The Father’s Role as Priest, Prophet, and King: Young Digital Generation’s Perception of Catholic Family Faith

In the modern Catholic family, the role of the father is expected to be comprehensive, encompassing spiritual leadership and character formation. This study draws on the munus triplex Christi framework, where the father acts as priest, prophet, and king in the family. This article aims to explore the perceptions of students from the Catholic Religious Education Study Program at a private higher education Widya Kartika University, Institution in East Java, Indonesia, regarding the father figure, based on their personal experiences with their respective fathers. Using a qualitative design with Interpretative phenomenological analysis, data were collected through in-depth interviews with 18 students aged between 18 and 35 years. The finding reveals that several participants associated the threefold model of fatherhood with characteristics such as active presence, highlighting leadership rooted in love, firmness, responsibility, and moral example. The results of this study can not be generalized to different contexts, but rather provide an in-depth exploration of how the theological concept of the role of the father is perceived and reconstructed by the young digital generation within the scope of Catholic religious education. Based on the participants’ life experiences with their fathers within the framework of the munus triplex Christi, this research contributes to academic discussions regarding the role of fathers viewed from experiential and spiritual dimensions, in dialogue with psychological and sociological analyses.