Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

could be a society made only of equal brothers without fathers. It should make us ponder
when Holy Scripture refers to 'being at home' as 'being with the father,' in, for example, the
parable of the prodigal son, where the mother is not explicitly named, but is naturally thought
of as being present also. It is worse when the father has 'no time' for the family than when he
has 'no money' for it. The original authority conferred on parents by God and the educational
commission contained therein meet with considerable difficulties in modem society since
children and young people fall very early into the sphere of extrafamilial forces. A further
complicating circumstance is that the extrafamilial milieu of the industrial society -the professional
milieu as well as the leisure milieu, but more and more the school milieu also -is ideologically
tom, so that the young person finds himself or herself facing difficulties which are
simply insoluble. In the face of this situation the parents have a double role and a double obligation:
it is not only their 'natural right' and their urgent duty to educate their children and
give their education a religious orientation, but the parents are furthermore entitled to the extrafamilial
realm of the pluralistic society to determine those institutions in which their children
shall receive extrafamilial education and training. In doing so, the parents will naturally
prefer those institutions that correspond to their faith and offer the guarantee that the education
begun in the home will be continued in the same spirit. It would be a gross violation of
the law according to-which the pluralistic society arose if in the realm of education one
wished to establish compulsory uniform institutions for all children and young people; for
there is no religiously neutral education. Incidentally, in the face of the widespread decline of
moral value notions, it will be ever more difficult for the extrafamilial pedagogical institutions
of the public authorities to fulfill an educational commission. This explains the fact that the
pressure for free schools under Catholic sponsorship is mounting from year to year.
When one speaks of the parents as educators, one should not overlook the fact that rejuvenating
and educational effects on the parents also issue from the children. At the same time, a
new bond is forged between the spouses; their relatedness is not only that of husband to wife,
but also that of father to mother. The new name with which the husband addresses his wife is
not seldom an expression of this new relationship; he often calls her 'mother' without this
name having an immature tie to the wife. The children long to the parents' love for them; but
they also have a right to the father and mother loving one another.
The best education is a happy and harmonious family life: in common joy in the beautiful, in
loving consideration of one another, in standing together faithfully, in the common bearing of
joy and suffering, in an intimate and living religious life. „When you come home,“ says John
Chrysostom in a sermon towards the end of the fourth century, „do not set the earthly table
only, but also the spiritual one...and thus your home will become a church!“ The next day
Chrysostom returned to this matter: „When I said yesterday that each one should make his or
her home a church, you called to me with a loud voice and manifested your joy over these
words. Whoever accepts a proposal so joyfully shows thereby that he or she is ready to carry
it out. For that reason, I have come to preach much more
gladly today.“ 73
b ) The task of the siblings
The siblings also educate one another. In spite of their differences of age, sex,
and temperament, siblings make up a living community that forms them in the most lasting
way. The relationship of brother to brother, sister to sister, and especially of brother to sister
is able to offer a valuable enrichment. „The best thing that can be bestowed on a young man is
to have a sister who is close to him in age and mentality ...One can even ask whether the way
in which brother and sister stand side by side in the family circle is not the most perfect
73 In Gen., sermo 6, 2 and 7, 1 Cf Joseph Höffner, Die Familie als Hauskirche (Cologne: Presseamt des Erzbistums,
1977); idem, Chance für Kirche und Gesellschaft, in Zivilisation der Liebe: Perspektiven der Moral, ed. by
K M Becker, Sinn und Sendung, vol12 (Cologne, 1981), 55-98.
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