Paternity

The Summer, 2009 issue of Communio is dedicated to the theme of “Paternity.” “Everything comes from the Father,” writes M.-J. le Guillou, “and everything must return to him in the mystery of Christ. That is why human thought, whether it likes it or not, bears the mystery of the divine Fatherhood.” . . .

“This is the paradox, then, that opens up before the father. With the birth of his child, he receives a new existence: the core of his own identity has been changed; he is now someone different, because his own being extends into another.”

“The divine triunity is one of communion only because the origin of the divinity is the Father who possesses himself as always already given away.”

“In this perspective, human fatherhood and motherhood appear not as ends in themselves, but as mysteries of effacement before the fatherhood of God and the motherhood of the Church.”

“It is never the role of the Church, or of its agencies, pastors, or members, to help people do wrong things more efficiently or safely. Nor is it ever the role of the Church just to say no and abandon people.”