Dads who are absent from their family make it more difficult for their children to understand God as a loving father, said Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic News Agency reports.
“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 US, over one-third of all children live apart from their biological father.
The Pope delivered his remarks to over 20,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. His reflections, which today focused on two passages from St. Paul on the Holy Spirit enabling people to call upon God with the intimate term ‘Abba,’ continued his series on the role of prayer in the story of salvation.
FULL STORY Absentee dads hinder children's understanding of God (CNA)