Category Archives: Youth

Keven O’Brien on Chivalry

Aside

Stand up for yourselves.  Don’t settle for loser boyfriends who can’t bring themselves to pop the question because they’re either too busy “discerning” or they’re secretly gay or hooked on porn.  Don’t settle for girlfriends who manipulate or tease you or who can’t be trusted or who won’t be there when you need them.  Don’t settle for turning your vocation into an avocation, for jobs that simply fill space and make your life comfortable but that don’t give you the chance to do what God has made you to do.  Don’t settle for an education that doesn’t force you to grapple with the deepest elements of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.  Don’t settle for a Mass that’s contrived, filled with bad music and insipid preaching.  Don’t settle for a parish that’s more anti-Christian than Christian.  Don’t settle for the safety of living in Mom’s basement. And don’t let anyone mess with your shows. When you find what you love, defend it, fight for it, die for it – and (most challenging of all) live for it. *** The greatest writer of the 20th Century, my patron in heaven, put it much better than I ever could (my emphasis) …

In every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and fighting. In every romance there must be the three characters: there must be the Princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the Dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be St. George, who is a thing that both loves and fights. There have been many symptoms of cynicism and decay in our modern civilization. But of all the signs of modern feebleness, of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be, there has been none quite so silly or so dangerous as this: that the philosophers of today have started to divide loving from fighting and to put them into opposite camps. [But] the two things imply each other; they implied each other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two permanent things of humanity. You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. It may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust… but it is lust, because it is wholly self-indulgent and invites no attack. On the other hand, fighting for a thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal. Wherever human nature is human and unspoilt by any special sophistry,there exists this natural kinship between war and wooing, and that natural kinship is called romance. It comes upon a man especially in the great hour of youth; and every man who has ever been young at all has felt, if only for a moment, this ultimate and poetic paradox. He knows that loving the world is the same thing as fighting the world. – G. K. Chesterton

The Dishonored Patrimony of the Boy Scouts

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Nobility is a patrimony of excellence handed on from one generation to the next.  Fathers consider it their responsibility provide their sons with a better and more honorable life than they themselves have had.  In turn, sons consider it their responsibility to treasure what they have received, to respect it and preserve it, and again, to augment it for the next generation.  This is the ideal.  The tradition of chivalry is one of the means by which it is strived for.

One can rightly say that the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have had the same noble responsibility, and tragically have failed to preserve and hand on the excellent patrimony of scouting in America to the next generation.  Instead, through their capitulation to the homosexual agenda, they have created a profound contradiction between the broadbased ideals of scouting and the natural law.  Worse, they make it impossible for Catholics to clarify and lift-up the scouting ideal in the light of the full revelation of Christ. Continue reading →

The Regime Has Spoken: Gays in the Boy Scouts

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“My attitude is … that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does, in every institution and walk of life,” he said.

“The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to, you know, opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives, and I think that nobody should be barred (from) that.”

Uh, nobody is barred from it, unless they insist that the Boys Scouts condone something contrary to their purpose and oath.

Consider, for example, the widespread problem of pornography.  One could speculate that there are a number of Scout Masters and Boy Scouts who have a problem with it.  But no one would ever be barred from the Boy Scouts for that problem, unless they made their problem the Boy Scout’s problem.  The policy of the Boy Scouts expresses a moral objection to the public legitimization of homosexual behavior.

This is not a political issue about which Dear Leader has anything more to say than I do.

Encampment Version 2.0 in Development

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The Fall Father and Son Encampment has been cancelled for a number of reasons, not least of which is my current status of living mostly in New Bedford until November when a new Guardian will arrive to take over the run of the house there.  It may be a good time to take a break anyway, as we have been tossing ideas around about how to make the Encampments better and the preparations more manageable.

Right now we are talking about taking the weekend “off campus,” so to speak to a campground and conducting perhaps one larger event every year, instead of three smaller ones.  (We will continue to use the obstacle course at the friary for other events.)  I would also like to open the Encampment to boys who have no fathers (or fathers who are involved with them at this level), since fatherlessness is a big problem and one that has long concerned me.

Please pray for the Knights of Lepanto who have worked so hard to make these encampments a success.  We have had a great deal of positive feedback and are very much encouraged.  We hope to have something really great, innovative and powerful in the Queen of Lepanto to present for next year.  I will keep you all abreast of the developments from this forum.

Thank you for all your support and please spread the word about next years open encampment.

Marian Militancy

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And now for something completely different.  Here is my conference to the Fathers and Sons for the Summer Encampment.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Spring Encampment 2010

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Happy Feast of St. Pius V, Pope of Lepanto!

I am in the process of creating a new website for The Knights of Lepanto Encampments.  That should be up in a few days.  Meanwhile, I will just announce the dates again for this years events and provide pertinent information.

  • Spring Encampment: May 28-30
  • Summer Encampment: July 30- August 1
  • Fall Encampment: October 8-10

The Spring Encampment will feature a talk by MSG Michael M. Cutone on the Leadership of Jesus.  Here is an Airmaria interview with Michael.

And here are some PDF documents pertinent to the Spring Encampment that will be helpful:

Please print the Advertising Flyer and post wherever you can.  Thanks.

The main event of the physical activities will be a massive Capture the Flag Game! Hope to see you for the chivalrous fun.

I am creating a “Testimonies” page on the website and would be grateful for all contributions from the men–and boys–who have attended. In terms of the men, I am especially interested in those who are not among the organizers. Please send your contributions of three or four sentences to mv@figuadalupe.com or leave your response in the comment section.

I would also be grateful for suggestions for the “Frequently Asked Questions” page. Please let me know what should be included there, especially if you had a confusing time and would have liked to have something answered before you arrived. Send your responses by leaving a comment.  Thanks again.

Just Say No

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Breakthrough Study:  Learning to Say “No” to yourself is a key to success.

I guess child psychology has come around full swing.  On second though, perhaps, not quite.  We have not gotten around to identifying certain choices as “bad” yet.  What is the word?  O yes, “inappropriate.”

Catholics used to call this “mortification,” which is a sound psychological habit elevated by grace and supernatural motivation.  But we guilty Catholics, what do we know?

The new apologists would tell us that God is like a marshmallow.