From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Cath. Christianity 101 - JP II's letter "On the Family" - 6 (repost)
Date: 25 Jul 1992 19:54:55 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: skat.usc.edu


The following is a portion of Pope John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic
Exhortation "Familiaris Consortio" (On the Family).  The document
is organized in the following way:

     Introduction.
     Part 1. Bright Spots and Shadows for the Family Today.       
     Part 2. The Plan of God for Marriage and the Family.
(*)  Part 3. The Role of the Christian Family.
          I. Forming a Community of Persons.
          II. Serving Life.
               A. The Transmission of Life.
--->           B. Education.
          III. Participating in the Development of Society.       
          IV. Sharing in the Life and Mission of the Church.      
    Part 4. Pastoral Care of the Family.
          I. Stages of Pastoral Care of the Family.
          II. Structures of Family Pastoral Care.
          III. Agents of the Pastoral Care of the Family.
          IV. Pastoral Care of the Family in Difficult Cases.     
     Conclusion.

Note: (-->) denotes which portion of the document is presented
herein.

In Christ,

Dennis
kriz@skat.usc.edu

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John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic Exhortation "On the Family" - Pt 3IIb


                           PART THREE
                THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
                             (cont)


II. SERVING LIFE.
-----------------

B. Education.
-------------


36. The right and duty of parents regarding education.
------------------------------------------------------

  The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of
married couples to participate in God's creative activity: By
begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself
or herself the vocation for growth and development, parents by that
very fact take the task of helping that person effectively to live
a fully human life.  As the Second Vatican Council recalled, "Since
parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most
solemn obligation to educate their offspring.  Hence, parents must
be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their
children.  Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely
anything can compensate for their failure in it.  For it devolves
on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and
reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and
social development will be fostered among the children.  Hence, the
family is the first school of those social virtues which every
society needs" [99].

  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 those 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.


37. Educating in the essential values of human life.
----------------------------------------------------

  Even amid difficulties of the work of education, difficulties
which are often greater today, 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
lifestyle and being fully convinced that "man is more precious for
what he is than for what he has" [100].

  In a society shaken and split by tensions and conflicts caused by
the violent clash of various kinds of individualism and
selfishness, children must be enriched not only with a sense of
true justice, which alone leads to 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.  The family is the first and fundamental school of social
living: As a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law
that guides it and makes it grow.  The self-giving that inspires
the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm
for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships
between brothers and sisters of the different generations living
together in the family.  And the communion and sharing that are
part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of
difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the
active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the
wider horizon of society.

  Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable
premise for parents called to give their children a clear and
delicate sex education.  Faced with a culture that largely reduced
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, the
educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the
area of sex that is truly and fully personal: 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, discerning the
signs of God's call, will devote special attention and care to
education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme from of that
self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality.

  In view of the close links between the sexual dimension of the
person and his or her ethical values, education must bring the
children to a knowledge of and respect for the 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 and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity -- while
still in the years of innocence -- by opening the way to vice.


38. The mission to educate and the sacrament of marriage.
---------------------------------------------------------

  For Christian parents the mission to educate, a mission rooted as
we have said in their participation in God's creating activity, 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, and it enriches them with
wisdom, counsel, fortitude and all the other fits of the Holy
Spirit in order to help the children in their growth as human
beings and as Christians.

  The sacrament of marriage gives to the educational role the
dignity and vocation of being really and truly a "ministry" of the
church at the service of the building up of her members.  So great
and splendid is the educational ministry of Christian parents that
St. Thomas has no hesitation in comparing it with the ministry of
priests: "Some only propagate and guard spiritual life by a
spiritual ministry: This is the role of the sacrament of orders,
others do this for both corporal and spiritual life, and this is
brought about by the sacrament of marriage, by which a man and a
woman join in order to beget offspring and bring them up to worship
God" [101].

  A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission that they have
received with the sacrament of marriage will help Christian parents
to place themselves at the service of the children's education with
great serenity and trustfulness, and also with a sense of
responsibility before God, who calls them and gives them the
mission of building up the church in their children.  Thus in the
case of baptized people, the family, called together by word and
sacrament as the church of the home, is both teacher and mother,
the same as the worldwide church.  


39. First experience of the church.
-----------------------------------

  The mission to educate demands that Christian parents should
present to their children all the topics that are necessary for the
gradual maturing of their personality from a Christian and
ecclesial point of view.  They will therefore follow the
educational lines mentioned above, taking care to show their
children the depths of significance to which the faith and love of
Jesus Christ can lead.  Furthermore, their awareness that the Lord
is entrusting to them the growth of a child of God, a brother or
sister of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of the
church, will support Christian parents in their task of
strengthening the gift of divine grace in their children's souls.

  The Second Vatican Council describes the content of Christian
education as follows: "Such an education does not merely strive to
foster maturity ... in the human person.  Rather, its principal
aims are these: that as baptized persons are gradually introduced
into a knowledge of the mystery of salvation, they may daily grow
more conscious of the gift of faith which they have received; that
they may learn to adore God the Father in spirit and in truth (cf.
Jn. 4:23), especially through liturgical worship; that they may be
trained to conduct their personal life in true righteousness and
holiness, according to their new nature (Eph. 4:22-24), and thus
grow to maturity, to the stature of the fullness of Christ (cf.
Eph. 4:13), and devote themselves to the upbuilding of the mystical
body.  Moreover, aware of their calling, they should grow
accustomed to giving witness to the hope that is in them (cf. 1Pt.
3:15), and to promoting the Christian transformation of the world"
{102}.

  The synod too, taking up and developing the indications of the
council, presented the educational mission of the Christian family
as a true ministry through which the Gospel is transmitted and
radiated, so that family life itself becomes an itinerary of faith
and in some way a Christian initiation and a school of following
Christ.  Within a family that is aware of this gift, as Paul VI
wrote, "all members evangelize and are evangelized" [103].

  By virtue of their ministry of educating, parents are through the
witness of their lives the first heralds of the Gospel for their
children.  Furthermore, by praying with their children, by reading
the word of God with them and by introducing them deeply through
Christian initiation into the body of Christ -- both the
eucharistic and the ecclesial body -- they become fully parents, in
that they are begetters not only of bodily life but also of the
life that through the Spirit's renewal flows from the cross and
resurrection of Christ.

  In order that Christian parents may worthily carry out their
ministry of education, the synod fathers expressed the hope that a
suitable catechism for families would be prepared, one that would
be clear, brief and easily assimilated by all.  The episcopal
conferences were warmly invited to contribute to producing this
catechism.


40. Relations with other educating agents.
------------------------------------------

  The family is the primary but not the only and exclusive
educating community.  Man's community aspect itself -- both civil
and ecclesial -- demands and leads to a broader and more
articulated activity resulting from well-ordered collaboration
between the various agents of education.  All these agents are
necessary, even though each can and should play its part in
accordance with the special competence and contribution proper to
itself [104].

  The educational role of the Christian family therefore has a very
important place in the organic pastoral work.  This involves a new
form of cooperation between parents and Christian communities and
between the various educational groups and pastors.  In this sense,
the renewal of the Catholic school must give special attention both
to the parents of the pupils and to the formation of a perfect
educating community.

  The right of parents to choose an education in conformity with
their religious faith must be absolutely guaranteed.

  The state and the church have the obligation to give families all
possible aid to enable them to perform their educational role
properly.  Therefore both the church and the state must create and
foster the institutions and activities that families justly demand,
and the aid must be in proportion to the families' needs.  However,
those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget
that the parents have been appointed by God himself as the first
and principal educators of their children and that their right is
completely inalienable.

  But corresponding to their right, parents have a serious duty to
commit themselves totally to a cordial and active relationship with
the teachers and school authorities.

  If ideologies opposed to the Christian faith are taught in the
schools, the family must join other families, if possible through
family associations, and with all its strength and with wisdom help
the young not to depart from the faith.  In this case the family
needs special assistance from pastors of souls, who must never
forget that parents have the inviolable right to entrust their
children to the ecclesial community.


41. Manifold service to life.
-----------------------------

  Fruitful married life expresses itself in serving life in many
ways.  Of these ways, begetting and educating children are the most
immediate, specific and irreplaceable.  In fact, every act of true
love toward a human being bears witness to and perfects the
spiritual fecundity of the family, since it is an act of obedience
to the deep inner dynamism of love as self-giving to others.

  For everyone this perspective is full of value and commitment,
and it can be an inspiration in particular for couples who
experience physical sterility.

  Christian families, recognizing with faith all human beings as
children of the same heavenly Father, will respond generously to
the children of other families, giving them support and love not as
outsiders but as members of the one family of God's children. 
Christian parents will thus be able to spread their love beyond the
bonds of flesh and blood, nourishing the links that are rooted in
the spirit and that develop through concrete service to the
children of other families, who are often without even the barest
necessities.

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

  Family fecundity must have an unceasing "creativity", a marvelous
fruit of the Spirit of God, who opens the eyes of the heart to
discover the new needs and sufferings of our society and gives
courage for accepting them and responding to them.  A vast field of
activity lies open to families: Today even more preoccupying than
child abandonment is the phenomenon of social and cultural
exclusion, which seriously affects the elderly, the sick, the
disabled, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, etc.

  This broadens enormously the horizons of the parenthood of
Christian families: These and many other urgent needs of our time
are a challenge to their spiritually fruitful love.  With families
and through them, the Lord Jesus continues to "have compassion" on
the multitudes.

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Footnotes:

[99] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 3.

[100] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 35.

[101] St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES, IV, 58.

[102] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 2.

[103] Apostolic Exhortation EVANGELII NUNTIANDI, 71: AAS 68 (1976),
60-61.

[104] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 3.

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