Trent and Fr. Parks continue their discussion about the essence of masculinity and how we all can help men become the protectors of faith and family God wants them to be.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn: And welcome back everyone. I’m still in Oklahoma, tearing it up here in the plains, defending the Gospel, the domestic Church, the family; and excited to be here with my family and extended family. I hope you’re excited for part two of my interview with Father John Parks. If you listened yesterday, you’ll know Father Parks is a good friend. I knew him before he was a priest. In fact, he was my sponsor when I came into the Church. If you’ve ever seen him speak at a [inaudible 00:00:33] Conference, you know he is hilarious. He’s also an amazing dancer, and of course a very bright individual filled with the Holy Spirit who gives great advice and is wonderful at motivating people.
Trent Horn: So I think you’ll enjoy part two, the conclusion of our discussion about authentic manhood. And if you like this, and you like other podcasts and episodes and great things we’re offering, do consider becoming a supporter at TrentHornPodcast.com.
Trent Horn: And now, the conclusion of my interview with Father John Parks. Well let’s look from a practical perspective, because I think a lot of young men, when the issue of chastity comes up, it comes up frequently in the issue of dating. I think a lot of young men, when we look at different vocations, what you’re called to, most men will feel a call to the vocation of marriage. And usually our culture is taught that if you want to marry someone, dating is that path; or at the very least, they have this desire. Maybe not for marriage, but for a romantic relationship with a woman, with a girl their own age, so they want to engage in dating.
Trent Horn: So here’s my question for you then, on that: If you could go back in time and give advice to high-school John, or junior-high John, what would you tell him about dating and relationships?
John Parks: The first thing I would say is that what you’re looking for, ultimately, cannot be found in that relationship. The first girl I dated, I was a sophomore in high school. And if I had to be totally honest as to why I dated her, I think I was insecure about the fact that I had never had a girlfriend. And there were some guys around me who were dating. And so I said, “I’ve got to date this girl. I’ve got to go find a girlfriend.” So I went and found one. And so I can’t really say that was-
Trent Horn: It’s kind of hard. It just sounds like, “Oh, everybody has a iPhone. I’ve got to pick one up too.”
John Parks: Exactly. Thanks be to God that she didn’t know that, because what a terrible thing to say, like, “Hey, I need a girlfriend. Would you be willing to fill this void in my life?” And we “dated” for two months and then afterwards we broke up, for not really a great reason, and it added some drama to my life. And the reason why there wasn’t a great reason why we broke up is because there wasn’t really a great reason as to why we even got together in the first place.
Trent Horn: Right.
John Parks: As I said earlier there is a crisis of masculinity and there is an insecure about what it means to be a man. When you are a ghkfj man, sometimes you think it means having a girlfriend.
Trent Horn: Mmm-hmmm
John Parks: Like the hookup culture you know, oh he’s the big man cause he hooks up with these girls. But really we should see that man as being insecure because he’s trying to find his masculinity in something other than Christ. So that’s why I would tell myself with the thing that you’re ultimately looking for, which is that validation as a man who can tell me I’m a man? Well the person as a man I should give my heart to is the man who created my heart. I should give my heart to Christ and He’s the one who can transform my heart. So I’d be much more interested in what’s my prayer life look like.What’s my Sacramento life look like? How good are relationships and friendships with men and women doing, do I respect and love both men and women in my life? So I think those are much better indicators of if I’m actually living out this authentic call of masculinity.
Trent Horn: So do you think that the dating oftentimes in high school or especially even junior high is usually just not a great idea that it can often lead to problems? I mean, if you think about it, do you think that the problem here is that people confuse what the ultimate purpose of dating and romantic relationships are for. And if you don’t understand that purpose, what are the problems you’re going to have, especially if you’re dating in high school or junior high?
John Parks: Yeah, dating is ultimately about finding someone to marry, right? I mean, to be intentional about dating. You know I’m a high school chaplain and in my experience, number one, the happiest young men and women in high school are the ones that don’t date. A lot of the reasons why that’s true is because they’re busy. If you are a student and you’re a good student and you also play sports in your clubs. You’re really busy, you don’t have a whole lot of time to be dating people outside of that. You are building yourself up, you’re growing in relationship and friendship with all these other people so you don’t really have a lot of time to be dating.
Trent Horn: No, I think you make a good point that, you know, I remember being in high school myself. Some of the best times are just being able to bond with friends, spawn with male friends and female friends trying to balance school work. I wasn’t involved with sports because I could not sink a basket to save my life though I was in the academic decathlon.
John Parks: Here we go.
Trent Horn: So, you know, super quiz 2003 that was me. But I believe it was a sport with hand-eye coordination. I could not do that. So you’re right that there’s this busyness with young people. If you focus on that, and if you’re not and you’re trying to find your value in someone you’re dating, it’s not going to work. Especially with these relationships. If you’re dating in junior high or high school, I often say to students, there’s one of three ways this relationship is going to end.
Trent Horn: You’re going to get married, break up or one or both of you will die. Logically, it’s the only way the relationship is going to end in one of these three ways and statistically what is the one that’s it’s most likely going to be?
John Parks: Yes.
Trent Horn: It’s going to be the breakup.
John Parks: Yeah, I have students. I’ll say, the philosophy father, what about dating in high school? And I said, well, let me ask you this. You were dating somebody and they said to you, why don’t we break up a year from now? They would say, well, I would just look at them and say, well, if you want to break up a year from now, why don’t we just break up now?
Trent Horn: Right.
John Parks: And yes, it’s your point. It’s so many students don’t really have a desire to keep dating after high school. Here. I just think I’m going to go off to college. I’m going to go out of state. I’m not gonna… This isn’t that serious that we’re going to keep this long distance relationship going. And so they know there’s that logical ending point. And I think ultimately they’re looking for, it’s an identity, right? Who am I? And you can find that in great relationships to your point. And a lot of times that can take the stress off of the pressure that there can be in high school and you’re dating. The pressure to be a certain way or the hookup culture. All of that gets removed and you just have the freedom to grow in love with brothers and sisters, you know?
Trent Horn: Okay, well let’s say let’s fast forward. Let’s say you’re a young man who’s very solid in his faith, maybe in college or graduated from college, has found a career, is figuring out a place in life and feels very solidified in that. And you still feel the call, the vocation of marriage, and you’re in a place where, yeah, I could find a woman who’s a grate Catholic woman, marry her. What would be your advice for a guy? How should he navigate that dating culture towards a good end like marriage? What would you recommend if he’s saying, how do I find the right woman? Father Parks.
John Parks: Well, if he has all those records of things you just said he’s life is in a good place, his faith life isn’t gonna place. He feels like he’s in a place where he could provide for a family. Then I would see women are going to come into your life and to pursue them. Be Very intentional. You’ve put yourself in a place where you’re able to pursue them. We live in a culture where men don’t pursue women anymore and it’s so needed. And women deserve that. Women love to be pursued. Men love challenges. It works out perfectly. And so that’s the challenge. It’s hard to pursue because they could reject us and that’s sort of the exciting part and the terrifying part. It’s so for him to pursue her in a very intentional way and to be honest about what he’s saying. The scripture say we should make our yes mean yes and our no mean no.
John Parks: It’s so easy in our culture today to blend in and out of relationships. You start hanging out more and then you pull away and then hang out more. And that can be so terribly confusing for girls. When you have a guy who likes to recreationally flirt, it just drives havoc. It causes so much drama. In High School, I’ve seen it so many times, drives parents crazy. And so if he’s interested-
Trent Horn: And then girls talk.
John Parks: Yeah, they do. Yes, that’s right. And so if a man feels things in place to do that, then he should pursue her in an honest way. I also think that he should be the man who sets the boundaries of the relationship as far as physically. Set good boundaries so that he’s letting her know that I want to honor and love and respect you the right way. I want this relationship to be chaste, which again means I want to love you the best way that I can. So I want to set these boundaries, not to inhibit us, but to free us to love each other fully.
Trent Horn: Yeah, go into that a little deeper because I think it’s important for young men especially. I know a lot of times there can be this narrative that, it’s the guy who’s always pursuing the woman and when it’s chastity and there’s unchaste behavior, it’s the guy who’s gotten out of control. But I think a lot of times for young women, they can be caught up in passion also, and even want to instigate unchaste behavior. And it does fall on the guy. So to say to young men, why is it important to save not just sex, but even other sexual activity until marriage? Why is it important to do that?
John Parks: Well, it could really short circuit the love of the relationship. When I was high school, I remember my youth minister saying this is one of the signs. It’s not a 100% true. But one of the signs you could say that a couple is becoming too physically intimate, not necessarily having sex, but coming to physical intimate as a couple, is it become super exclusive. They just want to be around each other. I don’t know if you had the experience, you’d be in high school and your buddy would start dating somebody and they would just straight disappear. Like has anybody seen Bill in three months? And then Bill will just reappear.
John Parks: Bill where have you been? “Oh, I broke up with my girlfriend.” Like Bill-
Trent Horn: Where were you?
John Parks: Exactly. Where did you go? And so one of the signs that relationship isn’t healthy is that it has that ultra exclusivity. I want to be around this person all the time.
John Parks: And our passions are powerful. Sexual desires is a good thing, but it’s super powerful. And if I’m giving in to that a lot, it can really quickly become the center of the relationship where I’m spending more and more time thinking about that and doing those things. And I’m not really growing in love with this other person or really getting to know who they are. But the majority of the day is spent kissing each other rather than encounter each other as persons really talking to each other. So it’s not that, that stuff is unimportant. And of course that can be a beautiful expression of love as far as kissing. But again, it has to have its proper place or it can short circuit the love of the whole relationship.
Trent Horn: Yeah. Because sometimes when people say, Oh let’s go on a date, let’s watch a movie over at my house and say well if you’re one, if you’re truthful about that, and it’s not just engaging in physical behavior, actually just sitting and watching a movie, you don’t really get to know that other person very well. Even when you go out and do really fun exciting things when maybe if you went out and decided to do like volunteer work together or hanging out with this other person’s family. I’ll tell young men, it’s the opposite of what I tell women. But it’s true. If you’re looking to marry someone, this woman will be with you for the rest of your life. So if you want to see how she’s going to treat you, see how she talks to her dad.
John Parks: Yes.
Trent Horn: Is she mean to him? Is she bratty? Is she disrespectful? Well, if you’re the most important man in her life, if you marry her, you’re going to inherit the brunt of that. So I think it’s in the book of Proverbs and Proverbs 31 it says that, “A beautiful woman with a bad disposition is like a pig with a gold ring in its snout.” I love it though, that the book of Proverbs that this wisdom it has for men, it’s been the same for 3000 years. Another line in Proverbs it says that, “It’s better to live on the roof of your house than inside with a contentious woman.”
John Parks: Yeah.
Trent Horn: So the [inaudible 00:11:16] saying that when we’re looking for that person to share our life with, to be the mother of our children, what are those traits we should be looking for when we’re out dating? Because firstly we might be dazzled by, you are real pretty, which first can really come at us and blind us. But what are the traits as men, at least for single men, what should they really be looking for in a spouse?
John Parks: Yeah. I think a woman who knows how to sacrifice, and I think you bring up a great point, which, is she willing to sacrifice for her family right now? I remember dating a girl in college and as you said, when it’s one on one, you see a certain side of her, but then when you see with their family is a whole different side of her, so you can kind of… how she talks to her father, her mother. How she encounters her younger siblings. It was like, wow, this person is… and I knew this was a great girl because of the way she treated her family. The way she would help her mom out with things. And this woman wants to sacrifice. She knows how to love. She knows how to form good relationships. That was another big thing is that she had good relationships with other women.
Trent Horn: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
John Parks: So she knows how to grow in friendship. When you have a spouse they shouldn’t become your whole world, you should have a life outside of that. And one of the good indicators that you’ll have that when going into a marriage, if you have that before the marriage, right? That I’m able to have good relationships with people of the same sex before marriage. So I think those are two big indicators kind of the friendships and also seeing how they are with their family.
Trent Horn: Yeah. Essentially you’re talking about exclusivity because I know with my wife that one of the things we enjoy the most is going and hanging out with other married couples.
John Parks: Yes.
Trent Horn: And you have that maturity after marriages before you might, yeah. You might just, Oh, I just want it to be us and just the two of us. But then you get that real understanding. Now obviously there’s been a lot of guys listening who maybe they’re not in a relationship right now and maybe they’re not sure if they ever will be. Maybe they’re going to live a single life. How does a man live a single life dedicated to God? He might not be in a religious order, but he’s single now. He’s not sure what the future holds for him. How does he live that to be a man of God and be able to serve others?
John Parks: So for every man, you just want to start with the sacraments. All right?
Trent Horn: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
John Parks: I want to make sure I’m getting to mass every Sunday. I’m going to confession at least once a month, finding prayer time every day. Super Important, right? You can’t love somebody we don’t know. And if we want to love God, we need to know God. And with the sacraments’ prayer, these are the ways that God has given to us to grow in relationship with Him. So when I have all that in place from there, then we want to embrace our cross. And I said before, that’s in our daily life. I want to be the best brother, the best friend, the best student that I can be. The best sibling I can be. And I do that by embracing my cross in those little ways every day.
John Parks: Men form their habits and habits form men. That’s how virtue works. You form your habits and your habits form you. So what kind of student am I? When you get home from school, it’s easy to want to play video games for four hours. It’s hard to start your homework, right? When I’m talking with my buddies in the locker room about women, and that starts to slide in sort of inappropriate language or joking about, or just the language where the terms we’re using about women are inappropriate. Do I try to change the subject? Do I walk away? Do I give into it, right? These little ways that I can grow in virtue. I can grow in love for women. How do I treat my mother? How do I treat my family? How do i treat my siblings? Do I do my chores? Do I try to be faithful to them? These are all little ways that I’m growing to be a good man.
John Parks: The scripture say those who are trustworthy in small matters, are trustworthy in great ones and I would like to tell students, God has a great plan for your life and He needs your obedience. So one of the ways you learn obedience to God, it’s by learning obedience to your parents. And so although it seems small, you know it’s not that really big of a deal and I’m 16 and 17 and 18 that I’m obedience my parents. Yeah, because God will use that obedience to grow the inner man that you are so that he can prepare you for great things in the future.
Trent Horn: Do you think a lot of young men struggle with the idea that they want to be great? When you brought up video games, I remember in high school and college I played a lot of video games.
John Parks: I’m with you.
Trent Horn: I was up late, 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. in the morning with friends together playing them. And I think part of that was there was kind of like the search for greatness. I remember we used to play this one video game, whereas multiplayer combat and all of us wanted to see who is the guy who could get the, I think it was something like a kill tacklers, 10 kills in a row or the kill apocalypse. So just like, wow, that’s just, that’s awesome. Do you think that the search for greatness, it’s a good thing, but it gets corrupted when we’re were looking for that greatness and in the wrong places?
John Parks: Absolutely. And again, that’s that concrete instinct you get when you play video games all night and then you tell your friend that, say, I conquered the world last night. That feels pretty good.
Trent Horn: Yeah.
John Parks: Of course. It was in the virtual world. As men, we were created to conquer ourselves at a love for others. And when that gets distorted by sin, there’s a desire to want to conquer others out of love for ourselves. And so, video games, again, they’re not bad if they’re in their proper context, but they point to that reality. We have a conquering heart, but what are we supposed to conquer? Well, Christ is our great battle against sin, against evil. It’s against the devil. It’s against the false self. And through grace, we can have victory in Christ and we can be men of virtue, men of faith, men of God, and we all want to be men like that. I want to be a man that when I die at my funeral, men say, “He was a good man.”
John Parks: As a high school Chaplain, my prayer is always that the young women will feel protected around me and the young men would feel challenged by me. I want to be the kind of man that when young men are around, they feel challenged by me and we all want that, and we can be those types of man. God is giving us the Grace. He is empowering us to be nothing less than those men to become sane.
Trent Horn: I think it’s been said before that one of the greatest things that women want is to know that they’re loved and that they’re cherished.
John Parks: Yes.
Trent Horn: But what men want is more than love is to be respected. And so you can see that living this life where if you’re conquering evil in the real world and living for virtue, then you get that real respect. Going back to the men who might be called to a single life, some men might feel, I don’t feel called to marriage. I want to really serve God in a special way. And they may be discerning the priesthood, which you did it at one time, obviously. So how did that process go about for you? How did you come to know, I am called to be a priest? What would your advice be for young men who may feel that same calling but they’re not sure is if for real. So why don’t you elaborate on that?
John Parks: Yeah. For me, I was going to mass, I was going to confession often. And then the big thing was adoration and spending every night in adoration was so helpful. I would try to do a holy hour when I got to college. When I started praying that would seem like an unbelievable, like spending an hour and adoration that seems impossible. And I remember spending so many nights before the Lord and the Eucharist and just ask Him, what do you want of me? What do you desire for my life? What’s your great plan for my life? And this is a way that we’re beginning to hear the voice of God. It’s been said that the call of God is gentle but persistent. So in my own life it was gentle. Sometimes we want God to hit us over the head, or we want Him to send us an email, and it’s probably not going to happen, and He’s probably going to strike us with lightening.
John Parks: But He will do is through my desires. All this gentle call the priesthood would attract me. I would see a priest preaching and I would say, I want that. I desire that. I would think about the reality of the mass. And I think that’s so awesome. I remember when I was dating that young woman in college, the only way to describe it to you was I thought she was amazing. The idea of marriage was amazing, the idea of having a little people that look like me was was amazing, right? All these things. But at the end of the day, it felt like spiritually, like my shirt was on backwards, which is something I don’t know, I just felt like I can see objectively of this girl’s amazing and marriage would be an incredible vocation but I felt like I was built for something else.
John Parks: So again, what was going on? It’s like gentle but persistent call. And so to pay attention to that and how do I make that call grow? How do I hear it more clearly is through my prayer life, is through the sacraments and that’s how I’m going to really be able to hear what God has for me.
Trent Horn: Okay. So, yeah. So I guess the young man is discerning the priesthood. What do you think are just some important steps he should take? He’s felt this call, this gentle call for a while and there’re certain steps obviously you have to go through in order to become a priest. You don’t just sign up and they give you your collar a week later. What do you recommend for him to discern and then what actually is the process and to becoming a priest?
John Parks: Now, it depends on where he is in that place. You know if you’re 16 years old in your high school and think about the priesthood, that’s very different than if you’re a senior about to graduate or if you’re a young professional, 22-23 recently graduated. I think for a lot of young men, they think about the calls of the priesthood. There’s something exciting about it. There’s something terrifying about it. And I’ve noticed in talking to them, they say, Father, what should I do? And I give them a lot of things I just told you, right? About living a sacramental life, trying to embrace the cross you out today to respond to the call of greatness in your daily life. But there can be this temptation to immediately want to live in the future. I know that’s true for all young men, young women.
John Parks: You want to know like what am I going to do for the rest of my life right now?
Trent Horn: Right.
John Parks: But I think when you think about the call to the priesthood, there can be this fear of, do I have what it takes right now? And you’re 16 in high school, you’re probably not going to be entering seminary anytime soon. Yeah. So if you graduate then at that point you could enter a college limit, of course. So how’d you continue that process? I would also be in a relationship with a priest that you trust, that you can talk to, to be available for spiritual direction, meet with him about once a month and then again, just start this process. And really when I direct young men who are thinking of the priesthood, the main thing is Holiness. That’s our primary call, right? It’s to become saints.
Trent Horn: Right?
John Parks: And then our secondary call, whether we call it the single life priesthood religious, is how we fulfill our primary call, which is the call to Holiness, the call to be Saints. And so that’s what we’re primarily focused on, the call to Holiness and as you’re living that out, that allows you to hear better. That secondary call. My call to marriage. My call to the priesthood. If you feel like it’s continued to grow that gentle, but persistent call doesn’t seem to go away six months, a year, two years. That’s one of the ways I discerned with the young man, this is an immediate thing. Father, I think I want to be a priest. I had some really good Chinese food last Tuesday. I felt this movement. I think it’s from God. I don’t want to come [inaudible 00:21:01] Okay.
Trent Horn: And there was a fortune cookie.
John Parks: A fortune cookie said.
Trent Horn: Your clothes shall be black and you shall lead others.
John Parks: That’s precisely. Rather than a young man saying, Father, this has been nagging me for three years.
Trent Horn: Yeah
John Parks: Ah, it’s this persistent call. That’s a great sign that it’s of God and that gives me the courage to actually follow that call and to go in. Now once you get to that point, I think then you want to contact your vocations director and start to have that conversation with him and if you’re getting spiritual director by a priest, he’ll know when the appropriate time is to hand you off, so to speak, to the vocation director and then it gets a little more formal. At that point, If you felt called as I did after I graduated from college, you would apply and applying the seminary is like applying to the FBI. It is an incredibly intense application process. It’s wonderful what it does. It protects the church and make sure that young man, this is sincere call, but it’s like a 25 page application.
John Parks: I had to get IQ tests, I had to get ink blot tests to make sure that I wasn’t crazy. I had to give a full explanation of my life, a full biography. I had to have recommendations, all of these things, right? To make sure that I was a healthy young man as I entered the seminary, that I had good intentions for doing that. And once that’s all done, and I go through all that process I made before. It’s called the priest placement board where they, it’s one of the last step where they interview you to see what your intentions are and then if you’re accepted, and they say, congratulations, you’ve been accepted to be a seminarian for the diocese of Phoenix and my case and now we’re sending you to this seminary. And so that’s how the process works in a very.
Trent Horn: Okay And then seminary itself, takes however many years depending where you’re at. It can be anywhere from seven to four years of formation. And then-
John Parks: From like eight to four.
Trent Horn: Eight to four. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Our time is coming a bit to a close now, but I’d like to ask one or two other questions. One would be what are some intellectual mentors, authors, Saints, that you’ve really enjoyed reading? Because I know a lot of young men listening, enjoy pouring themselves into reading really good books for cultivating the life of the mind. What are some authors or Saints, whomever, that you found to be very inspiring, especially to help young men figure out what it means to be a man?
John Parks: Yes, when I was young, I read some books by a guy named Fr. John Powell and his books really helped me to grow. One of his books that has a very corny title. So prepare yourself. Okay. It’s called, Why am I afraid to tell you who I am.
John Parks: Yes. And it was really it was really incredible to make me realize that my interior life is really what makes me, me. And one of the great gifts you can give is to share yourself with another person and we think that’s easy but it takes an incredible amount of courage to do that. Sometimes we can easily see the man on the football field who is crushing [inaudible 00:23:50] like yes, that’s what it means to be a man, he’s bleeding. I love that, as opposed to share yourself with another person. To be vulnerable, It takes a lot of courage. In fact means to speak from the heart.
John Parks: Another book that I read was called, Wild At Heart, which was a great book which really convicted me about that Jesus was a man and is the wildness of His heart. That He wasn’t this push-over, that He wasn’t this hippie-like character but rather was the striking strong figure and it was really calling my heart, evoking that call to be a man. To respond to that challenge to greatness.
John Parks: There’s also just books in general that helped me grow in my faith. I read a lot of C.S. Lewis who I love Dr. Peter Kreeft too. I loved and also got a G.K. Chesterton wrote a book called Orthodoxy, which really had a profound impact on me in high school and in college. So those are just general books about faith, which helps me.
Trent Horn: And I think Chesterton can be a great role model for young men to think, oh, is it man of God, I have to be kind of meek and sort of pushover to say Chesterton and say, oh no, it’s okay for you to drink responsibly and argue with other people and stand up for the truth. So, I think that all of that’s great. Well, as we come to a close, I guess my last question would be any final advice you’d have for a young man listening who wants to live a holy life in what is an unholy world? So what would your last bit of words of wisdom be for him?
John Parks: Brother, we need you. The world needs you. The last three Holy Fathers have said what the world is most in need of is joyful witnesses of the gospel, we need men who are men who are alive with Christ. There is a crisis. Men are looking everywhere [inaudible 00:25:29] who can tell me what it means to be a man? And the person who can tell us is Jesus Christ. We need men to be men. And so I would say, brother, respond to that call. That’s the call to greatness in your heart that will never go away. At the end of your life. Your life will only have been a failure if you don’t become a Saint. This is the call of a life. It’s the adventure of life. Become a Saint.
Trent Horn: Amen to that. Well Father Parks, thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you all very much for listening to what we have had for you out here today.
John Parks: You are welcome. Thanks for having me.