Fr. Shenan J. Boquet: Reclaiming Fatherhood to Heal the Family

“Human fatherhood gives us an anticipation of who God is. But when this fatherhood does not exist, when it is experienced only as a biological phenomenon, without its human and spiritual dimension, all statements about God the Father are empty. The crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons and daughters.”

― Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Palermo, March 15, 2000

Dad, how do I…

Late last month, even as the pandemic raged and our TV sets and smartphones were filled with dire news of death and growing civil unrest, something strange, and quiet, and beautiful…and heartbreaking went viral on Twitter.

It was a tweet by a woman named Gissel Carmona. She linked to a brand new YouTube channel, run by Chicago resident Rob Kenney. Carmona wrote: “His father left when he was 12, now he has a [YouTube] channel called ‘Dad, how do I?’ to help kids who’re growing up without dads.” She called Kenney’s YouTube project, “the purest thing.”

As I write this, Carmona’s tweet has been “liked” over 2 million times, and retweeted 650,000 times. Meanwhile, Kenney’s YouTube channel has garnered over 2.2 million subscribers, putting him in the stratosphere of Youtube influencers. Which is extraordinary when you consider the humdrum nature of the videos Kenney uploads: unedited, no-frills instructional videos about such things as “how to swap out a car battery,” or “how to use a stud finder,” or “how to tie a tie.”  …

Read more here:  hli.org/2020/06/reclaiming-fatherhood/