Chapter I. On the Obligations of Children toward Parents

Since parents have a threefold relation toward children, namely by reason of cause, by reason of preeminence, and by reason of governance, there are three duties which children ought to render to parents by title of piety, namely love, reverence, and obedience. Wherefore they ought to love them as authors of their existence, reverence them as superiors, and obey them as rectors delegated by God. - Therefore:

I Say 1st. Children ought to love parents with love both internal, cherishing them with a pious and benevolent affection of heart, and external, repelling every evil and injury from them, as well as exhibiting to them signs of external benevolence, and assisting them according to ability when they are constituted in necessity. This is clear from the law of nature itself; for however grave the defects which our progenitors have may be, and whatever may be the manner in which they have conducted themselves toward us, nevertheless we always owe them life and preservation, which surely is the greatest of all benefits. Hence Ecclus. vii, 29 and 30: "Honor thy father, and forget not the groanings of thy mother: remember that unless through them, thou wouldst not have been born: and repay them, as they also thee."

I Say 2nd. Children ought to exhibit reverence to parents, both internal and external; they ought, namely, to acknowledge them and to treat them both in words and deeds as superiors, for they are such, designated by nature itself. - Hence Ecclus. iii, 9: "In work and speech and all patience honor thy father." - And ibid., 8: "He who fears the Lord honors parents, and as masters he will serve those who begot him." - Deut. xxvii, 16: "Cursed is he who does not honor his father and mother; and all the people shall say: Amen."

I Say 3rd. Children ought to render obedience to parents in all licit and honorable things pertaining to their education, while they are under their power. This is clear from natural law and from Scripture, for example, Ephes. vi, 1: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is just." - Coloss. iii, 20: "Children, obey parents in all things; for this is pleasing to the Lord." - I said 1st, in all licit and honorable things, because in things evidently depraved children neither ought to obey, nor can they. - I said 2nd, pertaining to their education, for in those things which pertain to the choice of their own state, children are independent, and parents would sin gravely if directly or indirectly they compelled them to choose the religious state rather than the conjugal state or vice versa. - I said 3rd, while they are under their power, for if children, for example, marry and establish a new family or wish to embrace the religious state, although they always owe love and reverence to parents, the duty of obedience properly ceases.

You Will Resolve. - 1st. Children sin gravely if they strike parents or attempt to strike them even lightly, but injuriously. This crime, even in ancient times, was seen as so atrocious that formerly among the Hebrews any who had committed it were punished by death; for it is said, Exod. xxi, 15: "He who shall strike his father or mother shall be put to death."

2nd. They sin gravely if they curse parents, as is clear from the words of Exod. xxi, 18: "He who shall curse his father or mother shall die the death"; or if they throw insults upon 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, jeerings, gesticulations, reproaches, derisions, a stern look, etc., provided nevertheless that these things are done from contempt, but not from levity or simple rusticity.

3rd. They sin gravely if they despise parents who are poor, miserable, badly clothed, or are ashamed of them, or refuse to acknowledge them, or regard them as unknown and foreign. Yet except if, with contempt and pride excluded, they pretend for a just cause that they do not know them, for example, to avoid some inconvenience which the child would incur if his parents were known, etc.

It must be noted here that in practice the disobedience of children can not rarely be excused from grave sin on account of levity of mind, inadvertence, or some human negligence, and very often on account of smallness of matter. Indeed often they ought to be judged immune from every fault on account of defect of a rigorous precept. For that a sin, especially grave, be committed against obedience, it is required that the parents seem strictly to command, but not only to counsel, solicit, or signify their mind. But that a true precept is being enjoined is discerned from the serious or severe manner in which the thing is commanded, and from other circumstances, for example, from the necessity and magnitude of the thing commanded, and the penalty added, etc.