As Lara Marlowe wrote this week, Gena Heraty’s release gives us hope in a world where “altruism, self-abnegation and solidarity are desperately needed”. The Irish lay missionary was held captive, along with seven others, including a three-year-old child, for three weeks.

Without in any way detracting from the inspirational nature of Heraty’s 32 years in Haiti working with people with intellectual and physical challenges, we are less surprised when it is a woman who exemplifies selflessness and care.

Why is that? We all know kind, caring, selfless men. Yet, there are still strong social scripts that caring is primarily a woman’s thing.

Over the past 50 years competing visions of masculinity have ricocheted from the 1980s New Man – a sensitive drip – to the misogynistic male influencers of the manosphere, who tout the belief that women enjoy being dominated, including by being choked during porn-influenced sex. It’s unsurprising that young men in particular are struggling, given that masculinity is often coupled with the word “toxic”.

This weekend two young men who represent an entirely different vision of masculinity are being canonised by Pope Leo in Rome.

Carlo Acutis,

© The Irish Times