Learn by Topic: Father

The ‘Orphan’ Epidemic

There is an orphan epidemic in the modern world.  Many children in the modern world have, in practical terms, been abandoned, even when they have one or both parents.  Increasing numbers of women (with men in passive agreement) are bearing children out of wedlock (absent fathers) and/or through artificial insemination (anonymous fathers).  Many marry only to divorce.  As a result, a large and growing number of children are being raised without a father; fatherless orphans.  Children are also being abandoned into virtual orphanhood; the vocation of parenting is being outsourced to hired day care providers, teachers in secular schools and by modern media.   Many adults are also embracing orphanhood through a rejection of God the Father with growing numbers of people choosing atheism, agnosticism or ‘casualism’ in faith.  Orphans abound.

The rejection of earthly fathers and the Heavenly Father yields great suffering.  Modern culture is showing the negative effects of orphanhood by declines in morality and human happiness: idolatry (materialism, cult of celebrity), promiscuity, addictions (pornography, substances), the murder of abortion and euthanasia and the rejection of marriage and children, etc.   Great numbers of  today’s ‘orphans’ are relentless and depressed, feeling the discouraging impact of empty lives; the reality of their mortality weighs on their hearts and minds; the unavoidable issue of their eternal salvation weighs on their souls.  The faithless orphans of the world bear a great burden.

Jesus Christ Revealer of Our Father

Jesus Christ comes to reveal God the Father to an orphaned world.  (more…)

The Collapse of the Family

The family has been at the center of God’s plan for humanity since the beginning (CCC 2203) and is “the original cell of social life” (CCC 2207).  God created man and woman to form families and for conception and the raising of children (CCC 2202). “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life” (CCC 2250).  Across time and world cultures, people have recognized that marriage and family are sacred gifts from God that are critical to the well-being of humanity (CCC 1603).

Since Eden, humans have entertained evil due to sin that has led to animosity between men and women and injuries to the family (CCC 1606).  In recent times, many are abandoning marriage and children: about 50% of marriages end in divorce, 40% of children are born out of wedlock, 1 in 5 children are aborted in the U.S and American fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels. (more…)