Dear Saints,

Happy Father's Day!

It’s become somewhat commonplace in Catholic parlance to talk about priests as "spiritual fathers.” That way of talking makes me uncomfortable for a couple of reasons:

1. If a father is someone who has realized his generative capacity (i.e. had/has children), then it only makes sense to speak of God as our spiritual Father. God is the one who begets the soul, and he is the cause of every conversion (what Jesus considers a death-to-life event).

2. The idea of a “spiritual" anything as it relates to human beings gives me pause. We are heaven-and-earth creatures, so the spiritual cannot be easily separated from the physical (or social, emotional, psychological, etc). Spiritual fathers in the heaven-and-earth schema are concerned with the full flourishing of their children, noting that physiological, psychological, and social flourishing are all intertwined with spiritual flourishing.

3. If there is spiritual fathering to be done, then it cannot be the exclusive work of priests unless we are only talking about the administration of the sacraments. That narrows the concept to the point of irrelevancy. If spiritual fathering is a thing, then every man can be (should be?) a spiritual father. Let’s not take that away from him.

4. Maybe the idea behind spiritual fatherhood is that priests are not often biological parents (I know priest widowers who have children and grandchildren, but this isn’t common), but we call them “father.” I here grant the awkwardness of calling anyone a “non-physical father.”

As it relates to fatherhood - in its manifold conceptions - it’s probably best to start with God as Father. From there, we can say that all fatherhood is related to God; that our fatherhood is real and good inasmuch as it reflects and embodies God’s fatherly love. In that sense, I pray and strive to be worthy of the name.

There’s much more than that to reflect on this weekend, but I’d like to end with a word of thanks. Thank you to our men who, embodying God’s love, give me good example and encouragement as a father. In a world that's so desperate for God’s fatherly care, I’m thrilled to be shoulder to shoulder with you, bringing his love to life for everyone we encounter.

In the Peace of Christ,

Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ