Letter from the Superior General
to friends and benefactors

The role of the father of the family
in fostering vocations

Dear faithful and in particular fathers of families,
As you know, we have wished to dedicate this holy year to prayers and efforts necessary
for fostering vocations, and one cannot speak of fostering vocations without speaking of
the family. Our Lord Himself, Priest par excellence, from the moment of His Incarnation,
wished to grow up in a family, in order to sanctify it in a special and exemplary way. It
goes without saying that the example of domestic virtues is, in a certain way, the first
seminary and the first noviciate of every soul that God calls to His service.

We would like to offer a few reflections on the more specific role of the father of the
family. In the modern world, everything conspires to destroy his authority, but now more
than ever it is his responsibility and mission that are more and more denatured by what
we will call, for the sake of simplicity, contemporary ‘wokism’. The man and the woman,
the husband and the wife seem today to have identical roles and equivalent
responsibilities, which generates total confusion and a foul atmosphere. Those who must
be brought up to grow into adults and to one day assume responsibilities themselves are
the first victims of this terrible confusion. Once more, nothing except the Gospel can reestablish the order that modernity has destroyed.

The starting point
What advice then can one give to a father of a family eager to bring up his children well
and to allow one or more vocations to bloom in his family? First of all, it is not simply a
matter of doing this or avoiding that. It is firstly a matter of living habitually in the
dispositions of faith and charity, because a vocation is a response to the call of God, which
presupposes a supernatural perspective and, at the same time, a limitless generosity in
giving to the Good Lord all that we are. From these habitual dispositions the
corresponding actions and behaviour will naturally flow.

Saint Paul gives us the key to understand where we must begin. It is the demand that
the husband love his wife with the same love that Our Lord manifested towards His
Church: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered
himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word
of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle,
or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish.” (Eph 5:25–27).

It goes without saying that love of one’s spouse also overflows on one’s children. It is first
of all in observing how his father loves and treats his mother that an adolescent discovers,
far more that we can imagine, what is on earth the image of the generosity of the love of
Our Lord. If one day God calls him to His service, he must himself be — in a way still
greater and yet rather different — the image of the same love and the same authority. Let
us try therefore to see what the love of the father signifies in relation to his wife and to God.

True love, which is the basis of this great ideal that Our Lord communicates to each father
of a family, can be summed up in three fundamental acts, which assimilate all others.
First of all, love presupposes that we know the thing beloved in depth: we see it, we
contemplate it, we admire it: it inspires our profound respect, proportionate to our degree
of love. Finally, true love pushes us to act with an absolute devotion and spirit of service.

Admiration
First of all, a husband is supposed to admire his wife as the one that God wanted for him
and has chosen to be the mother of his children, and his only irreplaceable aid to help
him, as much in his mission as head of the family, as in his duty to sanctify his soul. The
wife is first of all seen and admired as a gift of God, endowed with qualities that, for her
part, allow her to fulfil the mission of wife and mother.

Also, through her, the husband’s admiration naturally extends to God’s plan for the
family, to divine laws and finally to God Himself and His wisdom. This transcendent
perspective must be ever deepened down the years. There is nothing which marks the
soul of a child or an adolescent more than growing up with this example before his eyes:
this allows him to become ever more conscious of his place in God’s plan – both very
humble and very dependant – and to understand that he is nonetheless called by God to
very great things, in the very measure of this dependence.
It goes without saying that this admiration must be communicated to the child not only
on the natural level, in relation to the grandeur and perfection of the laws of creation,
but above all in everything which relates to the mysteries of God and religion. Here we
touch directly on the fruit of the sacramental grace of marriage, which gives Christian
marriage a dimension completely unknown to purely natural marriage. Very often, the
mysteries of God and the duties of religion might seem insipid, because they are lived in
a way that is routine, passive and without any penetrating effort on the father’s part. We
must not be surprised if the same passivity and lack of enthusiasm is then found in the
children. Effectively, a lack of admiration prevents us from having an ideal and living up
to it in order to communicate it to others. What should be an ideal will then be
transformed into something abstract — a supplementary notion to learn by heart, but
without having the capacity to put one’s heart into it, because the heart is preoccupied
with other things. A father of a family who knows and who lives the truths of the faith,
who speaks to his children about the catechism, the example of the saints and the love
of Our Lord, continually feeds — in and around himself — the ideal on which everything
else hangs. He will easily find topics of conversation which are always interesting and
help his children escape from the omnipresent pitfalls of banality and vulgarity.

But once again, it is very striking to notice how God is sought and contemplated in
correspondence to a wife admired in a way worthy of a Christian: there is nothing more
efficacious for the moral formation of an adolescent than to see these two acts of love
harmoniously complement each other in the person of his father.

Respect
Next, true love engenders respect. A child will respect his mother if he sees his father
doing the same. This respect on the part of the father impregnates his whole relationship
with his wife: the way he speak to her and about her, the way he considers her and treats
her. It is not purely and simply a question of good manners, a merely formal sort of
conjugal politeness. It is rather a matter of the external expression of a profound love
which spontaneously conditions all relationships. It goes without saying that this
profound respect finds in purity both its foundation and its most elevated expression. It
is impossible to love one’s wife as Our Lord loves His Church unless this is done in purity.
There is nothing like this virtue for keeping conjugal life healthy and infallibly
manifesting the respect due to a wife. It conditions language and everyday attitudes. It
pushes the father to be vigilant in order to drive away from the home anything which
could in some way tarnish the atmosphere of respect and purity.

All this must, quite obviously, be so much more foundational in a family’s relationship to
all that is sacred: the law of God, its demands, the duties which flow from it, especially
with respect to consecrated persons. There is nothing more efficacious to destroy future
vocations than a lack of respect towards holy things and persons. From the beginning,
the Revolution has tried to discredit the Church and ridicule her mysteries, exploiting as
much as possible the faults of her members. This is a tactic which unfortunately still
works. It owes its effectiveness to this striking and diabolical association between the
sacred and all that is most reprehensible in human nature. We must not give in to this
temptation by slipping into a spirit of criticism that will inflict hidden but irreparable
wounds on children. These wounds will fuel either indifference or mistrust.

Maintaining respect for all that is sacred — both people and things — does not mean
justifying weakness and disfunction. It simply means loving the Church as Our Lord loves
her: for what she is and for what, in her, continues to sanctify and save souls, despite the
too-human faults of her members and the efforts of her enemies to hinder her work. This
is an extremely important and delicate point, on which a father of a family must always
keep watch and examine himself.

Of course, neither does respecting all that is sacred mean simply abstaining from
criticising or despising it; it is for the father of a family to positively show an
unconditional, joyous and sincere obedience to the laws of God and of the Church – the
faithful echo of Our Lord obeying His Father always and in all things. In addition, it is for
him not only to give the example but to perfect it and paternally lead other members of
his family to it. His authority is entrusted to him to this end: to make respected the order
of the sacred established by God, with a gentle intransigence, conscientiously living up
to the mission with which he has been invested.

Devotion
Finally, true love leads to devotion. In the full and Christian sense of the term, devotion
signifies something quite precise: the giving of self. This is what it leads to. Once again,
it is firstly towards his wife that a father of a family is supposed to show this generosity.
He does so without measure; he willingly devotes himself to her who is confided to him.
He generously accepts his limitations, faults and weaknesses without falling into
bitterness and recrimination. Nothing in family life can drive him to discouragement
because everything is accepted and lived as a gift of God. Love and selfishness are two
radically opposed terms. Here again, Our Lord is the perfect example of the Spouse who
has loved the Church first, without measure and without any other goal than to purify it,
enrich it morally and save it.

In everyday life, this devotion will take a thousand different forms, according to
extremely varied circuмstances, but always in the name of the same charity.

It goes without saying that this devotion of the father of the family must be translated
particularly into acts flowing from the virtue of religion, inside and outside the family.
There are multiple ways to do this and we would like to highlight one in particular: prayer
in common with the family. Very often, this is neglected. Too often it is considered as
being first the role of the mother, with which the other members of the family are only
associated. This is false and constitutes a grave failing in a father of a family. There is
nothing more necessary and more striking for a child that to see his father come back
from work and kneel down with his children with his rosary in his hand. Naturally, he will
be driven to follow his father’s example for his whole life, above all in the midst of trials
and in moments of fatigue. If God calls him, he will be ready to respond.

The spirit of sacrifice
We cannot persevere in family prayer every day without a true spirit of sacrifice. Each
evening, everyone has things still to do and is tired, except perhaps the little ones who
do not yet know how to truly pray, but who run around until bedtime. In a good father,
the spirit of sacrifice prevails. He loves his wife, his children and his God too much to let
himself go. He refuses to give up.

His generosity pushes him to give himself, as much as he can, to help the parish and,
more generally, all those to whom he can give something, even outside his family. It is
not a question of undertaking great works but simply of being ready to offer a little of his
time and talents, often discreetly. Inevitably, the first to benefit from this generosity
shown outside the family are really the children themselves. They have before their eyes
the example of a good father who, without depriving them of anything, finds the energy
to radiate and give himself beyond his family also. This example will prepare them to
practice the same generosity, in whichever way God chooses for them.

What the Church’s Magisterium tells us
Pope Pius XI, more than anyone else, emphasized the indispensable role of the family in
fostering vocations. Here, by way of a conclusion, is what he taught us in his encyclical
Ad catholici sacerdotii of 20th December 1935:

“But the first and most natural place where the flowers of the sanctuary should almost
spontaneously grow and bloom, remains always the truly and deeply Christian family.
Most of the saintly bishops and priests whose ‘praise the Church declares’, owe the
beginning of their vocation and their holiness to example and teaching of a father strong
in faith and manly virtues, of a pure and devoted mother, and of a family in which the
love of God and neighbor, joined with simplicity of life, has reigned supreme. […]

“In an ideal home the parents, like Tobias and Sara, beg of God a numerous posterity ‘in
which Thy name may be blessed forever,’ and receive it as a gift from heaven and a
precious trust; they strive to instil into their children from their early years a holy fear of
God, and true Christian piety; they foster a tender devotion to Jesus, the Blessed
Sacrament and the Immaculate Virgin; they teach respect and veneration for holy places
and persons. In such a home the children see in their parents a model of an upright,
industrious and pious life; they see their parents holily loving each other in Our Lord, see
them approach the Holy Sacraments frequently and not only obey the laws of the Church
concerning abstinence and fasting, but also observe the spirit of voluntary Christian
mortification; they see them pray at home, gathering around them all the family, that
common prayer may rise more acceptably to heaven; they find them compassionate
towards the distress of others and see them divide with the poor the much or the little
they possess.

“In such a home it is scarcely possible that, while all seek to copy their parents’ example,
none of the sons should listen to and accept the invitation of the Divine Master: ‘Come
ye after Me, and I will make you to be fishers of men.’ Blessed are those Christian parents
who are able to accept without fear the vocations of their sons, and see in them a signal
honor for their family and a mark of the special love and providence of Our Lord. Still
more blessed, if, as was often the case in ages of greater faith, they make such divine
visitations the object of their earnest prayer.”

May God bless you.

Menzingen, 8th June 2025, on the feast of Pentecost
Don Davide Pagliarani, Superior General