Among my most distinctive memories of growing up Catholic in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is accompanying my father to the meetings of our church men’s group, the Holy Name Society. We met in the community space on the bottom floor of the church building, the same room in which we did school plays and gathered after Mass to share coffee and doughnuts. As a boy, I looked forward to the pancake breakfasts that accompanied each meeting. Today, as masculinity and the role of men in society become increasingly contentious, the seriousness with which many of these men took the work of being men seems especially important. Catholic men’s groups like the one I attended in my youth offer a powerful model for how men can be men together, while living out all that masculinity has to offer.
A lot of the men who gathered in that space were probably reliable Democratic voters, as were my father and grandfather, though that was before people associated the Democrats with effete coastal liberals. Among the people who gathered after church every few Sundays was a radio announcer who served as the voice of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball, assorted wrestling and football coaches, veterans of wars across the 20th century, and, most notably to me, a lawyer who served as both our church groundskeeper and as an N.F.L. referee. When we did things together, a lot of it was stereotypical guy stuff: fishing, golf, cookouts, and trips to Iowa football and basketball games.
But the Holy Name Society didn’t engage all that much with “manliness” as it is often defined today. Some of the men had actually seen war and had no interest in military cosplay. There were plenty of hunters, but they used shotguns or muzzleloaders rather than AR-15s. Their trucks were small, and more often they drove sedans. They did not display Punisher skull stickers, or whatever the ’90s equivalent may have been.
Instead, for this group, the work of “manliness” was almost boring. They organized food drives, helped raise funds for the church and saw to the broader needs of our community, whatever those happened to be. The purpose of the Holy Name Society was to help all of us be good servants—to spouses, children, parents and communities.
In the context of Catholicism, there is nothing particularly notable about this idea. To be a man in the church is to be a good servant leader, someone who models Christlike values of humility and sacrifice in the service of the greater good. In our community, it was no idle talk, either. I had more than a few male role models who did things like teach and coach while their wives made most of the money. Closer to home, my father and grandfather spent a lot of time volunteering on Habitat for Humanity projects or ferrying neighbors to and from doctor’s appointments.
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Brady Smith teaches middle school English at Rowland Hall, an independent private school in Salt Lake City.
With thanks to the America Magazine and Brady Smith, where this article originally appeared.
