US Politics

The church must stop allowing itself to be used as a tool in the Christian nationalist extremist resurgence in the United States today.

How might the church respond to the situation in which we find ourselves? We ought first to see the manosphere for what it is: a group of people who share not an answer but a question. Second, we ought to be in the business of helping to write new social scripts—scripts that make an inclusive masculinity visible and attractive and accomplishable.

Our tradition tells us what God wants for us: a world of relationships and love where we do our best to cooperate with God’s grace as it helps us grow in virtue and holiness. The sugar high of online hate does not hold up against the deep nourishment of love, and it is our job to let adolescents know that there is a healthier diet available to them. 

If Christian language, identity and even nationalism are being reshaped in a largely unmoored digital marketplace that blends masculinity, grievance and politics, how should the Catholic Church respond? Four scholars—Patrick Gilger, S.J., Margaret Felice, Susan Bigelow Reynolds and Peter Nguyen, S.J.—offer their reflections.

The Christian tradition has always affirmed asceticism, discipline and sacrifice. In the secular manosphere, however, these goods are severed from humility or empathy, as well as any sense of communion.