4. In the course of these 1,000 years, King Stephen has always appeared as a shining example of family life. Only one of his children, Emeric, reached adolescence; St Stephen paid great attention to his education and was careful to see that he was enriched by the knowledge required at the time. He was concerned with his formation, which he entrusted to distinguished teachers - including St Gerard, the future Bishop of Szeged-Csanad - and wanted a book to be prepared for his use, which would contain his reflections and rules for life. In this way he trained his son for life so as to make him worthy, both in knowledge and in conduct, to govern the kingdom. However, since he died while he was still young he was unable to succeed his father.

King Stephen's family is truly outstanding for its holiness. Honoured by his blessed wife, Gisela, and his holy son, Emeric, he was able to spread such virtue in the subsequent generations as to give rise to the just claim that the house of Árpád has given the Church countless saints and blesseds. These splendid lights of Christianity continue to spur us on to take the right path, following the signs of Christ. Ten centuries later, they are still a warning to our generation that the virtues of family life must be deeply esteemed and that the mission of educating children must not be neglected. I therefore appropriately repeat what I said to people of the world of culture and science on the occasion of my Pastoral Visit to Hungary:  "One of the most important factors of culture is education. But this consists in transmitting to future generations a concise summary of the scientific and tecnological conquests achieved.... However, an equal and even greater effort must be made in the field of educational formation.... A reductive conception of man inevitably can cause serious harm to human formation" (John Paul II, Address to people of culture and science, 17 August 1991, n. 6; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 1991, p. 3).