self. As a personal creature endowed with reason and free will and called to eternal happiness, each human being reflects something of divine magnificence. This is the ultimate, indispensable foundation of our brotherhood.
15. The family is the pre-eminent, most favorable and irreplaceable place for the recognition and development of a personal being on its way to complete dignity. In the family the first steps in human development are taken. In it one is forged not only in the maternal uterus but, as St. Thomas points out, in a "spiritual uterus".18 In this family and formational context, the process of education and promotion of a human being begins. A person who does not receive this initial promotion in the family will be greatly hampered in achieving the human fullness to which heshe is called as a person.
2.2. The Family: the Basis of Society
16. Respect for human rights is necessary for the human development of persons in the community. These values include life itself, health, knowledge, work, the community and religion. Above all, "the family is in fact a community of persons whose proper way of existing and living together is communion: communio personarum".19 The values essential to the family can only be achieved when a man and a woman give themselves to one another totally in marriage, a community of love and life, and are willing to fully accept the gift of new life in procreation and in education. Parents give that new life a home in which the child can grow and develop. All the rights that are necessary by nature for the development of the person in hisher wholeness become real in the family in the most effective way. The family, by its very nature, is a subject of rights, the foundational element of human society, and the most necessary force in the full development of the human person. The importance of the family's social mediation is undeniable. This is something that maintains all its value, despite the changes that have affected the family over the course of history.
17. Since all men are persons, the Holy Father has defined the fundamental institution of society as a "communio personarum".20 "The family is indeed—more than any other human reality—the place where an individual can exist ‘for himself' through the sincere gift of self. This is why it remains a social institution which neither can nor should be replaced: it is the ‘sanctuary of life'".21 Consequently, to promote this existential project in a human being means first of all to recognize his reality as a person and his innate dignity. To achieve this end, it is becoming increasingly necessary to give value to the family and to the different members who comprise it.
3. THE PERSON: HISHER DIGNITY AND RIGHTS
3.1. Dignity and Equality
18. The concept of the dignity of a human being must always be the key to interpreting the 1948 Declaration. This is mentioned in the first paragraph of the Preamble, taken up in the first article, and subsequently repeated throughout the whole Declaration. All the affirmations, principles and rights mentioned in the Declaration were written and must be interpreted in the light of the dignity of a human being.
19. The Declaration gathers up the fruits of humanity's historical heritage. Moreover, the Christian understanding of man makes it possible to arrive at a deeper foundation of this reality by making it known that man is the only being who has worth in himself and not only by reason of the species. Furthermore, man has been created in the image and likeness of God (Gn 1:27) and thus endowed with an absolute value. The human creature is wanted and loved by God as an end in itself.22 Therefore, man is not an instrument, a means or something that can be manipulated.
20. The Universal Declaration begins by affirming that it recognizes the innate dignity of all the members of the human family as well as the equality and inalienability of their rights.23 It thereby records that this dignity is a reality that emanates from man's essence, i.e., from his nature. Therefore, this is a reflection of the substantial and