Living Space for the Family

on Tuesday, 01 March 1960. Posted in Encyclical letters & Other documents of the Magisterium

"In our Encyclical The Holiness of the Family and Social Justice, directed to the Bishops of the United States of America, we called the attention of all to the basic idea of the principle:

That the goods which were created by God for all men should flow equally to all, according to the principles of justice and charity.

"According to the teaching of Rerum Novarum, nature itself has joined private property closely with the existence of human society and its true civilization, and in a very special manner with the existence and development of the family. Should not private property secure for the father of a family the healthy liberty he needs in order to fulfill the duties assigned him by the Creator regarding the physical, spiritual and religious welfare of the family?...

"Of all the goods that can be the object of private property, none is more inviting to nature than the land, the holding in which the family lives, and from the products of which it draws all or part of its subsistence. As a rule, only that stability which is rooted in one's own holdings makes of the family the vital and most perfect and fruitful cell of society, joining up, in a brilliant manner, in its progressive cohesion, the present and future generations.

"If today the concept and the creation of living spaces is at the center of social and political aims, should we not, before all else, think of a living space for the family, and free it from the fetters or conditions which do not permit even the thought of a homestead of one's own?"

— PIUS XI

 

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