As with the other religions represented in this volume, Roman Catholic Christianity is an historical tradition that offers a particular vision of what the world is like under God and what it means to live well within it. That vision is embodied in sacred texts, specific beliefs and doctrines, forms of communal worship and private prayer, and moral practices. Yet each tradition intends to display some sort of universal significance, since the God that each worships and obeys is understood to be the Lord not only of Jews, Christians, or Muslims but of all that is. For example, the Roman Catholic Church proposes that “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men [and women] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.” Needless to say, our joys and hopes and griefs and anxieties regarding children are included; hence, Catholic views about them seek common ground with other “genuinely human” viewpoints outside the Church.

In this chapter I offer an interpretation of contemporary Roman Catholic understandings of and approaches to children as these emerge largely in Church documents and theological reflections produced during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II (1978–2005). The first major section examines the way children are taken to possess a God-given dignity that they share with all other human beings. The implications of such dignity include the affirmation of the rights of children, recognition of their claims as religious and moral agents to participation in forms of social life, and a “preferential” attention to their vulnerability. The second section complements this general account with a theological discussion of the specific and complex reality of children in their relation and orientation to God. Here I build on and develop the six biblical themes regarding the nature of children outlinedin the previous chapter. I conclude with three critical observations or, better, cautions meant to orient continuing inquiry into our topic.