Is The Holy Family a Model for Inclusion or Exclusion?
Jacob Kohlhaas
Today’s reflection is from guest contributor Jacob Kohlhaas, an associate professor of moral theology at Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa. Professor Kohlhaas has written on theology of family topics for U.S. Catholic, Bondings 2.0, and America. He is the author of Beyond Biology: Rethinking Parenthood in the Catholic Tradition, and is co-editor of Catholic Family Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations.
Today’s liturgical readings for the Feast of the Holy Family can be found by clicking here.
With sanctuaries recently decorated for Christmas, today’s Feast of the Holy Family will celebrate not only Christ’s coming, but his arrival within a historical family. But be prepared: In many Catholic parishes the “Holy Family” that will be preached and celebrated this weekend will predictably arrive in very distinctive packaging.
Although Mary and Joseph occupy relatively few lines of scripture, many silences in the biblical testimony will be robustly filled with acceptably Catholic ideals of family life. These ideals will tend to reflect the anxieties of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century upper-class European Catholicism in which the feast day was sanctioned and promoted.
This particular vision of a tidy, nuclear, and nearly sin-free family (my sympathies to Joseph), has been so internalized across the industrialized world that it has become widely regarded as traditional despite its relatively recent vintage. This acceptance comes with a painful irony: A feast celebrating the family that welcomed Jesus into the world is commonly utilized as a tool for exclusion, whether covertly or overtly, against those who fail to meet certain selected criteria.
Previous posts on this feast day have already covered the theme well. In 2020, Brian Flanagan called attention to how the biblical witness repeatedly fails heteronormative expectations. Last year, Cristina Traina pointed to how recently Catholics began identifying the “Holy Family” with the little family of Nazareth and reminded us that baptismal identity outshines all other forms of familial belonging. The conviction that Christians are a true family united by baptism may well be exemplified by just how challenging belonging can prove to be.
On the Christmas Vigil, just as the stables and statuary of parish nativity scenes were nearing their full splendor with the addition of shepherds and the Christ child, you may have heard the Gospel of Matthew proclaim the arrival of Emmanuel, “God with us.”
Us. Inclusive. Not just with the family in the little stable under the spotlight, but with all of us. It’s easy to demonstrate how the Holy Family as presented by scripture was a bit more complicated than the idealized depictions on prayer cards. But the whole baptized family, meaning ALL of us? Now that is self-evidently a mess.
Matthew’s testimony that Jesus isn’t just born to Mary and Joseph but to the entire brawling mass of humanity raises interesting questions. Looking past the Holy Family to the world they inhabit, we can see the social consequences of breaking communal mores weighing on Joseph’s mind as well as Mary’s dangerous risk of suffering shame within a community willing to enforce its consequences (Matthew 1:18 – 21)
Cutting to Jerusalem, in chapter two we see respectable family men, the priests and scribes, advising a jealous leader, Herod, on religious matters despite his self-interested motives. This results in deadly consequences for many young families in Bethlehem, with the slaughter of the Innocents. Did these upstanding religious leaders see their role as informants only as duty or did the humanity of other people’s families register in their consciences? Could they have sent warnings? How many other families might have fled quickly alongside Mary and Joseph?
The Gospel of Matthew vividly presents the concerns and emotions of a real family in uncertain and perilous situations. While the historical facts might be difficult to verify, it’s clear that Matthew takes the import of the name “Emmanuel” as central to Jesus’s significance. He came to be here, among us, all of us, in this mess.
Just like Matthew’s priests and scribes, ordinary Catholics have an uneven historical record of showing concern for other people’s families. Since the feast of the Holy Family was made universal by Benedict XV in 1920, the tendency to justify denying the dignity of certain types of families has persisted in many countries and contexts.
Exclusion from communal life, a risk Joseph and Mary faced only with angelic support, continues to be wielded against those who defy collective norms, be they social, sexual, legal, or otherwise. Globalizing veneration for the Holy Family does not appear to have similarly expanded our church’s collective moral imagination. Instead, the global Catholic family’s fixation on this idealized family may have only made the divergences of some families more pronounced.
But we all participate imperfectly in familial love. Families are often messy, and even the most loving and well-adjusted still have to face the vicissitudes of life. Nonetheless, this is the mess that God chose to enter. As you celebrate the little family in the stable this Christmas season, you may be subject to some inflated tales regarding their lives, or you may find yourself and those you love on the receiving end of a weaponized form of morality that continues to haunt Catholic communities. Nonetheless, I invite you to look askance at the stories told to exclude to try to appreciate the depth of love that would enter a world to be among a family such as us.
—Jacob Kohlhaas, December 28, 2025
Thank you, Professor Kohlhaas, for this challenging reflection. I remember growing up in a small town near Dubuque in the 1950s. Parents were constantly reminded that if they did not provide for their children, no one else would, plus the reminder quite directly that no one is responsible for other people’s children. Families had to present a favorable image in town and in their church community so as to keep that proper act together at all times. Should anyone tarnish that image, they might as well leave town. There was also an emphasis in marriage that one chooses a suitable partner and especially that this partner come from a proper family. If anyone dared to venture from a respectable secure family structure into any possible messy situation, tongues would wag. Jesus certainly could have remained in a safe honorable environment reaching out only to the respectable surface crowd. It was inevitable that many would turn against him for reaching out to the outcast and the messy elements of society just as would have happened in the environment where I was raised. Social pressure and current teachings from the clergy often supported that pressure and kept most people on the straight and arrow. And should anyone secretly be gay, you then had to put on an act like a poor soul unable to find a partner and hope that people might have pity. Such talk would allow the person to remain in town barely. An individual had to live an inauthentic life as being honest would have been social suicide. Some enlightened families did protect such an individual in the same way as someone with a severe physical or mental defect. Another outlet was entering into a dishonest marriage eventually bringing chaos for everyone. Being gay in retrospect was actually the greatest teacher as it meant unlearning a lot of garbage through the years. It is no wonder that a nice manger scene or a doctored image of a man on a cross was the chosen way to maintain this comfort zone image that was constantly impressed on everyone. Jesus came to turn everything upside down so that all persons could be on a level playing field. Many then manufactured their own Jesus to match their little egos. Today, we are slowly becoming more enlightened, yet it still is not easy for many to accept different definitions of family. The invitation is always there to face the shadows and dark waters of life and thus become more whole sharing in the resurrection of Jesus. The external separations which our ego often goes by is very powerful and often divine intervention breaks that cycle so that the real essence of each person which is love can shine forth. Families often continue to nurture or hinder that realization. We can become free from bondage which society, family, and many times religious teaching has put us in.
There are several passages in Scripture that give another perspective on Jesus’ biological family. One in particular is the story of the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12. On the way home, Mary and Joseph noticed Jesus wasn’t anywhere in the caravan with relatives or acquaintances. They had to go back to Jerusalem, to find him. So it is obvious from the story, that family was much larger than just Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
I found both this article, and the comment by Loras Michel to be very thought-provoking.
This is a poem that addresses the seemingly insignificance of the people with whom God identifies.
There’s magic to this time of year.
I hear a children’s choir
and remember singing in a children’s choir at midnight
in a church filled with the scent of pine trees
and incense.
We sang Silent Night as the procession made its way
to the crib, where the statue of the infant boy
was laid on a bed of straw in a stable,
between statues of Mary and Joseph kneeling in awe.
But we didn’t smell the sweat of the parents
who traveled for days without a place to bathe,
or the odor of animals filling the enclosed space.
We didn’t understand the shame of an unmarried mother
or the cruelty of the king who demanded his subjects
make this journey oblivious to their struggle.
We didn’t know there were homeless Marys and Josephs
and Jesuses in many countries of our world
who did not have anyone to marvel at their stories
and praise their holiness. We didn’t know
that even in their day,
this young couple and their newborn child were
just one family among many,
each as insignificant as the next.
The story of Christmas
is the story of a God
who became insignificant –
except to this God, no one is insignificant.
And the story is of this God
becoming flesh and blood
which were made of earth’s dust and water,
becoming flesh of the earth,
flesh of the sun,
flesh of the apple and sheep,
flesh of the bread and wine.
It is the story of the creator
becoming enfleshed in the world
of the creature.
JPH
Professor Kohlhaas,
Thank you for your timely article that provided just what I needed to share with a visiting priest at my parish on Sunday when I found myself, as you shared, on the “receiving end of a weaponized form of morality that continues to haunt Catholic communities.” Even in a homily in paradoxical celebration of the Holy Family.
Thank you also, Loras Michel and John Hilgeman, for your posts and poetry.
Christmas peace and New Year’s blessings,
Kim Racine