Three Things I’d Like to Tell Christian Grey


  1. You are the epitome of our world’s twisted view of sex, sexuality, and manliness. You have been duped for a fake version of what sexual relationships are all about. You have fallen for the lie that you have control, but you’re living a fantasy in more ways than in your sexual desires. You think you’re free and powerful, but you are a slave to your own lustful passions, as you submit to them with the hopes of satisfaction and happiness. You wish to dominate and control any woman you desire, yet you are too far gone to see that you are allowing yourself to submit to the weakness of your passions, desires, and fantasies. You are the slave in chains and shackles and you are subconsciously seeking freedom, but looking in the wrong places. Although you may think you have impeccable character, you have not developed self-mastery, the continuous training of your human freedom to govern your lustful passions and freely choose the good with respect to a true vision of Man, Woman, and Marriage.
  2. You have a dis-ordered vision of what Woman and Man truly is. Man and Woman are the crown of creation, as each was uniquely created by God and bestowed with dignity according to God’s design. In fact, it is often said that women are the pinnacle of creation (the result of God’s final act of creation in Genesis), which actually elevates women in the order of creation and stresses the point that they are meant to be honored and treated with respect and dignity, not degraded, overpowered, and de-valued. Further, you have a dis-ordered vision of what Man is in his male sexuality. We are not meeting our highest potential as men when we have domination or control over women or sexual partners. Conversely, this is when we are men at our lowest, most animalistic, and most base state. Real men, and real gentlemen, will always strive to treat women with dignity and respect. A real Man will only ever accept sex in the context of marriage as an exclusive, life-long, and mutual gift of husband and wife that is life-giving and open to participating in God’s creative power. Wives must submit to their husbands on the condition that Husbands love their wives just as Christ loves the Church – that is, with a sincere and selfless love that sacrifices even unto suffering and death.
  3. Your lifestyle shows that you have dismissed a number of crucial things: The existence of God, the existence of Satan, the existence of sin, our need for a Savior, our call to repentance, and the reality of Heaven and Hell. Men like you, who have given up all hope of moral living, have convinced themselves that sin doesn’t exist and that there is no God or afterlife. The resulting mentality is superficial and selfish: get the most out of this life for myself before I die and exist no more, even if it means using and wounding others in the process. This is a pit that leads to the depths of despair and further and further from the reaches of hope. So the last thing I would like to tell you is that you need to repent. You need to participate in the grace of repentance within the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You need to lay it all before God, be contrite, and allow forgiveness to be the seed of healing in your life and the lives that you have destroyed. Your fantasy is that you can toy with sexual union after union, driven by lust. The reality is that God wishes to draw you closer into a very real union with Him, driven by His eternal love towards the fulfillment of your existence that He alone can provide.
Note to Readers:
Christian Trevelyan Grey is the male protagonist of Fifty Shades of Grey. To put it nicely, he is neither a Gentleman, nor is he very Catholic. His very name is a mockery of Christ, as he is almost everything contrary to what a Catholic Gentleman aspires to be. Yet, as repulsive as he is, we as Catholic Gentlemen share our concupiscence with him. This connection results in the incredible reflection that we ourselves, as fallen humans apart from Christ, are all capable of the most heinous things. So, strangely enough, sometimes, these three points are good reminders to us as men to repent and turn towards the path of Manly Holiness and be the Catholic Gentlemen we are called to be. The world needs more Catholic Gentlemen!
“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.” –
Jesus Christ, Mark 7:21-23

~ The Catholic Gentleman's Guide


Please feel welcome to leave a comment!