CSDC 242

The family has the responsibility to provide an integral education. Indeed, all true education “is directed towards the formation of the human person in view of his final end and the good of that society to which he belongs and in the duties of which he will, as an adult, have a share”⁵⁵⁰ Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 1: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 729.. This integrality is ensured when children — with the witness of life and in words — are educated in dialogue, encounter, sociality, legality, solidarity and peace, through the cultivation of the fundamental virtues of justice and charity⁵⁵¹ Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 43: AAS 74AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 134-135.. In the education of children, the role of the father and that of the mother are equally necessary.⁵⁵² Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 52: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1073-1074. The parents must therefore work together. They must exercise authority with respect and gentleness but also, when necessary, with firmness and vigor: it must be credible, consistent, and wise and always exercised with a view to children's integral good.