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2.2. The Family: the Basis of Society
16. Respect for human rights is necessary for the human
development of persons in the community. These values include life itself,
health, knowledge, work, the community and religion. Above all, "the
family is in fact a community of persons whose proper way of existing and
living together is communion: communio personarum".19
The values essential to the family can only be achieved when a man and a woman
give themselves to one another totally in marriage, a community of love and
life, and are willing to fully accept the gift of new life in procreation and
in education. Parents give that new life a home in which the child can grow and
develop. All the rights that are necessary by nature for the development of the
person in hisher wholeness become real in the family in the most effective way.
The family, by its very nature, is a subject of rights, the foundational
element of human society, and the most necessary force in the full development
of the human person. The importance of the family's social mediation is
undeniable. This is something that maintains all its value, despite the changes
that have affected the family over the course of history.
17. Since all men are persons, the Holy Father has defined the
fundamental institution of society as a "communio personarum".20
"The family is indeed—more than any other human reality—the place where an
individual can exist ‘for himself' through the sincere gift of self. This is
why it remains a social institution which neither can nor should be replaced:
it is the ‘sanctuary of life'".21 Consequently, to
promote this existential project in a human being means first of all to
recognize his reality as a person and his innate dignity. To achieve this end,
it is becoming increasingly necessary to give value to the family and to the
different members who comprise it.
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