By Matt Abbott
Op/Ed
Catholic Online

"Catholic Men’s Quarterly" is a relatively new “one-of-a-kind general interest men’s magazine written by Catholic men for Catholic men.” (And, no, it isn’t anti-woman, so Catholic women needn’t worry.)

“We are celebrating our second completed year and have just expanded from 32 to 48 pages,” says John Moorehouse, editor and publisher of CMQ, which has “subscribers in all 50 states and a few foreign countries.”

Says Moorehouse:

“CMQ is not a devotional or a ‘How to be a Christian man in today's world’ type magazine, although there is some of that. Rather, it features a wide variety of content including humor, sports, travel, military history, apologetics, reviews, profiles, and so on.

“We have been blessed to have a mix of unknowns like myself and ‘well-knowns’ such as Mitch Kalpagkian, Dale Ahlquist, Father McCloskey and others. Hopefully, it will play a small role in bringing men back to a more orthodox practice of the Faith.”

Moorehouse provided me with the following commentary from a past issue of CMQ (not available on the publication’s Web site):

"PROFILES IN COURAGE AND, UHH, WELL…"

"Catholic Politicians: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

"Catholics, it seems, have always had a somewhat difficult relation to the American body politic. Whether it was dealing with the explicit anti-Catholicism of nativist parties like the Know-Nothings or the more subtle dodge that has enabled opportunistic 'Catholics' to defend their pro-choice voting records by invoking the 'personally opposed but…' line, Catholics have often had difficult roads to hoe in the good, old U.S. of A.

"I was not yet born, but I have heard of JFK’s trip to Houston where he assured an assembly of Protestant pastors that he would not let his faith influence his policies were he elected. Presumably, Presbyterians were under no such stricture. That incident tells us as much about JFK’s understanding of and commitment to his faith as it does about the ignorance of the assembled pastors regarding the Church of Rome. What could have been a grand teaching opportunity to bridge the gap (in a positive way) between Protestant and Catholic in this country, instead has provided coverage for two generations of 'Catholic' politicians who cast votes that no well-instructed Catholic should cast in good conscience. It has contributed to the Protestantization of the Catholic politician.

"At least I can find something to admire in the Protestant pastors; they were endeavoring to protect what they and their forefathers had built against a perceived threat. They had the courage of their convictions, misled though they were. Reluctant to judge our nation’s only Catholic president, at least if I hope to be invited home ever again, one wonders if Kennedy lacked the conviction or the courage when it came to his much-ballyhooed religion. One may hope that he only lacked the knowledge.

"Thoughts such as these crossed my mind while watching the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention back in November. Of course, the main topic up for debate was gay marriage. Specifically at issue was the question of whether an amendment defending marriage would be presented to the people for a vote in order to overrule the actions of the State Supreme Court, which by one vote declared that gay marriage would be legal in the Bay State.

"The proceedings were fairly tedious, remarkable primarily for the predictability of each orator’s speech. Generally, minorities would go up and say that they had once felt the sting of prejudice and discriminatory laws and that those things were wrong, and that therefore gays should be allowed to marry. The women, again for the most part, got up there and said that they had once felt the sting of prejudice and discriminatory laws and that those things were wrong, and that therefore gays should be allowed to marry. Fairly unremarkable stuff; not the stuff of future debate society model speeches to say the least.

"(I can see it now. Decades hence, a pimply-faced sophomore will adjust his glasses, look feelingly around at his assembled peers and begin, 'Have you ever been judged? I have…' I think the place of 'Give me liberty or give me death' in the textbooks is fairly secure.)

"Even the con side of the debate left me flat. Nobody, I felt, effectively made the case against gay marriage based solely on rational arguments. Nobody, again as far as what I saw televised, made the distinction between just and unjust discrimination as the Catechism does. (Music lovers have 'discriminating ears,' but nobody is charging them with hate crimes. 'Just' discrimination is nothing more than making a distinction. The state certainly has a compelling interest in distinguishing between married heterosexual ...