7 More Reasons Why Catholic Men Should Have Beards

What? You thought there were only 10 reasons why Catholic men should have beards? Au contraire!

Since Friday was the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saturday was the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and today is the Feast of the Sacred Beard of Christ (well, it should be!), I present to you seven more reasons why Catholic men should have beards:

7. The 12 Apostles

All of the Apostles had beards. What's that you say? Look in the picture, St. John didn't have a beard? Sure, when he was a youth that was the case, but not when he reached manhood. The writer of the Fourth Gospel was just as bearded as the rest of his brother Apostles.

"In the beginning was the beard..."

6. Apostolic Constitutions 1.3:

"Nor may men destroy the hair of their beards, and unnaturally change the form of a man. ...For God the Creator has made this decent for women, but has determined that it is unsuitable for men."

5. St. Augustine, City of God XXII.24:

"Certain things are associated with the body in such a way as to have beauty but no use. For example...the beard on his face. The fact that the beard exists as a manly adornment and not for purposes of protection is shown by the beardless faces of women, who are the weaker sex and for whom a beard would therefore be more suitable if it were a protective device."

 

Behold the beauty of my beard!

4. Lactantius, On the Workmanship of God, or the Formation of Man, ch. 7:

"Then the nature of the beard contributes in an incredible degree to distinguish the maturity of bodies, or to the distinction of sex, or to the beauty of manliness and strength; so that it appears that the system of the whole work would not have been in agreement, if anything had been made otherwise than it is."

3. St. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, Bk 3, ch. 3:

"But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! And, in truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose them to be women. …For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard…"

In the same work, St. Clement goes on to say:

2. St. Dominic 

Bearded St. Dominic was the founder of the greatest (objectively speaking, of course) religious order in the Catholic Church, the Order of Preachers. Now, here I would normally make a Jesuit joke, but out of reverence for our Holy Father, I will refrain.

Seen any Albigensians, lately?

1. Beards are pro-life!