By DONALD DeMARCO
Pope St. John Paul II made a claim in his international best-selling book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that may be startling to many, namely, that original sin, is, above all, an attempt “to abolish fatherhood.”
Upon reflection, this statement makes a great deal of sense. After all, Adam and Eve chose to reject God and side with the serpent. This initial act of disobedience, or original sin, has cast a shadow that has covered all of human history. For the late Holy Father, the notion that God is not a loving Father, but is a tyrant or oppressor, has led to a rebellion against Him as a slave would rebel against the master who kept him enslaved.
Whether God is a loving Father or an oppressor is perhaps the most fundamental of all moral questions.
In addition to the attempt to abolish the Fatherhood of God is the outright rejection of Him. This rejection has an immediate impact on society in that it also represents the rejection of all forms of fatherhood.
Writing for the American Psychologist, authors Louise B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach assert that “the argument that fathers are essential is an attempt to reinstate male dominance by restoring the dominance of the traditional nuclear family with its contrasting masculine and feminine gender roles” (“Deconstructing the Essential Father,” June 1999).
A concerted attempt has been underway in the last few decades to “deculture” paternity. Fatherhood is something bad.
The attempt to abolish Fatherhood is by no means restricted to academia. For example, on the cover flap of Philip Pullman’s best-seller, The Golden Compass (which was made into a popular movie), the author offers us a brief description of his theology:
“My sympathies definitely lie with the tempter. The idea that sin, the Fall, was a good thing. If it had never happened we would still be puppets in the hands of the Creator.”
Moreover, as Pullman continues to inform us, “I am all for the death of God.” “My books are about killing God.” “I am of the Devil’s Party and I know it.” For Pullman, the principal evil in The Golden Compass is called “the Authority.”
As a direct consequence of the derogation and dismissal of fatherhood, additional weight has been placed on “brotherhood.” The “rainbow coalition” and all groups that profess to be “inclusive” exemplify this transition. Yet, there cannot be any true brotherhood without fatherhood, just as there cannot be offspring without parents.
David Blankenhorn has provided compelling evidence in his critical study, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, that fatherlessness is the most harmful trend of the current generation: the leading cause of the declining well-being of children; the engine driving our most critical social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women.
Such warnings, however, go largely unheeded and are casually dismissed as tradition-bound, or archconservative.
As fatherhood diminishes, mother-nature becomes more central. Hence the intense, sometimes extreme, interest in ecology, the environment, and planet earth. The disappearance of the vertical dimension has led to an exaltation of the horizontal. The relationship with God the Father has been replaced by relationships between kindred groups bearing various, often elongated, acronyms.
Godfried Cardinal Danneels’ questions are worth pondering: “This feverish search for all sorts of communities, large and small — could it have anything to do with the obliteration of the Father? Is universal brotherhood possible in the absence of a common Father?” (Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief). The key word here is “feverish.” For the Belgian cardinal, it implies a kind of desperation.
The type of community group to which Archbishop Danneels is referring tends to be self-justifying. Its members are usually protective of each other and abhor any criticism from the outside. They do not have lofty aspirations but merely ask for acceptance.
Such an arrangement is the antithesis of Christian community that does not dissolve its relationship with God the Father. The Gospel tells us, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), and “when you have done all that is commanded of you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants’” (Luke 17:10).
The Father can command, because He is the loving authority who has given us our life. But He can also forgive us our trespasses and restore us to spiritual health. Without the Father, therefore, three important factors are absent, the gift of life, the command to use it well, and the readiness to forgive.
A community lacking in these three factors, even if it calls itself a brotherhood or a coalition or an alliance, is, by comparison, impoverished.
John the Evangelist, in his First Letter (1 John 2:1-2), speaks to us with great solicitude and warmth:
“My little children, I am writing to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the world.”
All forgiveness is from the Father, whose concern extends to everyone, everywhere.
Brotherhood needs Fatherhood just as children need parents. The rejection of God the Father will continue to have calamitous results. Brotherhood is of the present. Fatherhood not only unites us with the past and with the future, but with eternity.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry that Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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