Fatherless

A friend of mine sent me an article that tries to say that we should not worry about the gun culture as much as the fatherless culture in America. In other words, the 20-year-old who shot up Newtown had a father in his life, he might not have become a killer. That sounds like a good ploy for not reforming the broken system that allows anyone and everyone to tote a gun in the USA. Maybe the author is correct.

Don Bosco College Library in 1967

On the other hand, I clearly remember a comment made by Fr Paul Aronica, who was my professor of literature at Don Bosco College, in Newton, New Jersey - way back in my college days at the start of the 1970s. We were studying the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Fr Paul compared the theme of fatherless Huck and fatherless Tom Sawyer to many other fatherless figures in American literature, cinema and television (there was no YouTube in those days). Fr Paul remarked that the United States created a fatherless culture when the merchants and plantation owners gathered in Philadelphia on 4 July 1776 sent a declaration of independence to the King of England. By throwing out the King, they disowned their father, and Unitedstatesians have been disowning their fathers ever since.

Throw out the father and collect guns! these are actually more American than motherhood and apple pie.