In the social doctrine of the Church, the family is not one institution among others: it is the first natural society, the living fabric out of which every wider community is built. The Second Vatican Council gives it its most famous name — the "first and vital cell of society" — while immediately making clear that it holds this title neither from the State nor from any human convention, but from God: "This mission to be the first and vital cell of society the family has received from God"[1]. The Catechism takes up the formula when it speaks of the "original cell of social life"[2], and the Compendium of the "first natural society"[3].
This image of the cell is no ornament: it expresses an organic truth. Just as a living body is not an aggregate of individuals but an organism made of cells, society is not a dust of individuals bound by contract, but a body made of families. It is in the family that citizens are born, that they receive life, language, their first virtues, the sense of gift and responsibility. A society that destroyed its families would condemn itself to death, like a body whose cells decay.
From this fact follows a principle that the Church defends with remarkable constancy, from Leo XIII to Francis: the family is prior to the State, and its rights are "prior to those of the State"[4]. The State does not create the family; it finds it already there, and its task is not to absorb it or replace it, but to recognize, protect and serve it. To reverse this order — making the family a mere cog in the service of society or the State — is, in the eyes of the Church, an inversion that wounds both the person and the common good.
This article treats the family as a principle of social doctrine: the magisterial formula and its meaning, the priority of the family over the State, its foundations, its irreplaceable contribution to society, its articulation with the other principles (subsidiarity, common good, solidarity, dignity), the rights of the family, its social and political role, and its Christian summit. Related subjects — subsidiarity, the common good, the dignity of the human person, solidarity, parents' educational rights, bioethics or the question of divorce — are referred to their own articles.
"First and Vital Cell of Society": A Formula of the Magisterium
The formula that gives this article its title is not a journalistic metaphor: it is a precise magisterial expression, forged by the Second Vatican Council and taken up by every pope since. To know its origin and exact meaning is to avoid reducing it to a slogan.
The Conciliar Origin of the Formula
It is the decree Apostolicam Actuositatem on the apostolate of the laity (18 November 1965) that fixes the expression. After recalling the duties of spouses — the indissolubility of marriage and the Christian education of children — the Council states:
"This mission to be the first and vital cell of society the family has received from God." — Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam Actuositatem, no. 11, 18 November 1965[5]
Three words carry all the weight. Cell: the family is the basic unit of a living organism, not a mere gathering. First: it precedes all other societies, in the order of time as in the order of worth. Vital: it is necessary to the life of society, which withers when the family withers.
John Paul II: "The Origin and Foundation of Human Society"
Saint John Paul II, the pope of the family, takes up and develops the formula in the exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981), which remains the great reference text on the family in society:
"Since the Creator made the conjugal community the origin and foundation of human society, the family has become the 'first and vital cell of society.'" — Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 42, 22 November 1981[6]
John Paul II immediately draws the social consequence: 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 within the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues, which are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself"[7].
The Other Received Names: "Original", "Basic", "Vital"
The same principle is expressed by several names, which should be held as synonyms. The Catechism speaks of the "original cell of social life"[8]. Familiaris Consortio uses the exact expression that titles this article — the family "is the basic cell of society"[9]. The Compendium of Social Doctrine calls it the "first vital cell of society" and the "prototype of every social order"[10]. All these terms express one and the same truth from complementary angles: the family is first (nothing precedes it), original (everything comes from it), basic (everything rests on it), vital (without it society dies).
The Family, a Natural Society Prior to the State
The heart of the principle lies in one affirmation that the Church repeats tirelessly: the family is not a creation of the State; it is prior to it. It is this priority that grounds all the rights of the family and forbids public authority to treat it as a mere administrative subdivision.
A Society That Precedes Public Recognition
The Catechism formulates this principle with decisive clarity. The family — one man, one woman, their children — does not wait for the State's permission to exist:
"A man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2202[11]
The State therefore does not constitute the family: it recognizes it. Its law comes after a reality it did not create and whose nature it has no power to undo, even if it has the power to wound it. The Compendium draws the strongest conclusion: the family "finds its legitimization in human nature and not in its recognition by the State. It does not exist, therefore, for society and the State, but rather it is society and the State that exist for the family"[12].
Priority According to Leo XIII
This doctrine was not born with Vatican II: it lies at the heart of the founding act of modern social doctrine, the encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII (1891). Faced with a nascent socialism that sought to extend the power of the State into domestic life itself, Leo XIII lays down the principle of the priority of the family:
"Hence we have the family, that is, domestic society, a society very small indeed, but none the less a true society, and one older than any State. [...]" — Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 15 May 1891[13]
And he deduces from it the impassable limit of civil power:
"It is a most grave and fatal error to maintain that the civil power may enter at its own discretion into the sanctuary of the family." — Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum[14]
The expression "sanctuary of the family" was to become classic: there is, in family life, a sacred space into which the State has no business entering, except in cases of grave failure endangering persons. It is here that the principle of the family meets that of subsidiarity, treated in its own article.
A Priority "in Importance and Worth"
The Compendium specifies that this priority is not only chronological but ontological: the family precedes the State "in importance and worth", because it is the very condition of its existence.
"The priority of the family over society and the State must be affirmed. Indeed, the family, if only in its procreative function, is the very condition of their existence. [...] The family, a subject endowed with inviolable rights, finds its legitimization in human nature and not in its recognition by the State." — Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 214[15]
Without families, no citizens; without citizens, no State. A State that claimed to make itself the creator or master of the family would saw off the branch on which it sits.
Why Is the Family the Basic Cell? The Foundations
To affirm that the family is the basic cell of society is no arbitrary postulate: the Church gives it foundations that are both rational and revealed. Three roots converge: the social nature of man, the Creator's plan, and the marriage between man and woman.
The Anthropological Foundation: Man Is a Social Being
The first foundation belongs to the simple observation of human nature, already recognized by Greek philosophy. Aristotle noted that man is a "political animal" and that the domestic community — the household — is the first natural society, prior to the village and the city, which proceed from it[16]. Saint Thomas Aquinas, commenting on Aristotle, confirms that the family is the first natural society, ordered to the daily needs of life, while the city is ordered to the good and complete life[17]. The Catechism takes up this insight by ranking the family and the city among the societies that "correspond more directly to the nature of man" and are "necessary to him"[18].
Man is not born adult and autonomous: he is born a child, radically dependent, incapable of surviving without a community that welcomes, feeds and educates him. That community is, by nature, the family. The society of the self-sufficient individual is a fiction; the reality is one of beings who are born into a family and become human within it.
The Biblical Foundation: "The Two Shall Become One"
Scripture roots the family in the creative act itself. From the very first pages of Genesis, God creates man "male and female" (Gen 1:27) and institutes their union as the first social bond:
"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." — Genesis 2:24[19]
The family is therefore no cultural invention among others: it belongs to the "fundamental constitution" that God gave humanity in creating it. The Catechism affirms it: "In creating man and woman, God instituted the human family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution"[20]. The New Testament raises this reality to its summit: the Son of God Himself willed to be born and to grow up in a family, the Holy Family of Nazareth, thus sanctifying ordinary family life.
The Foundation of Marriage Between One Man and One Woman
Finally, the Church always attaches the cell-family to marriage as to its source. The Compendium defines the family of which it speaks precisely: "the community of conjugal life and love founded on marriage between one man and one woman"[21]. The Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes, speaks of the "intimate partnership of married life and love" established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, which is rooted "in the covenant of its partners"[22]. It is this stable community, open to life, that constitutes the social cell; other forms of cohabitation, whatever they may be, do not fulfil the same founding social function. The Church does not judge persons here, but affirms a truth of order: only the family founded on the marriage of man and woman is the "prototype of every social order"[23]. The questions debated today on the definition of marriage and the family belong to other articles (bioethics, divorce); here it suffices to lay down the foundation.
What the Family Gives to Society
If the family is the basic cell, it is because it renders to society services that no other institution can render. Familiaris Consortio distinguishes several of them, which form the family's own irreplaceable contribution to the social body.
It Gives Its Citizens: The Service of Life
The first service is the most obvious and the most often forgotten: it is in the family that citizens are born. Without the gift of life handed down from generation to generation, no society subsists. The Compendium stresses that "when a child is born, society receives the gift of a new person"[24], and that procreation "expresses the social subjectivity of the family and gives rise to a dynamism of love and solidarity between the generations which is at the basis of society"[25]. The family is therefore not a consumer of social resources: it is first the source from which society draws its future.
First School of the Social Virtues
The second service is educational, in the broadest sense. The family is the place where the child learns, before any institution, to live with others: to respect, to share, to forgive, to obey and to command justly. The Second Vatican Council had said it, and Familiaris Consortio takes it up:
"The family is therefore the first school of the social virtues which no society can do without." — Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis, quoted by Familiaris Consortio, no. 36[26]
These "social virtues" — justice, loyalty, the sense of the common good, the capacity to cooperate — are not taught first by laws or lessons, but learned in the family, by example and habit. A society whose families no longer transmit these virtues becomes ungovernable: no police force replaces what the family has not formed. That is why the Church closely attaches the family to education and to parents' educational rights, the subject of its own article.
Communion and Gratuitousness: Humanizing Society
The third contribution is the deepest. The family lives, or should live, by a law that market society ignores: the law of gratuitousness. A mother's love cannot be bought, a father's care cannot be billed. Familiaris Consortio sees in this "experience of communion and sharing" the family's essential contribution to society:
"The relationships between the members of the family community are inspired and guided by the law of 'free giving' which [...] becomes a warm welcome, an encounter and dialogue, generous availability, disinterested service, deep solidarity." — Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 43[27]
In a society that "is in danger of becoming more and more depersonalized and anonymous", John Paul II sees in the family the force capable of "uprooting man from anonymity, awakening in him a consciousness of his personal dignity"[28]. The family is thus "the cradle and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing society"[29]. It is through the family that society remains a fabric of persons, and not a machine.
Solidarity Between the Generations
Finally, the family is the first place of solidarity: there the strong carry the weak, the generations help one another, and care is taken of children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled. The Catechism notes it: "The family must live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick or handicapped and the poor"[30]. It is in the family that "the apprenticeship of social responsibilities and solidarity" is made[31]. This family solidarity meets the questions of old age and disability, treated in their own articles.
The following table sums up what the family cell transmits to society and what nothing can replace.
| Gift of the family | What it transmits | Consequence for society | Magisterial source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The service of life | New citizens, the future of the social body | Without fruitful families, society dies out | Compendium 212-213 |
| Education in the social virtues | Justice, respect, cooperation, sense of the common good | A governable and civilized society | Familiaris Consortio 36; Gravissimum Educationis |
| The law of gratuitousness | Disinterested love, self-giving | A personalized, non-anonymous society | Familiaris Consortio 43 |
| Intergenerational solidarity | Care of the weak, young and old | Primary care before the State | CCC 2208; Compendium 213 |
| Faith and prayer | Religious transmission, the domestic church | The spiritual heritage of a people | CCC 2204-2205 |
The Family and the Other Principles of Social Doctrine
The family is no isolated principle: it articulates with the other pillars of social doctrine, which it illuminates and by which it is illuminated in return. It is within this network that it takes on its full meaning.
Subsidiarity: The State at the Service of the Family
The closest articulation is with subsidiarity. Since the family is prior to the State, the State must refrain from doing in its place what it can accomplish itself. Familiaris Consortio states it as a "grave obligation":
"Society, and in particular the State, must recognize that the family is a 'society with a right of its own, primordial,' and they are therefore under a grave obligation, in their relations with the family, to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity." — Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 45[32]
Concretely, "the State cannot and must not take away from families the tasks they can perform"; it must on the contrary "foster and encourage as much as possible the responsible initiatives of families"[33]. The Catechism says the same: when families are not enough, other social bodies must help and support them, but "following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take care not to usurp the family's prerogatives or interfere in its life"[34]. The key word is subsidy: a support, not a substitution. The Catechism also warns that "excessive intervention by the State can threaten personal freedom and initiative", and that the principle of subsidiarity "is opposed to all forms of collectivism"[35].
Common Good, Dignity of the Person, Solidarity
The family is also inseparable from the common good: it is at once one of its conditions (it forms the citizens capable of serving it) and one of its beneficiaries (society owes it the conditions of its flourishing). It is ordered to the dignity of the human person: the family exists for the persons who compose it, never the reverse, and it is in the family that the person is received "for his or her own sake", as a gift and not as a means. It is finally the first place of solidarity, of which it is the school and the model. These three principles — common good, dignity, solidarity — form with subsidiarity the framework in which the family principle finds its place; each is the subject of its own article.
Family, Property and Work
Social doctrine also binds the family to the question of goods. Leo XIII attached the right of private property to the father of a family, who must be able to pass on to his children enough to live on, and he founded on this duty the right to a just wage sufficient to support a family. The universal destination of goods and the family wage, treated in their own articles, have their root here: the economy is at the service of families, and not the reverse.
The Rights of the Family
Because the family is a true society, prior to the State, it is a subject of rights — rights not granted to it by civil law, but which civil law has the duty to recognize and protect.
The Charter of the Rights of the Family (1983)
At the request of the 1980 Synod of Bishops, Familiaris Consortio drew up a first list of the rights of the family[36], and then the Holy See published on 22 October 1983 a Charter of the Rights of the Family, a document addressed to governments and international organizations[37]. John Paul II saw in it a necessary defence: "The Church openly and vigorously defends the rights of the family against the intolerable usurpations of society and the State"[38]. The following table takes up the principal rights enumerated in Familiaris Consortio 46.
| Right of the family | Content |
|---|---|
| Right to exist and develop | For every man, and in particular the poor, the right to found a family and maintain it |
| Right to transmit life and to educate | To exercise its mission in the transmission of life and the education of children |
| Right to intimacy | The intimacy of conjugal and family life, the "sanctuary of the family" |
| Right to the stability of the bond | The stability of the conjugal bond and of the institution of marriage |
| Right to believe and profess the faith | To believe, profess and spread one's faith; the religious education of children |
| Right to educate according to one's values | To educate one's children according to one's own traditions and religious and cultural values |
| Social and economic rights | Security, decent housing, care, especially for the poor and the sick |
| Right of association and representation | To form family associations and be represented before public authorities |
| Right to emigrate as a family | To migrate as a family for better living conditions |
The Duty of the Political Community
To these rights corresponds a duty of the State. The Catechism enumerates the requirements that "the political community has the duty to honour" towards the family: freedom to establish a home, protection of the stability of marriage, religious freedom, the right to work and housing, family allowances, protection against drugs and pornography, freedom of association[39]. And it grounds this duty in "the importance of the family for the life and well-being of society", which entails for society "a particular responsibility to support and strengthen marriage and the family"[40]. Civil authority must consider it a "grave duty" to "acknowledge and protect the true nature of marriage and the family, defend public morality, and foster the prosperity of homes"[41].
The Family, a Social and Political Subject
The family is not only a beneficiary of society: it is one of its actors. Its contribution is not limited to bringing children into the world and educating them; it is called to intervene in social and political life.
"Protagonists" of Family Policy
Familiaris Consortio invites families not to remain passive: "it is the families themselves who must first take care that the laws and institutions of the State not only do not offend the rights and duties of the family, but support and positively defend them"[42]. John Paul II asks families to grow "ever more aware of being the 'protagonists' of what is known as 'family politics,'" failing which "they will be the first victims of the evils they have merely observed with indifference"[43]. The family therefore has a properly political role, which meets the questions of political authority and democracy, treated elsewhere.
Social Service and Hospitality
The family is also called to "many works of social service, especially in favour of the poor"[44], and to hospitality — "by simply keeping the door of one's house open and, better still, the door of one's heart, to the needs of one's brothers and sisters"[45]. The Christian family, writes John Paul II, must give "witness of generous and disinterested dedication to social questions, giving priority to the poor and the marginalized"[46]. It is through its associations and concrete commitments that the family makes its weight felt in the social fabric.
Contemporary Threats to the Family Cell
If the Church reaffirms with such insistence that the family is the basic cell of society, it is because she sees it today attacked and weakened. Familiaris Consortio already observed that, "against all justice," many laws and institutions "disregard the inviolable rights of the family" and that society, "far from placing itself at the service of the family, attacks it violently in its values and fundamental requirements"[47].
Individualism and Depersonalization
The first threat is cultural: an individualism that dissolves stable bonds and presents absolute autonomy as the ideal. When each person thinks of himself as an individual without ties, the family appears as a constraint to flee rather than as the place where one becomes oneself. John Paul II saw in this drift an "inhuman and dehumanizing" society, and in the family the remedy[48].
Statism: When the State Absorbs the Family
The second threat is political: a statism which, in the name of society, claims to take charge of what belongs to the family — education, care, the transmission of values — until it is emptied of its substance. This is exactly what the Catechism denounces under the name of collectivism, and what Leo XIII called the penetration of civil power "into the sanctuary of the family." The totalitarian regimes of the 20th century pushed this logic to the extreme by seeking to separate children from their parents in order to form them in the ideology; but a softer form of absorption also threatens democracies that multiply interventions in family life.
Redefinitions of Marriage and the Family
The third threat is juridical: the redefinition of marriage and the family, which detaches the institution from its nature — the stable union of one man and one woman open to life — to make it a reality indefinitely adjustable to individual desires. The Church maintains that the family founded on marriage remains the "normal reference point" (CCC 2202) and the "prototype of every social order" (Compendium 211). The detail of these debates — divorce, procreation, identity — belongs to the neighbouring articles on the question of divorce, bioethics and the dignity of the embryo; what is retained here is the principle: to destabilize the family cell is to weaken society as a whole.
The Development of the Principle in the Magisterium
The principle of the family as the cell of society did not appear all at once: it was clarified from encyclical to encyclical, from the first great social text of Leo XIII down to Francis. The following chronology marks its decisive stages.
- 15 May 1891Rerum Novarum — Leo XIII
The first great social text: the family, a "domestic society", is declared "older than any State"; civil power must not enter "into the sanctuary of the family".
- 31 December 1930Casti Connubii — Pius XI
Pius XI defends Christian marriage and the family against divorce, contraception and State interference, reaffirming the divine nature of the institution.
- 18 November 1965Apostolicam Actuositatem — Vatican II
The decree fixes the decisive formula: the family has received from God "this mission to be the first and vital cell of society".
- 7 December 1965Gaudium et Spes — Vatican II
The Council treats "the dignity of marriage and the family" (GS 47-52) and links the welfare of society to "a favourable setting for married and family life".
- 22 November 1981Familiaris Consortio — John Paul II
The great reference text: the family as the "first and vital cell of society", its social contribution, the principle of subsidiarity, the rights of the family.
- 22 October 1983Charter of the Rights of the Family — Holy See
The Holy See publishes a charter of the rights of the family addressed to governments and international organizations.
- 2 February 1994Letter to Families — John Paul II
For the International Year of the Family, John Paul II recalls that "the family is the way of the Church" and the first place of the "civilization of love".
- 2004Compendium of Social Doctrine
Chapter V, "The Family, the Vital Cell of Society", systematizes the doctrine: priority of the family, social subjectivity, duties of the State.
- 19 March 2016Amoris Laetitia — Francis
Francis takes up the doctrine of the family as a good for society and calls for supporting and accompanying concrete families.
This continuity illustrates a characteristic of social doctrine: it develops without denying itself, each pope receiving the teaching of his predecessors in order to apply it to new situations. From Leo XIII defending the working-class family against the socialist State to Francis accompanying weakened families, one and the same conviction unfolds: the family is the cell without which society dies.
The Holy Family and Life in the Divine Will
The social principle finds its summit and its model not in a theory, but in a concrete family: the Holy Family of Nazareth. By willing to be born of a mother and to grow up under a father's care, the Son of God sanctified the family cell and made it the icon of all rightly ordered social life.
Nazareth, Model of Every Family
At Nazareth, in the silence of a poor home, the incarnate Word lived thirty years of ordinary family life, "obedient" to Mary and Joseph (Lk 2:51). John Paul II, in Redemptoris Custos, saw in Joseph the guardian of that first cell in which the world's salvation grew hidden. The family of Nazareth shows that the greatness of the family lies not in its social power, but in the love, obedience and self-giving lived within it — those "social virtues" which every society then receives from families.
The Family in the Divine Will
The spirituality of the Divine Will transmitted to Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) sheds an interior light on the social principle of the family. In it, Jesus presents His hidden life at Nazareth — thirty years of ordinary family acts, working wood alongside Joseph, sharing Mary's life — as a gift made to every home: by lowering Himself to small daily acts, He placed in men's hands "small divine coins" and He prolongs His life of Nazareth "in every creature"[49].
"I was prolonging My life of Nazareth in every creature [...]. If My Passion redeemed them, My hidden Life attached to their actions, even the most trivial, divine Merits of infinite Value." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 11, 14 August 1912[50]
The family that lives united to God thus becomes not only the cell of earthly society, but the cell of the Kingdom, where God's Will is done "on earth as it is in Heaven": the humblest acts of the home — eating, working, keeping watch, forgiving — then bear a fruit that goes beyond the house and reaches the whole of society.
To Go Further
- Subsidiarity — the principle that protects the family from absorption by the State: "it is society and the State that exist for the family".
- The common good — the family is at once its condition and its beneficiary.
- The dignity of the human person — the person is received "for his or her own sake" first of all in the family.
- Solidarity — the family is its school and its first place, between the generations.
- Schooling and parents' rights — parents, the first educators of their children.
- Private property and the just wage — the economy at the service of families.
- The universal destination of goods — the doctrinal background of sharing and the family wage.
- Political authority and democracy — the political role of families.
- Totalitarianism — the State's temptation to absorb the family.
- Bioethics, the dignity of the embryo and the question of divorce — contemporary debates on marriage and life.
- Old age and disability — family solidarity towards the most fragile.
Notes and References
Second Vatican Council, decree Apostolicam Actuositatem on the apostolate of the laity, 18 November 1965, no. 11 (official English text, vatican.va): "This mission to be the first and vital cell of society the family has received from God."
1Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2207: "The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life."
2Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, no. 211: the family founded on marriage between one man and one woman is the "first vital cell of society" and the "prototype of every social order".
3Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 22 November 1981, no. 46: "the family, which in God's plan is the basic cell of society, a subject of rights and duties prior to those of the State and of any other community".
4Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam Actuositatem, no. 11. The sentence closes the development on the duties of spouses (indissolubility, Christian education) and grounds the family's social mission in a gift received from God, not in a concession of the State.
5Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 42: "Since the Creator made the conjugal community the origin and foundation of human society, the family has become the 'first and vital cell of society.'" The formula in quotation marks refers back to Apostolicam Actuositatem 11.
6Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 42: the family "has vital and organic links with society [...]: it is from within the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues, which are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself".
7Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2207: the family as the "original cell of social life"; "family life is an initiation into life in society".
8Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 46: the family "is the basic cell of society".
9Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 211: the family "possesses a specific and original social dimension as the primary place of interpersonal relationships, the first vital cell of society [...], a divine institution that stands at the foundation of the life of the human person as the prototype of every social order".
10Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2202: "A man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated."
11Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 214: the family "finds its legitimization in human nature and not in its recognition by the State. It does not exist, therefore, for society and the State, but rather it is society and the State that exist for the family."
12Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 15 May 1891 (official English text, vatican.va): "Hence we have the family, that is, domestic society, a society very small indeed, but none the less a true society, and one older than any State [...]" (the sentence continues on the rights and duties of the family, independent of the State).
13Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891 (official English text, vatican.va): it is "a most grave and fatal error" to allow civil power to enter at will "into the sanctuary of the family." Leo XIII also affirms there that domestic society has over civil society "a logical and a real priority".
14Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 214: "The priority of the family over society and the State must be affirmed. Indeed, the family, if only in its procreative function, is the very condition of their existence. [...] in importance and worth it precedes the functions that society and the State must fulfil."
15Aristotle, Politics, book I (1252a-1253a): man is by nature a "political animal" (zôon politikon); the domestic community (oikos) is the first natural society, from which the village and then the city proceed.
16Saint Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum (commentary on Aristotle's Politics), book I, lesson 1: the family is the natural society ordered to the daily necessities of life, while the city is ordered to the complete and virtuous life.
17Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1882: "Certain societies, such as the family and the state, correspond more directly to the nature of man; they are necessary to him."
18Genesis 2:24 (Revised Standard Version): "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." Quoted by Christ (Mt 19:5) as the foundation of the indissolubility of marriage.
19Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2203: "In creating man and woman, God instituted the human family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Its members are persons equal in dignity."
20Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 211: the family is defined there as "the community of conjugal life and love founded on marriage between one man and one woman".
21Second Vatican Council, pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, 7 December 1965, no. 48: "The intimate partnership of married life and love, established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent."
22Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 211: the family founded on the marriage of man and woman is the "prototype of every social order".
23Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 212: "when a child is born, society receives the gift of a new person."
24Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 213: "Procreation expresses the social subjectivity of the family and gives rise to a dynamism of love and solidarity between the generations which is at the basis of society."
25Second Vatican Council, declaration Gravissimum Educationis on Christian education, no. 3, quoted by Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 36: "The family is therefore the first school of the social virtues which no society can do without."
26Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 43: family relationships develop "under the inspiration and guidance of the law of 'free giving' which [...] becomes a warm welcome, an encounter and dialogue, generous availability, disinterested service, deep solidarity".
27Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 43: faced with a society "in danger of becoming more and more depersonalized and anonymous", the family has the power to "uproot man from anonymity, awakening in him a consciousness of his personal dignity".
28Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 43: the family "constitutes the cradle and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing society".
29Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2208: "The family must live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick or handicapped and the poor."
30Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 213: it is in the family "that the apprenticeship of social responsibilities and solidarity" is made.
31Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 45: "society, and in particular the State, must recognize that the family is a 'society with a right of its own, primordial,' and they are therefore under a grave obligation [...] to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity."
32Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 45: "the State cannot and must not take away from families the tasks they can perform on their own or in free association with other families; but it must on the contrary foster and encourage as much as possible the responsible initiatives of families."
33Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2209: "The family must be helped and defended by appropriate social measures. [...] Following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take care not to usurp the family's prerogatives or interfere in its life."
34Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1883-1885: "Excessive intervention by the State can threaten personal freedom and initiative"; the principle of subsidiarity "is opposed to all forms of collectivism" and "sets limits for state intervention".
35Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 46: at the request of the 1980 Synod, the pope enumerates the rights of the family (right to exist and develop, to transmit life, to intimacy, to the stability of the bond, to profess the faith, to educate, to security, to associate, to emigrate).
36Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, presented on 22 October 1983, at the request expressed in Familiaris Consortio 46. A document addressed to governments, international organizations and families themselves, enumerating the fundamental rights of the family founded on marriage.
37Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 46: "the Church openly and vigorously defends the rights of the family against the intolerable usurpations of society and the State."
38Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2211: enumeration of the requirements the political community has the duty to secure for the family (freedom to establish a home, stability of the bond, religious freedom, work, housing, care, family allowances, protection against drugs and pornography, freedom of association).
39Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2210: "The importance of the family for the life and well-being of society (cf. GS 47, § 1) entails a particular responsibility for society to support and strengthen marriage and the family."
40Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2210, quoting Gaudium et Spes no. 52, § 2: civil authority must consider it a grave duty to "acknowledge and protect the true nature of marriage and the family, defend public morality, and foster the prosperity of homes".
41Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 44: "it is the families themselves who must first take care that the laws and institutions of the State not only do not offend the rights and duties of the family, but support and positively defend them."
42Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 44: families must be aware "of being the 'protagonists' of what is known as 'family politics,'" failing which "they will be the first victims of the evils they have merely observed with indifference".
43Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 44: families "can and should [...] devote themselves to many works of social service, especially in favour of the poor".
44Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 44: importance of hospitality "by simply keeping the door of one's house open and, better still, the door of one's heart, to the needs of one's brothers and sisters".
45Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 47: the Christian family is called to give "witness of generous and disinterested dedication to social questions, giving priority to the poor and the marginalized".
46Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 46: "laws and institutions disregard, against all justice, the inviolable rights of the family and even of the human person, and society, far from placing itself at the service of the family, attacks it violently in its values and fundamental requirements."
47Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, no. 43: the family answers a society that "is in danger of becoming more and more depersonalized and anonymous, and thus inhuman and dehumanizing".
48Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 11, 14 August 1912 ("To come to forget oneself... through His hidden Life He sanctified and divinized all our human actions", French trans. Lumen Luminis): "I was prolonging My life of Nazareth in every creature [...]. If My Passion redeemed them, My hidden Life attached to their actions, even the most trivial, divine Merits of infinite Value."
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