By Judie Brown
The word father embodies two distinct images for me. First and foremost is God the Father, and closely behind are the two most remarkable fathers I had in my life: my dad Chet and my beloved husband Paul. Each of these men embodied a love of their children, which knew no limits and inspired great sacrifice.
Recently another father came to my attention. His name is Manny Pacquiao, a world-renowned fighter, husband, father of six, and pro-life advocate. Pacquiao, along with many others, took the pro-life message to FIFA World Cup competition in a new pro-life ad featuring survivors of abortion. In a stunning victory for life, the ad aired during World Cup Finals, which just ended.
The inspiring efforts of human fathers amazes me because in our day fatherhood is either overlooked entirely or insulted by those who believe that a father is not necessary for the proper rearing of children. Yet despite this trend, we turn to Saint Joseph, Mary’s spouse and foster father of Christ, to learn valuable lessons regarding why fathers are not only necessary to a family but to the proper growth of society.
ALL’s Culture of Life Studies Program offers a booklet on St. Joseph, and in a recent blog post about it and about the importance of fathers, its director wrote:
Joseph taught Jesus the trade of carpentry. We can only imagine that [he and Jesus] had hours of conversation during those times. He likely passed along his wisdom, his thoughts, and his dreams. Do the same for your children. Take time to teach them to make something, draw something, fix something, or create something. While you work together, talk about your faith and the importance of family. Encourage them and build them up so that they learn to treat others with respect and compassion.
Additionally, one writer reminded us that “we are all some father’s child,” noting that the very idea of motherhood suggests fatherhood, even though like Saint Joseph, fathers are rarely the center of debates about moral questions such as abortion, contraception, or other current topics addressing the family.
This situation is akin to me telling my grandchildren that we can bake a cake without flour.
Without the father, there is no procreation and there is no family. There is only a shell of what was once a wholesome attitude that celebrated the nuclear family. Saint John Paul II wrote about this, teaching:
Love for his wife as mother of their children and love for the children themselves are for the man the natural way of understanding and fulfilling his own fatherhood. Above all where social and cultural conditions so easily encourage a father to be less concerned with his family or at any rate less involved in the work of education, efforts must be made to restore socially the conviction that the place and task of the father in and for the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance. As experience teaches, the absence of a father causes psychological and moral imbalance and notable difficulties in family relationships, as does, in contrary circumstances, the oppressive presence of a father, especially where there still prevails the phenomenon of “machismo,” or a wrong superiority of male prerogatives which humiliates women and inhibits the development of healthy family relationships.
The Holy Father’s profound understanding of social attitudes and the irreplaceable role of the father in any family affirms the truth that fatherhood is a unique vocation that we should celebrate, encourage, and appreciate in words and actions.
There would be no one reading this if fathers were a mere footnote in the history of mankind. This is why I appreciate these words written by Kristi Burton Brown: “How dare we demand that men be fathers when we strip fatherhood from them at our will? Women, this must end. Our children need fathers. And men who want to love and care for their children should be allowed to do so.”