also responsible for a 2008 private members motion on the subject, which provided a gauge of Parliamentary support and earned the vote of 17 Conservative and Liberal MPs. “The response I received to this motion has encouraged me to proceed with the poll and the drafting of a private members bill in this session with a view to garnering all-party support for equal parenting,” Vellacott said. The outcome of the motion revealed that all parties in the House of Commons believe in the principals behind equal parenting, with 76 percent party support reported from the NDP to a high of 83 percent among Bloc MPs. Closer to home, a man from London – who has spoken up in defiance of Canada’s family law - has issued an intriguing challenge. In November 2008, Fanshawe College instructor Dave Flook decided to channel his frustration with ongoing child custody issues into a website called Not All Dads Are Deadbeats. “The motivation behind the website was to essentially meet people in the same situation as me,” Flook said. “Worse than the feeling of me being alone was the idea that other people are alone as well. I knew that if I just applied myself I could ease their pain to some degree. This is what I aimed to do.” Flook’s fledgling organization has already gained several hundred members since its inception late last year and support shows no sign of flagging. In addition to his advocacy work, Flook has also announced a public debate on equal parenting and the state of family law in Canada. The debate is scheduled to take place on September 15 at Wolf Performance Hall and Flook is looking for speakers from the public to state their case. “[If you are] instigators or perpetuators of the Canadian family law system that disregards equality in parenting then show your integrity by standing up for your beliefs,” Flook said. “Here is your opportunity to show people like me why the current family court system should be considered just and acceptable.”