CSDC 239

The family has a completely original and irreplaceable role in raising children⁵⁴² Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 3: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 731-732; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 61: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1081-1082; Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, art. 5, Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City 1983, pp. 10-11; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2223. The Code of Canon Law devotes canons 793- 799 and canon 1136 to this right and duty of parents.. The parents' love, placing itself at the service of children to draw forth from them (“e-ducere”) the best that is in them, finds its fullest expression precisely in the task of educating. “As well as being a source, the parents' love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love”⁵⁴³ John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 36: AAS 74AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 127.. The right and duty of parents to educate their children is “essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others”⁵⁴⁴ John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 36: AAS 74AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 126; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2221.. Parents have the duty and right to impart a religious education and moral formation to their children⁵⁴⁵ Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, 5: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 933; John Paul II, Message for the 1994 World Day of Peace, 5: AAS 86AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 86 (1994) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1994), 159-160., a right the State cannot annul but which it must respect and promote. This is a primary right that the family may not neglect or delegate.