Sunday, June 17, 2007

Fatherhood, the Dying Profession

It would be impossible to find a state in life more reviled in today's society than fatherhood. This is an attempt to destroy what God has established as a means of understanding our relationship with him, and even some within the Church are taking shots at fatherhood. Make no mistake, those who demean fatherhood, are doing serious damage to fatherhood. Donald De Marco quotes the following in his article in the National Catholic Register,
" Yet, fatherhood and good fathers are of inestimable importance to society. David Blankenhorn, in his book, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Problem, provides evidence that fatherlessness is the leading cause of the declining well-being of children and the engine that drives our most urgent social problems from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women."
As a social worker for Catholic Charities, and later as a teacher in the inner city, I can say that the great majority of social problems; poverty, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, school dropouts, out of wedlock births, abortions, and general misery are caused by a lack of fatherhood. Of course the greatest tragedy is that without a clear image of a loving father, we often have trouble forming a trusting relationship with our Heavenly Father.
May God bless fathers today and always, Happy Father's Day!

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