Chapter I. On the Obligations of Children toward Parents

363. • Children are bound toward parents by a most special obligation. But three offices must be shown by children to parents under the title of piety, namely love, reverence, and obedience ¹. For parents have a threefold relation to children, namely by reason of cause, by reason of preeminence, and by reason of governance. Consequently children must love them as the authors of their existence, reverence them as Superiors, and obey them as rulers delegated by God.

¹ Love, obedience, and service or reverence, which are owed to other men from the virtue of charity, or of observance, etc., insofar as they are shown to parents, pertain to another virtue; because offices of this sort are specially owed to them as the authors, after God, of our life and education; and therefore the adequation of this debt pertains to the special virtue which is called piety. Yet this piety toward parents differs from piety toward God, which consists in the pursuit of interior devotion and pertains to the virtue of Religion. See St. Thomas (2. 2, q. 101, art. 1 and 3, and q. 102, art. 1).

Children must love parents with love both internal, following them with a pious and benevolent affection of heart, and external, warding off every notable evil and injury from them, and also showing them signs of external benevolence, and assisting them according to ability when they are placed in necessity. This is clear from natural law. Therefore, although our progenitors may have defects however grave, and in whatever way they may have conducted themselves toward us, nevertheless we owe them life and preservation, which is indeed the greatest of all benefits. Hence Ecclus. 7. 29, 30: Honor thy father, and forget not the groanings of thy mother. Remember that unless through them thou hadst not been born; and repay them, as they also did to thee.

364. Resolves. - 1. Children sin gravely against the virtue of piety if inwardly they hold their parents in hatred, or outwardly show them signs of hatred; if they treat them harshly, or look upon them with fierce eyes, just as if they held them in hatred.

2. A fortiori, if they wish evil to them, even death itself, so that they may live more freely, or be able to obtain their inheritance, or so that they may be freed from care and custody of them; if before others they seriously detract from them; if by force, deceit, or other unjust means they impede them from making a testament, etc.

3. Likewise, if they provoke them to anger and bring grave sadness upon them without a just and grave cause, especially if they sadden them even to tears. For thus in Prov. 19. 26: He who afflicts his father and drives away his mother is shameful and unhappy. And Ecclus. 3. 18: He is cursed by God who exasperates his mother.

4. If they do not supply food and other necessaries to parents gravely in need, compelling them to beg or to exercise an art unbecoming their state; if they do not visit them when sick, afflicted, or worn out by old age, or do not sympathize with them and refuse to bring help to them; but especially if they do not assist them in spiritual necessities, namely so that the Sacraments may be administered to them at the article of death, etc. Finally, if when they have departed this life they do not take care that the funeral rites and ceremonies of the Church be paid in a manner congruent with their condition. - St. Alphonsus, n. 333.

365. • Children must show reverence to parents, both internal, namely so that they acknowledge them as Superiors and therefore also have reverential fear toward them, and external, which is situated in words and deeds. Hence Ecclus. 3. 9: In work and word, and in all patience, honor thy father. And ibid. 8: He who fears the Lord honors parents, and will serve as masters those who begot him. - Deut. 27. 16: Cursed is he who does not honor his father and mother, and all the people shall say: Amen.

366. Resolves. 1. Children sin gravely if they strike their parents, even lightly, but injuriously. This crime even in ancient times seemed so atrocious that formerly among the Hebrews whoever had admitted it was punished with death, Exod. 21. 15: He who strikes his father or mother shall die the death. - Likewise if they show the will of striking, for example by raising the hand against them, or by seizing a stick or other instrument for striking. Likewise if in any way they direct threats of this sort against them, etc.

2. They sin gravely if they curse their parents, as is clear from the words of Exod. 21. 17: He who curses his father or mother shall die the death; or if they cast insults against them, and affect them with injuries or contumelious words by which they know that they are to be gravely offended; if they gravely mock them by laughter, derisions, gestures, reproaches, mockeries, a fierce look, etc., provided nevertheless that these things are done from contempt, and not from levity or simple rusticity. For thus Prov. 30. 17: The eye that mocks a father... let the ravens of the torrents pluck it out, and let the young of the eagle eat it.

3. They sin gravely, speaking per se, if they reprehend them very proudly and bitterly, exasperate them by contradictions, or address them with harsh words, or without cause affect them with grave sorrow; and a fortiori if by these things they provoke them even to grave anger; if they studiously refuse them signs of reverence according to the custom of their country or of their condition, for example if they do not rise when they come, or do not uncover the head, or do not greet them, provided nevertheless that from these things the parents judge themselves gravely offended.

4. Likewise if they despise them as poor, wretched, badly clothed, or blush for them, or refuse to acknowledge them, or hold them as unknown and strangers. Yet except if, with contempt and pride excluded, for a just cause they pretend that they do not know them, for example to avoid some inconvenience which the son would incur if his parents were known, etc.

Q. Whether children sin gravely by striking, or by treating badly and irreverently, parents who are dull, insane, delirious from old age, drunk, etc.?

Resp. It is affirmed, if they act from malice or contempt. This is clear from the example of the unhappy Ham, son of the patriarch Noah, who was cursed by his father and by the Lord Himself because he had acted irreverently toward his father seized by drunkenness. Yet otherwise, if a rebuke or some treatment a little more severe is necessary for restraining parents lacking reason.

367. • Children must furnish obedience to parents in all lawful and honorable things pertaining to their care, while they are under their power. This is clear from natural law and from Scripture, Ephes. 6. 1: Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is just. - Coloss. 3. 20: Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is pleasing to the Lord.

368. Resolves. - 1. Children sin more or less if in a matter looking to morals, the salvation of the soul, and the governance of the house they are unwilling to hear their parents, although thoughtlessness or defect of age excuses them in part.

2. Likewise, if notwithstanding a serious prohibition of the parents they frequent depraved company, dice or other games of this sort, or dangerous places, such as taverns, dances, theaters, or other similar places; daughters sin especially who, against the will or even without the knowledge of the parents, converse with suitors, or go out from the house at night, or speak alone with lovers.

3. Likewise if, with the mandate of the parents neglected, they notably omit the Sacraments or other offices of religion; if they are unwilling to give effort to letters or arts congruent with their state, and so consume time and render useless the expenses made for them.

4. Likewise, if they refuse to execute things which greatly pertain to good government and the peace of the family, or if they wish to administer all things according to their own will, with the authority of the parents despised, especially if they respond arrogantly and proudly: I will not do it; attend to your own affairs. - I wish nothing be commanded me. - You bring me weariness and disgust, etc.

5. Nevertheless, in practice, the disobedience of children can not rarely be excused from grave sin on account of levity of mind, inadvertence, or on account of a certain human negligence, and very often on account of smallness of matter. Indeed often they must be judged immune from all fault on account of defect of a rigorous precept on the part of the parents. For in order that sin, especially grave sin, be committed against obedience, it is required that the parents seem strictly to command, and not merely to advise, solicit, or signify their mind. But a true precept is discerned to be imposed from the serious or severe manner in which the thing is commanded, and from other circumstances, for example from the necessity and greatness of the thing prescribed, from an added penalty, etc.

6. But in depraved things, children neither ought nor are able to obey. This is clear from natural law. Likewise from sacred Scripture. For thus Acts 5. 29: It is necessary to obey God rather than men. - Matt. 10. 37: He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.

369. Questions. - Q. 1. Whether children are bound to obey parents in the choice of state?

Resp. No, per se, because every man, as regards the manner of tending to God as his ultimate end, is altogether independent of other men ²; and therefore parents sin gravely who force unwilling children, either directly or even indirectly, to choose a state, whether religious, or clerical, or conjugal; or contrariwise, if they impede them, altogether unwilling, from choosing some state of life without a just cause.

² Understand the manner of tending to God as regards the state of life. For to tend to God as the ultimate end is through any acts whatsoever; yet we are not so independent from other men in any acts whatsoever that we are not bound not only by ecclesiastical and civil laws, but also by the precepts of parents even in those things which look to the worship of God, as in fact the Author himself noted above, n. 368, res. 3.

Two principles which St. Thomas uses bear more on the matter, namely: 1. that God calling is to be obeyed more than men contradicting; 2. that in those things which pertain to the nature of the body, man is not bound to obey man, but only God, because all men are equal by nature: "Whence children are not bound... to obey parents concerning contracting marriage, or preserving virginity, or some other such thing." See 2. 2, q. 101, art. 4, and q. 104, art. 5.

I said per se. For it must be said otherwise if parents contradict children for grave and reasonable causes, for example if, being placed in grave necessity, they need the assistance of a son, and he cannot help them in another way except by remaining with them. - St. Alphonsus, n. 335. - Elbel.

Q. 2. Whether children can embrace the religious state without the knowledge of the parents?

Resp. Per se it is affirmed. Indeed sometimes a son will act more prudently if, feeling himself divinely called to the religious or clerical state, and observing that access will be unjustly closed to him by his parents, he conceals the matter from them and executes the divine will. Yet this is not to be advised to children who are minors, as often as the matter does not urge so much, or it is not sufficiently clear concerning the divine vocation. - St. Alphonsus, l. 4, n. 68. Especially in France, and where the same disposition of the laws flourishes, one must beware of furnishing such counsel to minor children, since by the aid of the secular arm parents can take them away from any place whatever and recall them to themselves.

370. • Q. 3. Whether children can enter marriage without consulting the parents?

Resp. No, speaking generally, as regards lawfulness. See what is to be said in the Treatise on Matrimony, c. 3.

Q. 4. Whether a minor son can give his name to the army against the will of the parents?

Resp. He can, from the French civil Code, art. 374, provided he has reached the age of eighteen years; yet this seems to be valid only for the external forum; except unless sufficient causes are present, for example if the son is treated entirely badly in the paternal home, etc. - Thus commonly. - See Cases, n. 359 and following.