Catechism of the Catholic Church

Share this paragraph of the Catechism:

To Catechism home page

Paragraph:

2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." ³¹ Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

He who loves his son will not spare the rod.... He who disciplines his son will profit by him. ³² Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. ³³

Move forward or back a paragraph: Previous | Next

Where this paragraph appears in the Catechism:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

»

PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST

»

SECTION TWO: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

»

CHAPTER TWO: YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF Jesus said to his disciples: "Love one another even as I have loved you." 1

»

ARTICLE 4: THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. 4 He was obedient to them. 5 The Lord Jesus himself recalled the force of this "commandment of God." 6 The Apostle teaches: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother,' (This is the first commandment with a promise.) 'that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth."' 7

»

III. THE DUTIES OF FAMILY MEMBERS

Notes for the above paragraph:

31 CA 36 § 2.

32 Sir 30:1-2.

33 Eph 6:4.

English Translation of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.

To Catechism home page