A columnist for the Archdiocese of Denver’s newspaper says growing numbers of young men are drifting toward radical ideologies and nihilism because they lack purpose, faith, and strong male role models.
In a Feb. 21 op-ed published in The Denver Catholic titled “What’s Happening to Young Men? A Catholic Look at a Growing Crisis,” Mary Beth Bonacci wrote that “many young men are searching for purpose — and not finding it.”
Bonacci argued that the current generation of young men faces a different set of challenges than past youth movements that eventually settled into stable adulthood.
“Today, we have a different problem entirely,” she wrote. “Alarming numbers of young men are flocking to radical Islam. They are cheering assassins. They are falling down nihilistic SubReddits.”
Bonacci also referenced young men who identify as “Groypers,” followers of far-right political commentator Nick Fuentes, writing that their “goal, according to Rod Dreher, is not to improve society, but to ‘tear it all down.’”
While saying she appreciates men’s strength and instinct to protect, Bonacci warned that masculinity “became vulnerable to distortion after the Fall” and can “go wrong.”
“In our era, I think young men are under particular attack,” she wrote.
Drawing on the teachings of Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Bonacci argued that male biology reflects a broader spiritual orientation toward action and mission.
“Men tend to be outwardly directed — they are about doing things,” she wrote, adding that men’s physical strength and higher levels of testosterone contribute to greater aggression and energy.
“So, given all of this strength, aggression and energy, what do men need more than anything? A purpose. A goal,” she wrote. “Men need a mission to channel all of that strength and energy in a positive direction.”
Historically, she argued, that purpose centered on “the pursuit of a woman” and on “a mission,” which she described as a battle, cause, or career as “some way to make his mark on the world.”
But when young men don’t believe “those productive goals are attainable,” she wrote, “all of that energy can go off in different, destructive directions.”
Bonacci described what she called “black pilling,” writing that some young men conclude “that the game is rigged” and that “love and marriage are not available to them,” leading them to “give up — to ‘lie down and rot.’”
“What’s worse, they blame women for their misery. All women,” she wrote.
She also pointed to isolation fueled by technology and pornography, writing that some men “isolate with violent video games and the degrading, misogynistic pornography available to them 24/7, with just a click of the phone” and that their “ideas about women and sexuality become even further warped.”
The result, she argued, is that some young men “become depressed, misogynistic and violent,” with that violence “often aimed at women.”
In theological terms, Bonacci wrote, “God gave men greater physical strength so that they would protect women,” but now Satan “entices them to despair, and they turn that strength, that beautiful gift of protectiveness, against those very women.”
She said the current circumstances faced by young men “adds up to a very dangerous situation,” though she acknowledged that it’s not a problem with all young men, noting her nephews and others are “wonderful young men pursuing beautiful goals.”
Referring to the young men she sees struggling, Bonacci wrote, “These young men are not happy,” she wrote. “They need God, of course. And they need male role models — healthy men willing to show them the beauty of God’s plan and to convince them that it is not beyond their reach.”
Bonacci cited conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed last year in a shooting allegedly carried out by a young man. She wrote that support for young men “was a cause close to Charlie Kirk’s heart” and that he “was beautifully modeling the rewards of marriage and fatherhood.”
“Until a disaffected young man killed him,” she wrote. “I hope somebody picks up where he left off. And please, do it soon.”