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This is an outline of the talk on Holy Chivalry I gave at the 2008 Illinois Catholic Homeschool Conference. It can be modified for various audiences.
On this site I discuss some of the principle characteristics and qualities, or “bones”, of chivalry and then flesh those out with examples from my wife’s books and our faith. I also discuss the armor, weapons, and life of the Holy Knight. This discussion is from a Catholic perspective, but much of it applies to anyone seeking to live a virtuous life - particularly to any man desiring to be A MANLY MAN. This website is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully enough to inspire you to learn more about chivalry and to live it out in a world desperately in need of holy chivalrous knights.
First, though, we must answer the question “Why?” Why chivalry? Why courtly manners? Why are we men to hold doors open for women? [Are they incapable of opening doors themselves?] Why are we men supposed to protect women? [What protecting do they need now-a-days? No dragons around anymore, are there?]
Let me quote to you from the 2008 Mother’s Day email from The Vision Forum: “To be a man, you must care about women. And you must care about them in the right way. You must care about them as creatures worthy of protection, honor, and love. This means genuinely appreciating them for their uniqueness as women. It means recognizing the preciousness of femininity over glamour, of homemaking over careerism, and of mature motherhood over perpetual youth. But when women are reduced to soldiers, sexual objects, and social competitors, it is not merely the women who lose the identity given to them by the Creator, but the men as well. This is why the attack on motherhood has produced a nation of eunuchs---socially and spiritually impotent men who have little capacity to lead, let alone love women as God intended man to love woman—as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.”
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