Images of Saint Joseph have pervaded my prayer and contemplation in the run-up to Christmas this year. His listening to God, his decisiveness and action in protecting and providing for the Holy Family, and his quiet leadership have all been images in my heart and mind.

At the same time, I’ve been pondering the decline of strong and true fatherhood in our society, and the impact that it has had.

It has also led me to contemplate experiences I’ve had with pastors - we call them “Father” as well, for good reason - and how they can model this for us as fathers of families too.

As Suzanne and I re-met, were preparing for marriage and entering into married life, we were blessed with a pastor who was a blessing to us in that chapter. He had been married and raised a family, but then became a widower and entered the priesthood as a second vocation later in life. He brought all of that life experience to our parish and to helping us enter into the vocation of marriage at that point in our lives.

As much as we loved him, though (we did - and still do - and he often emails in response to my weekly emails, which I love, appreciate, and thrive on) - he was also much looser on adhering to the Church’s designs for liturgy. It bore fruit and was beautiful in its own way, but there were aspects of it that still didn’t feel right.

As I was growing into fatherhood myself, and understanding the responsibility I had especially to the upbringing of my sons (who were both growing and multiplying in number every couple of years!), my prayer life started to include things like this in my conversation with God:

“God, I love Father, but do I need my family and my boys to experience a different type of pastor in order to raise them the way you intend?”

“God, please help me understand how I help my boys see worship as you and the Church intend.”

“God, if my sons need a different type of pastor to help me raise them well, please show me where…”

I didn’t have to go anywhere. At some point in the midst of being deep in that prayer, God, through our bishop, tried to reassign Father, which was abrupt, unfortunately didn’t go well at the time, and caused a lot of heartbreak for many.

It wasn’t really what I was praying for.

But the result in the pastor who God sent for the next portion of our lives was, in a way, an answer to those prayers I had been praying.

He was almost the opposite end of the spectrum - much less consultative and “synodal”, more direct in saying what we would do, especially liturgically, and helping teach people the tradition and why we did what we did.

Abrupt of a change as it was, I actually became grateful for him and this type of leadership and the fruits it yielded.

And my boys were too - they grew up with this, and as a result they learned a lot more of the Church’s tradition and desires for liturgy than they may have otherwise.

I tell this because it was also the theme of a conversation I had this week with one of my sons - one who feels a call to the priesthood himself - about his frustration with pastors who listen and collaborate “too much” and who won’t just make decisions when they need to, and when it’s right, to shepherd their people in the faith.

This was a golden moment for a wonderful conversation with my son.

We talked about my role as a father, and how I can’t always just say, “My decision… this is how it’s going to be…”

But I also can’t always be asking everyone what they think.

There are times - many times - in fact, most of the time, when father and mother have to make a decision, say it, explain it when necessary, and get the family to follow.

Otherwise, tires spin, chaos ensues, and nothing productive ever happens in the hope.

The same balance is necessary of those we call “Father” in the church - especially our pastors.

They need to listen when it’s necessary, but also be willing and ready to say what’s right and lead their people much more of the time.

I tried very hard in this moment of conversation with my son to help him understand both the need for balance, and the need for the father to truly step up more often than he expects in order to provide leadership.

It’s Biblical, millennia of Christian witness speak to it, and I see it in my own family - especially in the many times my own wife will look at me when I’ve waited too long and just say something like, “Just make the decision… tell us…”

I’m convinced that the lack of strong presence, clarity, and leadership on the part of fathers of all stripes is why our society is in the mess it’s in.

I’ve seen it anecdotally in the church in my reading and in my travels: Where pastors are strong and firm, and guide and lead their people, parishes start to flourish over time. It’s also where parishes are seeing handfuls to dozens of young people entering the church the last couple of years.

Where they don’t lead as strongly as their people need (especially in the last 10 years or so as the generation that was more tuned to the culture of synodality has started to fade from history’s stage), parishes flounder and fade over time.

I’ve seen it anecdotally, countless times. I’d love to eventually be able to help fund or sponsor serious research that helps illustrate this statistically. (And if you know of any, I’d love to hear about it.)

If that is true in the model of parish life, how much more true must it be in the atomic unit of civilization - the family.

Where a father is present and leads in the way he needs to, it has an outsized impact on the family. Where he doesn’t, it leaves a God-sized hole.

One of the fruits of the recent conversation with my son was his clearly expressing that this clarity and strength of leadership is what children want from fathers, even if that’s hard to see at times.

I don’t even need to go into the impact on society. Every day there is another story or another research article on the absence of fatherhood and what it then does in turn to our society.

We see it with our own eyes in the decline in the behavior of children, in the decline of virtue in the way we behave as adults, and in the respect for the hierarchical model of fatherhood, all the way to the way we practice the virtue of justice to our Father in Heaven (particularly expressed in the sub virtues of religion and worship).

When we “threw open the doors” and threw out the statues in the places in our churches that taught us about the proper order of things, and the proper relationships between father and son, son and mother, and so on - did we also throw out the anecdote of the fatherhood that would eventually tell us it was right, just, and necessary to return them to their proper place?

When we fall from dignity in worship and the full intent of the Church in Her wisdom, reflecting the Holy Spirit showing us how God intends our sacrifice, did we also fall from the ability to understand the depths of that sacrifice? Did we also start to forget the depths of His love expressed through his fatherhood?

Where does the spiral end?

Fathers, be fathers.

There - I’ve said it - perhaps my most controversial post to date. I know that there are some who will disagree with me, and I appreciate that. I treasure your friendship and your comments and our resulting conversation. Please share your thoughts if you feel so compelled.