THE CRISIS OF FATHERHOOD AND PATERNITY

We must take seriously the crisis of fatherhood in the world.  The present challenges to fatherhood cannot be understood in isolation from the culture in which we live.  Many people today ask whether fathers are really necessary or even desirable for the raising of children. In spite of the convictions of some that the absent father's role can be assumed by the mother herself, or by other male influences, the effect of fatherlessness on children is deeply alarming. And this is affecting today’s candidates for the priesthood and religious life in no small way. I have witnessed the vestiges of this crisis in many candidates to the priesthood and religious life.

In his 1964 drama, “Radiation of Fatherhood”, Karol Wojtyla suggested that becoming a father meant being"conquered by love," which liberates us from the "terrible" (and terribly false) freedom of self-absorption. To be conquered by love in this way is to be liberated in the deepest sense of human freedom: for only in "the radiation of fatherhood...does everything become fully real."

This is the heart of John Paul II's paternity for so many young people today: in a world of delusions and illusions, he made things "fully real," because his spiritual fatherhood was a reflection of the fatherhood of God. I am convinced that the young people responded so positively to him because in many cases the old Pope was the father that many of these young people never had and the grandfather they never knew. Pope John Paul II was a great role model for them and for us- teaching what paternity was all about.  He was able to draw such love and loyalty because he embodied paternity in a world increasingly bereft of fatherhood, with its unique combination of strength and mercy.

Several years ago, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger remarked that, "the crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity."

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