Fatherhood in crisis, says Egan

Fatherhood is in crisis, the Bishop of Portsmouth warned in a pastoral message for the feast of St Joseph, writes Liz Dodd. In a letter addressed to “Christian dads”, Bishop Philip Egan said that traditional fatherhood – like the institution of marriage – was threatened by Britain’s high divorce rate and the trend towards cohabitation.

In the message released to coincide with the Solemnity, he pointed out that nearly half of all children in Britain are born outside marriage and that the overwhelming majority (92 per cent) of single-parent households are headed by mothers. As a result, more than a million children in Britain grow up without contact with their fathers, said the bishop. “This is why it’s not an exaggeration to say fatherhood is in crisis.”

Men have a natural vocation to become fatherly, he said, just as women have a natural vocation to be motherly. But he warned: “Abandoning the traditional religious culture of family and marriage – a loving, monogamous, covenantal relationship of one man and one woman with the procreative purpose of raising children – has resulted in a revolution.” Bishop Egan urged Catholics to study the upcoming document by Pope Francis on the two recent synods on the family.

“A great battle is being fought between two radically different understandings of what it means to be human,” he said. “Are we merely higher animals, biological machines, to be manipulated for pleasure, gain, power? Or are we fundamentally different ... people with a dignity and a vocation?”