We don’t have all millenium! A challenge for men to build the Church
Heroic Men is looking toward 2033 with a big goal: What kind of men will the church form before the 2,000th anniversary of the Resurrection?
On Heroic Hotline, host Sean Lynn welcomed Dominic de Souza, the creative voice behind much of Heroic Men’s visual identity and messaging, for a conversation about Catholic masculinity, story, evangelization and the next seven years of mission.
De Souza described himself as a younger man looking toward the “gray beards” around him for wisdom.
“I’m a young man, kind of walking in your footsteps, Sean, looking to the gray beards around us for how to get through life, how to pass the torch without fumbling,” he said. “When I learned of the chance to work with Heroic Men, I liked the vision.”
That vision, he said, is ambitious by design. “We’re trying to tackle solving a continental crisis for an era of the church. I love the idea that we can try to make a dent in the universe, our own dent, do something good.”
Lynn connected that urgency to a broader Catholic focus on 2033, including PAC27 and other efforts preparing for the anniversary of the Resurrection.
“Our lane is men,” Lynn said. “As I explained to the men at my men’s conference, it’s probably the toughest lane to be in.”
Lynn said youth can often be easier to reach because their hearts are still being formed, while men may carry “a crust on them.” But he said the command of Christ was comprehensive.
“Jesus didn’t say evangelize the easy people,” Lynn said. “He said all nations. And that includes men.”
“This is a once in a millennia event for the men who get to experience this jubilee, that won’t come around again for another thousand years,” De Souza said. “So what kind of world are we leaving for the future? What kind of world am I leaving for my child? What kind of world are we leaving for the next generation?”
He said the present moment demands movement.
“What kind of men are we going to be walking up to that Jubilee?” De Souza said. “We’ve got seven years to figure it out. We know right now that it can’t stay the way it is. We’ve got to do something.”
We need a better story. De Souza said his own instinct is to approach the crisis through storytelling.
When he looks at the current cultural crisis, he said, one need seems clear.
“We need a better story,” De Souza said. “We need better stories to live in... If we’re going to get Western culture back on any sort of track, we need a better story, which means a goal and a plan on how to overcome obstacles so we can get to that goal,” De Souza said. “Can we unify ourselves around that?
Heroic Men has an epic story here,” De Souza said. “We routinely think men don’t get involved in stuff because it’s hard. But if something’s astronomically hard or busy, that focus that we’ve got can be a good thing. It keeps us in our lane. It keeps us serving the people who matter most.”
Good men, he said, often have little margin. Their time is tied to family, work and obligations. That makes clarity essential.
“They’re not going to change and risk everything they have for some interesting ad in the newspaper or somebody who’s really passionate on a podcast,” De Souza said. “It’s got to be a cohesive story. There’s got to be a plan and a clear outcome for them to get involved. If you can tell a better story, we’ll line up for it.”
Lynn said the organization hopes its shows and videos can act like a modern call to mission.
“Our hope is not that we’re merely creating something for guys to listen to,” Lynn said. “We want it to be that Shackleton advertisement in the newspaper that called men to that mission and to that adventure.”
De Souza said stories from other men help prove the call is real.
“If you’re trying to inspire or call someone or challenge someone to something, you need a bunch of other stories that prove it’s not only smoke,” De Souza said.
De Souza said Heroic Men has recently returned to its simplest and clearest identity.
“We’ve been testing and trying all kinds of things over the last many years, trying to figure out what people need from us, what we want to do, how we can be the most helpful,” he said. “I think we came back to the idea that we need to stay stuck on heroic and heroic masculinity, heroic men. These need to be our core ideas.”
The central questions, he said, are basic but demanding.
“What does it mean to be a hero?” De Souza said. “And what does it mean to be a man? Let’s have a lot of conversation around that because I think the culture, inside or outside the church, doesn’t know what to do with that conversation.”
What do heroes do? “First of all, it’s showing up and doing the thing that you’re called to do, no matter what happens,” de Souza said. “That’s what good men take pride in doing. That is our honor, to show up and sacrifice and do the thing that we’re called to do, so others can depend on you. Your word is your bond.”
But Heroic Men, he said, is plural for a reason. “Our brand is not like heroic man,” De Souza said. “It’s Heroic Men, which is an important clue.”
He pointed to films such as “Gladiator” and “The Last Samurai” as examples of the heroic pattern of men in teams, brotherhoods and groups.
“They work together,” he said. “You have a shield wall. You have a brotherhood. You build each other up because you can’t go it alone. You go it alone, you end up with a face full of arrows. You go with a brotherhood, you can make the shield wall, and you survive longer.”
That vision, he said, leads to the need for a shared identity and shared practices.
“We need to fix our country,” De Souza said. “We need to help men. We’ve got to reach out and empower all men everywhere. We need a shared identity. And what does that mean? It means we do similar things together.”
The starting point, he said, should be higher than a fitness challenge or political checklist.
“Why don’t we start with prayer?” De Souza said. “And what if the prayer that we start with is not about you? What if you start with returning to prayer for the men you care most about? Pick five, pick three. And you’re going to commit to that every day, whether you tell them that or not.”
The goal, he said, is to move men from prayer toward friendship, and from friendship toward brotherhood.
“At some point, you’ll invite them to join you in some kind of brotherhood, some kind of friendship or an actual get together at your local parish,” De Souza said. “That’s when we decided we’re not starting Heroic Men groups. We need to help other men start all the groups they want to do. Then we’ll train and certify and inspire them and give them the content to make all that easier.”
You are called, you matter, you belong. Lynn said De Souza’s words echoed the motto adopted by his diocese: “You are called, you matter, you belong.”
“That’s what we’re trying to message men,” Lynn said. “You talked about them feeling like they don’t matter and don’t belong, and yet they are loved by God and chosen for a mission... So many think they’re afraid to do it because they don’t think they have the tools,” Lynn said. “They do. They need to be encouraged.”
That, he said, is one reason de Souza values Heroic Men’s approach.
“It starts with prayer and then tries to invite men into conversations and coffee and friendship,” De Souza said. “If you’re starting a men’s group, start with maybe beer and axe throwing, or maybe a movie night. Do something that makes men feel good about being men, because it is good to be a man.”