Chapter V: On Piety Toward the Remaining Blood-Relatives

Offices. Of the other blood-relatives some are ascendants or descendants in the direct line, others collaterals. Cognates of the direct line are bound by offices of piety similar to those by which parents and children are bound, and that by reason of themselves, since ascendants have really given origin, and grandchildren and descendants have really received it. Yet the obligations are lesser in degree. These urge more strictly when parents and children are lacking, so that ascendants are as parents to grandchildren.

In the collateral line, piety chiefly imposes love and mutual aids. Wherefore the grave obligation of helping in grave necessity, which, as regards other neighbors, is disputed, cannot be doubtful among brothers. And civil laws also sanction the obligation of support among brothers. Yet theologians deny that, in order to relieve the poverty of a brother, a religious already professed must depart from religion. Among other cognates of the collateral line, there is now no grave obligation of piety, so that contrary sins are not judged to differ from a violation of common charity.

Among ascendants and descendants there exist obligations the same in species, but lesser in degree, as among parents and children. In the collateral line, piety imposes love and mutual aids; but a grave obligation is not extended beyond the first degree.