He, too, was a blessed virgin

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 20, 1995 by Patricia Schudy

Sometime after I was old enough to understand what the word virgin meant, I began to wonder about the role of St. Joseph.

It probably began when the nuns in the Catholic coed high school I attended told us that it was up to the female to hold the line (that is, good Catholic girls didn't do "it"), and that sexual Miss-conduct could lead to everything from pregnancy to the eternal damnation of our date's soul if he should happen to die in a car accident on the way home.

As we tolerated pre-prom dress inspections that ensured we didn't bare more of our bodies than vulnerable male hormones could withstand and were given the Virgin Mary as our perpetual model of behavior, I began to wonder: Who did our dates have to imitate? As far as we knew, Jesus never dated.

Later, as a student at a Catholic women's college taking courses on the Bible, adolescent psychology and marriage in the family, I wondered even more why Catholic males had been so abandoned when it came to supernatural help. There were patron saints of soldiers, gardeners and river-crossers, but there was apparently no one special for ripening or overripe males.

I thought of St. Joseph and the struggles he must have experienced in a celibate relationship with Mary. He was someone who knew how tough it was to love up close but not too personal. And I wondered why we never heard: "For males being tempted, pray for us, O Virgin St. Joseph."

Those random thoughts stayed with me over the years, surfacing occasionally as I heard increasing concern that the most significant decisions made for and about Holy Mother Church are made by a Holy Father, and that the needs and views of women are often discounted if not totally ignored.

I came to realize that along with the absence of a male sexual model over the years, there's been pretty generally a void in emphasis placed on commitment to responsible husbandhood and fatherhood. In focusing on the Virgin Mary without St. Joseph, the church not only was implicitly placing responsibility for sexual conduct and consequences on females, it was overlooking half an essential human equation.

Then in Beijing, China, at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women - before consenting to a statement that included women's right to make sexual decisions free of violence or coercion - the Vatican's representative expressed concern about possible weakening of the traditional roles of women as wives and mothers. I shook my head in disbelief at the inference of such wariness regarding the value of a woman's personal integrity. Do representatives of the Vatican express parallel concern about the roles of men as husbands and fathers?

Sociologists and psychologists increasingly cite the absence of men committed to their families as a major factor in some of the most significant social problems of our times: teenage pregnancy, abortion, single-parent households, domestic violence, children living in poverty and adolescent criminal gang memberships.

But while the deplorable nature of abortion is regularly harangued from the Catholic pulpit, there has been a scarcity of sermons on issues of male responsibility: the need to be present, involved and supportive whenever a pregnancy occurs; the deplorable nature and moral gravity of domestic violence; and the moral imperative to provide adequate, regular financial support for dependent children.

From the Christian Promise Keepers movement to the Million Man March promoted by the Nation of Islam, churches of many denominations are taking leadership roles in confronting the need for sexually and socially responsible males.

We need to hear that the leadership of the Catholic church believes male responsibility is not something to be avoided or given lip service, that moral standards are not gender-dependent.

Instead of sending mixed signals, when the Catholic church holds up Mary as a virgin, let it emphasize Joseph's virginity, also. When we honor Mary as the Mother of Jesus, let us equally esteem Joseph as the provider and protector of his family and earthly mentor of his foster son.

Our society needs to receive a strong dose of "dadmiration"; to have strong, committed, faithful husbands and fathers praised, emulated and put on pedestals; to give teenage males as well as females moral role models; to acknowledge that husbands and fathers need encouragement and inspiration as much as wives and mothers do.

For all this, pray for us, St. Joseph - whether in your virginal, spousal or paternal state.