fe as an objective of every juridical system. The Charter of the Rights of the Family, presented by the Holy See, implies the conception of the family as a subject that includes all its members. The family is thus a whole which should not be divided up when it is being dealt with by isolating its members—not even for reasons of social substitution which, although necessary in many cases, should never put the family as a subject in a marginal position. The family and marriage need to be defended and promoted not only by the State but also by the whole of society. Both require the decisive commitment of every person because it is starting from the family and marriage that a complete answer can be given to the challenges of the present and the risks of the future.
10. Challenges such as threats to survival, the "culture of death", violence, the lack of safety, under-development, unemployment, migrations, distortions by the communications media, etc., can only be tackled successfully based on a conception of human rights that are developed through the family, thereby transforming the society that is generated in and by the family.
2. SOCIETY: A COMMUNION OF PERSONS
11. We are aware that it is possible and even necessary to introduce and carry forward a dialogue based on human reason regarding society and the principles and ethical requirements that must guide human coexistence.10 No other way can be seen to proceed on common bases with non-believers. However, we would like to develop our reflection in a vision in which faith and reason converge. Reason is enriched when enlightened by faith, and faith makes a depth and a density possible that serve the dignity of the person and of peoples.11
2.1. The Foundation of Brotherhood
12. The characteristics that make up man's being have always been sought. In our century, man has been studied sufficiently on the basis of the many human sciences; nonetheless, the question, Who is man?, has never been asked so insistently. This paradox has not been solved: while, on the one hand, man, his dignity, freedom, greatness and power have never been spoken about so much, on the other hand, he has never been so trampled under foot, subjected to dreadful massacres, and humiliated by violence, especially by the powerful.12 World wars, fratricidal wars (which every war is because "every man is my brother") and tribal wars are a dark chapter in history, and still more the attacks made on the weakest and the innocent, a category of persons who are trampled on in so many ways.13 Since ancient times, it has been thought that man is characterized by his reason. Euripides thus stated that "the intellect is God in each one of us".14 Along the same lines, Plato 15 and Aristotle 16 chose reason as the distinctive human faculty. After Boethius' well-known, "Individua substantia rationis naturae", St. Thomas Aquinas continued in this direction and recognized that man is a person and that this is what is most perfect in the whole of nature: perfectissimum in omni natura. Man is a living, bodily and spiritual being; he is a structured whole. He is distinctum subsistens in intellectuali natura.
13. The concepts of person and dignity are related to one another but not identical. The person refers to being in its highest degree of perfection with its three characteristics of subsistence, spirituality and totality. Dignity refers first to a quality of being, a value that can be opposed to a countervalue. Every person as such has an innate dignity that must be recognized and respected.17 However, the personal being, as a free and evolving being, is called to take on another dignity by developing his or her human possibilities. In this sense, a person also has an acquired dignity that is attained as one perfects in the human order.
14. As the image of God, man has been created through an act of love. God wanted to give man a nature that was different from the whole created order. Man stands out among the other created beings; he transcends them. We all share in existence in a personal way through God the Creator him