Discovering the Fatherhood of God in a Gender-Neutral Society | Mary Anastasia

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In a popular movie of several years ago, a cherubic six-year-old girl blithely explains her family drawing to her dumb struck kindergarten companions: "This is Mark, he's my daytime Daddy; this is Peter, he's my main Daddy; this is Jack, he's my biological Daddy; this is my Mommy, and this is me." This situation, while admittedly contrived for the sake of the comedic story line, still points up a "wrinkle" in modern thinking which sometimes poses problems for the catechesis of children and adolescents. This "wrinkle," or, more properly, this deviation, is the clouding of the concept of fatherhood. This lack of a human "reference point" can make it very difficult to teach young people about the loving Fatherhood of God. This paper will explore the background of the problem, and then look to the Church's teaching for the response of Faith.

The first point to be examined in this review of the problem is one which impacts all the other points. This is the assault on "manliness" in our society today. A very wise man once said, "There is no one so narrow as an open-minded liberal." This statement is illustrated by the rabid way in which the "doctrine" known as "political correctness" is wielded by that small but violently vocal segment of society, the radical feminists. While claiming to champion "equality" between males and females, they have really brought about the emasculation of language and induced a "hunted quarry syndrome" among men today. Those qualities of maleness which once defined the role of the man in the fabric of society have been vilified into grounds for prosecution: the strength which makes him the protector suddenly becomes "animalistic aggression"; the logic and lucidity which give him the ability to provide for his family suddenly become "paternalistic oppression"; the love which moves him to desire children is criticized as "patriarchal enslavement." A generation of men has learned to suppress its instinctive chivalry for fear of fiery retribution. Masculine forms of language have become the dirtiest of swear words and masculinity in men (but not in women) a punishable offense. In short, the essential dignity of being created "male" through the deliberate act of the Creator has been shredded at the altar of misguided "equality."

This emasculated mind-set leads to tangible situations in which the concept of fatherhood is darkened beyond recognition. Webster defines "father" as both a noun and as a verb. As a noun, "father" is listed as "a male parent," while in its verb form it means "to act or serve as a father." In today's society, we very often see the noun function without the verb function: biological fathering is not followed by the continuing presence and nurturing of the male parent. The root of this phenomenon lies in a defective understanding of sexuality, aptly described by Pope John Paul II in his document, The Gospel of Life:
Sexuality, too, is depersonalized and exploited: from being the sign, place and language of love, that is, of the gift of self and acceptance of another, in all the other's richness as a person, it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instinct. [1]
The prevalence of pre-marital sex and the accepted, if not predestined, ending of so many marriages by divorce, even among Catholics, deprives children today of the manly tenderness and care which only a father can bestow. These children do not have the sense of security provided in a nuclear family headed by a strong yet loving man. Many single mothers labor with supreme love and determined strength to meet both the physical and emotional needs of their children. But the fact remains:
God created man and woman together and willed each for the other . . . Man and woman were made "for each other"-not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons . . . and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage, God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh," they can transmit human life. [2]
The transmission of human life, and its subsequent nurturing, is intended by the Creator as a "joint project." For children who experience only half of this "communion of persons," the transcending leap to the Fatherhood of God is very difficult, if not impossible.

A second reason which makes the concept of a loving "God the Father" difficult for young people to accept is the plague of domestic abuse in families today. Whether this takes the form of physical violence or mental torture, abuse is a daily event in the lives of increasing numbers of children. Catechists today, attempting to find human analogies for the superhuman love of the heavenly Father, are often faced with stony silence in response. The "terrible secret" behind the blackened eyes and tormented souls quenches any desire for a "Father" in heaven. The Church acknowledges this when she seeks language in which to describe the transcendent love of God:
The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood . . . . [3]

A fist constantly raised in anger or a constant "acid rain" of sarcasm can, indeed, "disfigure" the face of fatherhood to the point that the battered child runs from, rather than to, a "Father" in heaven.

A headline screaming from a recent Newsweek magazine summarizes the third issue which impinges on our modern concept of fatherhood. The headline stated, "Twins–With Two Fathers." The story detailed the birth in Holland of twin boys conceived through in vitro fertilization. Only after the twins were several months old did the parents begin to realize that something in the procedure had gone horribly wrong:

It wasn't until two months later that the Stuarts noticed that while one boy was as blond as his parents, the other's skin was darkening and his brown hair was fuzzy. DNA tests confirmed that Wilma had carried another man's baby-probably because a technician reused a pipette that still contained some sperm from a previous insemination. [4]

The dangers of this preponderance of "new techniques" and the twisted thinking of those who utilize them are addressed by Pope John Paul II: