A new definition of the male: have you ever thought of Giuseppe di Nazareth?

This entry is posted on number 24-25 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until June 17, 2025.

In all likelihood, exit the patriarchy or, at least, glimpse A new definition of the male That has nothing more to do with blood, possession, superiority and privilege, it is the real revolution that awaits humanity. The literature on the subject is very little, the minimum reference points: Carpenter Giuseppe Di Nazareth and Prince Lev Nikolaevic Myskin. The road is, therefore, far from flattened.

As for the first of the two examples of male-non-patriarchal, I open a parenthesis to notice how at the heart of the Christian revelation there is A case of man, husband and father, who has no bonds of blood and seed with his wife or with her son. And that precisely for this it develops the most fascinating virility Of all the New Testament: that of care and respect, dream and action, the one he prefers to observe rather than speaking, who leaves his way and wife his mystery to the child. Closed parenthesis.

Two circumstances can bring out a male from his privilege condition: cross eyes so powerful, those of a true love, to convert it to the greatness and dignity of the otheror glimpse in the abandonment of Patriarchate a new and unprecedented possibility of life. A freedom.

Of the first case, subjective and imponderable, it cannot be theory; The second contains, however, the question we should finally ask ourselves: Where is the wonder for a man in abandoning the guarantee of blood, and therefore of possession, with the superiority that derives from him? Why leave a condition of privilege that exempts him from many difficult situations and saves a large part of the effort to live? Personally, I would answer because the patriarchal is a retrograde perspective and without shareable foundations, dangerously exposed to ridiculous and mortifying.

Perched in his privilege and all aimed at not being there, To that male it will be precluded everything that has done of the life of Giuseppe di Nazareth a wonder: The freedom of not knowing and not understanding how much (the) it happened, to observe the son growing up and learning with him, abandoning himself to deep sleep – according to the Gospels the typical activity of Joseph is dreaming – and when he wakes up, changing his mind and modifying his plans. The freedom to venture for unwritten paths.

Strong of the (ridiculous) conviction of possessing affections and people, it will never have the freedom of the hero of theIdiot by Dostoevsky to question and call things with your name. To declare one’s love without imposing itto be there for the other without this gives him the right to a reward.

In the patriarchal male there can be no room for modesty, peeling (and therefore for real elegance) and surprise. Convinced that things are belonging to him, he will never know what it means to be chosen, precisely he among a thousand others, and without any merit. The sense of privilege will prevent him from experiencing the salvific gratuity of love, which has no reasons in addition to himself. He will never know what it means to be loved by someone who might leave at any time but decides to stay. Every day forever, and freely. Nor what it means to look at a woman in the eye, from equal to peer. Being overcome by her resources, asking for help from her senses and needing her gaze on things, which is always anything else than the male one.

In fact, the patriarchal man renounces the risk of life, to exposure to the check, which however is the only possibility to really exist. To live from Vivi. Obstinately clinging to his (presumed) superiority, he will never know what authenticity means, and he can never allow human, family and friendly relationships, to reveal it to himself. To put it on the grips and realize that I am much more, and perhaps much better, than what he thought. What a penalty, a man like this.

Don Giacomo Cardinali
From 2 April 2025 Vice Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, where he has been working since 2015. He has numerous monographs, scientific articles and participations in international conferences.

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