Did anyone see that post the other day where Fr Z recommended Military style discipline as the way to encourage altar boys (and thus, implicitly in the mind of many trads and conservatives, "vocations")?
Including suggesting requiring crew cuts for altar boys?
To be honest, more wolf-pack type hazing "discipline" might increase the number or zeal of boys involved to a point...but at what cost? Often times such a structure reinforces bullying mentalities (among both victim and perpetrator) or is mainly attractive to nerdy boys who initially go because their mother makes them.
Far from encouraging "manliness" (whatever that means)...it's likely to appeal to boys marginalized in the power structures of their own peers at school who are seeking a proxy boost to their self-esteem and sense of personal power in the same ways as boys who torture small animals.
Often times, far from encouraging vocations, socializing young boys into the service of the altar (more or less against their will, usually)...just breeds resentment to the Church in the long run. Or if it does produce seminarians...it is of the creepy kind described in my post on The Creepiness of Institutional Seminaries.
For goodness sake, what is it with conservatives and their bizarre romanticization of militarism?! It bespeaks volumes about the way that conservative masculinity is psychologically constructed. Sheesh! No wonder altar boys used to get molested so much...
Including suggesting requiring crew cuts for altar boys?
1 comment:
I pretty much agree with you, even though I'm in the military. I wouldn't volunteer to be a server if I was required to get a crew cut. That's just ridiculous.
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