Absentee dads hinder children’s understanding of God, Pope says

CNA ^ | May 23, 2012 | David Kerr

[caldera599]

Vatican City, May 23, 2012 / 11:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Dads who are absent from their family make it more difficult for their children to understand God as a loving father, Pope Benedict XVI said on May 23.

“Perhaps modern man does not perceive the beauty, grandeur and profound consolation contained in the word ‘father’ with which we can turn to God in prayer, because the father figure is often not sufficiently present in today’s world, and is often not a sufficiently positive presence in everyday life,” the Pope said in his weekly general audience address.

He underscored that the “the problem of a father not present in the life of the child is a big problem of our time” because it can become difficult for those children “to understand in its depth what it means to us that God is Father.”

In the U.S., over one-third of all children live apart from their biological father.

[caldera599]

Once again, the Holy Father speaks words everyone in this world needs hear, especially here in the US.

[sergeantdave]

Simple yet profound.

[Albion Wilde]

So true. God bless this Pope.

[spintreebob]

Marx,Lenin and NOW have said this for a long time, which is why they they do what they do.

[SuziQ]

He underscored that the “the problem of a father not present in the life of the child is a big problem of our time” because it can become difficult for those children “to understand in its depth what it means to us that God is Father.”

Something I'd never considered, but so true.

[SaraJohnson]

I grew up under a blanket of my mother’s prayers and my dad did not participate in that like my mom did. He would have had a lighter time of life had he done so.

Given what is going on for children today, I was fortunate to have him living in the same house as me. I can’t imagine how sad I would have been without him being at home.

Many men of my dad’s generation fell away from God with the culture of that time. They were the leaders of the house and family, but without a connection to and growth in God, it was hollowed out, egoic leadership. When feminism came along, they lost that physical status and in time, the true nature of fatherhood has been lost in the memory of our society through the falsehoods of feminism.

[Last Dakotan]

Thanks for posting this.

[donna]

We were just talking about the lack of fathers on TV. The only fatherly father we could think of was Tim Allen on “Last Man Standing”.