It can be tough enough to be any father, but consider the challenges of the biblical Joseph, who ends up co-parenting Jesus with the Virgin Mary.
The carpenter dad is a quiet figure, overshadowed in the story by angels, shepherds, gift-bearing kings, a mysterious star and the woman who would be venerated by billions as the mother of God and the Queen of Heaven.
Joseph, though, has achieved his own status as a saint and as a prototype of all good fathers.
Mary’s husband was a “beloved father,” a “tender and loving father,” an “obedient father,” an “accepting father,” a father who is “creatively courageous,” a “working father,” a father “in the shadows,” Pope Francis declared in a 2021 apostolic letter declaring it the “Year of Joseph.”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the pontiff was especially focused on “ordinary people” who resemble Joseph, “the man who goes unnoticed” but who, he wrote, played “an incomparable role in the history of salvation.”
The Rev. Steve Klemz, retired pastor at Salt Lake City’s Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, had his own “Joseph moment” after the birth of his grandson.
The divorced father of two daughters married Norma Gonzalez in 2001 and soon adopted her two children.
After high school, one of those children became pregnant and returned to live with the pastor and his wife. She then gave birth to Micah Steven Klemz.
The first time he held the baby, he was overcome with emotion, Steve recalled. “That’s what love does.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Steve Klemz, retired pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, is shown in 2020. He had his own "Joseph moment" with the birth of a grandson.
In 2016, the couple adopted 5-year-old Micah, and he has lived with them for most of his 13 years.
Like Joseph — and all fathers — Klemz recognizes that Micah “is mine, but he’s not mine. He’s in the promise of our Lord’s love.”
It is, he said Monday, “another way of living the Christmas story.”
An exemplar through eons
In ancient times, Joseph was known as a “foster father,” says Catholic scholar Cristina Gagliano (formerly Rosetti). “The idea of a stepparent or blended family is more modern.”
There is not a strong distinction between biological and spiritual fatherhood, she said. “Joseph is the quintessential father who ever lived.”
(Cristina Gagliano) Catholic scholar Cristina Gagliano calls the New Testament's Joseph the "quintessential father."
When he found out Mary was pregnant, he could have “put her away quietly,” said Gagliano, a former Utahn who now lives in Quebec, Canada, “given that that was shameful in the first century.”
But Joseph didn’t — and has been celebrated in various Catholic and Orthodox traditions as the chaste guardian of the virgin, diligent protector of Christ, head of the Holy Family, and mirror of patience.
He is also known as “Joseph the worker,” due to being a craftsperson and as the “protector of migrants” (based on the New Testament story of the family fleeing to Egypt).
Joseph has, Gagliano said, a lot of modern relevance to contemporary life.
That relevance is remembered across Utah at St. Joseph Church and St. Joseph Catholic High School in Ogden; St. Joseph the Worker Church in West Jordan; St. Joseph Church in Monticello; and St. Joseph Villa, a nursing home and rehabilitation center in Salt Lake City.
The saint “opened his heart to Mary and raised Jesus as his own child,” said the Rev. Martin Diaz, rector at Salt Lake City’s Cathedral of the Madeleine. “He didn’t understand the Holy Spirit or angels, but he did his job.”
Marrying a pregnant woman was “somewhat scandalous,” Diaz said. “It took a lot of faith.”
It was a very different experience than he expected growing up, the priest said, “but he took it on with grace.”
As a stepfather, Jesus was “his child in everything but biology,” the priest said. “That’s what a stepfather is.”
Diaz is certain that Jesus called Joseph “dad,” or “whatever word was used back then,” Diaz said. “At some level, Jesus knew — but didn’t.”
‘Grafting’ an olive tree
(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo) "Walk of St. Joseph and the Christ Child."
When he married Sherilyn Fuhriman, Russell Stevenson took on the role of stepdad, not to any babies but to four nearly grown children.
The couple met online and began corresponding and talking over the internet. Fuhriman was editor of Segullah, a literary magazine for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Stevenson was working on a dissertation in Nigeria.
Fuhriman, who is now a lead writer for Mormon Women for Ethical Government, had three biological children and one adopted from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
When they met in person in Utah, Stevenson said, “sparks flew.”
By 2021, they were married, and he became a father to her children.
(Russell Stevenson) From left: Levi Olsen, Sydney Tesch, Russell Stevenson, Sherilyn Stevenson, Tyler Tesch, Mariama Tesch, Katy Olsen have their photograph taken in Ogden in January 2024.
It was not what the then-37-year-old planned. Still, it felt right. Parenting the four stepchildren hasn’t always been easy, Stevenson said, but it has been “rewarding.”
Most olive trees “don’t need grafting, but some do,” explained Stevenson, who teaches history at the U.S. Military Academy in New York. And it makes the whole grove stronger.
“You dream of a day when they can say, ‘You’re my dad,’ but that’s not especially realistic,” he said. “Now they do carve out emotional space for me and sometimes ask for my advice.”
Grafting someone else into your family “requires emotional investment and immense flexibility,” Stevenson said. Small moments can be gratifying.
You can see why Joseph is, he said, “my version of a patron saint.”
