Lack of responsibility in sexual behavior is also due to the fostering today of attitudes of sexual permissiveness, which focus above all on personal pleasure and gratification. The Church's position on responsible parenthood is well known, although at times it is misunderstood. Some here might consider it too demanding for today's man and woman. But no way of fostering the deepest respect for human life and the processes of its transmission is going to be an easy one. Responsibility brings burdens.
Responsibility demands discipline and self-restraint.
Human life is so important that its transmission has been entrusted not simply to a series of mechanical biological processes. New life, from its very beginnings, has the right to be closely welcomed into the loving and stable communion of the family, the natural and fundamental group unit of society. The family belongs to the heritage of humanity, precisely because it is the place where the stable relationship of a man and a woman is transformed into a caring institution for the responsible transmission and nurturing of new life. The problems which families have to face are well known. It is commonplace, likewise, to attribute many of the problems concerning social disintegration to a breakdown in family structures.