Recently a woman celebrity received an anonymous sperm donation and choosing artificial insemination gave birth to a son. Picked up by the press, journalists made much of the absence of the father in the process.
The sexual relationship of male and female is not necessary for raising a family. With the means of assisted reproduction available, no need for the sexual act, and women can go it alone. The absence of the man, is it not all for the better? This is the question that has been raised.
This is one of the crises for fatherhood appearing in society. Hanna Rosin is the book The End of Man brings it to the attention of many.
Pope Francis has also mentioned this crisis of Fathers in the Exhortation Joy of Love #176: "We often hear that ours is a society without fathers. In Western culture, the father figure is said to be symbolically absent, missing, or vanished. Manhood itself seems to be called into question. The result has been an understandable confusion."
The crisis of fatherhood does not mean that the role of the mother has become larger or that we now are dealing with matriarchy. Modern society is eliminating fatherhood. Freeing oneself from the violent, the authoritative, the oppressive father, and in the process fatherhood.
However, in ridding the father from the family they are eliminating God from their thinking and are heading for shipwreck. This is a problem facing society. True subjectivity no longer exists for the individual who has lost direction. Every internal impulse and instinct will be influenced by external circumstances and changes moving one every which way.
With the elimination of fatherhood, the foundation of the personality nurtured in the family is being dismantled. With the destruction of fatherhood, motherhood will not be complete. In the reference at the beginning of the article to the unmarried woman who chooses to have in 'vitro' fertilization with an unknown father is denying the place of the father, subordinated to science, the image of family changes.
This can be confirmed by the fact that the recent case of controversy over fatherhood mentioned earlier is closely related to IVF, one of the risks to human life. IVF technology separates the link between sex and childbirth, raising questions about the role of men and fathers. It also separates the precious birth of human beings from the context of marital love, hurting their children's rights.
After all, protecting and cultivating fatherhood is closely related to recognizing the fundamental value of human life and understanding how rapidly developing technologies of life apply to humans and what such technology means.
The most urgent thing in this situation is life education. According to a survey conducted by the Korean Catholic Council in 2014, Catholics' perceptions of life and non-believers' perceptions of life are not much different. It is also true that there is a lack of life education in the Catholic Church in Korea.
The rest of the article goes on to show the ways the Church in Korea is working to improve the education of the believers on Life Issues. He looks at some efforts in the local church on fatherhood, home, and livelihood and proposes directions for the future.
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