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ARTICLE 3: The Family 1.
The Institution of the Family I. The Institution of the Family 84.
Since the Creator of all things has established the conjugal partnership
as the beginning and basis of human society, the family is the first
and vital cell of society (Apostolicam Actuositatem, n.11). The
family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its
foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service
to life: it is from the family that citizens come to birth, and
it is within the family that they find the first school of the social
virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development
of society. Thus, far from being closed in on itself, the family
is by nature and vocation open to other families and to society,
and undertakes its social role. 85.
The first and fundamental structure for`human ecology' is the family,
in which man receives his first formative ideas about truth and
goodness, and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and
thus what it actually means to be a person. Here we mean the family
founded on marriage, in which the mutual gift of self by husband
and wife creates an environment in which children can be born and
develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity, and
prepare to face their unique and individual destiny. But it often
happens that people are discouraged from creating the proper conditions
for human reproduction and are led to consider themselves and their
lives as a series of sensations to be experienced rather than as
a work to be accomplished. The result is a lack of freedom, which
causes a person to reject a commitment to enter into a stable relationship
with an other person and to bring children into the world, or which
leads people to consider children as one of the many `things' that
an individual can have or not have, according to taste, and which
compete with other possibilities. It is necessary to go back to
seeing the family as the sanctuary of life. The family is indeed
sacred: it is the place in which life the gift of God can be properly
welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed,
and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human
growth. In the face of the so called culture of death, the family
is the heart of the culture of life.... 86.
But man finds his true identity only in his social milieu, where
the family plays a fundamental role. The family's influence may
have been excessive, at some periods of history and in some places,
when it was exercised to the detriment of the fundamental rights
of the individual. The long standing social frameworks, often too
rigid and badly organized, existing in developing countries, are,
nevertheless, still necessary for a time, yet progressively relaxing
their excessive hold on the population. But the natural family,
mo nogamous and stable, such as the divine plan conceived it and
as Christianity sanctified it, must remain the place where the various
generations come together and help one another to grow wiser and
to harmonize personal rights with the other requirements of social
life (GS, nn. 50 51). 87.
Within the people of life and the people for life, the family has
a decisive responsibility. This responsibility flows from its very
nature as a community of life and love, founded upon marriage, and
from its mission to guard, reveal, and communicate love (Familiaris
Consortio, n. 17). Here it is a matter of God's love, of which parents
are co workers and, as it were, interpreters when they transmit
life and raise it accordingly to his fatherly plan (cf. GS, n. 50). 88.
As the fundamental nucleus of society, the family has a right to
the full support of the State in order to carry out fully its particular
mission. State laws, therefore, must be directed to promoting its
well being, helping it to fulfill its proper duties. In the face
of increasing pressure nowadays to consider, as legally equivalent
to the union of spouses, forms of union which by their very nature
or their intentional lack of permanence are in no way capable of
expressing the meaning and ensuring the good of the family, it is
the duty of the State to encourage and protect the authentic institution
of the family, respecting its natural structure and its innate and
inalienable rights.
89.
According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the
wider community of the family, since the very institution of marriage
and conjugal love are ordained to the procreation and education
of children, in whom they find their crowning (cf. GS, n. 50). 90.
Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage,
the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of
spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are
sanctified by the sacrament. Sexuality, by means of which man and
woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are
proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological,
but concerns the inner most being of the human person as such. It
is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part
of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to
one another until death . The acts in marriage by which the intimate
and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable;
the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self giving
they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude (GS,
n. 49). Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure: The Creator himself
established that in the (generative) function, spouses should experience
pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses
do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept
what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses
should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation
(Pius XII, Discourse, 1951). The spouses' union achieves the twofold
end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission
of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated
without al tering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the
goods of marriage and the future of the family. The conjugal love
of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity
and fecundity. 91.
The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established
by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal
covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence, by that human act
whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other, a relationship
arises which, by divine will and in the eyes of society too, is
a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their offspring's
as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer
depends on human decisions alone. For God Himself is the author
of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and pur poses.
All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of
the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny
of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability,
peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as
a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself
and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education
of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and
a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love are no longer two,
but one flesh (Mt 19:3ff.), render mutual help and service to each
other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions.
Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness
and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual
gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children
impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable
one ness between them. 92.
A certain sharing by man in God's lordship is also evident in the
specific responsibility that he is given for human life as such.
It is a responsibility that reaches its highest point in the giving
of life through procreation by man and woman in marriage. As the
Second Vatican Council teaches: God himself, who said, `It is not
good for man to be alone' (Gn 2:18) and `who made man from the beginning
male and female' (Mt 19:4), wished to share with man a certain special
participation in his own creative work. Thus he blessed male and
female saying: `Increase and multiply' (Gn 1:28) (GS, n. 50). 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
(Gn 2:24), and God, who makes himself present.
93.
When a new person is born of the conjugal union of the two, he brings
with him into the world a particular image and likeness of God himself:
the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of
generation. In affirming that the spouses, as parents, cooperate
with God the Creator in conceiving and giving birth to a new human
being, 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 con tinuation of Creation. 94.
In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God
(cf. Eph 3:15), a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and
united development of all the members of the family: he will perform
this task by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived
under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous com mitment
to education, a task he shares with his wife (cf. GS, n. 52), by
work, which is never a cause of division in the family but pro motes
its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of
an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children
into the living experience of Christ and the Church. 95.
There is no doubt that the equal dignity and responsibility of men
and women fully justifies women's access to public functions. On
the other hand, the true advancement of women requires that clear
recognition be given to the value of their maternal and family role,
by comparison with all other public roles and all other professions.
Furthermore, these roles and professions should be har moniously
combined, if we wish the evolution of society and culture to be
truly and fully human.
IV. The Family, Education, and Culture 96.
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 to growth and development, parents by that very fact
take on 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 acknow ledged
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 fos tered among the children. Hence, the family is the first
school of those social virtues that every society needs (Gravissimum
Educationis, n. 3). 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 there fore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or
usurped by others. 97.
As already noted, the family, like the State, is by the same token
a society in the strictest sense of the term, and is governed by
its own proper authority, namely, by that of the father. Wherefore,
assuming, of course, that those limits be observed which are fixed
by its immediate purpose, the family assuredly possesses rights,
at least equal with those of civil society, in respect to choosing
and employ ing the things necessary for its protection and its just
liberty. We say at least equal because, inasmuch as domestic living
together is prior both in thought and in fact to uniting into a
polity, it follows that its rights and duties are also prior and
more in conformity with nature. But if citizens, if families, after
becoming participants in common life and society, were to experience
injury in a commonwealth in stead of help, impairment of their rights
instead of protection, society would be something to be repudiated
rather than to be sought for. 98.
The social role of the family certainly cannot stop short at procreation
and education, even if this constitutes its primary and irreplaceable
form of expression. Families, therefore, either singly or in association,
can and should devote themselves to manifold social service activities,
especially in favor of the poor, or, at any rate, for the benefit
of all people and situations that cannot be reached by the public
authorities' welfare organization. The social contribution of the
family has an original character of its own, one that should be
given greater recognition and more decisive encouragement, especially
as the children grow up, and actually involving all its members
as much as possible. 99.
To desire, therefore, that the civil power should enter arbitrarily
into the privacy of homes is a great and pernicious error. If a
family perchance is in such extreme difficulty and is so completely
without plans that it is entirely unable to help itself, it is right
that the distress be remedied by public aid, for each individual
family is a part of the community. Similarly, if anywhere there
is a grave violation of mutual rights within the family walls, public
authority shall restore to each his right; for this is not usurping
the rights of citizens, but protecting and confirming them with
just and due care. Those in charge of public affairs, however, must
stop here; nature does not permit them to go beyond these limits. 100.
Within the people of life and the people for life, the family has
a decisive responsibility. This responsibility flows from its very
nature as a community of life and love, founded upon marriage, and
from its mission to guard, reveal and communicate love (Familiaris
Consortio, n. 17). Here it is a matter of God's own love, of which
parents are co workers and, as it were, interpreters when they transmit
life and raise it according to his fatherly plan (cf. GS, n. 50).
This is the love that becomes selflessness, receptiveness and gift.
Within the family each member is accepted, respected and hon ored
precisely because he or she is a person; and if any family member
is in greater need, the care which he or she receives is all the
more intense and attentive. The family has a special role to play
throughout the life of its members, from birth to death. It is truly
the sanctuary of life: the place in which life the gift of God can
be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which
it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes
authentic human growth (CA, n. 39). Consequently, the role of the
family in building a culture of life is decisive and irreplaceable.
As the domestic church, the family is summoned to proclaim, celebrate
and serve the Gospel of life. This is a responsibility which first
concerns married couples, called to be givers of life, on the basis
of an ever greater awareness of the meaning of procreation as a
unique event which clearly reveals that human life is a gift received
in order then to be given as a gift. In giving origin to a new life,
parents recognize that the child, as the fruit of their mutual gift
of love, is, in turn, a gift for both of them, a gift which flows
from them (John Paul II, Address to the Seventh Symposium of European
Bishops, 1989, n. 5). 101.
The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus' message. Lov ingly
received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with
dauntless fidelity as good news to the people of every age and culture.
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 Birth of the Savior; but Christmas also
reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which
accompanies the Birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation
and fulfillment of joy at every child born into the world (cf. Jn
16:21). When he presents the heart of his redemptive mission, Jesus
says: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (Jn
10:10). In truth, he is referring to that new and eternal life which
consists in communion with the Father, to which every person is
freely called in the Son by the power of the Sanctifying Spirit.
It is precisely in this life that all the aspects and stages of
human life achieve their full significance.
102.
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. God himself makes
this clear to Noah after the flood: For your own lifeblood, too,
I will demand an accounting and from man in regard to his fellow
man I will demand an accounting of human life (Gn 9:5). The biblical
text is concerned to emphasize how the sacredness of life has its
foundation in God and in his creative activity: For God made man
in his own image (Gn 9:6). 103.
Human life is sacred because from its beginning it in volves the
`creative action of God' and it remains forever in a special relationship
with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of
life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance,
claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human
being. With these words, Donum Vitae (DV, n. 7) sets forth the central
content of God's revelation on the sacredness and inviolability
of human life. 104.
The inviolability of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute
inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression
in the `inviolability of human life.' Above all, the commonoutcry,
which is justly made on behalf of human rights for example, the
right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture is false
and illusory if `the right to life,' the most basic and fundamental
right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended
with maximum determination. The Church has never yielded in the
face of all the violations that the right to life of every human
being has received, and continues to receive, both from individuals
and from those in authority. The human being is entitled to such
rights, `in every phase of development,' from conception until natural
death; and in `every condition,' whether healthy or sick, whole
or handi capped, rich or poor. 105.
The Church today lives a fundamental aspect of her mission in lovingly
and generously accepting every human being, especially those who
are weak and sick. This is made all the more necessary as a `culture
of death' threatens to take control. In fact, the Church family
believes that human life, even if weak and suffering, is always
a wonderful gift of God's goodness. Against the pessimism and selfishness
which casts a shadow over the world, the Church stands for life:
in each human life she sees the splendour of that `Yes,' that `Amen,'
which is Christ himself (cf. 2 Cor 1:19; Rv 3:14). To the `No' which
assails and afflicts the world, she replies with this living `Yes,'
this defending of the human person and the world from all who plot
against life ( Familiaris Consortio, n. 30). It is the responsibility
of the lay faithful, who more directly through their vocation or
their profession are involved in accepting life, to make the Church's`Yes'
to human life concrete and efficacious. 106.
Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are
by their nature incapable of being ordered to God, because they
radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These
are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed
`intrinsically evil' (intrinsece malum): they are such always and
per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite
apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.
Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality
exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church
teaches that there exist acts which per se and in them selves, independently
of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their
object ( Reconciliato et Paenitentia, n. 17). The Second Vatican
Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person,
gives a number of examples of such acts: Whatever is hostile to
life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia
and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human
person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts
to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such
as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary impris onment, deportation,
slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading
conditions of work which treat laborers as mere instruments of profit,
and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are
a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization, they
contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice,
and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator (GS, n.
27).
VI. The Evil of Abortion and Euthanasia 107.
Human life finds itself most vulnerable when it enters the world
and when it leaves the realm of time to embark upon eternity. The
word of God frequently repeats the call to show care and respect,
above all where life is undermined by sickness and old age. Although
there are no direct and explicit calls to protect human life at
its very beginning, specifically life not yet born, and life nearing
its end, this can be easily explained by the fact that the mere
possibility of harming, attacking, or actually denying life in these
circumstances is completely foreign to the religious and cultural
way of thinking of the People of God. 108.
Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent
human being, whether fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult,
an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a
person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for
this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another
person en trusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent
to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately
recommend or permit such an action. 109.
Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred on Peter and
to his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic
Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent
human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon
the unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his
own heart (cf. Rom 2:14 15), is reaffirmed by the Sacred Scripture,
transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary
and universal Magisterium. 110.
I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an
abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have
influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases
it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your
heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains
terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not
lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly.
If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility
and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give
you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost, and
you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is
now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice
of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience,
you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right
to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the
birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most
in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters
of a new way of looking at human life.
111.
Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for
another's life. Preserving the common good requires ren dering the
unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. To this end, those holding
legitimate authority have the right to repel by armed force aggressors
against the civil community entrusted to their charge (Aquinas,
STh, II II, 64, 7). The State's effort to contain the spread of
behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of
civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over
the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty
to inflict penalities commensurate with the gravity of the crime.
The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused
by the offense. When this punishment is voluntarily accepted by
the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment,
in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons,
has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to
the correction of the offender (cf. Lk 23:40 43). 112.
[T]here is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society,
to demand that [the death penalty] be applied in a very limited
way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be
viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in
line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan forman
and society. The primary purpose of punishment which society inflicts
is to redress the disorder caused by the offense (CCC, n. 2266).
Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social
rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the
crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of
his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfills the purpose
of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while ...
offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her
behavior and be rehabilitated (CCC, n. 2266). It is clear that,
for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the
punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought
not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases
of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible
otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady
improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases
are very rare, if not practically non existent. 113.
The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing
full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender,
recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable
way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the
aggressor. If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend
against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public
authority should limit itself to such means, because they better
correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are
inconformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact,
given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime
by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving
him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases
of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender today ...
are very rare, if not practically non existent (Evangelium Vitae,
n. 56).
114.
Certainly much remains to be done to prevent discrimination against
those who have chosen to be wives and mothers. As faras personal
rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality
in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working
mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with
regard to family rights, and the recognition of everything that
is part of the rights and duties of citizens of a democratic state.
This is a matter of justice but also of necessity. Women will increasingly
play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future:
lei sure time, the quality of life, migration, social services,
euthanasia, drugs, health care, the ecology, etc. In all these areas
a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable,
for it will help to manifest the contradictions present when society
is organized solely according to the criteria of efficiency and
productivity, and it will force systems to be redesigned in a way
which favors the processes of humanization which mark the civilization
of love. 115.
Part of this daily heroism is also the silent but effective and
eloquent witness of all those brave mothers who devote themselves
to their own family without reserve, who suffer in giving birth
to their children and who are ready to make any effort, to face
any sacrifice, in order to pass on to them the best of themselves
(John Paul II, Homily for Beatification, 1994). In living out their
mission, these heroic women do not always find support in the world
around them. On the contrary, the cultural models frequently promoted
and broadcast by the media do not encourage motherhood. In the name
of progress and modernity the values of fidelity, chastity, sacrifice,
to which a host of Christian wives and mothers have borne and con
tinue to bear outstanding witness, are presented as obsolete . We
thank you, heroic mothers, for your invincible love! We thank you
for your intrepid trust in God and in his love. We thank you for
the sacrifice of your life . In the Paschal Mystery, Christ restores
to you the gift you gave him. Indeed, he has the power to give you
back the life you gave him as an offering (John Paul II, Homily
for Beatification, 1994). 116.
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them (Gn 1:27). This concise passage
contains the fundamental anthropological truths: man is the high
point of the whole order of creation in the visible world; the human
race, which takes its origin from the calling into existence of
man and woman, crowns the whole work of creation; both man and woman
are human beings to an equal degree; both are created in God's image.
This image and likeness of God, which is essential for the human
being, is passed on by the woman and the man, as spouses and parents,
to their descendents: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth
and subdue it (Gn 1:28). The creator entrusts dominion over the
earth to the human race, to all persons, to all men and women, who
derive their dignity and vocation from the common beginning. 117.
In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a
place, in thought and action, which is unique and decisive. It depends
on them to promote a `new feminism' which rejects the temptation
of imitating models of `male domination,' in order to acknowledge
and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life
of society, and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.
Making my own the words of the concluding message of the Second
Vatican Council, I address to women this urgent appeal: Reconcile
people with life (Closing Message of The Council [1965]: To Women).
You are called to bear witness to the meaning of genuine love, of
that gift of self and of that acceptance of others which are present
in a special way in the relationship of husband and wife, but which
ought also to be at the heart of every other interpersonal relationship....
Motherhood involves a special communion with the mystery of life,
as it develops in the woman's womb.... This unique contact with
the new human being developing within her gives rise to an attitude
towards human beings not only towards her own child, but every human
being, which profoundly marks the woman's personality ( Mulieris
Dignitatem, n. 18). A mother welcomes and carries in herself another
human being, enabling it to grow inside her, giving it room, respecting
it in its otherness. Women first learn and then teach others that
human relations are authentic if they are open to accepting the
other person: a person who is recognized and loved because of the
dignity which comes from being a person and not from other considerations,
such as usefulness, strength, intelligence, beauty or health. This
is the fundamental contribution which the Church and humanity expect
from women. And it is the indispensable prerequisite for an authentic
cultural change.
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