In this letter, I would like to speak to all families in our diocese and especially to my brothers in the faith, both clergy and lay, struggling to be good Christian men in a challenging contemporary world. I ask them to reflect with me on fatherhood in light of our discipleship in Christ Jesus and the culture in which the vocation of fatherhood is lived out. Today many men have lost their vision of fatherhood. They lack confidence in who they are, where they are headed, and what they are about as people. This constitutes a crisis for young men as well as old, for those married and single, for men who make up the clergy as well as the laity.
Women are very much involved.
My intention is to maintain a focus on certain aspects of the complex of problems which constitute our current crisis. In fact, only if women welcome men in the roles of husband and father, cooperate with them and expect great things of them, can men hope to undertake such awesome responsibilities. In a real sense, the same is true for women in their roles as wife and mother. The Church does not have all the answers to the present crisis of fatherhood. The problems elude easy answers and touch on the mystery of human persons and their many relationships, especially their relationship with God.