Our Sunday Visitor

Promised man

Across the nation, men are answering Promise Keepers_ call for spiritual and moral renewal. How should Catholics respond?

By Christopher Martinez

It was what he experienced along with 22,000 other men in a Boulder, Colo., sports stadium that convinced Steve Jenkins not to leave his family, and to reclaim and live up to his responsibilities as a man.

"I did not have a good role model in my father, and I abdicated my responsibility as a man," he said recently, recalling the days before he met up with Promise Keepers, a rapidly growing organization founded by evangelical Christians and committed to setting men's priorities straight.

Now, Jenkins is a field agent for Promise Keepers, covering the north-central region of the country. He is one of the few Catholics employed by the national organization, but he is determined to get other Catholic men interested in the Promise Keepers message.

"It was an incredible experience, really powerful," he said of his initiation. The typical Promise Keepers event is held in a sports arena in an atmosphere that is part religious-revival meeting and part sporting event. Taking part in sports "waves" while shouting the name of Jesus, the men receive inspirational talks from preachers and athletes, among others.

What the men are supposed to take home is a commitment to keeping seven "promises" -- ranging from keeping the Ten Commandments to putting their families first and living according to strict spiritual, moral and ethical values based on the Bible.

And the group has grown phenomenally since its founding in 1990 by Bill McCartney, former University of Colorado football coach and a former Catholic, who envisioned men gathering to share their spiritual challenges and to commit to being better Christian fathers and husbands.

Promise Keepers has a staff of 250, a $64 million budget and 28 state and local branches, including some in Canada. This year alone, an estimated 720,000 men attended Promise Keepers events in stadiums in 13 cities, according to Laura Swickard, a spokeswoman for the organization.

Plans for next year are even more ambitious -- some two dozen stadium events around the country and a gathering of an expected 75,000

clergymen to be held in Atlanta in February. In 1997, Promise Keepers hopes to organize a million man gathering in the nation's capital.

"It's the right message at the right time -- God is really working," said Gary Oliver, a Baptist who serves on the Promise Keepers board and is a leading motivational speaker at the gatherings.

The message, said Oliver, is that of making men better Christians and better husbands, as well as more involved in their churches and communities. The goal of it all is to focus men on Christ, and unite them together so they can be a godly influence on their homes

and their country.

But Promise Keepers is not without its critics. National women's groups have called it sexist and a knee-jerk reaction to women's gains in society. Along religious lines, there has been criticism about the group's literal reading of the Bible and its insistence that men are to see themselves as the "head" of the household. There are even charges that the group is hostile to Catholics. With tens of thousands packing stadiums across the country, however, Promise Keepers has definitely struck a chord among American men, including many Catholics. Although the group does not keep track, some estimates are that at least 10 to 15 percent of the men attending the Promise Keepers events are Catholics.

Citing the widespread absence of men in homes and churches, Jenkins says Promise Keepers is responding to a growing recognition among men that they have let down their families and their Creator. "I think as men we have broken our promises to Church and family," he said.

"There's a monumental problem concerning fatherless children," agreed Bishop John McCarthy of Austin, Texas.

Bishop McCarthy said that four of every six children in his state do not live under the same roof with their father, and nationally the situation is not much better.

About 24 percent -- or almost one in four -- of children lived only with their mother in 1993, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentages are greater for blacks (58 percent) and Hispanics (29 percent).

Plus there are men who stay with their family, but are not really fulfilling their obligations, said the bishop. "We're clear in our

minds that the father who does not give money to his children is a deadbeat," he said.What is not so clear, however, is the negligence of a man who is gone all the time because his "main social interest is outside the home," such as breadwinning, sports or other hobbies, the bishop said.

Bishop Sam Jacobs of Alexandria, La., believes there has been "a trend that many fathers have put an emphasis on many things," such as jobs and striving to get ahead, at the expense of their families.

Bishop Jacobs complained that men's "gift of themselves has not been there" for families and that men have lost sight of their real roles. "Their primary role is to come under the lordship of Jesus Christ," and to be providers of moral and spiritual, as well as material, things, he said.

Promise Keepers' response to these issues has forced Catholic leaders to take notice.

The U.S. Catholic bishops have a committee studying the organization and the new national attention on the roles and responsibilities of men in family life.Bishop Joseph L. Charron, C.PP.S., chairman of the bishops' family life committee, said at the bishops' national meeting in November that not a few Church leaders have asked whether Catholic involvement in the organization is appropriate.

The Church has much to offer the growing national discussion on the spiritual needs of men, the bishop added, saying that his committee would be producing a report on the subject next year.

At the grassroots level, however, Catholics are already engaged in a vigorous debate over the movement. Many are excited and enthused and say that Promise Keepers has filled a big vacuum in the Church's ministry to family and society.

"The main focus is to get you to decide that you can live a Christian life," said Bert Ghezzi, an authority on Catholic family life who attended a Promise Keepers meeting in August. "You really bring a man who's not much of a Christian and he's inspired. I think they're trying to meet men in different areas of their lives.

"Some feel that the Church should steer clear of an organization with evangelical and, some would say, anti-Catholic roots. Some point to the fact that founder Bill McCartney has left the Church and that his new church in Colorado has been associated with anti-Catholic rhetoric in the past.

Even supporters of Promise Keepers admit that the organization has not been completely welcoming to Catholics. Bishop McCarthy, for instance, has called the group "a little fundamentalistic" and "inordinately traditional.

"In their defense, Promise Keepers' Gary Oliver said no harm has been intended. "Since day one, we've really encouraged Catholic participation, not because they are Catholics but because anyone who loves the Lord is welcome," he said. "There has not been an overt courting [of Catholics], but there has not been an overt courting of any group."

But there is more to it than that, though, according to Steve Wood, a former evangelical-turned Catholic who began a Catholic version of Promise Keepers this year, St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers.

He criticized Promise Keepers for excluding Catholics from speaking at its events, hinting that Catholics are shunned because of the

hostility that many evangelicals evince for Catholicism.

Wood said he himself has heard anti-Catholic messages from Promise Keepers members and has heard of "men leaving the Church" after attending an event.

The issue is apparently a sore spot with Promise Keepers, which is committed, at least on paper, to bridging gaps between various Christian churches. And the organization is reportedly moving on a number of local chapters and on the national level to shore up its weak links with Catholics.

It is Promise Keepers' men-only philosophy that has drawn fire from women's and marriage groups. What particularly rankles some is its Bible-based assertion that the man is the moral head of the family.But Bishop Jacobs agreed with Promise Keepers' stand. A father should be "a man of prayer, a man of faith," one who "the family sees a model of the Father" in him, the bishop explained.

"What we really teach is 'servant leadership,' " said Jenkins, pointing to the example of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. "We need to be servant leaders. Men are taught to honor their wives, not lord over them."

Oliver brushes aside criticism, saying that what is important is that the man make what he calls "an Ephesians 5 commitment," referring to the fifth chapter of St. Paul's letter, which begins, "Therefore be imitators of God as His dear children."

Despite the controversy, Promise Keepers has stirred the beginnings of a Catholic-oriented men's movement, highlighting traditional Catholic devotion to St. Joseph, the patron saint of fathers, and devotion to the Eucharist.

In addition to Steve Wood's group, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, this summer, hosted a "Christian Men's Conference."

And Catholics say their tradition has much to offer the men's movement. Wood admires the way Promise Keepers has pointed men to God the Father. But he fears that the Ephesians 5 goal of imitating God as a role model for fathering is intimidating for many.

That is why he believes there is much of value to be learned by studying St. Joseph and what the saints and popes of the Church have written about him over the centuries.

The advantage of Catholicism, he explained, is that "we have saints. We don't have to invent what a good father is; we have one."

For Promise Keepers' Oliver, the message is most important, far more than whether the medium to carry the message is Protestant or Catholic: "We don't want to draw men to Promise Keepers, we want Promise Keepers to draw men to Christ."

Martinez writes from Pensacola, Fla. For more information, write Promise Keepers, P.O. Box 18376, Boulder, CO 80308. Get 26 weeks of Our Sunday Visitor for only $14.97. Call 1-800-348-2440.

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