A Crisis of Virtue

This horrific event in Charlotte, where a young Iryna Zarutska was brutally stabbed on a train while most of the men nearby fled rather than come to her aid, has been weighing on me and, I think, all of us for good reason.

We should not avoid this, for it forces us to confront where we are and what we should be as a nation, a community and a people. It is a mirror exposing the rot of our modern culture.

For years, America has mocked, suppressed, and demonized traditional masculinity. We are told that courage, strength, and the willingness to protect at personal cost are “toxic.” Meanwhile, the traits that once formed men into guardians have been traded for weakness, effeminacy, and self-absorption.

Our society has also redefined “virtue” into something shallow... social media posturing, slogans, and grandstanding. Too often, virtue today is about appearing good rather than being good. It is about outsourcing sacrifice to others rather than bearing it yourself.

But true virtue is not self-made, nor is it cultivated in the court of public opinion. It is forged in the hidden life, in union with God, through daily discipline, mortification, and the grace of the sacraments. It grows only when we deny ourselves and train our souls to face fear, temptation, and hardship.

This is why, when the moment of testing came, when a defenseless woman needed protection, assistance and justice, most of the men fled. A culture apart from God, that suppresses manly virtue, cannot produce protectors. It produces cowards.

The Catholic tradition has always known: courage is not improvised in the moment. It is trained, it is built through prayer, it is given by God’s grace. Without Him, men collapse into self-preservation. With Him, they are capable of heroic sacrifice.

If we want a culture where men stand instead of run, where protectors rise instead of flee, then we must return to the source: God Himself, the giver of courage, sacrificial love, justice and all true virtue.