Catholic Life Ministries

Hippies and Hope for the Future

A CLM Humor Column by Robert Fontana

I can understand how adults who might be standing in line to buy coffee at the local bistro from a barista who has piercings in her ears, nose, lip, and tongue, a Mohawk haircut, and tattoos from her bosom across her arms to her back, might be fearful that the next generation is not prepared to lead the country into the future.

But certainly our parents had similar fears when we baby boomers rebelled against the “Crew-Cut Generation” of the Eisenhower years. We let our hair grow to our shoulders and beyond, refused to shave (and this was true for young men and women), wore tattered blue jeans, and took off on road trips with no money, no vehicle, and no plan… to find ourselves.

I think my mom and dad actually thought that I was going to miss the hippie generation. Oh, they were so proud of me when I told them that I wanted to attend the college seminary following my graduation from high school. My mother exclaimed,

“I prayed 25 years for one of my sons to be a priest.”

I followed the script of being a “responsible-teen-becoming-an-adult” by signing up to work as a volunteer at a Catholic parish on a Navajo Indian Reservation for the summer prior to enrolling at the seminary. But something happened that shook the foundations of their confidence: I met a girl in New Mexico and extended my summer missionary adventure by two weeks to escort her to California. No, it did not take us two weeks to get from New Mexico to California —-just a day and a half. But I spent those two weeks as a beach bum, doing the hippie thing (as far as a good Catholic boy could), and I returned home in love, with a beard, uncombed hair, and blue jeans that I promptly wore to Mass.
My father stared in abject horror as his seminary-bound son stepped out of the house for Sunday Mass dressed as a hippie. I know what he was thinking because he said to me,

“ARE YOU BECOMING A HIPPIE?”

The tone of this question betrayed a disappointment that was palpable. I ignored it, and proceeded for the next year to leave my hair uncut and uncombed, leave the seminary, join a commune (it was Catholic), flirt with marriage with one girl (Lori), and hitch-hike to California to visit another. I inspired the opposite of hope for the future. That’s what young people are good at: impressing their adult mentors with how ill-prepared they are for the future!

I am no longer that hippie Catholic living in a commune and hitchhiking across the country to see a girl. I did not become the Catholic priest that my mother prayed for, but her prayers were not wasted. I have worked since 1981 as a youth and young adult minister, prison and nursing home chaplain, diocesan director of deacon and lay formation, and director of CLM and marriage ministries. And I did marry Lori and together we have raised six children. Not bad for an ex-hippie, albeit a Catholic one at that.

What about the youth, who are coming up? Will they be up to the challenges and issues of the 21st century? I see the children of our CLM families serving at shelters for the homeless, getting degrees at major universities, taking on leadership roles in business, marrying and being wonderful parents of their children.

I see nieces and nephews teaching in the public school system, serving the poor in Haiti, developing Catholic young adult ministry in China, working in banking in Houston, preparing for the priesthood, and marrying awesome spouses.

I see my own adult children (some with nose piercings) passionate about human rights and social justice, caring for young children, exploring other cultures and learning other languages, working in business and nursing, and choosing amazing partners as their spouses.

Yes, I am confident that we are leaving the future in good hands. God is raising up a generation of amazing youth (some who will be selecting our nursing homes). There is hope for the future.

Where do you find hope? Post your comments below.

Lent? Bring it on!

by Robert Fontana

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on March 9. It is that time of the year when we try to do in a 40-day period what we should and ought to be doing year round!

In the days when Lent was governed by my dear mother, Evelyn, we Fontana boys had to go to daily Mass at 6:15 a.m. The early morning wake-up call was not the most painful part; this was the old days, when the priest and the old lady playing the organ sang the Mass, and we… just watched.

Liturgically it was awful, but it was all part of the suffering we were to “offer up” during Lent. In Evelyn’s household, this suffering also included meatless Fridays (we ate sardines) and an evening rosary on our knees. So my “Year-Round List of Christian Oughts and Shoulds” was set early in life:

Sardines on Fridays,
Daily Rosary on my knees,
Daily Mass.

I went to college at St. Joseph Seminary. Prior to my first Lent there, old Father Ambrose challenged us seminarians to “still our minds and souls” through the practice of silence before Morning Prayer. Yikes, prayer began at 6:15 a.m. I got up at 5:30 to begin the practice of “silence” before heading off to Morning Prayer, and my “Year-Round List of Christian Oughts and Shoulds” grew:

Sardines on Fridays,
Daily Rosary on my knees,
Daily Mass,
5:30 a.m. Silent Prayer.

I carried these practices on to LSU, no matter that I fell asleep in my 7:30 a.m. literature class and rarely finished a rosary after late night studies (or fun) lasting beyond midnight. Just before Lent, I began meeting with an amazing group of Catholic students, including my future wife, Lori, who were radical in their love for Jesus. They loved Lent. Their motto was,

LENT? BRING IT ON!

Lent with these heroic Catholics meant service to the poor and elderly, Bible studies, tithing our meager incomes, giving up desserts, and vegetarianism. (This was not an easy option for me since the only vegetables that I have any memory of eating before meeting Lori are French fries, mashed potatoes, and tomatoes on hamburgers.)

Yes, my “Year-Round List of Christian Oughts and Shoulds” continued to grow:

Sardines on Fridays,
Daily Rosary on my knees,
Daily Mass,
5:30 a.m. Silent Prayer,
Weekly Visits to the Nursing Home,
Bible Study,
No Desserts and No Meat (AGH!!!).

I am now a veteran of many Lents. What’s interesting to me is that NEVER, over these past 53 Lents, has any spiritual leader suggested that a good Lent begins with a good night’s sleep! But being a parent teaches one such wisdom (I gave up the 5:30 a.m. practice of silence when baby #1 woke us up at 1, 3, and 6 a.m.)

Essential to my “Year-Round List of Christian Oughts and Shoulds” is a good night’s sleep, balanced diet, exercise, and friends. Without these, you and I are a MESS, and we are no good for our families or work commitments, let alone the poor.

If Lent means adding on more compulsive busy-ness to our already too busy schedules, then these practices, rather than leading us to the peace of God, simply lead us to the madness and anxiety of the world. It’s not for me.

Yes, pick and choose from your “Year-Round List of Christian Oughts and Shoulds” that will be most helpful in leading you to greater love of God and neighbor. But by all means, get a good night’s sleep!

YOU ARE IN OUR PRAYERS. Please send us your prayer intentions and mucho thanks for your prayers and financial support!

Snake Oil, Magnetic Fields, and Offering It Up

by Robert Fontana

A couple of years ago —okay, five to be precise— I started to get an itch on my leg. “Dry skin!” said the old skin doctor, who advised that I simply rub Crisco on it. That was the beginning of a series of home remedies that left me begging for snake oil, or really anything, please, to STOP THE ITCHING!

The Crisco did not work, but it sure made my ankle greasy. As the dry scaly skin spread up my leg to my back, and I continued Dr. Crisco’s remedy, I felt like a greased pig ready to be placed on the spit.

Then my home nurse consulted her book of natural remedies and read that the answer to dry itchy skin was fish oil. THANK YOU, JESUS! We went out and bought gel fish oil pills to ingest and liquid fish oil in a bottle to rub on the dry itchy patches that were beginning to connect all across my body.

Very quickly I began to smell like sardines. As Colleen said as I was standing next to her at the family Christmas party, “Do I smell salmon?” I inched away from her and everyone else. No one could understand why I wasn’t my usual gregarious self at the center of the Christmas fun.

Yes, I went back to a doctor, but this time it was a different one who had never studied the curative effects of Crisco or fish oil. He decided to biopsy my patchy-itchy-rashy skin, which by then was keeping me up at night and had even spread to my head! He numbed a spot on my back and had just begun to cut when I promptly fainted. Plop!

“NURSE! HELP! PATIENT DOWN!”

I do not know if that’s what he yelled out because I was unconscious, but it’s what I would have yelled out. Thankfully, I had been standing next to a table that caught my falling body. When I came to, he took his biopsy, injected me with steroids to suppress the itchy-rashy stuff, and also gave me a prescription for a steroid cream to apply twice a day or as needed.

After I had recovered from the trauma of that visit I went to a local pharmacy to have the prescription filled. The pharmacist had an entire wall of homeopathic, natural, organic, earth-first and body-friendly ointments, pills, liquids, stones, crystals, magnets, and electric charges. He looked at the prescription that I had brought in for a steroid cream.

Him: So you have a skin problem. Did you know that steroids come from horse hormones?

Me: No, I didn’t. Is that bad?

Him: Steroids are one of life’s necessary evils. But there are other ways to get at the impurities in your body that break through your skin to cause that itchy-rashy stuff. We can soak some of those impurities out of your body through your feet.

Me: My feet? You can soak my feet and I won’t have to take these steroids?

Him: Maybe. Come back here.

So I went to the back of his pharmacy. He had me sit in a chair and soak my feet in water and Epsom salts, with a moderate electric current connected to the basin – I am not making this up. Then he distracted me with conversation, but after about 20 minutes he pointed down to the water.

Me: Yuck! It looks like I’ve rusted into the water.

Him: That’s the impurities from inside your body. My guess is you eat lots of vegetables and little meat (I nodded yes). The little black things are parasites… probably from your toenails. (I gagged).

He gave me a towel to wipe my feet dry and then brought me to his medicine chest filled with every imaginable home remedy.

Me: You have snake-oil? Ha, ha ha!

He gave me a serious look, a don’t-make-fun-of-snake-oil kind of look, grabbed a dozen containers of remedies, and asked me to sit down.

Him: We have to find out which of these remedies will work for you. All of life is filled with magnetic energy, including your body and including these medicines. Extend your legs out to me (I did). I will give you one item at a time. Place it next to your heart. Your body will react to the ones that you need by jerking your legs as if you had a mild electric shock. (I’m glad no one is in the pharmacy because I’m feeling a little insecure and looking around for the Candid Camera man.)

He started the natural medical exam, giving me one container at a time, which I brought to my heart.

Him: Nope… nope… nope… not that one… nope… nope… DID YOU SEE THAT?

Me: What?

Him: Your leg shifted. Put that one to the side, that’s one you need.

He continued with the exam, giving me earth medicines that I placed next to my heart.

Him: Nope… nope… nope… not that one… nope… nope…maybe… nope… THERE, DID YOU SEE THAT? Take that one.

So I went home armed with my steroid cream, a green liquid and some white capsules, ready to do battle against the awful itchy-patchy skin that was turning my life into a nightmare.

One thing that really helped me in the middle of the night, after soaking my head in a non-allergic cream (I was told DO NOT PUT THE STERIOD CREAM ON YOUR HEAD), was the ancient practice drilled into me by Sr. Holy Agony of the Crown of Thorns Convent: “Offer It Up.”

I closed my eyes and asked Jesus, “Who needs prayers this night? Who is awake like I am but suffering far worse —from cancer, depression, broken relationships— and needs my guardian angel’s help?” I offered it up: the exhaustion, frustration, agony from over-scratching, and even my “poor me, why am I being punished?” attitude.

It helped. It helped me to be patient carrying my cross by thinking of others who had heavier crosses than mine to carry, and praying for them.

My itchy-patchy skin is largely controlled now, five years later. Good thing that I never found snake oil, because if I had, in those dark moments, while I was offering “it” up in the middle of the night, I would have bathed in it, drank it, and put it in my scrambled eggs.

Send us your prayer intentions; we pray through them on Thursdays — and sometimes in the middle of the night.

Robert and Lori

PS: Oh, the green liquid and white capsules seemed to be good for my… ah…bowels, but did nothing for my skin. The steroid cream was a help, thankfully, but only after I discovered that I was allergic to a chemical called “fragrance.” Crisco, it turns out, was the wrong oil to use; olive oil in the form of a bar of soap was the remedy.

The Night We Met Coretta Scott King (and she put me in my place)

by Robert Fontana

Our good friends Danny and Doris Gallagher could see we needed a sanity break after the birth of our precious Kathryn Lee (child number four) and invited us to the 25th anniversary celebration of the music trio Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was held at the famous Kennedy Center. They sweetened the deal by offering Danny’s sister Patrice, who lived in the D.C. area, as a babysitter. (Kate cried the whole night, but that’s another story!)

So off we went to this gala event with many of the great entertainers and civil right leaders of the ’60s and ’70s singing and speaking to honor the voices that gave us “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “If I Had a Hammer.”

During intermission I glanced up at the VIPs seated at different private balconies and saw Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Danny and I left our wives and took off to meet this great woman of history. I must admit that I was a bit nervous. “What do I say to the woman who shared all the struggles and torments with her husband in the movement for racial change in the South only to have him cut down by an assassin’s bullet?”

The door to her balcony was open and we walked in and introduced ourselves. That took about 20 seconds, now what? I knew that I didn’t want to say, “Sorry about your husband’s death,” or “too bad about the KKK,” so I said, “We sure wish that we were around when your husband was alive to support him in his work!”

Agh! How could I be so stupid? What kind of dumb, ignorant, and naïve statement was that? And Coretta thought the same because, before I could clarify my sentence or run away and hide, she said,

“Honey, it ain’t over yet!”

“Of course… you’re right… we know it and we’re doing everything we can to end racism and… have to go now… thank you… we shall overcome… bye!”

The truth was that Coretta had “nailed me.” My statement to her had betrayed the true state of my soul: that I really thought the struggle for racial equality and justice was over. It was the ’80s and we were on to other things.

I should have known better because just three years earlier I lived and worked in a racially mixed neighborhood in my hometown of Abbeville, Louisiana, and had experienced the viciousness of racism first hand. I worked as a youth minister at the parish of my youth, where I directed the Confirmation program. One of the candidates invited me to her house to meet her dad. I thought this was a friendly invitation to meet the youth minister. I WAS WRONG.

As soon as I stepped through the door, her dad began to yell, scream, and harangue me for teaching her daughter to “love the Blacks. I’M A CATHOLIC, I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CATHOLIC, AND IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BLACKS!

I was so scared I thought I was going to wet my pants. My legs literally shook with fear as he appeared to be on the verge of losing his mind and punching my eyes out. Strangely, the more he yelled the more persistent was an inner voice saying, “You cannot back down to this guy.”

Finally, I said the wrong thing: “The Blacks are our brothers and sisters.” And he lost his mind. He grabbed me, threw me against the wall, then chased me out of his house, screaming, “I’LL KILL YOU!” I later learned why he was so put out with me. I had assigned his daughter to a catechist who was an African American woman.

Coretta Scott King’s declaring, “Honey, it ain’t over yet,” was an important moment for me as I faced the scourge of racism, not out in the world, but in me. I remember once a college friend of mine was telling jokes and told a racial joke about Blacks and an anti-Catholic joke that involved Mary. He commented on how I got bent out of shape at the “Mary” joke but not the one about “Niggers.”

Yep, if I’m going to do something about racism in the country, I realize that I have to do something about racism in me first. “Take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

When the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday comes around in three weeks, remember with me, “Honey, it ain’t over yet.”

Lasagna, Fried Alligator, Firecrackers and Midnight Mass

by Robert Fontana

Oh, it is such a great time for creating beautiful memories! When I think about Christmas, I warmly remember lasagna, fried alligator, firecrackers and Midnight Mass.

Thanksgiving may kick off the shopping season for Americans, but for the Fontana boys (there are seven of us), it meant the beginning of firecracker wars on St. Mary Street. (Andrew once asked me, “Dad, how did you survive your childhood?” I said, “Guardian angels!”)

The firecracker wars began innocently enough. We took our model airplanes, boats, and toy army soldiers, placed them in ditches and crawfish holes in our front yard, and then… bombs away! Inevitably someone would throw a firecracker into the air to simulate anti-aircraft fire, then toss one towards an unsuspecting brother just to see him jump.

You might ask, “WHERE WERE YOUR PARENTS?” Mom was sometimes right there with us, lighting the little “dynamites” with her cigarette; and Dad was filming it on his camera.

By Christmas Eve, the firecracker war had spread to the entire neighborhood. The adults were glad for this development because it kept the kids out of their hair as they were wrapping presents and visiting with friends. The fight was an all-against-all battle with bottle-rockets as the weapon of choice. Yes, we would throw them at each other or shoot them from pikes for a straighter trajectory, then run like mad to escape incoming fire.

I don’t remember any permanent injuries, though my dad found an exploding firecracker in his shoe, and my younger brother dodged a missile that exploded right next to his bad ear which did not help his already poor hearing.

This battle was always held at night. And when it was time to go in for Christmas Eve dinner, we would gather up the left over bottle-rockets, place them in a container of gasoline, drop in a match, and watch the grand finale of hundreds of rockets lighting up the sky.

If the Christmas Eve party was at my Aunt Helen’s house, the cuisine would be Cajun with rice dressing, boudin sausage, and fried alligator! Yum! And if it was at the Fontana house, it was Evelyn’s lasagna, a luscious blend of pasta, sauce, cheeses, and spices, so famous that even Santa was known to stop by for dinner on his way from the North Pole.

Christmas Eve always ended with Midnight Mass. How my parents got all seven boys in suits and ties, with shoes impeccably shined, to Midnight Mass, on time, I’ll never know. But we were not alone; all the neighbors we battled with during the firecracker war met at midnight to sing, pray, and remember that 2,000 years ago God took on human flesh in the baby Jesus.

St. Paul says that when we die, we take to heaven only “faith, hope, and love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) I think we also take with us our memories. In fact, I think purgatory is the process of burning away the ugly memories of bitterness, hurt, and sin, and the liberating of the wonderful memories of friendship, love, faithfulness, and joy. Sharing wonderful memories with those we love is so much fun and, at the time of someone’s death, very healing.

So during this Advent-Christmas season, create some wonderful memories for you, your family and friends (and do it in a safe way — no tossing firecrackers at one another!) My 30-year-old son Steven shared last year about his fond memories of our family Christmas procession; to this day, it’s his favorite part of Christmas.

You can do it with your children, however old they are. Here’s how it works:

1. You will need: three candles representing the gifts of the Magi; Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus figures; and a “Star” that will lead the way.


2. Meet in a room that is furthest away from the nativity set.


3. Light the candles, and sing your favorite Christmas carol as you journey with the Holy Family to “Bethlehem.” (“O Come, All Ye Faithful,” perhaps)


4. Place the candles near the crèche, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the crèche, and the star above the crèche.


5. Read the Christmas story from Luke 2 or Matthew 2.


6. Exchange gifts and eat a grand breakfast!

How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Change?????

by Robert Fontana

That joke was funnier in the ’50s, when the basic way of doing things in the Church had remained unchanged for 500 years, since the Catholic counter reformation in response to Martin Luther and his Protestant reformers. But, in spite of being enlightened by Vatican II and our good relationship today with the Protestants, change still does not come easily to people, especially in the Church.

Why, just take for example my suggestion that our parish combine the two Sunday morning Masses that are in English into one Mass. My reasoning for this change is that in a church building that can hold 1,000 people, the 100-150 who attend each Mass give an empty feel, especially to teenage children whom parents are trying to persuade to “give Mass your best effort! Sing and speak out the responses with gusto.”

And they reply, “BUT THERE’S NO ONE HERE!”

And I reply, “Of course there is. Look three pews up and to your right and in the pew across the middle aisle: they have four or five; and back there to the rear of the church, oh, that’s where most of the people are.”

So I suggested to parish leaders and elders that week after week such a small crowd at Mass is kind of discouraging. We need more of a “critical mass” to give Mass some energy, to make it more interesting for the children. How about we merge the two morning Masses in English that together have about 250-300 people on peak weekends?

Well, the only thing that I can say is THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE came upon my listeners. Old ladies threatened me with AK-47 assault rifles if I dare mention this idea to the pastor. Choir members chased me down and cornered me next to the St. Ignatius statue and hurled hymnals at me. I felt like St. Stephen being stoned by an angry mob, and I thought I was going to meet my Savior when Lori drove them off with a swinging incensor.

Needless to say, we still have two Masses in English on Sunday mornings.

Yes, change is hard for churchgoing people, and that was true in the first century, the 10th century, and it’s true today.

Consider this: the very first followers of Jesus were Jews who followed all Jewish rules and regulations regarding circumcision, kosher food, observation of the Sabbath, and celebration of Passover. Paul proposed that non-Jews be permitted to be baptized and welcomed into the fellowship without any expectation of them adopting Judaism.

IT CAUSED A CIVIL WAR in the early Church. There were shouting matches, public accusations of betrayal, friendships ruptured, sides taken, stonings, imprisonments, and, yes, people were killed. And all because of a simple suggestion that seems obvious enough to us today: let Gentiles in without being circumcised. (I would have voted for that since the Gentiles being welcomed in were adults! [Read chapters 1-2 in Galatians.])

This conflict was resolved, thank the Lord, but sadly, it took the Roman Jewish War of A.D. 70 and the total destruction of Jerusalem to do it. Jewish Christianity began to disappear; Gentile Christianity became the norm.

Now, changes are coming to English-speaking Catholics in the U.S. That means, agh… TENSION, ANXIETY, and FEAR because I will be asked to give up something with which I am familiar and try something new. In this case, it is actually trying something “old;” as the words and prayers of the liturgy are being changed to conform more closely to the Latin. (Go to www.nccbuscc.org/romanmissal/examples.shtml to see a summary of the changes to the creed and liturgical prayers that will take place.) Let’s not have a civil war over them!

The changes take effect on the first Sunday of Advent. And for those folks for whom change is SO difficult, I will do my best to try to keep them from hurling hymnals and missalettes at the pastor.

But I will also try to persuade the parish elders at St. Joe’s in Yakima to make some other changes that really will make a difference: merge the two Sunday morning Masses so that we have more people singing and praying at the Eucharist. OOPS! Here comes a hymnal!

Empty Nesters – Finally!

by Robert Fontana

Lori and I have not been without children in the home since October 9, 1979, that’s, let me see… 2010-1979, get out the calculator, “Lori, what’s 2010 minus 1979?” “31.” That is 31 years of raising children!

Now, by the standards of the Greatest Generation Ever that may not seem such an achievement (my grandmother had four of her nine children live with her until she died at 76) but according to the norm set by Baby Boomers, and Generation X’rs, what we have done is monumental. When I tell this to my peers, their eyeballs literally fall out, and roll onto the floor. But, I digress; the point is that our child-rearing years are over. I took our youngest child, Colleen, to Seattle University and returned home to a… well… hm… EMPTY NEST!

Yeah! We did it! The children are launched, sort of.

(Colleen called this week for $10 in quarters, her robe, iPod charger, volleyball shoes and knee pads… AND envelopes, CDs, snacks, salami, the two cats, the standing lamp from her room, sleeping bags, the giant bean bag chair, and her Lord of the Rings Eowyn costume from her 8th-grade Halloween party!!)

Now this idea of “Empty Nest” is a scary thing for many couples. I know this because of the experience of my friend Mike. He called me the day his last child left home for college and I could hear the fear in his voice.

Mike: Robert!!

Robert: What? Who is this?

Mike: It’s me, Mike. There’s something wrong… I just got home from work, and there’s a strange woman in my house.

Robert: What? Where’s Cathie? Did you call the police?

Mike: No, I didn’t call the police. She seems to know me, must be one of Cathie’s friends or cousins. Is Cathie there?

Robert: Nope, haven’t seen her, but this is crazy. Just say “Oh, I’m sorry, I know I know you from somewhere, but I just can’t remember your name.”

Mike: I think she might be offended. She kissed me when I got home and is now making dinner. Maybe she’s Cathie’s younger cousin or something.

As the conversation went on, being the swift thinker that I am, I began to put two and two together.

Robert: Mike, go get a family picture, a recent one. (He did and returned to the phone.)

Mike: OH MY GOD! THAT WOMAN IS… IS… IS MY WIFE!! I didn’t recognize her without the kids around. Her voice is so calm, quiet and, wow, she’s beaut… ah gotta go, Rob, thanks for your help.

From this conversation with Mike and similar ones with a few other friends, I know that the “Empty Nest” can be an uncharted, frightening experience for couples. This, however, is not the case for us, at least not for me. Lori, however, seems worried. She keeps reading magazine articles about the warning signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s and looks at me across the room with the most peculiar stare. I don’t know what she’s worried about; her mind is as sharp as a tack. And her memory is impeccable.

No, the Empty Nest will be no problem because, frankly, we are good friends, the best of friends. Oh, we are night-and-day different in our personalities and temperaments, and the older we get, the more pronounced, it seems, those differences become. We cannot take each other for granted for a moment and always must work at communicating clearly. But, we like each other, like being together, and really enjoy accommodating one another in our differences.

There is a beautiful Scripture passage that I think applies to couples who have worked hard on their marriages as well as their families, and are stepping into the “Empty Nest.”

A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure. A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance her worth. A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds. Sirach 6:14-17

Neanderthals and the Gift of Patriarchy (It wasn’t all bad!)

by Robert Fontana

Last month I challenged the Bible’s assertion that women are the weaker sex. Men, without strong relationships with women, are, well, pathetic. Astonishingly, it seems that this was true even going back thousands of years when humans first began to walk upright.

According to Dr. John Miller, in his book Calling God “Father,” Essays on the Bible, Fatherhood and Culture, Early Man was pretty much like your typical college freshman: when he wasn’t foraging for food, he was looking for a woman, any woman, or was sleeping (much like modern lions, cats, and babies). He had very little to do with Early Woman except for, well, sex. Now I’m talking about Early, Early Man and Woman, way before the time of Abraham and Sarah.

Early Man and Early Woman did not understand how biology worked — they apparently thought babies came from women, with no male help. Early Man would come looking for Early Woman whenever his hormones were playing that ’60s rock song “Gotta Get a Woman” and then he would disappear to again hunt or sleep.

Early Man did his thing and Early Woman did hers — which included conceiving, carrying, birthing, nursing, and raising the children in pretty much a total matriarchal society. (Who knows, perhaps it was Early Woman who killed the big Woolly Mammoth and then stepped back to let Early Man have his fill a la modern lions). In fact, ancient religious myths from the Middle East appear to echo this. According to Miller, these early myths contain few positive male images of gods as “father,” but many positive ones of gods as “mother.”

Fontana women take note: anthropologists have determined that before there was patriarchy there was MATRIARCHY!

When did things change? When did men start asserting their physical power to dominate in the family? To put it in a more positive light, when and how did the “father-involved family” happen?

Well, according to Miller, who has studied the writings of anthropologists, it literally came through a scientific breakthrough, when Early Humans began to understand that all those romantic encounters resulted in babies. (My guess is that the women figured it out first.)

Early Woman: “Grog, this little bundle of joy is OURS, yours and mine!”

Early Man: “WHAT?”

Early Woman: “That’s right, you know all those times we met under the woolly mammoth hide, this is the result.”

Early Man: “WHAT?”

Early Woman: “There are going to be some changes around here. I’m tired of doing all the work. You have to take your turn to kill and gut a saber tooth, sweep out the cave, and watch the baby while I visit mother.”

Early Man: “WHAT?”

Thus began the father-involved family. Thankfully for everyone, diapers had not yet been invented. Changing and washing them may have been too much for Grog and other Early Men.

The father-involved family that morphed into patriarchy among the different cultures of Mesopotamia found a unique home among a small insignificant tribal people called Jews. Anthropologists, according to Miller, see something unique in the Jews and their development of patriarchy. First, their God, who is obviously masculine, is not a pathetic wimpy father figure like most of the pagan gods who are fathers. The Jewish God is all-knowing and all-loving, and always acts in their best interest, as warrior, king, and a kindly, loving father.

Reflective of their positive view of God as Father, the Jews had a positive view of fatherhood and demanding expectations of father involvement in the life of the family. By the time of Jesus, fathers had five important functions. (Warning: Dads beware; this is a tough list.)

1. Redemption of the First Born: Jews rejected the pagan practice of child sacrifice (see the Abraham/Isaac story). Rather, the Jewish dad sacrificed a lamb as a sort of purchase or redemption of the life of the child. (This led to a family BBQ to show off the new baby.)
2. Circumcision: Each individual father, according to Gen 17:12 and Lev 12:3, had to “remove the male child’s foreskin” as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham. (I COULD NOT DO THIS. I would throw up, and my hand would be shaking so badly, I know I would have turned to Steven’s godfather and said – “Here you do it.”)
3. Passover/Sabbath: The Jewish father, assisted by his wife, led Sabbath and Passover prayers. Fathers were spiritual leaders of their homes and were expected to teach their children about the covenant and its demands on a person. (“What? Men spiritual leaders of their homes? Isn’t it enough that I drop the wife and kids off at synagogue and wait for them in the car until temple services are over?”)
4. Skill Development: A father passed on his trade to his son, or apprenticed him to a friend in another trade. (There would be no 18-year-olds hanging around home wondering, “What’s for dinner?”)
5. Find a Spouse: Marriage was too important an endeavor to leave it up to the children. The last major job the father had was to find a suitable spouse for the kids. (I think this was way out of the comfort zone for most Jewish fathers. My goodness, I can’t find matching socks in the laundry basket; I can’t imagine having to match my children with spouses.)

The point that I want to make is this: PATRIARCHY WASN’T ALL BAD. The awful abuses that happened to women and children over the centuries under the guise of patriarchy were and are sinful and wrong. But patriarchy as practiced by the Jews gave us an incredible gift: the father-involved family. WE NEED THIS TODAY!

The Father Involved Family: Lessons from Patriarchy

1. Throw a BBQ in honor of your children.


2. Leave circumcision to the experts!


3. Be a spiritual leader of the home.


4. Teach your daughters and sons how to change the oil in the car (they’ll teach you how to use an I-Pod). And, finally…


5. DO NOT LET THEM MARRY A JERK!

Women… the Weaker Sex?

1 Peter 3:7

I know that this may come as a shock to many of you Bible readers out there, but I think the Bible got it wrong when it describes women as “the weaker sex.” Here is the text to which I am referring: “Likewise, you husbands should live with your wives in understanding showing honor to the weaker female sex…” (New American Bible).

Women are not the weaker sex, at least not in terms of inner strength, character, and moral courage — men are. And almost everyone, I believe, intuitively knows this. The key moment of this insight into the human person came when colleges were first organized. Thousands of freshmen boys were placed in high-rise dormitories, two-to-three to a room, and were told to act like mature, respectable adults. And what did they do?

Well, we know what they didn’t do: THEY DIDN’T CLEAN THE TOILETS, CHANGE THE SHEETS, OR WASH THEIR CLOTHES! In fact, one of my brothers was part of this experiment and told me that he liked to get his sheets so coated with body sweat that he could slip’n’slide in and out of bed.

Once my friend Greg and I visited my brother, and oh, the things we experienced that fed our desire to go to college: male students dumping trashcans of water (or maybe worse) onto unsuspecting students one floor below; male students having food fights inside and outside the dorms; male students lying on the floor, 10 abreast, while a male upperclassman cracked an egg into the mouth of a male underclassman lying at one end of the line and directed him past it on, yoke unbroken, to the person next to him and so forth. Oh we couldn’t wait to get to college.

Colleges have now learned how to civilize freshman boys; they house them in the same dorm as freshman girls. REALLY, IT WORKS! Lori and I were NOT believers in this creative housing arrangement when we first brought our son to Seattle University.

“How dare a Catholic university place hormone-ridden youth so close to a near occasion of sin.”

We soon learned we might be wrong and could see some wisdom in this arrangement. Young women have gifts that help young men learn some manners and… become human beings. But wait a minute; I should have known this from my own experience.

When I enrolled at LSU I joined a household of students, young women and men, who wanted to be a Catholic community for one another during our time in college. This was the first time in 19 years of existence that I had ever lived with girls, other than my mother, being that I was raised with six brothers.

I learned some hard lessons about what authentic civilized behavior looks like and the first lesson came right after I had taken a shower and used the closest towel that I could reach to dry myself off. Trish followed in the shower after me. I heard a screech! Everyone in the house froze and turned their attention to the bathroom wondering if we should call 911. Then the bathroom door burst open and dragon lady stepped out in her robe and demanded to know: “WHO USED MY TOWEL?”

I was confused by the tone of her voice, as if I had eaten all of the chocolate out of her Easter basket, and raised my hand. I had never seen anyone faint before from the simple knowledge that another person had used her towel. I had shared towels after a high school football practice with multiple users for days on in. Guys didn’t seem to mind, but this young woman did. And not only her but, the other women in the house rallied around her when she came to and sat the men down for “An Evening at Living with Women.”

We learned about some very important behaviors, to our surprise, that these women found repulsive and must be stopped at once: licking one’s plate after dinner, walking around with out a shirt, negative humor (no more Three Stooges), and wearing physical ed. shorts without underwear.

All-in-all, I would say that these women made a better man out of me — which brings me to the point of the article: that it is men, not women, who are the weaker sex.

Interestingly, the Bible does say in Genesis 18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” No truer words have been spoken.

Most men, without a wife, are pathetic creatures (notice that I said, “most,” and not “all”). Studies today show that single men, either divorced or those who have never married, drink more, do more risky behavior, suffer greater emotional stress, and die at a younger age than their married counterparts. (See The Case for Marriage by Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite.) The same statistics do not hold true for single women.

It is women who have the stronger constitution, and it was women whom God made the child bearers. Can you picture if the reverse were true, if men could conceive and birth children; what would happen? WE MEN WOULD RUN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION AND AVOID PREGNANCY AT ALL COSTS! No children would be born and the human race would have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

To back this up with a real life example, let’s look at the Irish. During the great famine of 1845-1849, so many of the Irish men were so traumatized by their failure to provide for their families that they fled the home either through “the drink” or disappearing altogether. It was the women that held the family together. Today there are entire communities in which men cannot take the “heat” of fatherhood and marriage commitment. They run as far away as they can from both.

True, some men live fruitful and joy-filled lives as singles. Others find strength in religious community. However, for most men, it is a commitment to a woman in marriage that brings out the best in us. There is no truer example of this than the American civil war hero and US President Ulysses S. Grant who was married to Julia Dent.

His biographer, Jean Edward Smith writes, “Grant was at his best when Julia was near.” (He could write the same about me: “Robert was at his best when Lori was near.”)

Julia gave Ulysses a “relationship foundation” that allowed him to focus his gifts and energies on the job at hand. Without her, he was a mess and leaned on the bottle for support. With her, he led the Federal Army to defeat the Confederacy and then was elected president twice.

Women, the “weaker sex?” Think again!