How odd St. Joseph, the human father of Jesus, must look to so many of us today. We live in an age that distrusts the traditional features of fatherhood, and even denigrates them as "toxic masculinity." Small wonder that fatherhood itself is in steep decline. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, "19.7 million children in America—more than one in four—live without their biological dad in the home." ("The Father Absence Crisis in America") That unprecedented figure is growing all the time, in spite of the fact that the decline of fatherhood has such devastating and clearly documented consequences: a four times greater likelihood of living in poverty; a greater likelihood of emotional and behavioral problems, infant mortality, crime and imprisonment, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, obesity, dropping out of school, and all the other problems that flow from those circumstances (see the article linked above for citations).
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| "The Flight into Egypt" by Jacopo Bassano (1544) |
As horrific as those consequences are, Christians know that there's something even worse. The Church has always taught us that human fatherhood is merely a reflection: as Jesus himself puts it, "call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." (Matthew 23:9) Human fathers are merely stewards, and our authority is not our own, nor do we exercise if for our own sake . . .
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