Real Catholic men

My post on the Boston's men's conference, featuring the outrageous comments of Sean Forrest, drew a comment worth noting from someone who attended the event (and I appreciate the eyewitness account):

The Herald chose to focus on Sean Forrest, the least prominent of the four featured speakers. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Dr. Scott Hahn and Fr. John Corapi each had a one hour session in the morning and second one hour session in the afternoon. The day closed with Archbishop Sean presiding over mass. Unfortunately neither Boston newspaper took the Boston Catholic Men’s and Women’s conferences seriously. The two days had almost 9000 attendees in total. I’ll provide one point of contrast to the Hearld’s story. Fr. Cantalamessa’s second talk of the day focused on Ephesians 5. He said that the husband’s call to love his wife is reciprocal; the wife must also love her husband. The wife’s call to be subordinate herself to the husband is reciprocal; the husband must subordinate himself to the wife. That is a small taste of the 2006 conference. Overall it was a very good event.

Now I must admit that I'm no fan of Scott Hahn--a former evangelical who has taken his biblical fundamentalism and applied it to the Catechism--but I imagine that the two priests probably offered decent content, having heard Corapi and read Cantalamessa. But the fact that someone with Forrest's message--basically that husbands should control their wives' bodies by "getting them off the birth control"--is disturbing in the extreme. Quite frankly, he made the case for why Roe v. Wade shouldn't be overturned! His message is patriarchy pure and simple, and it has no place at an official Catholic event, especially when dioceses systematically restrict more liberal Catholic voices on similar topics, Sister Joan Chittister, OSB being a case in point. What's good for the left is good for the right, and Forrest's message is indefensible as a Catholic position.

But here's my question for the conference planners: Granting that a Catholic men's conference is a good idea, why wasn't at least one of the keynoters a woman? Especially if much of the content focused on the relationship between men and women? Secondly, why does a "men's" conference need to focus so much on women? Isn't the purpose of a men's conference to focus on the particular spiritual experience, journey, and needs of men as men? This wasn't, after all, a Catholic husbands conference.

I hope, as the commenter argues, that the conference was indeed good overall, and I've no doubt the local newspapers completely ignored what good was offered there. But I still have to ask why Catholic men can't have a conference about being men, instead of focusing on how they should relate to, much less control, women. Not all men are married--we're not all even straight--and it seems to me that we need to work most on how we relate to ourselves and each other rather than worrying about how we're going to handle those uppity girls.

That's that kind of "men's work" that's desperately needed, as most male relationships are reduced to boss-subordinate or competitor at work and mere drinking buddy at the social level. Think about it, all you men out there, gay or straight: How many relationships do you have with other men in which you could talk about what's really going on in your life, much less what's going on in with you spiritually? Focusing on women is an excuse for not taking a good look at ourselves.

And my last, and I grant, meanest question: Why is it that not one Catholic man got up and left during Forrest's talk? Did not one of you feel that your wives were being degraded by a man who actually responds to women's criticism with an adolescent "you'll be back"? That's shameful in the extreme.

Any women out there want to sound off on this one?