Father's Day is the perfect moment to hear from the Holy Father himself. Pope Leo XIV has addressed parenting and fatherhood directly in his first year as pope, and what he's said is both countercultural and deeply encouraging.
We call our pope “the Holy Father,” and Pope Leo already has been a true father since his election just over a year ago on May 8, 2025 — saying in his first encyclical that he writes to the world “with the heart of a shepherd and a father.”
He has addressed fathers and parents directly several times in his writings, homilies, and speeches. Here are a few of his most memorable quotations about fatherhood, and why they matter so much.
1Pope Leo to dads: "Don't be afraid of this adventure"
In his general audience on November 26, 2025, Pope Leo urged young people not to be afraid of the gift and adventure of having a child, saying:
God always stays faithful to his plan of love and life…
To generate, then, means to trust in the God of life and to promote humanity in all its expressions: first and foremost, in the wonderful adventure of motherhood and fatherhood…
For those of you living the vocation of married life, this means discovering the gift and adventure of motherhood and fatherhood, in which you are called to participate in bringing new lives into this world and preparing them for the life that is eternal. Do not be afraid of this adventure, but prayerfully open yourselves to the gift of life, trusting in the God who we know loves us.
In any epic adventure, there are moments of great hardship and inconvenience, as well as of glory and great joy.
Parenting is more joyful when it’s seen as an adventure, taken with a flexible spirit and a quick sense of humor. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered” — a sentiment that captures so much of parenting.
Pope Leo reminds men to trust God as they embrace the wild ride of fatherhood with an adventurous heart and spirit of prayer.
2It takes courage to choose life
In the same audience, Pope Leo put out an “urgent call” to young people to have “the courage … to generate life” in a fatalistic world, saying:
Dear friends, there is a widespread sickness in the world: the lack of confidence in life. It is as if we have resigned ourselves to a negative fatalism, to renunciation. Life risks no longer representing a gift, but an unknown, almost a threat from which to protect ourselves so as not to end up disappointed. For this reason, the courage to live and to generate life, to bear witness that God is the quintessential “lover of life,” as the Book of Wisdom (11:26) affirms, is today a more urgent call than ever.
His words are a powerful reminder of Christ’s call to men, especially to fathers: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her” (Ephesians 5:25). In the face of negativity and pessimism, having a child is a vote of confidence in hope for the future.
3Your kids aren't yours to keep: You’re raising saints for the Kingdom
Pope Leo honored the 10th anniversary of the canonization of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, parents of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, with a special message for families, saying in part:
Above all, put Jesus at the center of your families, your activities, and your choices. Help your children discover His boundless love and tenderness, and strive to make them love Him in return as He deserves: this is the great lesson that Louis and Zélie teach us today, and which the Church and the world so urgently need. How could Thérèse have loved Jesus and Mary so much – and then passed on such a beautiful doctrine to us – if she had not learned it from her saintly parents from an early age?
His words remind parents to be the examples of goodness we want our children to be — to become saints, as Louis Martin found a way to do in his busy life as a husband, worker, and father.
Holding up the example of this saintly married couple, he reminds fathers and mothers that our children are not ours forever, but on loan to us from God. We are raising them not to remain our children but to become saints for God’s kingdom, our brothers and sisters in Christ.
