DR.SAMUELSON

READING #1

Children: The U.S. Does Not Get a Passing Grade

Daniel C Maguire .  National Catholic Reporter . Kansas City:  Feb 14, 2003. Vol. 39, Iss. 15;  pg. 18, 1 pgs

There is a simple principle that can test the moral spirit of people and their government: What is good for the kids is good; what is bad for kids is ungodly. Let's take that principle and look into the American soul. Be warned in advance: The United States does not get a passing grade.

Gloria Albrecht in her recent book, Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women's Work and the Betrayal of "Family Values" (Continuum), makes it clear that our nation does not think that having babies is in the national interest. Somehow we miss the point that if we have no babies, there is no tomorrow. Since 1920 the number of women in the work force rose from 21 percent to 60 percent. The economy is such that one earner per family is not enough. Fifty-eight percent of women with a baby under 1 year are in the labor force and 77 percent of mothers with kids under 6. Only 23 percent stay at home. This means many children are latchkey kids, unsupervised for many hours per week. Is that in the national interest?

Obviously, children need care but the ruling assumption in this land of ours is that if you have a baby, it's your problem. Child care is looked on as a consumer item. If you can afford it, great. If not, too bad for you. Ninety-six percent of working parents pay full costs of child care. What government help there is, is inadequate. Only 12 percent of employers provide child care. Of course, all this hits the poor hardest. Low-income families who pay for their child care spend 35 percent of their income on it, compared to 7 percent of income spent by non-poor families.

In democratic America, the quality of child care varies according to class. Once society decides that child care is a consumer item and not a basic human right that deserves national support, market logic kicks in, and you get only what you pay for. Of course, and, ironically, according to classical economics, those who receive the benefits should pay the costs. The benefits of healthy, well-cared for, well-educated children accrue to the nation not just to the families. They are tomorrow's citizens.

Because they are the bearers of children, women are discriminated against in the workplace. They are denied opportunities not just when they have children, but by the very fact that they can have children.

Our attitude toward chip dren shows through in this telling statistic: The median wage of child care workers in 1997 was $7.03 per hour, three cents less than that of parking lot attendants - and this is usually without benefits. These workers could not afford child care for themselves. Obviously caring for children is not work we value. In fact, according to the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program, caring for someone else's children is classified as work. Caring for your own is not.

Has anyone heard from the so-called "pro-life" people on any of this? Could it be that their interest in life is short circuited by birth?

As Albrecht says: "The United States lags behind all other industrialized nations in addressing family/work concerns through public policies." A White House report in December 2000 said, "States were able to provide child-care assistance to only 12 percent of all federally eligible low-income working families." Albrecht states the assumption of U.S. welfare "reform": "There is wide-spread social agreement that economically poor mothers cannot, by definition, be good mothers unless they work away from their homes and children." Poor parents often cannot afford to work because of the cost of transportation, clothing and child care needs at home. In a U.S. survey of 152 countries, the United States was one of only six countries that does not have a national policy requiring paid maternity leave.

Some 40 states are deeply in debt and are shortening the school week and cutting certain classes and programs.

According to The New York Times (Jan. 12), 60 percent of Americans oppose raising taxes to correct this. Meanwhile the Bush administration is spending billions to ship soldiers to the Middle East while the states back home starve and victimize kids.

There are countries that do not hate their children. Albrecht writes: "Many European countries already provide universal health care and child care, as well as generous (by U.S. standards) paid parental and family leave, paid vacation time and unemployment policies." Swedes currently are entitled to 18 months of paid leave with job protection that can be prorated over the first eight years of a child's life. France provides universal child care to all toilet-trained children and single mothers receive government payments until their children are over the age of 3. In Denmark all children up to 18 years of age have access to free dental care for both routine examinations and treatment. Europeans are guaranteed longer vacation times, four to six weeks, and this is protected by legislation.

Americans bask in a surreal self-- image, seeing themselves as "kind and gentle" people, leading the world in foreign aid. Most would be offended to read in Duane Elgin's book, Promise Ahead: "The United States is the stingiest developed nation in terms of the proportion of total wealth that it donates." We should not be surprised. If we can treat our kids the way we do, why would we be generous to strangers?

[Author Affiliation]
Daniel C. Maguire is professor of moral theology at Marquette University, Milwaukee.
	READING #2 Raising just and peace-loving children
	Annemarie Scobey-Polacheck ,  Carol Anne Morrow .  St. Anthony Messenger . Cincinnati:  Feb 2003. Vol. 110, Iss. 9;  pg. 16, 6 pgs

FAIRNESS AND EQUALITY are important to kids. In fact, to the parent tired of hearing "It's not fair" for the 17th time that day, fairness and equality might feel a bit overrated.

But if parents tap into their children's natural sense of justice and move it from issues such as which sibling has the most ice cream toward the gospel values of social justice and concern for the poor and oppressed, the result can be kids who have a sense of the world beyond themselves. Families devoted to principles of social justice find that their children are often natural advocates of all that is fair and just.

Let Children Lead the Way

It's easy for a family to become so involved in the minutiae of running a household that the needs of those outside the family's own small world are ignored. In order for children to understand that Christian living commands us to reach out to those in need, they will need to see concern for the "least ones" as one of their parents' top priorities.

John Hansen, a high school principal, and his wife, Anne Marie Witchger Hansen, who teaches Community and World Health and Sociocultural Diversity at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, are parents of nine children, ages seven to 23. The Hansens believe that, if parents give children the seeds of social-justice teaching, the children will take the teaching in the direction that is right for them.

"Our hope is to teach our children to be instruments of God's unconditional love," Anne Marie says, "to teach them to be the hands and feet of Jesus."

The family's background includes three years of missionary work in Africa. The Hansens went to Tanzania in 1982, when their oldest two children were toddlers, and returned in 1985, having had two more children while they were there. They have continned to be active in social-justice work, and Anne Marie is on the board of directors of the national Parenting for Peace and Justice Network, a group that helps families weave social-justice values into their daily lives.

Anne Marie was a major contributing writer to the 1994 book Just Family Nights: 60 Activities to Keep Your Family Together in a World Falling Apart. This book remains available from Brethren Press. She also coauthored Kids Creating Circles of Peace (Institute for Peace and Justice, 2000), a book of story starters and activities for kids who want to work for peace.

With so many children at different ages and stages of development, the Hansens have implemented different family traditions in terms of social justice. For a while, the family gave a "Peacemaker of the Month" award. The children would look to current events to find people they thought were living gospel values and then write that month's "winner" a letter of encouragement and thanks. Recipients of the family's award include Mother Teresa, who typed a personal letter back to the family, signed in her own hand, and Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel Peace Prize winner and past president of Costa Rica, who also replied personally.

The Hansens have gone to Mexico for missionary work as a family, have attended numerous rallies and marches for peace and justice, including some in Washington, D.C., have caroled together at nursing homes and have participated in a prison-ministry pen-pal program.

"Social justice is integral to our life," Anne Marie says. "It's not something that's just done on Saturday or Tuesday. We look for teachable moments." Many of these "teachable moments" come out of nighttime prayer, John says. "We have stressed to the children that others need not only our prayer, but also our action," he says.

The Hansens' eight-year-old, Anna, is very vocal about a homelessness problem in the area. Last year, she went door-to-door in her neighborhood, collecting money for children who live in a homeless shelter in nearby Pittsburgh. Then, at the beginning of Advent, she did a presentation for her second-grade class on the plight of homeless children. For their Advent service project, she and her classmates collected change to help pay for programs and services for homeless children in the area.

While Anne Marie and John never directed Anna to this issue, they supported her in her efforts. Anne Marie and her older daughters helped Anna do the research she needed for her presentation. Anna calls her project "Change for Kids," and she is now reaching out to other classes at her school.

Her mom feels, "The important thing is to nurture their faith and encourage them to find their own expression of that faith."

Give Poverty a Face and a Name

Debbie Organ, an instructor of homiletics and coordinator of Hispanic ministry at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, and her husband, Jerry, a professor of law, are parents of five children, ages three through 10. The Organs consider living their faith to be the core of who they are as a family.

"Recognizing God present in others is the basis of our relationship as a couple," Debbie says. "We believe the purpose of Christian living is to speak life in a culture of death."

The family regularly serves at a local food program. After serving the meal and wiping off the tables, they sit down for a meal and chat with those being served.

Debbie and Jerry know that this time of eating with people and getting to know them is even more important than simply donating food or being of service. They believe that many children are taught to view the poor as somehow different than those who have enough.

"I want to put our children in a context where they understand that people who are marginalized are not pets. They're just like us," Debbie says.

The couple believe it's crucial for their children to put names and faces on issues they see in the news. Debbie and the children regularly spend time during the week at a temporary shelter for homeless women and children. The purpose of these visits is not so much to help out-though they do-but rather to visit with and get to know the people staying there.

In doing this, the Organ children get to know people whose lives are affected by job loss, minimum wage, a welfare-reform bill or a company that suddenly moves production out of the country. Issues that are abstract to many other children become as real as the person sitting next to them on the couch.

Celia Jackson, the archbishop's delegate for community services in Milwaukee and mother of two children, ages 15 and 16, agrees with the Organs in their approach of making service a natural part of life. When Jackson was working at a central-city family resource center, her daughter Kathryn, then 12, would accompany her, helping to serve food, do child care and tutor.

"A lot of these people came to our home and became our friends," Jackson says. "We lived in a way that people knew they were welcome."

Lifestyle Decisions

Simple living is a key tenet for families who want to impart social-justice values to their children. Derrick Jackson, a syndicated columnist for The Boston Globe, pointed out that we Americans consume more than our share of the world's resources.

"According to the United Nations, Americans are at the head of a chain of consumption in which the planet's richest 20 percent of people own 87 percent of all vehicles and consume 84 percent of all paper, 58 percent of all energy and 45 percent of all meat and fish," he wrote.

Middle-class families in the United States would be considered wealthy in most other places in the world. Shopping, for some families, has moved from a way to obtain necessities to a form of recreation. The quest for more stuff, or better stuff, can eliminate the possibility that a family will have enough money or energy to reach out to others.

"Living simply is an attempt at solidarity with people who have less," Debbie Organ says. "Plus, it's a reality-if we are going to share our family's resources, we are not going to have as much for ourselves."

The Organs believe that tithing is a good starting point for charitable giving, and give away more than 10 percent of their income to charities each year. The children are aware of this and are part of the process of deciding to what organizations the family should send its money.

For the Organs, living simply includes shopping for clothes at resale shops and garage sales, having a home that meets the needs of the family without being extravagant and driving cars that are each more than 10 years old. "Still, we do have two cars," Debbie says, emphasizing that the family, when compared to most of the world, is living in luxury.

While it's not difficult for parents to see the value in simple living, the attractiveness of the philosophy can be lost on children who are being bombarded with commercials for everything from name-brand shoes to name-brand beverages. To prevent such saturation by the media, many families committed to simple living limit children's television use to public TV or videos. Others require their children to hit the "mute" button during all commercials if they want to watch network or cable television. Some go so far as to ban TV entirely.

"Our children must ask to watch a TV show, and we very much limit what they watch," Debbie says. "We will not buy Nintendo because a lot of the games are violent."

Both the Organs and the Hansens shop with an eye on the wider world. They try to patronize companies that pay employees a fair wage, and avoid those that use child labor or sweatshops to keep costs low.

"We get our information on whether or not companies are acting justly from several organizations that we belong to," Anne Marie says. These organizations include The Center for Peace and Justice in Pittsburgh, Pax Christi and The Thomas Merton Center (also in Pittsburgh).

"A lot of my friends spend a lot of money on clothes," says John Robert Hansen, 17. "I find that because of my family influences, I know more about sweatshops and why we shouldn't buy from a certain company than my friends might."

Life of Service

While families committed to social justice often choose to live simply in terms of material things, a commitment to gospel values often adds complication, not simplicity, to family life. Living Jesus' command to welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and feed the hungry can often make life both busy and, at times, uncomfortable.

"Our home is available for situations that are safe for children," Debbie Organ says, explaining that, while the family would not take in a visitor with a history of violence, they do open their home to people who have temporarily found themselves in a tight spot.

"One time a young Mexican woman and her baby stayed with us a couple of weeks. We are open to that type of hospitality, and the kids know they might find someone here for dinner when they come home from school. Their only question might be, 'What language do they speak?'" Debbie adds.

When her children were younger, Debbie tried to make sure all of the family's service work had an element of fun attached, so that they would look forward to it. Now, with her older children growing in understanding, she feels less of a need to do that.

"One day, when it was time to leave for the meal program, my son didn't want to stop playing to go," she says. "I explained that people were going to be hungry and that they needed to eat. I asked him if, when he's hungry, he wants to wait another hour to eat. Sometimes loving others isn't very convenient."

Still, Debbie cautions, parents need to find balance between helping others and making sure the needs of their own family are met. "There are more things I'd like to do that I don't, because I don't want my children to grow up thinking that helping people is what takes Mommy away," she says.

Anne Marie Hansen adds that sometimes it's difficult to know how much social-justice action is too much. ul often question myself about whether or not I am too intense and passionate about peace and justice for all," she says. "I wonder if this intensity will backfire. I am constantly praying to the Holy Spirit for guidance."

Children Will Remember

While very young children have little choice but to accept their family's philosophy, it is during their children's teen and young adult years that parents have their first chance to see if their children have internalized the family's social-justice values. Celia Jackson has seen that, as her children have gotten older, they've sought out their own areas to contribute.

Now in high school, Kathryn, 15, is part of the Oracle program, a national leadership program for African-American Catholic teens, and Brandon, 16, helps to lead Milwaukee's Brotherhood teen retreats. Brandon spent part of his summer with a youth service mission in Guatemala.

"If I can teach them that whether on a small level or on a large level, one of the greatest parts of life is service, that will be the greatest gift I can. give them," Jackson says.

The Hansens' older children see their parents' teaching through the years as having had a strong impact on decisions they make as teens and young adults. Elizabeth, 23, graduated from Swarthmore College on a scholarship for social change and spent one summer living and working at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth is in a year's internship for service and discernment at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation. She takes classes, works for the community and volunteers for the Delaware County Peace and Justice Committee and an AIDS program.

Erik, a junior at Duquesne University, is majoring in political science and interning at American University in Washington, D.C. Teresa, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame, is majoring in International Affairs and Peace Studies. Last summer, she worked with battered women. This semester, she is interning in Washington, D.C., working for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Teresa has also been traveling around the country on a training team for Teens Advocating for Peace (TAP), an activity of the Institute for Peace and Justice.

High school senior John Robert is active in his school's chapter of Amnesty International, which was started by his sister Elizabeth when she attended the school. He is using his commitment to peace and social justice as the focus of his college application essays.

"There are a lot of differences between our family and other families I know," says John Robert. "We tend to be a lot more up-to-date on current events. A lot of my friends don't know what's going on in other countries. My parents, along with my experience in Amnesty, have helped me realize the importance of taking action on social issues."

Anne Marie and John are pleased that the decisions their children are making in their studies reflect a desire to help change the world for the better. "Of course we know young adults have a tendency to change their minds many times, but this is their thinking-their hoping, praying and dreaming-today," Anne Marie says.

Still Struggling

Celia Jackson, the Hansens and the Organs are all quick to point out they are not perfect parents, and they struggle with the same parenting issues as everyone else. They see the choices they make in bringing up their children to live social-justice values as part of a greater journey to live the gospel values in their own lives.

"Love is the answer," Debbie Organ says. "All efforts, all mistakes melt away if love can be present. If, in the midst of any problem, you find and celebrate love, you have found the answer."

READING #3 – On the Family

Pope John Paul II

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. Even amid the 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 selfgiving that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters and 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 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, 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 form 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. 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 gifts 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 their 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. 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. I Pt. 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 the 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. 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 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 with 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. Fruitful married love 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 them. 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.

***

IV. SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH

49. Among the fundamental tasks of the Christian family is its ecclesial task: The family is placed at the service of the building up of the kingdom of God in history by participating in the life and mission of the church.

In order to understand better the foundations, the contents and the characteristics of this participation, we must examine the many profound bonds linking the church and the Christian family and establishing the family as a "church in miniature" (ecclesia domestica),[114] in such a way that in its own way the family is a living image and historical representation of the mystery of the church.

It is, above all, the church as mother that gives birth to, educates and builds up the Christian family by putting into effect in its regard the saving mission which she has received from her Lord. By proclaiming the word of God the church reveals to the Christian family its true identity, what it is and should be according to the Lord's plan; by celebrating the sacraments the church enriches and strengthens the Christian family with the grace of Christ for its sanctification to the glory of the Father; by the continuous proclamation of the new commandment of love the church encourages and guides the Christian family to the service of love so that it may imitate and relive the same self-giving and sacrificial love that the Lord Jesus has for the entire human race.

In turn, the Christian family is grafted into the mystery of the church to such a degree as to become a sharer, in its own way, in the saving mission proper to the church: By virtue of the sacrament Christian married couples and parents "in their state and way of life have their own special gift among the people of God."[115] For this reason they not only receive the love of Christ and become a saved community, but they are also called upon to communicate Christ's love to their brethren thus becoming a saving community. In this way, while the Christian family is a fruit and sign of the supernatural fecundity of the church, it stands also as a symbol, witness and participant of the church's motherhood.[116]

50. The Christian family is called upon to take part actively and responsibly in the mission of the church in a way that is original and specific by placing itself in what it is and what it does as an "intimate community of life and love" at the service of the church and of society.

Since the Christian family is a community in which the relationships are renewed by Christ through faith and the sacraments, the family's sharing in the church's mission should follow a community pattern: The spouses together as a couple, the parents and children as a family, must live their service to the church and to the world. They must be "of one heart and soul"[117] in faith, through the shared apostolic zeal that animates them and through their shared commitment to works of service in the ecclesial and civil communities.

The Christian family also builds up the kingdom of God in history through the everyday realities that concern and distinguish its state of life. It is thus in the love between husband and wife and between the members of the family--a love lived out in all its extraordinary richness of values and demands: totality, oneness, fidelity and fruitfulness"[118]--that the Christian family's participation in the prophetic, priestly and kingly mission of Jesus Christ and of his church finds expression and realization. Therefore, love and life constitute the nucleus of the saving mission of the Christian family in the church and for the church.

The Second Vatican Council recalls this fact when it writes: "Families will share their spiritual riches generously with other families too. Thus the Christian family, which springs from marriage as a reflection of the loving covenant uniting Christ with the church, and as a participation in that covenant will manifest to all people the savior's living presence in the world, and the genuine nature of the church. This the family will do by the mutual love of the spouses, by their generous fruitfulness, their solidarity and faithfulness, and by the loving way in which all the members of the family work together."[119]

Having laid the foundation of the participation of the christian family in the church's mission, it is now time to illustrate its substance in reference to Jesus Christ as prophet, priest and king--three aspects of a single reality--by presenting the Christian family as 1) a believing and evangelizing community, 2) a community in dialogue with God, and 3) a community at the service of man.

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B. The Christian family as a community in dialogue with God

55. The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith reach their fullness in the celebration of the sacraments. The church which is a believing and evangelizing community is also a priestly people invested with the dignity and sharing in the power of Christ the high priest of the new and eternal covenant.[137]

The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which is the church. By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which it is rooted and from which it draws its nourishment, the Christian family is continuously vivified by the Lord Jesus and called and engaged by him in a dialogue with God through the sacraments, through the offering of one's life and through prayer.

This is the priestly role which the Christian family can and ought to exercise in intimate communion with the whole church through the daily realities of married and family life. In this way the Christian family is called to be sanctified and to sanctify the ecclesial community and the world.

56. The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original means of sanctification for Christian married couples and families. It takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying grace of baptism. By virtue of the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a new way by marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This love the Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting and exalting gifts of grace and of charity."[138]

The gift of Jesus Christ is not exhausted in the actual celebration of the sacrament of marriage, but rather accompanies the married couple throughout their lives. This fact is explicitly recalled by the Second Vatican Council when it says that Jesus Christ "abides with them so that just as he loved the church and handed himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal...For this reason, Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family obligations they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, who fills their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance toward their own perfection as well as toward their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God."[139]

Christian spouses and parents are included in the universal call to sanctity. For them this call is specified by the sacrament they have celebrated and is carried out concretely in the realities proper to their conjugal and family life.[140] This gives rise to the grace and requirement of an authentic and profound conjugal and family spirituality that draws its inspiration from the themes of creation, covenant, cross, resurrection and sign, which were stressed more than once by the synod.

Christian marriage, like the other sacraments, "whose purpose is to sanctify people, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to give worship to God,"[141] is in itself a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the church. By celebrating it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude to God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to live in their married and family lives the very love of God for people and that of the Lord Jesus for the church, his bride.

Just as husbands and wives receive from the sacrament the gift and responsibility of translating into daily living the sanctification bestowed on them, so the same sacrament confers on them the grace and moral obligation of transforming their whole lives into a "spiritual sacrifice."[142] What the council says of the laity applies also to Christian spouses and parents, especially with regard to the earthly and temporal realities that characterize their lives: "As worshippers leading holy lives in every place, the laity consecrate the world itself to God."[143]

57. The Christian family's sanctifying role is grounded in baptism and has its highest expression in the eucharist, to which Christian marriage is intimately connected. The Second Vatican Council drew attention to the unique relationship between the eucharist and marriage by requesting that "marriage normally be celebrated within the Mass."[144] To understand better and live more intensely the graces and responsibilities of Christian marriage and family life, it is altogether necessary to rediscover and strengthen this relationship.

The eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage. The eucharistic sacrifice in fact represents Christ's covenant of love with the church, sealed with his blood on the cross.[145] In this sacrifice of the new and eternal covenant, Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows, is interiorly structured and continuously renewed. As a representation of Christ's sacrifice of love for the church, the eucharist is a fountain of charity. In the eucharistic gift of charity the Christian family finds the foundation and soul of its "communion" and its "mission": By partaking in the eucharistic bread, the different members of the Christian family become one body, which reveals and shares in the wider unity of the church. Their sharing in the body of Christ that is "given up" and in his blood that is "shed" becomes a never-ending source of missionary and apostolic dynamism for the Christian family.

58. An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's sanctifying role consists in accepting the call to conversion that the Gospel addresses to all Christians, who do not always remain faithful to the "newness" of the baptism that constitutes them "saints." The Christian family too is sometimes unfaithful to the law of baptismal grace and holiness proclaimed anew in the sacrament of marriage.

Repentance and mutual pardon within the bosom of the Christian family, so much a part of daily life, receive their specific sacramental expression in Christian penance. In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Paul VI wrote of married couples: "And if sin should still keep its hold over them, let them not be discouraged, but rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy of God, which is abundantly poured forth in the sacrament of penance."[146]

The celebration of this sacrament acquires special significance for family life. While they discover in faith that sin contradicts not only the covenant with God, but also the covenant between husband and wife and the communion of the family, the married couple and the other members of the family are led to an encounter with God, who is "rich in mercy,"[147] who bestows on them his love which is more powerful than sin,[148] and who reconstructs and brings to perfection the marriage covenant and the family communion.

59. The church prays for the Christian family and educates the family to live in generous accord with the priestly gift and role received from Christ the high priest. In effect, the baptismal priesthood of the faithful exercised in the sacrament of marriage constitutes the basis of a priestly vocation and mission for the spouses and family by which their daily lives are transformed into "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."[149] This transformation is achieved not only by celebrating the eucharist and the other sacraments and through offering themselves to the glory of God, but also through a life of prayer, through prayerful dialogue with the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is prayer offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children together. Communion in prayer is both a consequence of and a requirement for the communion bestowed by the sacraments of baptism and matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus promises his presence can be applied to the members of the Christian family in a special way: "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."[150]

(*)Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself, which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a filial response to his call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are dear, etc.--all of these mark God's loving intervention in the family's history. They should be seen as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven. The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as the domestic church can be achieved only with God's unceasing aid, which will surely be granted if it is humbly and trustingly petitioned in prayer.

60. By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer, introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with him: "It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and the office of the sacrament of matrimony, that from the earliest years children should be taught, according to the faith received in baptism, to have a knowledge of God, to worship him and to love their neighbor."[151]

The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by praying together with their children can a father and mother--exercising their royal priesthood--penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface.

Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul VI to parents: "Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian prayers? Do you prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for the sacraments that they receive when they are young: confession, communion and confirmation? Do you encourage them when they are sick to think of Christ suffering, to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin and the saints? Do you say the family rosary together? And you, fathers, do you pray with your children, with the whole domestic community, at least sometimes? Your example of honesty in thought and action, joined to some common prayer, is a lesson for life, an act of worship of singular value. In this way you bring peace to your homes: Par huic domui. Remember, it is thus that you build up the church."[152]

61. There exists a deep and vital bond between the prayer of the church and the prayer of the individual faithful as has been clearly reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council.[153] An important purpose of the prayer of the domestic church is to serve as the natural introduction for the children to the liturgical prayer of the whole church, both in the sense of preparing for it and of extending it into personal, family and social life. Hence the need for gradual participation by all the members of the Christian family in the celebration of the eucharist, especially on Sundays and feast days, and of the other sacraments, particularly the sacraments of Christian initiation of the children. The directives of the council opened up a new possibility for the Christian family when it listed the family among those groups to whom it recommends the recitation of the Divine Office in common.[154] Likewise, the Christian family will strive to celebrate at home and in a way suited to the members the times and feasts of the liturgical year.

As preparation for the worship celebrated in church and as its prolongation in the home, the Christian family makes use of private prayer, which presents a great variety of forms. While this variety testifies to the extraordinary richness with which the spirit vivifies Christian prayer, it serves also to meet the various needs and life situations of those who turn to the Lord in prayer. Apart from morning and evening prayers, certain forms of prayer are to be expressly encouraged, following the indications of the synod fathers, such as reading and meditating on the word of God, preparation for the reception of the sacraments, devotion and consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the various forms of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grace before and after meals and observance of popular devotions.

While respecting the freedom of the children of God, the church has always proposed certain practices of piety to the faithful with particular solicitude and insistence. Among these should be mentioned the recitation of the rosary: "We now desire, as a continuation of the thought of our predecessors, to recommend strongly the recitation of the family rosary . . . There is no doubt that . . . the rosary should be considered as one of the best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is invited to recite. We like to think and sincerely hope that when the family gathering becomes a time of prayer the rosary is a frequent and favored manner of praying."[155] In this way authentic devotion to Mary, which finds expression in sincere love and generous imitation of the Blessed Virgin's interior spiritual attitude, constitutes a special instrument for nourishing loving communion in the family and for developing conjugal and family spirituality. For she who is the mother of Christ and of the church is in a special way the mother of Christian families, of domestic churches.

62. It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential part of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality. Indeed, prayer is an important part of our very humanity: It is "the first expression of man's inner truth, the first condition for authentic freedom of spirit."[156]

Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments, prayer constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian family to assume and comply fully with all its responsibilities as the primary and fundamental cell of human society. Thus the Christian family's actual participation in the church's life and mission is in direct proportion to the fidelity and intensity of the prayer with which it is united with the fruitful vine that is Christ the Lord.[157]

The fruitfulness of the Christian family in its specific service to human advancement, which of itself cannot but lead to the transformation of the world, derives from its living union with Christ, nourished by the liturgy, by self-oblation and by prayer.[158]

READING #4 – Letter to Families

Pope John Paul II

The two civilizations

13. Dear families, the question of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is an integral part of the "civilization of love", which I now wish to discuss with you. From what has already been said it is clear that the family is fundamental to what Pope Paul VI called the "civilization of love", an expression which has entered the teaching of the Church and by now has become familiar. Today it is difficult to imagine a statement by the Church, or about the Church, which does not mention the civilization of love. The phrase is linked to the tradition of the "domestic church" in early Christianity, but it has a particular significance for the present time. Etymologically the word "civilization" is derived from "civis" – "citizen", and it emphasizes the civic or political dimension of the life of every individual. But the most profound meaning of the term "civilization" is not merely political, but rather pertains to human culture. Civilization belongs to human history because it answers man's spiritual and moral needs. Created in the image and likeness of God, man has received the world from the hands of the Creator, together with the task of shaping it in his own image and likeness. The fulfilment of this task gives rise to civilization, which in the final analysis is nothing else than the "humanization of the world".

In a certain sense civilization means the same thing as "culture". And so one could also speak of the "culture of love", even though it is preferable to keep to the now familiar expression. The civilization of love, in its current meaning, is inspired by the words of the conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes: "Christ... fully discloses man to himself and unfolds his noble calling". And so we can say that the civilization of love originates in the revelation of the God who "is love", as John writes ( 1 Jn 4:8, 16); it is effectively described by Paul in the hymn of charity found in his First Letter to the Corinthians (13:1-13). This civilization is intimately linked to the love "poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us" ( Rom 5:5), and it grows as a result of the constant cultivation which the Gospel allegory of the vine and the branches describes in such a direct way: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit" ( Jn 15:1-2).

In the light of these and other texts of the New Testament it is possible to understand what is meant by the "civilization of love", and why the family is organically linked to this civilization. If the first "way of the Church" is the family, it should also be said that the civilization of love is also the "way of the Church", which journeys through the world and summons families to this way; it summons also other social, national and international institutions, because of families and through families. The family in fact depends for several reasons on the civilization of love, and finds therein the reasons for its existence as family. And at the same time the family is the centre and the heart of the civilization of love.

Yet there is no true love without an awareness that God "is Love"—and that man is the only creature on earth which God has called into existence "for its own sake". Created in the image and likeness of God, man cannot fully "find himself" except through the sincere gift of self. Without such a concept of man, of the person and the "communion of persons" in the family, there can be no civilization of love; similarly, without the civilization of love it is impossible to have such a concept of person and of the communion of persons. The family constitutes the fundamental "cell" of society. But Christ—the "vine" from which the "branches" draw nourishment—is needed so that this cell will not be exposed to the threat of a kind of cultural uprooting which can come both from within and from without. Indeed, although there is on the one hand the "civilization of love", there continues to exist on the other hand the possibility of a destructive "anti-civilization", as so many present trends and situations confirm.

Who can deny that 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? This is why the Encyclical on the "splendour of truth" ( Veritatis Splendor) has proved so meaningful and important for the Church and for the world—especially in the West. 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 and will it then be possible to speak concretely—as the Council did—about "promoting the dignity of marriage and the family".

Why is the "splendour of truth" so important? First of all, by way of contrast: the development of contemporary civilization is linked to a scientific and technological progress which is often achieved in a one-sided way, and thus appears purely positivistic. Positivism, as we know, results in agnosticism in theory and utilitarianism in practice and in ethics. In our own day, history is in a way repeating itself. Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of "things" and not of "persons", a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman 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 so-called "right to choose" ( "pro-choice") on the part of both spouses, and in particular on the part of the woman. These are only two examples; many more could be mentioned.

It is evident that in this sort of a cultural situation the family cannot fail to feel threatened, since it is endangered at its very foundations. Everything contrary to the civilization of love is contrary to the whole truth about man and becomes a threat to him: it does not allow him to find himself and to feel secure, as spouse, parent, or child. 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. It endangers both the person and the family. And what is this danger? It is the loss of the truth about one's own self and about the family, together with the risk of a loss of freedom and consequently of a loss of love itself. "You will know the truth", Jesus says, "and the truth will make you free" ( Jn 8:32): the truth, and only the truth, will prepare you for a love which can be called "fairest love" (cf. Sir 24:24, Vulg.).

The contemporary family, like families in every age, is searching for "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.

The civilization of love evokes joy: joy, among other things, for the fact that a man has come into the world (cf. Jn 16:21), and consequently because spouses have become parents. The civilization of love means "rejoicing in the right" (cf. 1 Cor 13:6). But a civilization inspired by a consumerist, anti-birth mentality is not and cannot ever be a civilization of love. If the family is so important for the civilization of love, it is because of the particular closeness and intensity of the bonds which come to be between persons and generations within the family. However, the family remains vulnerable and can easily fall prey to dangers which weaken it or actually destroy its unity and stability. As a result of these dangers families cease to be witnesses of the civilization of love and can even become a negation of it, a kind of counter-sign. A broken family can, for its part, consolidate a specific form of "anti-civilization", destroying love in its various expressions, with inevitable consequences for the whole of life in society.

Love is demanding

14. The love which the Apostle Paul celebrates in the First Letter to the Corinthians—the love which is "patient" and "kind", and "endures all things" ( 1 Cor 13:4, 7)—is certainly a demanding love. But this is precisely the source of its beauty: by the very fact that it is demanding, it builds up the true good of man and allows it to radiate to others. The good, says Saint Thomas, is by its nature "diffusive". Love is true when it creates the good of persons and of communities; it creates that good and gives it to others. Only the one who is able to be demanding with himself in the name of love can also demand love from others. Love is demanding. It makes demands in all human situations; it is even more demanding in the case of those who are open to the Gospel. Is this not what Christ proclaims in "his" commandment? Nowadays people need to rediscover this demanding love, for it is the truly firm foundation of the family, a foundation able to "endure all things". According to the Apostle, love is not able to "endure all things" if it yields to "jealousies", or if it is "boastful... arrogant or rude" (cf. 1 Cor 13:5-6). True love, Saint Paul teaches, is different: "Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" ( 1 Cor 13:7). This is the very love which "endures all things". At work within it is the power and strength of God himself, who "is love" ( 1 Jn 4:8, 16). At work within it is also the power and strength of Christ, the Redeemer of man and Saviour of the world.

Meditating on the thirteenth chapter of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, we set out on a path which leads us to understand quickly and clearly the full truth about the civilization of love. No other biblical text expresses this truth so simply and so profoundly as the hymn to love.

The dangers faced by love are also dangers for the civilization of love, because they promote everything capable of effectively opposing it. Here one thinks first of all of selfishness, not only the selfishness of individuals, but also of couples or, even more broadly, of social selfishness, that for example of a class or nation (nationalism). Selfishness in all its forms is directly and radically opposed to the civilization of love. But is love to be defined simply as "anti-selfishness"? This would be a very impoverished and ultimately a purely negative definition, even though it is true that different forms of selfishness must be overcome in order to realize love and the civilization of love. It would be more correct to speak of "altruism", which is the opposite of selfishness. But far richer and more complete is the concept of love illustrated by Saint Paul. The hymn to love in the First Letter to the Corinthians remains the Magna Charta of the civilization of love. In this concept, what is important is not so much individual actions (whether selfish or altruistic), so much as the radical acceptance of the understanding of man as a person who "finds himself" by making a sincere gift of self. A gift is, obviously, "for others": this is the most important dimension of the civilization of love.

We thus come to the very heart of the Gospel truth about freedom. The person realizes himself by the exercise of freedom in truth. Freedom cannot be understood as a license to do absolutely anything: it means a gift of self. Even more: it means an interior discipline of the gift. The idea of gift contains not only the free initiative of the subject, but also the aspect of duty. All this is made real in the "communion of persons". We find ourselves again at the very heart of each family…

… why does individualism threaten the civilization of love? We find a key to answering this in the Council's expression, a "sincere gift". Individualism presupposes a use of freedom in which the subject does what he wants, in which he himself is the one to "establish the truth" of whatever he finds pleasing or useful. He does not tolerate the fact that someone else "wants" or demands something from him in the name of an objective truth. He does not want to "give" to another on the basis of truth; he does not want to become a "sincere gift". Individualism thus remains egocentric and selfish…

…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.

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