Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

In the work of education, the family forms man in the fullness of his personal dignity according to all his dimensions, including the social dimension. The family, in fact, constitutes “a community of love and solidarity, which is uniquely suited to teach and transmit cultural, ethical, social, spiritual and religious values, essential for the development and well-being of its own members and of society”^{539Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, Preamble, E, Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City 1983, p. 6.}. By exercising its mission to educate, the family contributes to the common good and constitutes the first school of social virtue, which all societies need^{540Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 3: AAS 58 (1966), 731-732; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 52: AAS 58 (1966), 1073-1074; John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 37, 43: AAS 74 (1982), 127-129; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1653, 2228.}. In the family, persons are helped to grow in freedom and responsibility, indispensable prerequisites for any function in society. With education, certain fundamental values are communicated and assimilated^{541Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 43: AAS 74 (1982), 134-135.}.

The family has a completely original and irreplaceable role in raising children^{542Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 3: AAS 58 (1966), 731-732; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 61: AAS 58 (1966), 1081-1082; Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, art. 5, Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City 1983, pp. 10-11; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2223. The Code of Canon Law devotes canons 793- 799 and canon 1136 to this right and duty of parents.}. The parents' love, placing itself at the service of children to draw forth from them (“e-ducere”) the best that is in them, finds its fullest expression precisely in the task of educating. “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”^{543John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 36: AAS 74 (1982), 127.}. The right and duty of parents to educate their children 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”^{544John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 36: AAS 74 (1982), 126; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2221.}. Parents have the duty and right to impart a religious education and moral formation to their children^{545Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, 5: AAS 58 (1966), 933; John Paul II, Message for the 1994 World Day of Peace, 5: AAS 86 (1994), 159-160.}, a right the State cannot annul but which it must respect and promote. This is a primary right that the family may not neglect or delegate.

Parents are the first educators, not the only educators, of their children. It belongs to them, therefore, to exercise with responsibility their educational activity in close and vigilant cooperation with civil and ecclesial agencies. “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”^{546John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 40: AAS 74 (1982), 131.}. Parents have the right to choose the formative tools that respond to their convictions and to seek those means that will help them best to fulfil their duty as educators, in the spiritual and religious sphere also. Public authorities have the duty to guarantee this right and to ensure the concrete conditions necessary for it to be exercised^{547Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 6: AAS 58 (1966), 733-734; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2229.}. In this context, cooperation between the family and scholastic institutions takes on primary importance.

Parents have the right to found and support educational institutions. Public authorities must see to it that “public subsidies are so allocated that parents are truly free to exercise this right without incurring unjust burdens. Parents should not have to sustain, directly or indirectly, extra charges which would deny or unjustly limit the exercise of this freedom”^{548Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, art. 5 b, Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City 1983, p. 11; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dignitatis Humanae, 5: AAS 58 (1966), 933.}. The refusal to provide public economic support to non-public schools that need assistance and that render a service to civil society is to be considered an injustice. “Whenever the State lays claim to an educational monopoly, it oversteps its rights and offends justice ... The State cannot without injustice merely tolerate so-called private schools. Such schools render a public service and therefore have a right to financial assistance”^{549Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia, 94: AAS 79 (1987), 595-596.}.

The family has the responsibility to provide an integral education. Indeed, all true education “is directed towards the formation of the human person in view of his final end and the good of that society to which he belongs and in the duties of which he will, as an adult, have a share”^{550Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 1: AAS 58 (1966), 729.}. This integrality is ensured when children — with the witness of life and in words — are educated in dialogue, encounter, sociality, legality, solidarity and peace, through the cultivation of the fundamental virtues of justice and charity^{551Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 43: AAS 74 (1982), 134-135.}. In the education of children, the role of the father and that of the mother are equally necessary.^{552Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 52: AAS 58 (1966), 1073-1074.} The parents must therefore work together. They must exercise authority with respect and gentleness but also, when necessary, with firmness and vigor: it must be credible, consistent, and wise and always exercised with a view to children's integral good.

Parents have, then, a particular responsibility in the area of sexual education. It is of fundamental importance for the balanced growth of children that they are taught in an orderly and progressive manner the meaning of sexuality and that they learn to appreciate the human and moral values connected with it. “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 moral norms as the necessary and highly valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in human sexuality”^{553John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 37: AAS 74 (1982), 128; cf. Pontifical Council for the Family, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family (8 December 1995), Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1995.}. Parents have the obligation to inquire about the methods used for sexual education in educational institutions in order to verify that such an important and delicate topic is dealt with properly.