PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY

JUBILEE OF FAMILIES

THEMES FOR REFLECTION AND DIALOGUE IN PREPARATION FOR THE THIRD WORLD MEETING OF THE HOLY FATHER WITH FAMILIES

Rome, October 14-15, 2000

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Presentation

1. The Gift of Life
2. Children: Sign and Fruit of Conjugal Love
3. The Eminent Dignity of the Child
4. Fatherhood-Motherhood: Sharing in Creation
5. Responsibility in Transmitting Life and Protecting Children
6. Children’s Rights
7. Children and the "Culture of Death"
8. The Gravity of the Crime of Abortion
9. Children, Orphans of Living Parents
10. The Right of Children to Be Loved Accepted and Educated in a Family
11. The Truth and Meaning of a Child’s Sexual Education
12. The Right of Children to Be Educated in the Faith
13. Evangelium Vitae Prayer
14. Bibliography

Presentation

At the dawn of Salvation, it is the Birth of a child which is proclaimed as joyful news: "I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:10-11). The source of this "great joy" is the Truth of the Saviour; but Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy of which accompanies the Birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfillment of joy for every child born into the world (cf. Jn 16:21).

It is true that a child represents the joy not only of his or her parents, and also the joy of the Church and the whole of society, but it is also true that in our days, unfortunately, many children in different parts of the world are suffering and being threatened. They are hungry and poor; they are the victims of war, they are abandoned by their parents and condemned to remain without a home, without the warmth of a family of their own, they suffer many forms of violence and arrogance from grown-ups

The Pontifical Council for the Family is pleased to present some themes for reflection and dialogue in preparation for the Third World Meeting of the Holy Father with Families - Jubilee Families that will take place in Rome the 14 and 15 of October 2000 in the context of the Great Jubilee.

The III World Meeting follows the first meeting that took place in Rome during the Year of the Family (1994) and the second one in Rio de Janeiro in 1997. The celebration in the year 2000 takes on a unique character, in the context of the Jubilee, a historic and epic moment, that opens onto the third millennium of the Christian era.

The inspirational motto, «Children, springtime of the family and society» has been chosen by the Holy Father Pope John Paul II, as he announced on the occasion of the Sunday Angelus on December 27, 1998, the feast of the Holy Family. His Holiness stated that, «A ray of hope from the Holy Family also shines on the reality of families today.» In Nazareth, «the springtime of the human life of the Son of God began the very moment he was conceived in the Virgin Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus spent his childhood between the hospitable walls of the House of Nazareth. . . .» This mystery teaches «every family to beget and raise its own children, marvelously co-operating with the Creator’s work and giving the world, in every child, a new smile».

The twelve areas of dialogue that follow aim at developing some of the more significant themes related to children: as sons and daughters in their relationship with parents and with the family, in the perspective of society. The content proposes in a brief and synthetic way, some fundamental themes of Church teaching drawn from the more recent documents, especially from the Second Vatican Council and John Paul II’s Papacy.

This material can be used as guidelines for those who work in pastoral care of the family,in a process of reflection and dialogue. This process should be carried out preferably in family gatherings or meetings and adapt the themes to the different cultures and local social contexts. These family meetings consist in gathering families, parents and children, during which, with the help of a guide, there is reflection on the proposed themes.

The structure of each meeting is very simple. After an opening song, the Our Father is recited and a passage from Holy Scripture is read. A reading on the theme taken from the Magisterium of the Church is presented followed by a brief reflection by the priest or guide who introduces the subsequent themes of the dialogue. The participants then promise to take on some specific comitments. The meeting ends with the recitation of the Hail Mary, the prayer taken from Evangelium Vitae and a final song.

The themes for reflection and dialogue are appropriate for preparing the celebration of the Jubilee of Families, both for those who will go to Rome on October 14 and 15, 2000 and those families who will celebrate the Jubilee in their respective dioceses.

Reflections

A gift for parents.

But is it really true that the new human being is a gift for his parents? A gift for society? Apparently nothing seems to indicate this. On occasion the birth of a child appears to be a simple statistical fact, registered like so many other data in demographic records. It is true that for the parents the birth of a child means more work, new financial burdens and further inconveniences, all of which can lead to the temptation not to want another birth. In some social and cultural contexts this temptation can become very strong. Does this mean that a child is not a gift? That it comes into the world only to take and not to give? These are some of the disturbing questions which men and women today find hard to escape. A child comes to take up room, when it seems that there is less and less room in the world. But is it really true that a child brings nothing to the family and society? Is not every child a "particle" of that common good without which human communities breakdown and risk extinction? Could this ever really be denied? The child becomes a gift to its brothers, sisters, parents and entire family. Its life becomes a gift for the very people who were givers of life and who cannot help but feel its presence, its sharing in their life and its contribution to their common good and to that of the community of the family.

This truth is obvious in its simplicity and profundity, whatever the complexity and even the possible pathology of the psychological make-up of certain persons.

Doubts and perplexities.

Scientific and technical progress, which contemporary man is continually expanding in his dominion over nature, not only offers the hope of creating a new and better humanity, but also causes ever greater anxiety regarding the future. Some ask themselves if it is a good thing to be alive or if it would be better never to have been born; they doubt therefore if it is right to bring others into life when perhaps they will curse their existence in a cruel world with unforeseeable terrors. Others consider themselves to be the only ones for whom the advantages of technology are intended and they exclude others by imposing on them contraceptives or even worse means. Still others, imprisoned in a consumer mentality and whose sole concern is to bring about a continual growth of material goods, finish by ceasing to understand, and thus by refusing, the spiritual riches of a new human life. Thus an anti-life mentality is born, as can be seen in many current issues: one thinks, for example, of a certain panic deriving from the studies of ecologists and futurologists on population growth, which sometimes exaggerate the danger of demographic increase to the quality of life.

Yes to Life.

But the Church firmly believes that human life, even if weak and suffering, is always a splendid gift of God's goodness. Against the pessimism and selfishness which cast a shadow over the world, the Church stands for life: in each human life she sees the splendor of that "Yes," that "Amen," who is Christ Himself. (cf. 2 Cor 1:19; Rev 3:14 A) To the "No" which assails and afflicts the world, she replies with this living "Yes," thus defending the human person and the world from all those who plot against and harm life. The Church manifests her will to promote human life by every means and to defend it against all attacks, in whatever condition or state of development it is found. Thus the Church condemns as a grave offense against human dignity and justice all those activities of governments or other public authorities which attempt to limit in any way the freedom of couples in deciding about children.

• Is every child a gift for us? Do we allow ourselves to be taken in by the contemporary mentality that rejects children, especially those that are conceived after an act of violence, or will be born with a handicap, etc.?

• What is our attitude towards parents who have difficulty accepting the gift of children? Are we ready to help them?

Reflections

The divine likeness in man.

With the creation of man and woman in His own image and likeness, God crowns and brings to perfection the work of His hands: He calls them to a special sharing in His love and in His power as Creator and Father, through their free and responsible cooperation in transmitting the gift of human life. Thus the fundamental task of the family is to serve life, to actualize in history the original blessing of the Creator-that of transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to person. (cf. Gen 5, 1-3).

Fertility is the fruit and the sign of conjugal love, the living testimony of the full reciprocal selfgiving of the spouses: the true practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which results from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior, who through them will enlarge and enrich His own family day by day. However, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted solely to the procreation of children, even understood in its specifically human dimension: it is enlarged and enriched by all those fruits of moral, spiritual and supernatural life which the father and mother are called to hand on to their children, and through the children to the Church and to the world. The teaching of the Church in our day is placed in a social and cultural context which renders it more difficult to understand and yet more urgent and irreplaceable for promoting the true good of men and women.

The logic of the gift.

When a man and woman in marriage mutually give and receive each other in the unity of "one flesh", the logic of the sincere gift of self becomes a part of their life. Without this, marriage would be empty; whereas a communion of persons, built on this logic, becomes a communion of parents. When they transmit life to the child, a new human "thou" becomes a part of the horizon of the "we" of the spouses, a person whom they will call by a new name: "our son...; our daughter...". "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord" (Gen 4:1), says Eve, the first woman of history: a human being, first expected for nine months and then revealed to parents, brothers and sisters. The process from conception and growth in the mother's womb to birth makes it possible to create a space within which the new creature can be revealed as a gift: indeed this is what it is from the very beginning. Could this frail and helpless being, totally dependent upon its parents and completely entrusted to them, be seen in any other way? The newborn child gives itself to its parents by the very fact of its coming into existence. Its existence is already a gift, the first gift of the Creator to the creature.

Children are not a right of the parents.

A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The supreme gift of marriage is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents, and the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception. Therefore besides rejecting heterologous fertilization, the Church remains opposed from the moral point of view to homologous artificial fertilization, that is between the married couple. Such fertilization is in itself illicit and in opposition to the dignity of procreation and of the conjugal union.

• Why is the conjugal act the only worthy context for the generation of a human person? Do children increase the goods of the parents?

• What is the difference between being conceived in a natural way and being "produced" like an object? Do children have any rights in this regard?

The mystery of man.

The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. Man is the only creature on earth whom God willed for its own sake. Man's coming into being does not conform to the laws of biology alone, but also, and directly, to God's creative will, which is concerned with the genealogy of the sons and daughters of human families. God willed man from the very beginning, and God wills him in every act of conception and every human birth.

God wills man as a being similar to himself, as a person. This man, every man, is created by God for his own sake. That is true of all persons, including those born with sicknesses or disabilities. Inscribed in the personal constitution of every human being is the will of God, who loves man. Parents, in contemplating a new human being, are, or ought to be, fully aware of the fact that God wills this individual for his own sake. This concise expression is profoundly rich in meaning. From the very moment of conception, and then of birth, the new being is meant to express fully his humanity, to find himself as a person.

This is true for absolutely everyone, including the chronically ill and the disabled. To be human is his fundamental vocation: to be human in accordance with the gift received, in accordance with that talent which is humanity itself, and only then in accordance with other talents. In God's plan, however, the vocation of the human person extends beyond the boundaries of time. God's will is to lavish upon man a sharing in his own divine life. As Christ says: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10).

The sacred value of life.

Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase. Life in time, in fact, is the fundamental condition, the initial stage and an integral part of the entire unified process of human existence. It is a process which, unexpectedly and undeservedly, is enlightened by the promise and renewed by the gift of divine life, which will reach its full realization in eternity (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2).

• Why is life sacred and inviolable? Are we not our own masters?

• Why is every child a gift for each member of the family and for all of society?

Reflections

The image and likeness of God.

Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. The God Himself Who said, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Gen 2:18) and "Who made man from the beginning male and female" (Mt 19:4), wishing to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative work, blessed male and female, saying: "Increase and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). The couple should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are the interpreters of that love. We are not speaking merely with reference to the laws of biology. Instead, we wish to emphasize that God himself is present in human fatherhood and motherhood quite differently than he is present in all other instances of begetting on earth. Indeed, God alone is the source of that "image and likeness" which is proper to the human being, as it was received at Creation. Begetting is the continuation of Creation.

Collaborators of God.

A certain sharing by man in God's lordship is also evident in the specific responsibility, which he is given for human life as such. It is a responsibility, which reaches its highest point in the giving of life through procreation by man and woman in marriage.

By speaking of a certain special participation of man and woman in the "creative work" of God, the Council wishes to point out that having a child is an event which is deeply human and full of religious meaning, insofar as it involves both the spouses, who form "one flesh" (Gen 2:24), and God who makes himself present. It is precisely in their role as co-workers with God who transmits his image to the new creature that we see the greatness of couples who are ready "to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Saviour, who through them will enlarge and enrich his own family". Thus, a man and woman joined in matrimony become partners in a divine undertaking: through the act of procreation, God's gift is accepted and a new life opens to the future. But over and above the specific mission of parents, the task of accepting and serving life involves everyone; and this task must be fulfilled above all towards life when it is at its weakest. Whatever is done to each of them is done to Christ himself (cf. Mt 25:31-46).

• What does it mean to collaborate with God? Is there a responsibility proper to parents? What is it?

• Besides the parents, who else shares in this responsibility?

The duty to transmit life and educate children constitutes the mission of the spouses. For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the very high ministry of safeguarding life with the greatest care. The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life. Human life and the task of transmitting it are not realities bound up with this world alone, but always have a bearing on the eternal destiny of men.

Becoming a father or mother.

Responsible fatherhood and motherhood express a concrete commitment to carry out this duty, which has taken on new characteristics in the contemporary world. In particular, responsible fatherhood and motherhood directly concern the moment in which a man and a woman, uniting themselves ‘in one flesh’, can become parents. This is a moment of special value both for their interpersonal relationship and for their service to life: they can become parents—father and mother— by communicating life to a new human being. The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself. The Second Vatican Council, particularly conscious of the problem of man and his calling, states that the conjugal union, the biblical "una caro" (one flesh), can be understood and fully explained only by recourse to the values of the person and of gift. Every man and every woman fully realizes himself or herself through the sincere gift of self. For spouses, the moment of conjugal union constitutes a very particular expression of this. It is then that a man and woman, in the truth of their masculinity and femininity, become a mutual gift to each other. All married life is a gift; but this becomes most evident when the spouses, in giving themselves to each other in love, bring about that encounter which makes them "one flesh" (Gen 2:24).

A moment of special responsibility.

They then experience a moment of special responsibility, which is also the result of the procreative potential linked to the conjugal act. At that moment, the spouses can become father and mother, initiating the process of a new human life, which will then develop in the woman’s womb. If the wife is the first to realize that she has become a mother, the husband, to whom she has been united in "one flesh", then learns this when she tells him that he has become a father. The husband cannot fail to acknowledge and accept the result of a decision which has also been his own. How can the man fail to assume responsibility? The man and the woman musat assume together, before themselves and before others, the responsibility for the new life which they have brought into existence.

Responsible Sexuality.

To cooperate with God in the transmission of life requires a responsible use of sexuality. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone;but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the personand his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation. Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of the infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality, in its physical dimension also.

• Why is the reciprocal gift of the spouses oriented to and open to life? The encyclical Humanae Vitae defended the couple against the interference of the state. Why?

• What are the values that inspire the natural methods of regulating fertility? How can these values be transmitted to the youth, engaged couples, to married couples?

Reflections

The weakness and preciousness of the child’s life.

Human life, both before and after birth, finds itself in situations of grave danger. ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you’ (Jer 1:5): the life of every individual, from its very beginning, is part of God's plan . How can anyone think that even a single moment of this marvellous process of the unfolding of life could be separated from the wise and loving work of the Creator, and left prey to human caprice?

The New Testament revelation confirms the value of life from its very beginning, the value of the person from the moment of conception is celebrated in the meeting between the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, and between the two children whom they are carrying in the womb. It is precisely the children who reveal the advent of the Messianic age: in their meeting, the redemptive power of the presence of the Son of God among men first becomes operative. As Saint Ambrose writes: "The arrival of Mary and the blessings of the Lord's presence are also speedily declared. Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice; but John was the first to experience grace. She heard according to the order of nature; he leaped because of the mystery".

The rights that protect the child.

Every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree. Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded.

Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenceless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon. Man's life comes from God; it is his gift, his image and imprint, a sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: man cannot do with it as he wills. The sacredness of life gives rise to its inviolability, written from the beginning in man's heart, in his conscience.

The life of man is the greatest human good that all must protect. That is why the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that "every individual has the right to life" (art. 3) and the Charter of the Rights of the Family of the Holy See (1983) confirms that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception" (art. 4). Therefore, "children, both before and after birth, have the right to special protection and assistance…" (art. 4, d). Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, demands unconditional respect; that is to be respected and treated as a person with the recognized rights of persons, principally the inviolable right of all innocent human life to life.

In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights. This is true for every child, but it becomes all the more urgent the smaller the child is and the more it is in need of everything, when it is sick, suffering or handicapped.

Everything that is said of the dignity of the human person must be applied to the unborn child because it is not birth which confers dignity but the fact of being an individual with a rational nature, and this is true from the first instant after conception. It is therefore a being whom God loves for themselves. But moreover, in the case of the unborn child, this same dignity is united to the greatest fragility.

• What is the foundation of the rights of children? Are they rights properly so-called (that belong to the child as such) or do they come from the recognition of society?

• Respecting the rights of children is a question of civilization. What does the Christian vision add to this?

Final Song

Attacks against developing life.

Some attacks are those affecting life in its earliest stages, attacks which present new characteristics with respect to the past and which raise questions of extraordinary seriousness. It is not only that in generalized opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as "crimes"; paradoxically they assume the nature of "rights", to the point that the State is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel. Such attacks strike human life at the time of its greatest frailty, when it lacks any means of self-defence. Even more serious is the fact that, most often, those attacks are carried out in the very heart of and with the complicity of the family—the family which by its nature is called to be the "sanctuary of life". We are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. characterized by the emergence of a veritable "culture of death". It is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak.

Contraception and "abortifacient contraceptives".

It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. But the negative values inherent in the "contraceptive mentality"—are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the pro-abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected. Certainly, from the moral point of view contraception and abortion are specifically different evils. But contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree (they have the same roots). The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.

The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and "vaccines" which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being.

Artificial procreation.

The different techniques of "artificial procreation" or "artificial fertilization" create new attacks against life. Besides being ethically unacceptable, in that they separate procreation from the unitive sense of the conjugal act, these techniques have a high percentage of "failure".

Moreover, frequently embryos are produced in greater numbers than will be implanted in the womb of the mother. These so-called "extra embryos" are then disposed of or used for medical research. With these procedures life and death are subjected to the decision of man, who thus sets himself as the giver of life and death by decree.

• Why are surgical abortion, abortifacient "contraceptives" and artificial methods of fertilization attacks on unborn life? What do they have in common with the use of contraceptives and sterilization?

• What are the characteristics of the "Culture of Life"?

An abominable crime.

Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an "unspeakable crime". But today, in many people's consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.

The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor!

"The interuption of pregnancy".

In this regard the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness" (Is 5:20). Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as "interruption of pregnancy", which tends to hide abortion's true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is "the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth".

It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience. Nonetheless, no motives, no matter how serious or dramatic, can ever justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human life.

Prenatal testing, if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed towards its safeguarding or healing as an individual, is morally licit. On the other hand, it is gravely opposed to the moral law when it is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion depending on the results. Therefore, when one requests a prenatal diagnosis with the intention of having an abortion should the results confirm the existence of a malformation or hereditary illness, one commits a gravely illicit act.

Other responsibilities.

As well as the mother, there are often other people too who decide upon the death of the child in the womb. In the first place, the father of the child may be to blame, not only when he directly pressures the woman to have an abortion, but also when he leaves her alone to face the problems of pregnancy. Nor can one overlook the pressures which sometimes come from the wider family circle and from friends. Doctors and nurses are also responsible, when they place at the service of death skills which were acquired for promoting life. But responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and on the administrators of the health-care centres where abortions are performed. A general and no less serious responsibility lies with international institutions, foundations and associations which systematically campaign for the legalization and spread of abortion in the world.

• What is the special gravity of abortion? Is the person most responsible for this decision always and only the mother? Who are others that are responsible?

• How can we help women in difficulty due to pregnancy? Who supports crisis pregnancy centers?

"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Mt 19: 5).

Grave problems for children.

Divorce is immoral also because it intorduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents, and often torn between them and, because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

What is needed then is for human societies, and the families who live within them, often in a context of struggle between the civilization of love and its opposites, to seek their solid foundation in a correct vision of man and of everything which determines the full "realization" of his humanity. Opposed to the civilization of love is certainly the phenomenon of so-called "free love"; this is particularly dangerous because it is usually suggested as a way of following one's "real" feelings, but it is in fact destructive of love. How many families have been ruined because of "free love"! To follow in every instance a ‘real’ emotional impulse by invoking a love "liberated" from all conditionings, means nothing more than to make the individual a slave to those human instincts which Saint Thomas calls "passions of the soul". "Free love" exploits human weaknesses; it gives them a certain "veneer" of respectability with the help of seduction and the blessing of public opinion. In this way there is an attempt to "soothe" consciences by creating a "moral alibi". But not all of the consequences are taken into consideration, especially when the ones who end up paying are, apart from the other spouse, the children, deprived of a father or mother and condemned to be in fact orphans of living parents.

Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple, and being required by the good of the children, the indissolubility of marriage finds its ultimate truth in the plan that God has manifested in His revelation: He wills and He communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit, a sign and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the Church.

A family for those who are without one.

Christian families will be able to show greater readiness to adopt and foster children who have lost their parents or have been abandoned by them. Rediscovering the warmth of affection of a family, these children will be able to experience God's loving and provident fatherhood and they will thus be able to grow up with serenity and confidence in life.

Orphans or children who are deprived of the assistance of their parents or guardians must receive particular protection on the part of society. The state, with regard to foster-care or adoption, must provide legislation which assists families to welcome into their home children who are in need of permanent or temporary care. This legislation must, at the same time, respect the natural rights of parents.

Couples facing the experience of physical sterility will know how to take inspiration from this point of view which is so rich in values and commitment. Christian families, who recognize in faith that all men are children of the same Heavenly Father, will generously come forward to love and support the children of other families as part of the one family of the children of God. Christian parents can thus increase their love to go beyond the ties of the flesh or of blood. They will feed the ties which are rooted in the spirit and which grow in the concrete service of the children of other families who often are needful of the most basic things.

• Where is the root of the fact that so many children are often "orphans with living parents?" Do parents respect the rights of their children when they divorce?

• What are the solutions to help children who are "orphans with living parents?" Adoption, foster care … and other things. What are they?

The school of humanity.

The family is a kind of school of deeper humanity. But if it is to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, it needs the kindly communion of minds and the joint deliberation of spouses, as well as the painstaking cooperation of parents in the education of their children. The active presence of the father is highly beneficial to their formation. The children, especially the younger among them, need the care of their mother at home.

The famly's educational task has its roots in sharing God's work of creation. Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with the greatest difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues (and of the richest form of humanism) that every society needs.

The primary and principal educators.

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others. In addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents' love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love.

For Christian parents the mission to educate has a new specific source in the sacrament of marriage, which consecrates them for the strictly Christian education of their children: that is to say, it calls upon them to share in the very authority and love of God the Father and Christ the Shepherd, and in the motherly love of the Church, in order to help the children in their growth as human beings and as Christians.

Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the State. But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents. For parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of the whole process of raising children, especially in matters concerning their schooling and the entire gamut of socialization. Other participants in the process of education are only able to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents, with their consent and, to a certain degree, with their authorization.

Essential values.

Parents must trustingly and courageously train their children in the essential values of human life. Children must grow up with a correct attitude of freedom with regard to material goods, by adopting a simple and austere life style and being fully convinced that man is more precious for what he is than for what he has. Faced with various kinds of individualism and selfishness, children must be enriched not only with a sense of true justice and respect for the personal dignity of each individual, but also and more powerfully by a sense of true love, understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested service with regard to others, especially the poorest and those in most need.

• Why are the parents primarily responsible for the education of their children? In what ways do schools, the Church and the State have responsibilities?

• What are the core values of an educator’s duties? What is the difference between instructing and educating?

Education in love.

Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable premise for parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education. The educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal. This overcomes a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of something commonplace, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure. For sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person-body, emotions and soul-and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love. Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents.

In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential, for it is a virtue that develops a person's authentic maturity and makes him or her capable of respecting and fostering the "nuptial meaning" of the body. Indeed Christian parents, will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of self-giving. Education must bring the children to a knowledge of and respect for the (ethical values and) moral norms as the necessary and highly valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in human sexuality.

For this reason the Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure -while still in the years of innocence-by opening the way to vice.

Difficulties in the cultural environment.

Our age is one marked by a great crisis, which appears above all as a profound crisis of truth? A crisis of truth means, in the first place, a crisis of concepts. Do the words "love", "freedom", "sincere gift", and even "person" and "rights of the person", really convey their essential meaning? Only if the truth about freedom and the communion of persons in marriage and in the family can regain its splendour, will the building of the civilization of love truly begin.

Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of "things" and not of "persons". Women can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents, the family an institution obstructing the freedom of its members. To be convinced that this is the case, one need only look at certain sexual education programmes introduced into the schools, often notwithstanding the disagreement and even the protests of many parents; or pro-abortion tendencies which vainly try to hide behind the socalled "right to choose" ("pro-choice"). So-called "safe sex", which is touted by the "civilization of technology", is actually, in view of the overall requirements of the person, radically not safe, indeed it is extremely dangerous.

The truth, and only the truth, will prepare you for a love which can be called "fairest love". A love which is not "fairest", but reduced only to the satisfaction of concupiscence (cf. 1 Jn 2:16), or to a man's and a woman's mutual "use" of each other, makes persons slaves to their weaknesses. Do not certain modern "cultural agendas" lead to this enslavement? There are agendas which "play" on man's weaknesses, and thus make him increasingly weak and defenceless.

Preparation for relationships with others.

Within the context of education, due attention must be paid to the essential question of choosing a vocation, and here in particular that of preparing for marriage. But it must not be forgotten that preparing for future life as a couple is above all the task of the family. Remote preparation begins in early childhood, in that wise family training which leads children to discover themselves as being endowed with a rich and complex psychology and with a particular personality with its own strengths and weaknesses. It is the period when esteem for all authentic human values is instilled, both in interpersonal and in social relationships, with all that this signifies for the formation of character, for the control and right use of one's inclinations, for the manner of regarding and meeting people of the opposite sex.

• Why is the sexual education of children of primary importance? What are the values tied to sexuality?

• Why is it important to be present in the schools your children attend and to examine the sexual education meetings and courses? How is it possible to help children from the earliest ages in view of their future vocation to marriage?

Gratuitousness and education in the faith.

Holy baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to the life in the Spirit ("vitae spiritualis ianua"), and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth. Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them.

Through Christian education, parents help their children to become more aware each day of the gift of faith they have received. As they gradually bring them to know about the mystery of salvation, they train them to live like the new man in justice and holiness, and they contribute to the growth of the mystical body. The educational mission requires Christian parents to propose to their children all the contents necessary for the gradual development of their personality from a Christian and ecclesial viewpoint. The educational mission of the family, in which the Gospel is transmitted and spread, reaches a point where family life itself becomes an itinerary of faith and, in a certain way, a Christian initiation and school for the followers of Christ. In the family all the members evangelize and are evangelized.

Evangelization in the family.

The parents, in virtue of their ministry of education, through the testimony of their lives, are the first messengers of the Gospel to their children. Moreover, praying with their children, dedicating themselves with them to the reading of the Word of God and introducing them to the intimacy of the Body of Christ through Christian initiation, they become parents in a deeper sense. One area in which the family has an irreplaceable role is that of religious education, which enables the family to grow as a "domestic church". Religious education and the catechesis of children make the family a true subject of evangelization and the apostolate within the Church. We are speaking of a right intrinsically linked to the principle of religious liberty.

Aid from other institutions.

Families, and more specifically parents, are free to choose for their children a particular kind of religious and moral education consonant with their own convictions. Even when they entrust these responsibilities to ecclesiastical institutions or to schools administered by religious personnel, their educational presence ought to continue to be constant and active.

So that Christian parents may duly fulfill their ministry to educate, the State and the Church have the obligation to give families all the help possible so that they can adequately exercise their educative functions. Hence we should point out the need for a special solidarity among families. This can be expressed in various practical ways, as for example by associations of families for families. It is important that families attempt to build bonds of solidarity among themselves. This allows them to assist each other in the educational enterprise: parents are educated by other parents, and children by other children. Thus a particular tradition of education is created, which draws strength from the character of the "domestic church" proper to the family.

• How can one transmit to children, from the very earliest years, a Christian formation that is coherent with the gift of Baptism?

• Besides devotional practices in the family, how can one introduce children to other activities in the faith: the parish, groups, other initiatives?