RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD

THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY

"The family" says Pope Leo XIII in one of his great encyclicals, "is the cradle of civil society, and it is largely within the confines of the domestic hearth that is prepared the destiny of nations." By raising marriage to the dignity of a sacrament Christ also sanctified the family, made it the Christian family.

Atuhority in the family is vested in the parents
The husband is the head of he family, the wife is its heart and soul. It is only in the Christian family that the wife enjous that dignity and respect which God originally intended her to have when He made her the companion and helpmate of her husband, not his slave.

The duties of parents to their children are embraced in the word education. "Education means training, that is, instruction by word and example, by suggestion and direction, by encouragement and repression, by reward and punishment. It means a progressive and well-ordered development of man's three-fold powers, physical, intellectual, and moral. It means the proper formation of the whole man - body, mind, and will." Hence parentsare bound
a) to love their children and to support them until they can support themselves;
b) to instruct their children in all that is required to enable them to be a success in this life and in the next;
c) to give them good example by leading a good Catholic life themselves;
d) to send their children to good Catholic schools and, if circumstances oblige them to send them to non-Catholic schools, to safeguard their faith and to see to their religious instruction.