First, some sad news. Chris Twardowski, our Director of Religious Education will be moving to another parish this summer. Chris has been in charge of Religious Ed at STM for the past seven years. She has been instrumental in enhancing our RCIA and sacramental preparation programs. We will miss her.

If you, or if you know of someone who would be interested in the position, please have them send me their resume as soon as possible. Our Search Committee has already begun working on Chris' replacement. We wish Chris well in her new position and are very grateful for all she has done.

It is important to take a few moments today and honor those men we call father. These men are the ones who helped to bring us into this life. They are the men who helped to bring us our first ideas about God and the nature of our heavenly father.

St. Paul tells that the divine fatherhood is the source of all human fatherhood (Eph. 3:14) which is the foundation principle of the honor owed to parents (CCC 2214). Today we need fathers more then ever. As fathers take less and less of a role in the family, society falls ever more deeply into a morass of self-hatred and defeatism.

In the Scriptures which always refer to God as Father, the father is charged with protecting and promoting the family.

In Familiaris consortio (John Paul's letter on the Community of the Family) he lists several rights of the family. These rights ought to be promoted and defended by all fathers in our world today. They include the right to:

• exist and progress
• exercise its responsibility regarding the transmission of life and to educate children
• intimacy of conjugal and family life
• the stability of the bond of the institution of marriage
• the right to believe in and profess one's faith
• bring up children in accordance with the family's own traditions and religious, cultural values
• especially of the poor, to obtain physical, social, political and economic security
• housing suitable for living family life
• expression and to representation before authorities
• form associations with other families
• protect minors by adequate institutions and legislation
• wholesome recreation of a kind that also fosters family values
• the elderly to a worthy life and a worthy death
• emigrate as a family in search of a better life.

These "rights" are found in God's plan for the human family. They are not republican or democratic, but human. God's plan supersedes any political system and must be made to work within the system. Any political system which cannot support God's plan, ought to fail or be made to fail.

I invite every father in the parish to take up this active role in defending the family. God has done this for us. Let us do this for Him. For many men, the relationship with their fathers is difficult. Pray for God's healing grace for your relationship with your father. Your family, our world, needs you now more than ever, to be a loving father. Thanks dad.