A Story for Catholic Gentlemen (and Ladies Too)

Restoring the moral fabric of society requires not just an awareness of sin, but also a sense of virtue.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan is escorted during the departure ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base for former President Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004.
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan is escorted during the departure ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base for former President Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004. (photo: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Ryan Clayton Creel)

As the Harvey Weinstein story continues to ripple outwards, the articles about the souring of our culture, particularly the souring of male-female relations, have flooded my newsfeed.  (If you haven’t been following the story, don’t bother: All you need to know is that a man in Hollywood took advantage of a number of aspiring actresses in the most abhorrent way.)

One effect of this scandal has been the appearance of #metoo across social media.  A number of my friends and acquaintances (mostly women, but some men as well) have put up the hashtag, many admitting publicly for the first time that they have dealt with some form of harassment or worse.

As I scrolled Facebook the day the hashtag peaked, I wondered whether it applied to me.  Two cases quickly came to mind, later a third … a fourth … a fifth … But all of them were so minor: guys, or even boys saying rude things that I didn’t for a moment take seriously.  And it seemed to me that it would be presumptuous, unhelpful, and ultimately untrue to type #metoo for a merely sassy remark when so many people have suffered truly serious injuries.

Of course, some would insist that these days even snark and sass need to be called out.  And it is true that language can be abusive, a sort of gateway drug to violence in a culture desperate for healing.  But then again, “pretty and smart” hardly rises to the level of abuse, any more than (in Shakespeare’s in Much Ado About Nothing) Benedick’s sneering at “My Lady Disdain” is cause for Beatrice to demand a duel.  There is a difference between harmless dumb jokes or rapier-like wit—and harassment.

That said, I think it’s good for people who must navigate modern American society, men and women both, to be aware of how prevalent some of its worst sins are.  And that being said, I think it is good too for everyone to recall positive examples of gentlemanly (and ladylike) behavior.  The human imagination stocked only with recollections of sin runs the risk of becoming at best, depressed; at worst, depraved.  Goodness not depicted begins to seem impossible, chimerical.  This is the real danger of a steady and unrelieved diet of dystopian fiction, Southern literature, or daily news.  And this is one reason behind the Catholic injunctions in favor of daily spiritual reading: because without concrete stories, words, and images to lift up the spiritual imagination, it becomes hard to believe and all but impossible to live as we should wish too.

Perhaps this is why some have reacted angrily to the #metoo campaign.  There are political reasons to dislike it, and there are selfish reasons to take offense at it.  But there is also the fact that, for many young people especially, the only stories we hear about men and women are stories in which the man is a villain, a cad, or Snidely Whiplash.  We need to hear such stories, for the same basic reason that we need sermons on Hell: because we need to understand the gravity of sin.  But, just as the wisdom of the Church tells us to meditate longer on the joys of Heaven than on God’s just punishments, so too, in considering daily life, we need to hear not only stories of nuts, jerks, and rakes, but also stories of Catholic ladies and gentlemen.

That is why it’s the following story, rather than any of my less pleasant experiences, that I want to tell.

About five years ago, during a stint working in the big city, I was given free tickets to one of those fine fundraisers where ladies wear evening dress and men might go so far as a tux if they care to rent one.  Not being one to turn down a free steak and a chance to put on the palace best, I went.  After dinner, at a relatively early hour, my escort and I exited the lighted hotel into the street, only to discover that it was drizzling.  Neither of us had an umbrella; but as the metro was only a couple blocks away, we decided to hoof it rather than take a taxi.  He needed a different line to get home, and the entrance for my line was a block beyond his; so I told him to go ahead—I would be fine walking the last block on by myself.

I was fine.  But about halfway up that last block, the clouds broke.  Drizzle turned instantaneously into a downpour to make the likes of Noah reach for his mackintosh.  I broke into a run despite my heels, but—wouldn’t you know it—the walk sign turned red a few seconds before I arrived at the crossing.  On the other side of the street, the metro entrance—broad! warm! dry!—yawned lazily out at me.  I would have jaywalked if the traffic had been lighter; but the street was crammed with moving cars.  I resigned myself to two minutes of standing on the corner in the rain (and another fifteen minutes of standing up in the metro car on the way home, because nothing is more uncomfortable than sitting down in sopping wet clothes).

As I stood in this predicament, another person came running up.  According to the rules of the big city, you don’t make eye contact with strangers; but peripheral vision indicated that it was a young man in a suit with an umbrella.  He too had apparently dashed for the metro, and not made it.  Like me, he glanced at the walk sign, at the rushing cars, and resigned himself.  Then he glanced sidelong at me.  I glanced back, but he was looking straight ahead again, like a beefeater on parade.  Then, without looking at me again or saying a word, his arm shot out with the umbrella, and I was standing under a little circle of comfort.

“Thank you,” I said.  He didn’t reply.  In the next minute and a half he got very wet.  As soon as our walk sign turned on he dashed across the street and down the escalator—embarrassed? or simply in a hurry to catch his car?  I have no idea.  But it was and is easily one of the nicest interactions I ever had with a stranger.

I am morally certain that for every Harvey Weinstein there are hundreds, probably thousands of men like that.  The Weinsteins make a tremendous splash in the news—and rightly so—because of the extremity of their moral turpitude.  It’s no news when someone is merely nice.  But perhaps it should be, if not news, legend.  Perhaps, while plenty of grown men could benefit from realizing the silent suffering of women, it is for that very reason all the more helpful to return to the strange old custom of telling young boys fairy tales, and the occasional true story too, in which they learn how princes, stable boys, and men with umbrellas can be good people.