Duties of Children to Parents

CHILDREN owe their existence to their parents, and for many years, until they come to maturity, they stand in need of their constant care and direction. It is but right, therefore, that children should love, reverence, and obey the authors of their being and their natural guardians. This is due to parents from their children on account of the special relationship in which they stand towards them, and so, as St Thomas teaches,” there must be a special virtue which regulates the mutual obligations of parent and child. This virtue is called piety in Catholic theology, and it regulates not only the mutual offices of parents and children towards each other, but our duty to other near relatives, and to our country and fellow-countrymen. It is a virtue similar to charity, but it binds more strictly, so that while charity prescribes a general love for all mankind, piety obliges us to a special love for those who are near to us, and for the country in which we were born.¹

If, then, hatred or want of love for our fellow-men is of itself a grave sin, as we saw above, it will be still easier to commit a grave sin by want of proper affection for our parents. To show dislike of them or contempt for them, or to show that we are ashamed of them, will be a grave sin if our unfilial conduct is likely to cause them serious grief. In the same way, serious want of reverence and respect shown in word or action is grievously sinful. To strike a parent, or even to threaten to do so, will usually be mortally sinful.

By the duty of obedience children are bound to obey their parents in all that belongs to their bringing up and to domestic discipline. Sins of disobedience will be grievous if the matter is sufficiently important and the command is given with the serious intention of imposing a strict obligation.

Children are only bound to support their parents when they cannot support themselves, for whatever property a child may have or may acquire belongs exclusively to him. Among the working classes it is usual for elder brothers or sisters who have begun to work to throw their earnings into the common stock for the support of the family until they leave home and get an establishment of their own. This is quite as it should be, for the money which they earn is scarcely sufficient to pay for their own keep; or if it does more, there are little brothers and sisters or aged parents who are dependent on them, and whom they are bound to help to support.

¹ St Thomas, Summa, 2-2, q. 101, a. I.

The other obligations of children towards their parents are permanent and last as long as life, but that of obedience ceases with their emancipation, In England children are emancipated from the control of their parents when they become twenty-one years of age, when they marry, or when they enter into religion; for as soon as they have attained the age of puberty they are independent of their parents in what concerns the salvation of their souls and the choice of a state of life.

A minor may also enlist as a soldier without his parents’ consent according to the English law.

Moreover, when a child has attained years of discretion, which he is considered to do at sixteen, it would seem that he may lawfully depart from home and provide for himself, if it be for his advantage. This, of course, supposes that the necessities of his parents or of his brothers and sisters do not require that he should remain at home. If a youth has acted in this way, and it appears to be for his benefit, English courts will not compel him to return home, and it was the common teaching of the classical moralists that in acting thus a youth would do nothing wrong.¹

¹ Laymann, lib. 3, tract. 4, c. 8, n. 13.

I. Principles. 1. Children must render love, reverence, and obedience to their parents. This is clear both from Sacred Scripture¹ and from what has been said about the virtue of piety and observance (nn. 395 and 398). In addition, the obligations of love and reverence persist; but the obligation of obedience ceases when children become of age or become their own masters by marriage or emancipation; nevertheless those remaining in the paternal home remain subject to parents as regards domestic order.

2. The duties of love, reverence, and obedience, since they regard morally different modes of exercising piety, differ specifically; hence one who transgresses them commits a specifically different sin according as he injures love, reverence, or obedience.

3. The duties set forth are grave from their kind, so that children who notably injure them sin gravely. The reason is that, in the supposed case, they are gravely opposed to the good of parents and therefore to charity (St. Alphonsus, III, 333; n. 282).

¹ Cf. Ecclus. 3:9 ff.; Prov. 19:26; 23:24, 30; Eph. 6:1.

II. Applications. 1. Due love requires that children pursue their parents with the affection of love, will good things for them, and furnish signs of love.

Against this obligation children sin gravely: 1. if they hate their parents, wish grave evil to them, or rejoice over their grave evil; 2. if - even though perhaps internal hatred is absent - nevertheless they behave as if they hated them, for example by habitually looking at them with a grim eye or addressing them harshly; 3. if they do not help parents in grave temporal or spiritual necessity; if they do not visit them in their illness; if they do not take care that the sacraments be administered to them when they are dying; if they do not fulfill their testament, etc. (St. Alphonsus, III, 333).

2. Due reverence requires filial fear, that they think honorably of them, acknowledging them as superiors, and that they prove the aforesaid sentiments by words and deeds.

Against this obligation children sin gravely: 1. if they despise their parents or are unwilling to acknowledge them; nevertheless merely external simulation without internal contempt, on account of some cause, at least excuses from mortal sin; 2. if they strike them, even only lightly, or raise a hand or instrument for striking them. Nevertheless those are excused from grave, and sometimes even from light, sin who restrain by words or deeds parents who are dull, insane, delirious from old age or drunkenness (St. Alphonsus, III, 334). For the rest, the gravity of irreverence depends not a little on the condition of the family and the customs of the place, so that the same words can constitute light or grave irreverence according as they are uttered against parents of lower or higher condition.

3. Due obedience extends: 1. to the education of children both temporal and spiritual, which nevertheless have force only for minors and those not yet joined in marriage, minority being computed in civil matter according to civil law, in matter of morals and religion according to canon law (cf. can. 88, § 1); 2. to domestic order. But in order that in the case there truly be sin, a true command is required; one who acts against a will or against merely directive arrangements does not sin of himself, although by accident, if the honorable end of the act is lacking, he can easily sin. Moreover, as to grave matter, note that several transgressions, according to the mind of the one commanding, with the matter considered, often coalesce in an altogether prudent judgment (St. Alphonsus, III, 335). With these things attended to:

Against this obligation children sin gravely who, against a formal injunction of the parents, 1. omit a precept of religion or even abstain from the sacraments for a long time; 2. frequent bad company, taverns, dances, theaters; 3. do not cease wandering in the evening; 4. continue an untimely courtship; 5. refuse to perform work of grave importance, etc. (St. Alphonsus, cited place). As to neglect of studies, note that a son can sin gravely even if the parents have not imposed a strict command, namely on account of the harm to be inflicted on the parents. Moreover, for this reason the son of rich parents will not so easily sin gravely, but the son of parents of moderate fortune will more easily sin gravely.

For the rest, in this whole matter of obedience it must be well considered: 1. whether there is only a warning or directive arrangement, or a true mandate; 2. whether or not children sufficiently attended to the objectively grave malice, so that they are subjectively gravely culpable.

Question 1. Are children bound to obey parents in the choice of a state of life, whether matrimonial, celibate, clerical, or religious?

Resp. Children are not bound to obey either as to the state of life in general, or as to marriage with a determined person, or as to entrance into a determined religious institute. For, "according to 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; for example in those things which pertain to the sustenance of the body and the generation of offspring; whence neither are servants bound to obey masters, nor children parents, concerning contracting marriage, or preserving virginity, or anything of this kind" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 104, a. 5); these things are also to be applied to the state of life of the supernatural order (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 189, a. 6). It is added that in the aforesaid states there is a certain perpetual servitude, to which man cannot compel man (St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 47, a. 6). Hence parents sin gravely who compel children, even indirectly, to choose a state of life (St. Alphonsus, III, 335; cf. can. 2352). Yet by accident it can happen that children must either enter marriage, or for a time at least abstain from marriage, from the clerical state, or from the religious state, namely if otherwise the parents would be exposed to grave necessity (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 189, a. 6; St. Alphonsus, III, 335; IV, 66).

Question 2. Are children bound to seek the counsel and consent of parents in the choice of a state?

Resp. 1. As to the conjugal state, especially as to the person with whom marriage is to be entered, filial reverence seems to require that parents be consulted in so grave a matter, and that their assent be sought. Yet since children are not bound to follow the counsel to be given by parents, the obligation itself of consulting and seeking assent seems of itself only light. Indeed there is none if the parents are foreseen to be irrationally unwilling, or another just cause of acting otherwise is present (St. Alphonsus, VI, 849, 877). By accident the obligation can be grave, for example if the parents will be gravely offended or affected with grave sadness from counsel not being sought.

Note. To what extent children, with civil law considered, need the consent of parents or of a guardian for entering marriage, see in domestic law.

Resp. 2. As to the religious or clerical state, there is no obligation of seeking the counsel or consent of parents; indeed often it is not even expedient to consult them, both because in this matter they lack experience, and because "as the flesh lusts against the spirit, as is said in Gal. 5, so also carnal friends frequently oppose spiritual progress" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 189, a. 10, ad 2; St. Alphonsus, IV, 68). Yet if a son "can easily and safely obtain their consent, it is fitting that he not depart without the blessing of his parents" (St. Alphonsus, cited place, III, 335); but if they dissent, he should wait a little, if there is hope that afterward they will consent. Besides, note well that minors, with the civil law of many regions considered, can be brought back by force by their parents; hence let them not easily depart without their consent.

Corollary I. Although children are not subject to parents as to the choice of a state of life, nevertheless let them not easily contract marriage without the parents' knowledge or with them reasonably unwilling. Hence can. 1034 rightly establishes: the parish priest is gravely to exhort minor children of families not to enter marriages without the knowledge of their parents or with them reasonably unwilling; but if they refuse, he is not to assist at their marriage unless the local Ordinary has first been consulted.

Corollary II. What has been said about the state of life can almost be applied to the choice of a profession - for example of acquiring a science or art - since this too regards the whole life. Yet here by accident there will more easily be an obligation of satisfying the wishes of the parents.

The Duties of Parents and Children.—In addition to the duties that belong to all superiors and subjects (see 2635 sqq.) there are special obligations incumbent on parents and children by reason of the special relationship between them. The duties of the parents are of two kinds.

(a) Duties of Charity.—Parents should give their children special love and special signs of affection, as the order of charity requires (see 1158 sqq.). Hence, those parents sin grievously who hate or curse their children, even the illegitimate or wayward, or who drive the children from home by unkindness.

(b) Duties of Piety.—Parents should, as far as they are able, give their children the honor and help that belongs to members of the family (see 2346 sqq.), though illegitimate children have not the right to dwell in the home of the legitimate children or to share in the family inheritance (see 1803 b). The help owed to children is spiritual and material, and the obligation, which is natural and divine, is most grave (Canon 1113). Spiritual help includes religious and moral training and example (see 867 sqq.); material help includes food, clothing, lodging, medical care, means to learn a necessary trade, art or profession or to enter marriage or take up a suitable state in life, protection and defense. Parents are bound to help their children, at least in necessities, as long as the latter are in need. Sins are committed also against the unborn (e.g., when the pregnant mother does not take care of her health, or when she is ill-treated by her husband) and young infants (e.g., when the child is unnecessarily suckled by strangers and thus exposed to danger, or is placed in a foundling asylum or other institution because the parents are unwilling to be bothered). On the other hand, those parents sin through excess who spoil or “sissify” their children by luxury and idleness, or who are too indulgent to give needed correction and even moderate chastisement.

Compensation of Children.—A child, even though subject to parental authority, seems to have a right to compensation for extraordinary services given his parents, and also to at least a fair commission for gains made in the course of extraordinary services for which he is receiving no compensation. In their wills, after satisfying just debts and expenses, parents should leave their offspring who need it enough to maintain their state in life.

Duties of Children.—The duties of children to their parents can also be classed under those of charity and piety.

(a) Duties of Charity.—Children owe their parents a special internal and external love (see 1176 sqq.). Those children sin gravely who hate their parents or wish them serious evil, or who treat them with great unkindness or neglect, or bring them great sorrow or worry, or who never visit or write to them.

(b) Duties of Piety.—Children must respect and assist their parents (see 2347, 2348). It is a serious sin to have contempt for one’s parents, or to show them serious dishonor in words (e.g., by injurious or mocking names), in signs (e.g., by laughing at them, mimicking them), in deeds (e.g., by striking them, speaking against them), in omission (e.g., by refusing to acknowledge them or show them the usual marks of courtesy). It is not disrespect, however, for a child to dislike or protest against evils done by his parents. The assistance owed to parents is both spiritual and corporal, and children sin when they neglect the religious welfare of their parents (e.g., by not respectfully admonishing them when the parents do not lead a good life, by not obtaining for them the Sacraments, prayers and suffrages they need), or deny them bodily aid (e.g., by refusing them help or comfort when they are poor, persecuted, or suffering). Children who live at home with their parents should contribute from their earnings or individual property to the maintenance of the home, unless the parents do not need this pay and do not wish it. See Catechism of the Council of Trent, on the Fourth Commandment (pages 408 sqq.).

Duties to Parents or Guardians in Reference to Marriage.—(a) There is, per se, a duty of consulting with one’s parents about one’s marriage; for he who marries without their knowledge, generally exposes himself to the danger of making a serious mistake, and moreover as a rule the interests of parents themselves are bound up intimately with the marriages of their children. Hence, unless a very serious reason excuses, he who marries without advising with his parents sins grievously by his rashness or want of filial affection. The same is true, if a child wilfully disregards the wishes of his parents by stubbornly marrying when for a good reason they disapprove. If their opposition is imperative and emphatic, or if they are grief-stricken at thought of the imprudent marriage, the sin is serious; but if their opposition is mild and the match not a very bad one, the sin is venial. The consent or counsel of parents is not necessary for validity, however, since it is not they who are getting married, and no law makes their consent or counsel an essential part of the compact. Per accidens, their consent or counsel is not even necessary for lawfulness, as when the children live far away from their parents, or when marriage has to be contracted without delay, or when the parents are unreasonable in their opposition.

(b) There is, per se, no duty of obeying one’s parents in the matter of marriage: first, because marriage supposes choice, admiration, and love, and these do not submit to dictation, even from parents; next, because in things that pertain to nature, such as self-preservation and procreation, children are not subject to their parents; finally, because the authority of parents does not extend to the whole lifetime of their children and marriage is a lifelong union. Hence, parents may not compel their children to marry or to remain single; they may not make the match for their children against the latters’ will, they may not force a child to marry a person whom he or she detests, they may not veto a marriage that does not appeal to them if the son or daughter has good reasons for it. Those parents sin, then, who refuse their blessing to a marriage out of selfishness, and those parents sin gravely who force their children into loveless unions and so make them unhappy in this world and endanger their salvation for the world to come. Per accidens, there is a duty of obeying parents in reference to marriage when one is obliged even apart from their command to do what they prescribe, when the marriage which they forbid is also forbidden by law (e.g., if the child is needed at home to support his indigent parents, if the mate selected will bring disgrace upon the family and the match can easily be broken off), or when the marriage which they require is also demanded by duty (e.g., if a son will surely enter upon a wild and reckless life unless he marries). See above, 2228, 2627, 2633, 2636, 2347, 2348, 2361 sqq.

Duties of Parents in Reference to Marriage.—(a) If there is question of the marriage of a child, parents should guide themselves by the rule of St. Paul: “Let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord” (I Cor., vii. 39). Undue pressure should be avoided, but bad marriages should be opposed, and parents should assist their children to marry well. (b) If there is question of a parent’s second marriage, the children’s interests should be considered in making the choice of the step-father or step-mother, and, if the children are grown up, they should be consulted, or at least they should not be unreasonably saddened or harmed by the new marriage.

19. Some children are legitimate and natural, others natural, others legitimate. - Legitimate and natural children are those who are born from a man and his wife. - Those are presumed in law to be legitimate and natural who are born from a mother joined in a just marriage, unless it is juridically certain that their origin is from someone other than the mother's husband. For he is held to be the father whom the nuptials demonstrate. The mother indeed is certain; but the father is presumed. And this presumption also has force in the forum of conscience. C. B. (Cod. Germ.) 1591, 1717, 1720.

20. The fetus is usually brought forth in the ninth month from the time when it was conceived, sometimes at the beginning of the seventh, sometimes at the completion of the tenth, namely not before 180 days, nor after 300 days, C. I. (Cod. Ital.) 161 seqq.; C. G. (Cod. Gall.) 315; C. H. (Cod. Hisp.) 108; C. A. (Cod. Austr.) 138, 163; C. B. 1592, 1717; C. L. (Cod. Lusit.) 101. - Hence of him who is born either after the seventh month from the marriage entered, or before the tenth month from the marriage dissolved, that one is the father whom the nuptials demonstrate, unless something else is most evident; C. L. 103. Nor indeed does it stand in the way that the mother was adulterous, C. I. 165; C. G. 313; C. H. 109; C. A. 158, or that she herself professed the son to be adulterine, C. A. 158, unless she brings forward such indications as would be sufficient in the external forum, Lugo de Iust. d. 12, n. 26, although she be most worthy of faith, and under oath, and dying, asserts it; for no one merits belief when alleging his own turpitude, C. Inter 8, sect. ult. de Donat.; L. 654, 924. - A fetus brought forth before the seventh month from the marriage entered is held legitimate only if the husband either knowingly and willingly married the pregnant woman, or, when he was present, did not wholly repudiate the born child, C. I. 161; C. G. 314; C. H. 110; C. L. 102. A fetus brought forth later, after the tenth month from the dissolution of the marriage, is held as illegitimate, unless the health and morals of the mother and the circumstances of things persuade otherwise, C. I. 169; C. G. 315; C. H. 111; C. L. 102 seqq.

21. Natural or illegitimate children are those who are born outside marriage. These by canon law are irregular; by civil law they are distinguished from legitimate chiefly as regards succession to the paternal inheritance. C. A. 155, 165; C. H. 114, 127, 134, 139. - Natural children, if they are born from a man and woman between whom marriage could not have been entered, whether by natural law or by divine and canon law, by the same canon law are called spurious, or born from a condemned intercourse, C. 3, 10 Qui fil. sint legit.; and they are adulterine, sacrilegious, incestuous, and nefarious; these latter are those who are born from ascendants and descendants. But by civil law all are called illegitimate and cannot be recognized, in various cases nevertheless determined by the various laws, C. I. 180; C. H. 119; C. G. 335; C. B. 1732; C. L. 122, 134. But in other cases not excepted by the laws they can be acknowledged and legitimated. C. I. 179, 195; C. G. 331, 334; C. L. 119. - They are acknowledged by the confession of the parents, by civil law authentic, C. I. 181; C. G. 334; C. H. 131; C. B. 1718; by canon law simple and bare, C. 10 de Probat.; and after they have been acknowledged, they follow the condition of the one acknowledging, whether mother, or father, or both, C. I. 185. - But those acknowledged are legitimated by subsequent marriage, by the law itself, C. 1, 6 Qui fil. sint leg.; C. I. 194; C. G. 331; C. H. 120, 121; C. A. 161; C. B. 1719; C. L. 119; and they can also be acknowledged after the marriage has already been contracted, C. I. 197; C. H. 121. Cf. C. G. 331. - But from the time they have been legitimated they are held just as if they had been brought forth from a just marriage, C. 6 Qui fil. sint leg.; C. I. 194; C. G. 333; C. H. 122; C. A. 161; C. L. 121. Cf. Benedict XIV, de Syn. l. 13, c. 24, n. 16. But one merely acknowledged is understood to be the child only of him who acknowledged him. C. I. 182; C. G. 336; C. H. 129, 134. - From C. B. 1589, 1705, it is established altogether against natural law that a natural son and father are not reputed blood-relations! and, on the contrary, in his relations with his mother he has the juridical condition of a legitimate son! - In doubt whether someone was born from a legitimate marriage, he must be presumed legitimate. C. I. 120. - L. l. 3, n. 951.

22. Legitimate children are legitimated natural children, and adopted children, C. I. 737. Adoption is an act by which someone who is not such by nature is admitted into the place of a child. From more recent laws, the adopted person is held just as the legitimate and natural son only of him who adopted him, and he acquires the right of succession to him, C. I. 202, 204, 210, 737; C. G. 343, 344, 350; C. B. 1741, 1757; C. L. 124, 129. But he is not exempted from the power of his natural father, nor does he pass into the power and family of the adopting father; C. I. 210, 212; C. G. 348, 349. It is otherwise from C. A. 183; C. H. 177; C. B. 1765. This adoption is perpetual and is not dissolved even by mutual consent, C. I. 217. And so also the French Jurisconsults. It is otherwise from C. A. 185; C. B. 1768.

23. Legitimate and natural children, as regards receiving donations and as regards the right of succession, are held such from the time when they were really conceived, provided that afterwards they are born viable, C. I. 724; C. G. 725; C. A. 138. One is born viable who is born after the 180th day from conception, C. I. 160, 162; C. G. 312, 314; C. A. 138, and has been perfectly born. In doubt, one who was brought forth alive is presumed to have been born viable, C. I. 724. Abortive children, if they do not survive, are held as born dead. - Merely natural children, whether legitimated or acknowledged, acquire the right of succession from the marriage of the parents entered, or from that time at which they afterwards were acknowledged, C. I. 197; C. H. 124. - Merely legitimate children acquire the right of succession from that time at which they were adopted, as if then first they had been conceived. C. I. 210, 217; C. B. 1754, 1757. From C. H. 177, an adopted person acquires no right of succession except from a testament or from a prior agreement. From C. B. 1767, the right of succession can be excluded in the contract of adoption. - Therefore a donation can be made to one scarcely conceived, and, when a pregnant widow has been left, the inheritance in the meantime pertains to the son to be born. But, when he is born dead, it devolves to the nearer cognates of the father.

24. Those younger than seven are called infants, as if non-speaking, unable to speak. If they have already attained the use of reason, although they are not held by human laws, nevertheless they are held by natural law. - From the seventh year to the fourteenth, if male; to the twelfth, if female, they are called impubes; but beyond the aforesaid age they are called pubes, namely from the proximate power of generation attained at that age. - Impubes, if they cease to be under the power of the father, by the father's death or by the emancipation of the children, are called pupilli, L. 239 de Verb. sign.; having become pubes, they are called minors up to the twenty-fifth year of age by Roman Law, L. 1 de Minoribus. - By more recent Law, every other distinction having been removed, whoever, male or female, has not yet completed the twenty-first year of age is called a minor; with such age completed, he is called of age, C. I. 323, 240; C. G. 388, 488; C. B. 2; C. L. 97, 311. From C. H. 320, majority is established when the twenty-third year has been completed; C. A. 21, 174, the twenty-fourth year. - A cleric is of age in beneficial and other spiritual causes when he has completed the fourteenth year of age. C. Si annum 3 de Iudic. in 6. - At a minor age the son, unless he is emancipated, is constituted under paternal power. C. I. 220; C. B. 1626. But one of age regularly manages his own affairs. From C. L. 311, he can freely dispose of his person and goods.

25. Since children have existence from parents, therefore, besides love, they owe them piety. For as the love of parents is for doing good, so the love of children is for honoring parents, St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 31, a. 3, ad 3; q. 26, a. 9, ad 1, ad 3. But although love does not import honor, honor includes love, since whom we honor from the soul we also love. Therefore when by a sin of children only charity toward parents is injured, the only malice contained in it is that alone which is against filial piety. But if that sin has another malice against another virtue, then this new species is superadded to the former. - Piety per se requires two things, reverence and service, but per accidens help to be furnished, if they are in need. Hence it is that a sin against piety can injure both love and reverence and service toward parents; as, for example, if a son conceives internal hatred against parents, or externally by words or another action saddens them, he sins against love; if he curses his parents he sins against love and against reverence; if he contemns parents and the precept of parents, he sins against reverence and obedience. Another species can also accede to the species against piety, for example, if a son defames or strikes his father, he sins against piety and against justice. - Even at a greater age children owe parents love, honor, and reverence, because they are always children, those always parents. - St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 26, a. 9, 10; q. 101, a. 7; L. 333; C. I. 220; C. G. 371; C. H. 154; C. A. 144, 154.

26. From Sacred Scripture, in several places under grave penalties, love, honor, and obedience toward parents are prescribed. Eccli. 3:8, 9, 18; 7:29, 30; Prov. 19:26; Deut. 27:16; Exod. 21:15; Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20. - And this precept is also clear by reason; because parents have a threefold respect to children, namely by reason of cause, by reason of preeminence, and by reason of governance. Consequently children ought to love them as authors of their existence, honor them as Superiors, and obey them as rulers delegated by God. But this precept is grave per se. - "For among neighbors we are most bound to parents." St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 122, a. 5. The reason is that, as the same St. Thomas teaches, 2.2, q. 102, a. 3, the persons of parents are more substantially joined to us than any other persons constituted in dignity. For generation and governance, of which parents are the principle, pertain more to substance than exterior governance, of which other persons constituted in dignity are the principle. Besides, "the showing of honor or worship must be proportioned not only to the person to whom it is shown, considered according to himself, but also according as he is compared to those showing it. Therefore although the virtuous considered according to themselves are more worthy of honor than the persons of parents; nevertheless children are more obligated, because of benefits received from the parents themselves and natural conjunction, to show worship and honor to parents than to virtuous strangers." St. Thomas, l. c.

27. Therefore although love, honor, and obedience, as they are shown to other men, pertain precisely to the virtue of charity, observance, and obedience, nevertheless as they are shown to parents they pertain to the virtue of piety, according as it is a certain special virtue which furnishes worship and duty to parents as the chief authors of life after God, and to other blood-relations, in whom, because of communion of blood, parents are in some way represented. But only those sins bear before themselves a special malice against piety which immediately injure their person, or intrinsic personal goods, such as hatred, detraction, striking; not theft. Nevertheless, since a father with respect to a son, and the same is true of a son with respect to a father, retains his own right as regards life, reputation, honor, a son sinning against his father in these things sins at once against piety and justice. But secretly taking away the goods of the father, against the father's will, a son sins per se only against commutative justice, and per se is bound to restitution.

28. For piety, which is between children and their parents, does not exclude strict justice between them. Those duties which are had between children and parents, as also between husband and wife, between brothers and sisters, and between other blood-relations, if they regard only these conditions of these persons, contain a certain deficient just, and pertain only to piety, as, for example, the education of children does. But those duties which regard the same persons among themselves insofar as they are men contain a just strictly such, and look to commutative justice. Therefore theft committed by a son against a father is theft injuring commutative justice, as any other theft. Likewise if a son kills his father, he sins against justice, as any other homicide, but besides there is also added a graver malice against piety. Similarly, if a spouse does not keep conjugal fidelity, he sins against justice, as any other person violating faith given in a bilateral and onerous contract; but besides there is added a graver malice against piety. The reason is that those duties which pertain to piety recede from the perfect distinction and otherness of persons which is properly required by commutative justice.

29. To the point St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 57, a. 4: "Right, or the just, is said by commensuration to another. But another can be said in two ways: in one way, that which is simply another, as that which is altogether distinct, as appears in two men, one of whom is not under the other, but both are under one prince of the city, and between such persons there is the simply just. In another way something is called another not simply, but as existing as something of him; and in this way in human affairs a son is something of the father, because he is in some way part of him, and a servant is something of the master, because he is his instrument. And therefore there is not a comparison of father to son as to one simply other; and on account of this there is not there the simply just, but a certain just, namely paternal; and by the same reason neither between master and servant, but there is between them dominative just. But a wife, although she is something of the husband, because she is compared to him as to his own body, nevertheless is more distinguished from the husband than a son from a father, or a servant from a master; for she is assumed into a certain social life of marriage; and therefore between husband and wife there is more of the account of the just than between father and son, or master and servant: because, since husband and wife have an immediate relation to domestic life, therefore between them there is not even the simply political just, but rather the economic just." But, as the same Angelic Doctor has ibid. ad 2: "A son, insofar as he is a son, is something of the father; and similarly a servant, insofar as he is a servant, is something of the master; nevertheless each, insofar as he is considered as a certain man, is something subsisting according to himself, distinct from others. And therefore, insofar as each is a man, justice is toward them in some way; and on account of this also some laws are given concerning those things which are of father to son, or of master to servant."

Hence it is clear that children under paternal power can well have dominion of things. But this dominion regards things given to them by any translative title of dominion, or acquired by their own industry. For as regards paternal goods, no strict right to paternal goods belongs to children while the father is living. Hence, if children under paternal power steal anything from these goods, they are bound to restitution per se. Per se, namely unless there is question of a thing of lesser moment, and it is prudently presumed that the father remits that obligation.

30. Now as regards love, one does not sin against it if parents are saddened by the manner of acting of children, when a just and grave cause urges that something be done, and it is clear that the offense of the parents arises from their mere moroseness.

But children, whether they are legitimate, that is, born in legitimate marriage from husband and wife, or illegitimate, that is, born outside legitimate marriage; likewise whether they are natural, generated from father and mother, or adopted, not from generation but from adoption, all owe parents love, honor, and obedience. But all owe love both by internal affection and by exterior work, also by furnishing them assistance if they are found in necessity, whether corporal or spiritual. For as love is contained under honor, so also the assistance of necessities is contained under the same honor. St. Thomas, Quodl. 3, a. 16.

31. As regards reverence, every irreverence and contempt toward parents, other things being equal, is graver than toward other neighbors, even relatives, even those constituted in dignity, because of the greater conjunction with them, which obtains the first grade after God, because of their greater dignity. But although, if children have injured the honor of parents, they ought to repair the injured honor to them by asking pardon from them, even before others in whose sight they sinned, nevertheless it can certainly be presumed, at least for the most part, where children refused to do this, that parents remit this obligation to the children, lest the children again incur offense of God and undergo eternal danger to the soul. Cf. St. Alphonsus n. 334.

32. Reverence can be injured by words, gestures, and deeds, namely gravely, even in those things which as regards others are light, provided that they are not altogether light. Therefore children sin gravely: by Words, by everywhere addressing parents harshly; or even by showing them no sign of benevolence; by calling them, when present, by contumelious words; or by cursing them from the soul; by Gestures, by looking at them with fierce eyes, by mocking and deriding them when present; by Deeds, by lifting hands against them with deliberation, as a sign of striking them, by accusing them of crimes, unless there is question of crimes pernicious to the republic, such as heresy, treason, etc. - L. 333, 334.

33. Service likewise is gravely injured by not obeying parents in those things which look to domestic governance and economy, or pertain to good morals, if nevertheless parents command seriously and in a grave matter; except the election of a state, the entering of marriage, the entering of religion, unless nevertheless parents for a just cause contradict children in this matter. Likewise a grave sin is committed by not acknowledging them as parents, unless this is done from a just cause and only by outwardly concealing that one is their son. But they by no means sin by fulfilling the duties of religion against the prohibition of parents. For as regards all those things which pertain to salvation, they "are immediately subject to God, by whom they are instructed through the natural or written law." St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 104, a. 5, ad 2. - L. 334, 335; St. Thomas, Quodl. 2, a. 9, 2.2, q. 104, a. 2, 5; C. A. 148; C. L. 142.

34. The obedience to be furnished by children to parents is not unlimited, but has its own boundaries by which it is circumscribed. - The reason is that obedience is to be furnished according to the power of the Superior; namely, in those things to which the right of prelation extends. But paternal power does not exceed the rule and governance of the family, and the right education of the children. Aptly St. Thomas, Quodl. 2, q. 5, a. 9: "It must be said that, since obedience is owed to a prelate, the debt of obedience extends to those things to which the right of prelation extends. But a carnal father has the right of prelation over a son, first indeed as regards domestic conversation. For the father of a family is in the house as the king is in the kingdom; hence, just as subjects of the king are bound to obey the king in those things which pertain to the governance of the kingdom, so also children and others are bound to obey the father of the family in those things which pertain to the dispensation of the house. Secondly as regards discipline of morals, whence the Apostle says at Heb. 12:9: We had fathers of our flesh as instructors and we obeyed them. For the father owes the son not only education, but also discipline, as the Philosopher says. Therefore in these things the son is bound to obey the carnal father, and not in others."

35. And this doctrine is general: any subject whatever ought not obey his superior in all things, but only in those which pertain to his own subjection and to the superior's prelation. Man owes obedience in all things to God alone, because he is subject to God as regards all things; to any other human superior he is subject only according to a certain limited and determinate account. To the point St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 104, a. 5: "In those things which pertain to the disposition of human acts and things, a subject is bound to obey his superior according to the account of superiority; as a soldier obeys the commander of the army in those things which pertain to war, a servant his master in those things which pertain to carrying out servile works, a son his father in those things which pertain to discipline of life and domestic care, and so concerning others... Man is subject to God simply as regards all things, both interior and exterior, and therefore he is bound to obey Him in all things. But subjects are not subject to their superiors as regards all things, but as regards some things determinately, and as regards those things they are intermediaries between God and subjects. But as regards other things they are immediately subject to God, by whom they are instructed through the natural or written law."

36. Ought a son, concerning the election of a state, to consult parents and obey them? - R. 1. If there is question of the conjugal state, theologians more commonly teach that a son per se is bound to consult parents. The reason is that this is required by the service to be furnished by children to parents, that in a matter so grave, and in which they have greater experience, they should hear their counsel. But this obligation per se is light. For first, a grave obligation is not clear, since it is much disputed among the Doctors. Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 849. Besides, this obligation cannot be grave, since children are not bound also to follow the counsel of parents, but are free. And they can sufficiently, either by themselves or through other prudent men, know what things occur in such an affair, lest they err in it. - But if there is question of the religious state, it is certain that per se they are not bound, nor is it expedient, commonly speaking, that children await the counsel of parents; because parents in this matter have no knowledge and experience, indeed often in this affair they are not friends, but enemies. St. Thomas, Opusc. 17, Against Those Withdrawing Men from Entrance into Religion, c. 9.

2. As regards the election of a state, children per se are not bound to obey parents. For God calling must be heeded more than men contradicting. Moreover in those things which pertain to the nature of the body, man is not bound to obey man, but God alone, because all men are equal by nature. "According to 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; for instance in those things which pertain to the sustenance of the body and the generation of offspring. Hence servants are not bound to obey masters, nor children parents, concerning contracting marriage, or preserving virginity, or some other thing of this kind." St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 104, a. 5; Suppl. q. 45, a. 5, ad 1, q. 47, a. 6. - Therefore parents sin gravely who force unwilling children, either directly or even indirectly, to choose a state, whether religious or clerical; or, conversely, if without just cause they prevent them, altogether unwilling, from choosing some state of life. It is said per se; for otherwise it must be said if parents, on account of grave and reasonable causes, contradict children. Cf. nn. seqq.

37. But, generally speaking, it is not to be advised to children of minor age that, without the knowledge of parents or against their will, they embrace the clerical or religious state, as often as the matter does not so urge, or the divine vocation is not sufficiently clear. St. Alphonsus, l. 4, n. 68. Besides, attention must be paid to more recent laws, by which parents, by the help of the secular arm, can take their own children from any place whatever and recall them to themselves. C. I. 221; C. G. 374.

38. When are children bound to obey reasonably unwilling parents as regards entering marriage itself? - The Council of Trent, sess. 24, cap. 1 de R. M., says that "marriages contracted by children of families without the consent of parents are indeed true and valid; but that nevertheless the Holy Church of God has always detested and prohibited them." But since the Church has never detested marriages contracted by children when parents are unreasonably unwilling, it follows that from the Tridentine saying it has detested and prohibited only those which are contracted by children when their parents are reasonably unwilling. - Therefore there are causes by which parents can be reasonably unwilling as regards entering marriage itself. And certainly parents are reasonably unwilling: 1. if a son, with no special reason urging, wishes to enter marriage before due age and an acquired state, so that he is afterwards forced to remain in continual necessity and poverty together with wife and children; for this tends to the harm of the son himself. And the positive law itself favors parents, which prescribes the age at which children are free in order to marriage. Italian Code, art. 63; French Code, art. 148. - 2. If he wishes to marry a dishonest, irreligious, non-Catholic person, etc.; for this tends to the still greater harm of the same son. Again the positive law of the Church favors parents by prohibiting mixed marriages. - 3. If a daughter wishes to marry a man unworthy of herself, with whom, namely, she cannot contract without dishonor to her family, according to the custom of her region, because of disparity in nobility. Yet one who is obscure when his family is considered can be distinguished here by wealth, letters, war, dignity. But for the most part it is more base and unseemly if daughters, than if sons, marry unequals or the unworthy, so that scarcely ever is a daughter joined in marriage with an unworthy man without grave dishonor to the family, and also quarrels and grave enmities, being generated from it. Cf. Ithur. Cas. 14. - 4. "They commonly say... that a son is bound to obey if that marriage would be of great importance for removing grave dissensions or relieving grave necessity of the parents, not now by force of precept, but from the virtue of piety, because a son is bound to assist parents in necessity. And St. Thomas agrees with this in 4 D. 29, q. 1, a. 4, where he teaches: A father cannot force a son to Marriage by precept; but he can induce him from a reasonable cause; and then as the son is related to that cause, so he is related to the precept of the father; but if that cause obliges by necessity or honesty, the precept similarly obliges; otherwise not." St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 850. Besides, the obligation of entering such a marriage "must also be understood as often as there would not be for him a very intolerable horror toward that woman; for charity can oblige no one to so much that he would have to live his whole life with a wife whom he notably abhorred." St. Alphonsus, Hom. Apost. tr. 18, n. 10. - 5. Parents can be reasonably unwilling because of scandals and hatreds of blood-relations that would arise, especially by reason of disparity in wealth. "Then children are bound under mortal sin to obey parents by abstaining from a marriage of this kind, when they can do so without their own grave inconvenience." For charity does not oblige with such inconvenience. St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 851. And it certainly is a grave inconvenience for a son if he is forced to omit marriage with a girl with whom he believes he will lead a quiet life. Nor indeed is it to be omitted that, once the marriage is entered, minds are easily reconciled, dissensions and scandals vanish. L. l. c. Cf. Hom. Apost. tr. 18, n. 16.

39. Can a son enroll for military service against the will of his parents? - He can, from the Italian Civil Code, art. 221. He can also from the French Civil Code, art. 374, provided that he has reached the age of eighteen years. This, however, seems to have force only for the external forum; except unless sufficient causes are present, for example, if the son is altogether badly treated in the paternal house, etc. Thus commonly. Gury 370.

40. Even at a greater age, as has already been said, children owe parents love, honor, reverence, and also help, if they need it; because they are always children, those always parents. But the obligation of obedience ceases when the son is no longer under paternal power. C. L. 142. This paternal power ceases at the son's greater age, or by emancipation. But if the son, although of age or emancipated, continues to dwell in the paternal house, he remains still subject to the father, and is bound to obey him in those things which pertain to domestic order, by reason of domestic power which is in the father over the whole house.

41. Children also owe help to parents in need, and consequently ought to support them; and it is grave even to enter religion by deserting them in want. Likewise it is grave under this head not to care that the sacraments be conferred upon the sick; that the dead be handed over to burial; that some sacrifice be offered for their soul. - St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 101, a. 2, a. 4, ad 4, q. 102, a. 2, q. 123, a. 5, ad 3; L. 333, 335; C. I. 139; C. G. 205; C. A. 154; C. B. 1617.

42. "Whether someone is bound to contract marriage, so that he may sustain his father by the dowry, if otherwise he cannot?" - "It must be said," says the Angelic Doctor, Quodl. 10, a. 9, "that the proposed case does not seem easily possible. For it can scarcely happen that someone cannot sustain parents without the contract of marriage, at least by working with his hands or begging. If nevertheless this should happen, the same judgment would have to be made concerning virginity to be preserved in that article, and concerning other works of perfection, as is made concerning entrance into religion, about which some opine variously. For some say that if someone has a needy father, he ought to leave to him whatever he has for his sustenance, and thus can licitly enter religion, committing the care of his parents to the heavenly Father, who also feeds the birds. But because this opinion seems too harsh, therefore it seems better to say that either this man who has the intention of entering religion sees that he cannot live in the world without mortal sin, or not easily. If he fears for himself the danger of mortal sin, since he is more bound to provide for the salvation of his own soul than for the corporal necessity of his parents, he is not bound to remain in the world. But if he sees that he can live in the world without sin, a distinction seems to be made; because if without his service his parents can in no way live, thus he is bound to serve them and to set aside other works of perfection, and he would sin by leaving them; but if without his service they can in some way be sustained, but not honorably, he is not on this account bound to leave aside works of perfection. But it is otherwise concerning him who has already entered religion, because, since he is already dead to the world through profession, he is loosed from the law by which he was bound to parents in worldly services, according to the doctrine of the Apostle at Rom. 7. But in other spiritual things, for instance prayers and things of this kind, he is bound to serve them."

43. Ought a son to leave the religious state because of the necessity of parents? - "One thing must be said," says St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 101, a. 4, ad 4, "about him who is still constituted in the world, and another about him who is already professed in religion. For he who is constituted in the world, if he has parents who cannot be sustained without him, ought not enter religion, leaving them behind; because he would transgress the precept concerning the honoring of parents: although some say that even in this case he could licitly leave them, committing their care to God; but, if someone rightly considers it, this would be to tempt God, since, having by human counsel what he should do, he would expose his parents to danger under hope of divine assistance. But if without him the parents can pass their life, it would be lawful for him, having left his parents, to enter religion; because children are not bound to the sustenance of parents except by reason of necessity. But he who is already professed in religion is reckoned now as if dead to the world; whence he ought not, on the occasion of sustaining parents, to leave the cloister, in which he is buried together with Christ, and entangle himself again in secular affairs. Nevertheless, with obedience to his Prelate and the state of his religion preserved, he is bound to apply pious zeal as to how his parents may be assisted." And ibid. ad 3: "If our services are necessary to carnal parents, so that without them they cannot be sustained, and they do not lead us to anything against God, we ought not leave them under the view of religion. But if without sin we cannot be occupied in their services, or also if they can be sustained without our service, it is lawful to omit their services, in order that we may be more occupied with religion."

44. Do children owe to parents even their own goods? - R. Negatively. Children owe piety to parents, not works. Therefore, if a son in the paternal house furnishes works, for example, of a craftsman or shoemaker, what is gained from them is his own, with the food which he receives from the father deducted; since now by his own work and labor he is able to be sustained, and no longer needs paternal sustenance. But, if he asks nothing, he seems to remit these things to the father from a grateful soul and piety. The same must be said concerning goods acquired by the son, by donation, testament, etc.; these indeed the son makes his own, but he is bound to refund to the father the expenses of education. C. A. 150, 154;

C. B. 685, 1618. Nor indeed is he bound from his own goods to pay the debts of his father. - These things stand by natural law, and are confirmed by positive law, which, determining the natural obligation, ascribes to parents the usufruct of the goods of their children. - As regards positive law, ownership, or the property of goods, usufruct, and administration must be distinguished. Likewise various goods and various laws must be distinguished: the Common or Roman Law, and the various More Recent Laws, which are in force in various regions. - From the more recent Codes, sons of families, generally, although minors and not emancipated, have direct ownership of all goods which come to them by some just title, of inheritance, donation, their own industry, etc.; certainly they are capable of dominion of property. But the administration of all goods is in the power of the father, or mother, or tutor, who must supply the incapacity or inexperience of the children, until they become of age, or obtain emancipation. Those of age have full administration of their own goods; but emancipated persons have it only limitedly. Finally the usufruct of at least some goods is granted to the father, or to the mother having paternal power, until the children become of age or are emancipated. But it is lost by either parent who, after the death of the spouse, enters other nuptials. Commonly excepted from usufruct are goods left or given to children on the condition that the father not receive the usufruct; goods which children acquire for themselves by their own office, profession, art, labor, or separate industry. Parents, however, must feed and educate children according to their condition and fortune. C. I. 230; C. G. 385; C. L. 148. - Since the right of parents as regards the goods of children constitutes part of those rights whence paternal power is had, we shall soon speak of it more particularly when declaring paternal power. - L. 488; C. B. 1627.

What is the fourth precept of the Decalogue? - The fourth precept of the Decalogue is: Honor your father and your mother. Ex. 20:12. This precept primarily and directly regards the obligations of children toward parents, because "they are the particular principle of our being, just as God is the universal principle." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 122, a. 3. But secondarily and implicitly it regards both the obligations of parents toward children, and also the mutual obligations of other blood-relatives, and of other inferiors and superiors. Roman Catechism, p. 3, c. 6, nn. 2, 8. Therefore this precept concerns acts per se of the virtues of piety, observance, dulia, obedience, legal justice, and gratitude.

Piety is a certain special virtue, to which it pertains to exhibit worship toward parents and one's fatherland, from whom and in which we are born, because they are "a connatural principle producing in being and governing." For piety regards this "principle, insofar as it spends duty and worship upon parents and fatherland, and upon those things which are ordered to these." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 101, a. 3. Besides this, piety also exhibits worship toward other blood-relatives, not because they are the principle of our origin, but because in them, by communion of blood, parents are in some way represented; and likewise toward benefactors of the fatherland, because in them we behold the favor and help of the fatherland. S. Th. l. c., a. 1. "Through the fact that we are born from parents, both blood-relatives and fatherland pertain to us." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 122, a. 5. Hence piety is also between spouses and with respect to children, "because between spouses there is worship and duty toward each other, as coadjutors for the preservation of the blood-relationship of both, which each spouse has from his own parents; for by the propagation of children the blood of each parent is preserved. And we say the same about children, namely because they are regarded by the virtue of piety as preservers of the blood-relationship received from parents." Cajetan, on 2. 2, q. 101, a. 1.

Worship is an act by which someone professes his own subjection to another in testimony of the latter's excellence. Hence the worship owed to parents imports reverence, obedience, and duty. Obedience imports compliance. Duty imports obedience and assistance.

Observance is a virtue "through which worship and honor is exhibited to persons constituted in dignity." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 102, a. 1. Honor imports a certain testimony concerning someone's excellence, either by words or by deeds, such as inclinations, or also by exterior things, for example, the offering of gifts. It is distinguished from praise, because praise consists in words alone. It is distinguished from glory, which is the effect of honor and praise, because from the fact that we testify concerning someone's goodness, his goodness shines out in the knowledge of many, and this the name of glory imports, which is clear knowledge with praise. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 103, a. 1.

Observance also pertains reductively to this fourth precept; since, just as parents are for us a principle producing in being and governing, so persons constituted in dignity not only have a certain excellence in themselves, but also a certain power of governing with respect to some things, whence the nature of principle also belongs to them, as a Prince of a city is in civil matters, a leader of an army in military matters, a teacher in disciplines. Hence it is that all such persons are also called fathers because of the likeness of care. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 63, a. 3; q. 102, aa. 1, 2; Quodl. 10, a. 12; Roman Catechism, n. 8.

Dulia is "a certain species of observance, because through observance we honor any persons whatever who excel in dignity; but through dulia, properly taken, servants venerate their masters. For dulia in Greek is called servitude." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 103, a. 3. They venerate, by furnishing due service to masters. A certain species of observance. For observance has diverse species according to the diverse nature of excellence. And thus in one way a servant reveres a master, a soldier a commander, a disciple a teacher. S. Th. l. c., a. 4; q. 104, a. 2 ad 4.

Obedience properly is "a special virtue; and its special object is a tacit or express precept" of a superior. "But if obedience is taken broadly for the execution of anything whatever which can fall under precept, and disobedience for omission of the same from any intention whatever, then obedience will be a general virtue and disobedience a general sin." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 104, a. 2. The former is usually called formal obedience; the latter, material obedience. "Obedience proceeds from reverence, which exhibits worship and honor to superiors. And as to this it is contained under diverse virtues, although considered in itself, insofar as it regards the nature of precept, it is one special virtue. Therefore insofar as it proceeds from reverence for Prelates it is contained in some way under observance; insofar as it proceeds from reverence for parents, under piety; but insofar as it proceeds from reverence for God, under religion, and it pertains to devotion, which is the principal act of religion." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 104, a. 3 ad 1. But insofar as it proceeds from procuring the common good, it is contained under legal justice, and pertains to it. Cf. 835.

Gratitude or thankfulness is a virtue which recompenses benefactors for some particular and private benefit received, by the action of thanks, and by spending something gratuitously. Ingratitude is opposed to gratitude, which according to the diversity of circumstances is sometimes a lethal, sometimes a venial sin. It is not grave unless the ingratitude was great. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 107.

Therefore gratitude is a certain virtue which comes after piety and observance, as deficient from them, since "not whatever we owe to a father or to a person excelling in dignity do we owe to some benefactor from whom we have received some particular benefit." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 106, aa. 1, 3, 6; q. 107. But honor and reverence are owed to a benefactor because he has the nature of a principle, and per accidens relief or support, if he is in need.

What about legitimate and illegitimate, natural and adoptive children? - Some children are legitimate and natural, others natural, others legitimate. Legitimate and natural children are those who are born from a man and his wife. Those are presumed by law legitimate and natural who are born from a mother joined in lawful marriage, unless it is juridically certain that their origin is from another than the husband of the mother. For he is held as father whom marriage points out. The mother indeed is certain; but the father is presumed. And this presumption also has force in the forum of conscience. C. B. 1591, 1717, 1720; C. L. 101 seqq.; C. He. 252.

The fetus is usually brought forth in the ninth month from the time it was conceived, sometimes at the beginning of the seventh, sometimes at the full tenth, namely not before 180 days, nor after 300 days. C. I. 161 seqq.; C. G. 315; C. H. 108; C. A. 138, 163; C. B. 1592, 1717; C. L. 101; C. He. 252, 254.

Hence, of him who is born either after the seventh month from the marriage entered, or before the tenth month from the marriage dissolved, he is the father whom marriage points out, unless something else is most evident. C. L. 103; C. He. 254, 255. Nor indeed does it at all stand in the way that the mother was adulterous, C. I. 165; C. G. 313; C. H. 109; C. A. 158, or that she herself has declared the son adulterine, C. A. 158, unless she brings forward such indications as would suffice in the external forum, Lugo, de Iust., d. 12, n. 26, although she be most worthy of faith, and sworn, and assert this while dying; for no one deserves belief when alleging his own baseness. C. Inter 8, § ult., de Donat.; L. 654, 924.

A fetus brought forth before the seventh month from the marriage entered is held legitimate only if the husband either married the woman knowingly and willingly while she was pregnant, or, since he was present, did not altogether repudiate the child born. C. I. 161; C. G. 314; C. H. 110; C. L. 102. A fetus brought forth later after the tenth month from the dissolution of marriage is held as illegitimate, unless the health and morals of the mother and the circumstances of things suggest otherwise. C. I. 169; C. G. 315; C. H. 111; C. L. 102 seqq.

Natural or illegitimate children are those who are born outside marriage. These by canon law are irregular; by civil law they are distinguished from legitimate children chiefly as to succession to paternal inheritance. C. A. 155, 165; C. H. 114, 127, 134, 139. These natural children, if they were born from a man and woman between whom marriage could not have been entered, whether by natural law or by divine and canon law, by the same canon law are called spurious, or born from condemned intercourse. C. 3, 10, Qui fil. sint legit. And they are adulterine, sacrilegious, incestuous, and nefarious, if they were born from ascendants and descendants. But by civil law all are called illegitimate, and if they are adulterine or incestuous, they cannot be recognized. C. I. 180; C. G. 335; C. He. 304.

Other illegitimate children can be acknowledged and legitimated. C. I. 179, 195; C. G. 331, 334. They are acknowledged by the confession of parents, in civil law, authentic, C. I. 181; C. G. 334; C. H. 131; C. He. 503; in canon law, simple and bare, C. 10, de Probat.; and after they have been acknowledged they follow the condition of the one acknowledging, whether of the mother, or of the father, or of both. C. I. 185. But those acknowledged are legitimated by subsequent marriage by the law itself, C. I. 194; C. G. 331; C. H. 120, 121; C. He. 258 seqq.; C. A. 161; C. B. 1719; and they can also be acknowledged after the marriage has already been contracted. C. I. 197; C. H. 121; C. L. 119. Cf. C. G. 331.

By Canon Law, C. 1, 6, Qui filii sint legitimi, and C. H. 119, by marriage only children are legitimated from parents who freely could contract marriage between themselves. But whether those legitimated by dispensation of the Supreme Pontiff, as to canonical effects, are also legitimated as to civil effects, some affirm, others deny.

But from the time when they have been legitimated, they are held as if they had been born from lawful marriage. C. 6, Qui fil. sint leg.; C. I. 194; C. G. 333; C. H. 122; C. A. 161; C. He. 263. Cf. Benedict XIV, de Syn., l. 13, c. 24, n. 16. But one merely acknowledged is understood as the child only of him who acknowledged him. C. I. 182; C. G. 336; C. H. 129, 134. From C. B. 1589, 1705, a natural child and father are not reputed blood-relatives; and on the contrary, in his relations with the mother and the mother's blood-relatives he has the juridical condition of a legitimate child. But the same code admits investigation of the natural father and obligations, arts. 1708, 1717. Almost the same is had from C. He. 302 seqq., which also admits investigation of the natural father and obligations. C. H. 135 and C. L. 130 admit investigation of the father in a limited way, and the same codes admit investigation of the mother in the following articles. C. I. 189, 190, 193 admits investigation of maternity. But investigation of paternity is limited to the case of abduction and seduction. C. G. 340, 341, 342 likewise admits investigation of maternity, but investigation of paternity is restricted to the case of abduction. But by each Code and by C. L. 132, investigation of paternity and maternity is forbidden to adulterine and incestuous children whose recognition is prohibited; and by C. H. 141 investigation of paternity is prohibited to children in whom the legal condition of natural children does not concur. In doubt whether someone was born from legitimate marriage, he is to be presumed legitimate. C. I. 120; L. l. 3, n. 951.

Legitimate children are natural children legitimated, and adoptive children. C. I. 737. Adoption is an act by which one is taken into the place of a child who is not such by nature. From more recent laws, the adopted person is held as the legitimate and natural child only of him who adopted him, and he acquires the right of succession to him. C. I. 202, 204, 210, 737; C. G. 343, 344, 350; C. B. 1741, 1757; C. L. 124, 129; C. He. 268. But he is not withdrawn from the power of his natural father, nor does he pass into the power and family of the adopting father. C. I. 210, 212; C. G. 348, 349. But it is otherwise from C. A. 183; C. H. 177; C. B. 1765. This adoption is perpetual and is not dissolved even by mutual consent. C. I. 217. And so also the French Jurists. It is otherwise from C. A. 185; C. B. 1768; C. He. 269.

Legitimate and natural children, as to receiving donations and as to the right of succession, are held such from the time when they were truly conceived, provided they are afterwards born viable. C. I. 724; C. G. 725; C. A. 138. He is born viable who is born after the 180th day from conception, C. I. 160, 162; C. G. 312, 314; C. A. 138, and is perfectly born. In doubt, one who was brought forth alive is presumed to have been born viable. C. I. 724. Abortive children, if they do not survive, are held as born dead.

Natural children only, whether legitimated or acknowledged, acquire the right of succession from the marriage entered by the parents, or from that later time when they have been acknowledged. C. I. 197; C. H. 124. Merely legitimate children acquire the right of succession from the time when they were adopted, as if they had then first been conceived. C. I. 210, 217; C. B. 1754, 1757. From C. H. 177, an adopted person acquires no right of succession except from a testament, or from a previous agreement. From C. B. 1767, the right of succession can be excluded in the contract of adoption. To spurious, incestuous, and adulterine children the laws concede only support, namely when their filiation is duly established. C. L. 134, 135, 136; C. G. 762; C. I. 193, 752; C. H. 139, 140, 141.

What about infants; about those below puberty and pubescents; about minors and majors; about wards? - Those less than seven years old are called infants, as if not speaking, unable to speak. Unless they have already attained the use of reason, although they are not held by human laws, nevertheless they are held by the natural law.

From the seventh year to the fourteenth year, if male; to the twelfth, if female, they are called below puberty; but beyond the aforesaid age they are called pubescent, namely from the proximate power of generation attained at that age. Those below puberty, if they cease to be under the power of the father, by the death of the father or by the emancipation of the children, are called wards. L. 239, de Verb. sign. Having become pubescent, sons are called minors up to the twenty-fifth year of age from Roman Law. L. 1, de Minoribus. By more recent Law, every other distinction having been removed, he or she who has not yet completed the twenty-first year of age is called a minor; after such an age has been completed, he or she is called a major. C. I. 323, 240; C. G. 388, 488; C. B. 2; C. L. 97, 311. From C. H. 320, majority is established when the twenty-third year has been completed; C. A. 21, 174, at the twenty-fourth year; C. He. 14, when the twentieth year has been completed and by marriage.

A cleric is major in benefice matters and other spiritual causes when he has completed the fourteenth year of age. C. Si annum 3, de Iudic., in 6. At a minor age a son, unless he has been emancipated, is constituted under paternal power. C. I. 220; C. B. 1626. But a major regularly manages his own affairs. He can freely dispose of his person and goods. C. L. 311. He is called a son of the family who is still subject to paternal power.

What is the proper obligation of children? - Since children have existence from parents, therefore, besides love, they owe piety to them. For as the love of parents is for doing good, so the love of children is for honoring parents. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 31, a. 3 ad 3; q. 26, a. 9 ad 1, ad 3. But although love does not import honor, honor includes love, since him whom we honor from the soul we also love. Therefore when by the sin of children charity alone toward parents is injured, the only malice contained in it is that alone which is against filial piety. But if that sin has another malice against another virtue, then this new species is added to the former.

Piety per se demands two things, reverence and obedience, but per accidens help to be furnished if they need it. Hence it is that sin against piety can injure both love and reverence and obedience toward parents. For example, if a son conceives internal hatred against parents, or externally by words or in another way saddens them, he sins against love; if he curses parents, he sins against love and against reverence; if he contemns parents and the precept of parents, he sins against reverence and obedience. Another species can also be added to the species against piety, for example, if a son defames or strikes his father, he sins against piety and against justice. C. He. 273, 275.

Even at a greater age children owe love, honor, and reverence to parents, because they are always children, and the others always parents. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 26, aa. 9, 10; q. 101, a. 7; L. 333; C. I. 220; C. G. 371; C. H. 154; C. A. 144, 154. Reverence can be injured by words, gestures, and deeds, namely gravely, even in those things which as to others are light, provided they are not altogether light. Therefore children sin gravely: by words, by commonly addressing parents harshly, or even by showing them no sign of benevolence; by calling them with contumelious words in their presence; or by cursing them from the soul. By gestures, by looking at them with grim eyes, by laughing at them in their presence, by mocking them. By deeds, by deliberately raising hands against them as a sign of striking them, by accusing them of crimes, unless the matter concerns crimes pernicious to the commonwealth, such as heresy, treason, etc. L. 333, 334.

Likewise obedience is gravely injured by not obeying parents in those things which regard domestic governance and economy, or pertain to good morals, if however parents command seriously and in a grave matter; excepting the choice of state, of entering marriage, of entering religion, unless however parents contradict children in this matter from a just cause. Likewise a grave sin is committed by not recognizing them as parents, unless this is done from a just cause and only externally by hiding that one is their child. But they by no means sin by fulfilling duties of religion against the prohibition of parents. For as to all those things which pertain to salvation, "they are immediately subject to God, by whom they are instructed through the natural or written law." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 104, a. 5 ad 2; L. 334, 335; S. Th., Quodl. 2, a. 9; 2. 2, q. 104, aa. 2, 5; C. A. 148; C. L. 142.

Children owe help to needy parents, and consequently must support them; and it is grave even to enter religion by abandoning them in need. Likewise it is grave under this heading not to take care that the sacraments be conferred upon them when sick; that the dead be handed over to burial; that some sacrifice be offered for their soul. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 101, a. 2, a. 4 ad 4; q. 102, a. 2; q. 123, a. 5 ad 3; L. 333, 335; C. I. 139; C. G. 205; C. A. 154; C. B. 1617; C. He. 271, 272.

Do children also owe their own goods to parents? - R. Negatively. Children owe piety to parents, not labors. Therefore if a son furnishes labors in the paternal house, for example, as a craftsman or shoemaker, what he gains from them is his own, after deducting the support which he receives from the father, since he is now able to be sustained by his own work and labor, and no longer needs paternal sustenance. But if he asks nothing, he seems to remit these things to the father from grateful mind and piety. The same must be said about goods acquired by the son by donation, testament, etc.; the son indeed makes them his own, but he is bound to refund the expenses of education to the father. C. A. 150, 154; C. B. 685, 1618. Nor is he bound to pay the father's debts from his own goods. These things are clear by natural law, and it is confirmed by positive law, which, determining the natural obligation, assigns to parents the usufruct of the goods of children. As to positive Law, dominion, or ownership of goods, usufruct, and administration must be distinguished. Likewise the various goods and various Laws must be distinguished: Common or Roman Law, and various More Recent Laws, which are in force in various regions.

Since the right of parents as to the goods of children constitutes part of those rights from which paternal power is had, we shall speak of it more particularly soon, while explaining paternal power. L. 488; C. B. 1627; C. He. 271, 272, 284, 293, 295.

What is paternal power? - Paternal power is the complex of rights of parents over children, and it arises from a twofold cause: 1. because children have had life from them; 2. because parents must educate them fittingly. C. A. 147; C. L. 137. It is from Natural and Positive Law at the same time, positive law defining and determining natural right. For the rights of parents over children flow from natural and civil law. By Natural Law, piety is owed to parents, whether legitimate or illegitimate, namely to father and mother, and it belongs to them equally and perpetually as to love and honor, but not however as to obedience after the son has become major, or has been emancipated. C. I. 220. Besides this, power belongs to parents as to those things which pertain to the spiritual salvation of children. And this also belongs equally to each, indeed also to grandfather and grandmother. But if they disagree among themselves, he prevails who consults the salvation of the child. And, when the father has died, if the mother as tutor and the paternal grandmother disagree, the latter will be stronger. Benedict XIV, Ep. Probe te, §§ 20, 21, 23; Ep. Postremo mense, §§ 16, 17; C. Ex litteris 2, de Conv. infid. - The natural power of parents in those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul ends when infancy has passed; in those things which pertain to the choice of state it ends at puberty, C. Cum virum 12, de Regul.; C. A. 148; in those things which pertain to domestic care and discipline it ends by emancipation. But in those things which regard the sustenance of the body and generation of offspring, children are their own masters. And as to entering marriage, they commonly are bound only to seek the counsel of parents. L. 335.

But emancipation is naturally had when the son of the family has already grown sufficiently by age, so that he himself can now be father of a family, and by himself duly consider and oblige himself concerning those things which pertain to his own person and to his exterior goods. C. 11, 12, de Regul.; S. Th. 4 D. 27, q. 2, a. 2; D. 38, q. 1, a. 1, q. ult., sol. 3; 2. 2, q. 104, a. 5; S., q. 43, a. 2; q. 58, a. 5; St. Basil the Great, Epist. 276, Migne, vol. 32, col. 1011.

By Common Law paternal power belongs only to the father of the family, and it was per se perpetual. Inst. 1, l. 1, t. 9, §§ 2, 3; t. 12; lib. 1, tit. 6, ff., §§ 3-5, de Patr. pot.; l. 8, t. 46, C.; C. 2, de Convers. infid. But from the More Recent Laws it belongs also to the mother of the family. C. I. 220; C. G. 372; C. B. 1634, 1684, 1685; C. L. 138; C. He. 274. But the mother does not use it as long as the father uses it, to whom it principally belongs. C. I. 46, 220, 230, 331; C. G. 141, 373, 507; C. A. 144, 147; C. H. 154; C. B. 1634; C. L. 139, 155. Moreover it belongs over legitimate and natural children, over natural children acknowledged, over natural children acknowledged and legitimated, and at least in some way also over adoptive children. C. I. 66, 184, 194, 210, 211, 220; C. H. 154; C. A. 183; C. B. 1306, 1757, 1765; C. L. 166. Cf. here n. 663.

Paternal power is exercised by the father, and when he has died or is absent, by the mother with equal right. C. I. 46, 220, 231; C. H. 154; C. G. 141, 390; C. A. 144, 147; C. B. 1627, 1684; C. He. 274. Yet a father dying has the right to prescribe to the surviving mother the manner he wishes to be observed in the education of the children and the administration of goods. C. I. 235, 1059. Cf. C. G. 391; C. B. 1852 seqq. If the mother enters second nuptials, it will be in the power of the family Council or pupilary Judge to permit or remove guardianship from her. C. I. 237; C. G. 395; C. A. 255. When parents are lacking, and a tutor has not been named, guardianship by law belongs to the paternal grandfather; and, he being lacking, to the maternal grandfather. C. I. 244; C. B. 1776.

Moreover paternal power is exercised partly over the persons, partly over the things of children. C. B. 1627.

Paternal Power is exercised, 1. over persons by the faculty which the father has of retaining the son at home, C. He. 273, unless the son wishes voluntarily to give his name to military service. C. I. 221; C. G. 374; by the faculty which the father has of moderately correcting and punishing a disorderly son, C. He. 275; also of barring him from his own house, and even having recourse, where there is need, to the tribunal, and of placing him in another house of education or correction. C. I. 222; C. H. 155, 156; C. G. 375 seqq.; C. A. 145; C. B. 1631, 1632; C. L. 143; L. 3, de Patr. pot., C. Moreover the son is prohibited without the consent of parents from giving himself into adoption, C. I. 208; C. G. 346; C. A. 181; C. B. 1747, and from entering marriage. C. I. 63; C. G. 148; C. A. 49, 153; C. H. 1305; C. L. 1058, 1061; C. He. 98. But when the mother dissents, the consent of the father suffices. C. I.; C. G., ll. cc.; C. He. 274. Finally the right of appointing a tutor belongs to the last surviving parent. C. I. 242; C. G. 397; C. B. 1777; C. He. 274.

Excepting marriage, which before puberty is null from canon law, as to other acts and contracts sons of a family who are minors are only naturally obligated; and if in due time they do not seek restitution in full, they can also be civilly obligated, and those who contract with them are naturally and civilly obligated. Therefore, if they have entered betrothals, if they have emitted a vow, they are bound by the betrothals and by the vow. If they have donated anything, they transfer dominion to the recipient; and if they themselves receive something as a gift, they licitly acquire and retain dominion. C. I., de Desp. impub.; C. I. 1304; C. G. 1314; C. H. 160, 161; C. A. 244, 246; C. B. 106; C. L. 98, 99; Inst. 1, l. 3, t. 19, § 6; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 88, a. 8; 4 D. 27, q. 2, a. 2; L. l. 3, n. 918; Lugo, de Iust., d. 22, nn. 228, 295, 300.

But although a minor validly contracts, from the More Recent Laws he does not contract firmly if various prescriptions of those laws are not observed, and then restitution in full is conceded to them, which also holds in the forum of conscience, since a law of this sort is definitive of right and just; since it is for protecting good morals, for the peace and good of families, and for the common good. C. G. 2012; C. I. 317, 319, 1899.

From C. I. a minor is restored because he is a minor, and an action of nullity is admitted: 1. If a non-emancipated minor performed an act by himself without the intervention of the father or his legitimate representative. 2. If an emancipated minor performed by himself an act for which the law requires the assistance of a curator. 3. When the formalities constituted for certain acts by special dispositions of law are not observed. But an action of nullity is not admitted: 1. If the minor by evil art and deceit concealed his condition as a minor. 2. If the matter concerns an obligation arising from delict or quasi-delict. 3. If it is proved that what was paid was turned to the convenience and utility of the minor. C. I. 1300, 1303, 1305, 1306, 1307, 1899.

From C. G. a minor is restored because he was harmed, and an action of nullity is admitted if the prescriptions of the law in contracts of minors were not observed. Rescission is not admitted: 1. If the harm happened from a chance event. 2. If a minor exercises commerce or some art, as to contracts entered by reason of his commerce or art. 3. If the matter concerns an obligation flowing from delict or quasi-delict. 4. If it is proved that what was paid went to their convenience and utility. C. G. 1304, 1305, 1306, 1308, 1310, 1312, 2012; L. l. 3, nn. 514, 918. Cf. Troplong, della Vendita, cap. 2, art. 1594, num. 166 seqq.

From C. H., the formalities of law not having been observed, the contract of a minor becomes liable to rescission. But he is not bound to restitution except insofar as he became richer by the thing received. C. H. 317, 420, 1163, 1304, 1764, 1765. From C. A., in general a minor indeed cannot be validly obligated without the consent of the father and the other prescriptions of the law. Yet he can freely dispose of things acquired by his own industry, and of others given to him for his own use after puberty has been attained. C. A. 151, 152, 244, 246, 248. From C. B., a minor needs the consent of his representative for any declaration of will whatever, unless this procures a juridical advantage for him, or unless the matter concerns things left to his free disposition. Without the aforesaid consent of the representative, the act can be rescinded. C. B. 108 seqq. From C. L. 297 seqq., the acts of a minor are null if they are made without due authority. But they themselves cannot use this nullity as to obligations upon things of their own art or profession, or if they use deceit so that they may be held as majors.

The power of the father is exercised, 2. over the things of children. From common Law the son was at first a thing of the father of the family; whatever he acquired belonged to the father. Afterwards peculium was recognized. Peculium is any good whatever proper to the son, separated from paternal goods. It is fourfold: 1. Castrense, acquired by military service or on the occasion of military service; and this whole thing, in perfect dominion, belongs to the son. Yet one below puberty does not have its administration.

2. Quasi-castrense, acquired by the profession of sciences or liberal arts, or by some civil office, for example, of judge, advocate, physician, teacher, from an ecclesiastical office or benefice; and the perfect dominion of this also belongs to the son. Yet administration belongs to the father if he himself is below puberty.

3. Adventitious, which comes to the son from elsewhere than from paternal goods, and not by regard for the father, for example, what comes to the same son from the mother, from the maternal line, or by regard for the mother, or what is acquired by his own industry and labor, by the liberality of others, by chance and fortune. The dominion of ownership belongs to the son; the usufruct and administration of this peculium belongs to the father as long as he lives. Therefore by Roman Law the father has the usufruct of all these goods of the son; and this usufruct ends only by the death of the father, otherwise than is had by More Recent Law.

4. Profectitious, which either is acquired from paternal goods, or has been donated to the son by regard for the father. And this whole thing belongs to the father, in ownership, usufruct, and administration. Inst. 1, l. 2, t. 9, §§ 1, 2; l. 3, t. 29; Lugo, d. 5, n. 23 seqq. The father can dispose of adventitious goods if they are consumable, with the burden however of restitution. If the son trades outside the father's house from goods other than paternal goods, the gain is adventitious. If he labors in the paternal house and is fed by the father, or trades from the father's goods, it is profectitious. "If a son trades with the money of the father, either received as a loan or secretly stolen, at his own risk, so that he seriously determines to preserve the father unharmed in any event whatever, it is certain from the common opinion of all cited by Laymann, l. 3, tr. 4, c. 8, n. 12, that the whole gain pertains to the ownership of the son as adventitious peculium. Why is this? Because although he obtains the whole gain by the money of the father, he obtains it in such a way that the whole gain is derived not from the money of the father, sterile of its own nature, but from the industry of the son, which renders the money fruitful." Ithur., Cas. 3, n. 6; L. 488.

The father of the family and the son of the family are held as one person. Since therefore no one can contract with himself, if they contract, the pact is civilly void. Civilly, for naturally they are mutually obligated and obligate. Inst. 1, l. 3, t. 19, § 6. A son of the family, not even with the father consenting, can make a testament concerning adventitious or profectitious peculium; but he can, even against the father's will, concerning castrense or quasi-castrense peculium. Inst. 1, l. 2, t. 12.

From More Recent Laws, minors are held by law incapable of protecting themselves and their own goods. Hence as to each, he with whom paternal power is represents them. C. B. 1630; C. L. 98, 100; C. He. 279.

The administration of all goods of minor children is in the hands of the father or mother, or tutor, who must supply the incapacity or lack of skill of the children until they become majors or obtain emancipation. Exceptions must be made, from C. B. 1638; C. L. 147; C. He. 294; C. I. 224, of goods given to the son with exclusion from this administration of the father. Cf. C. L. 146, 147. Majors are altogether free in managing their own affairs, unless in some case the law specially forbids this to them, and therefore they have full administration of their own goods; but emancipated persons have it only limited. C. I. 323, 310 seqq.; C. G. 488, 476 seqq.; C. A. 149, 187, 251. Cf. C. L. 305 seqq., 311.

Hence he who exercises paternal power manages the affairs of the son. C. I. 224, 242; C. G. 389; C. A. 149, 152. He, not the son, acts in judgment, enters upon inheritances coming to the son after an inventory has been made, accepts donations, C. I. 226, 1059; C. A. 205, 222 seqq., 243, and administers his goods, C. I. 224; C. G. 389; C. H. 159; C. A. 149. But goods, whether immovable or movable, excepting those which cannot be preserved by being preserved or become worse, he cannot alienate, bind by mortgage or pledge, nor likewise receive a loan in the name of the son, nor exercise other acts which exceed acts of simple administration, except from a cause of necessity or evident utility and by decree of the civil tribunal. C. I. 224, 225; C. H. 164; C. G. 389; C. B. 1640 seqq.; C. L. 150; C. He. 290, 299, 300.

The father, or mother exercising paternal power, has the usufruct of those things which come to the son by succession, donation, or another lucrative title. C. I. 228, 229, 231; C. G. 384, 386; C. H. 160; C. B. 1640, 1685; C. He. 294, unless the goods were left to the son by testament, or given by donation, on this condition, that the usufruct not pertain to the parents, C. I. 229; C. G. 387; C. B. 1651; or were left to the son by testament, or given by donation for undertaking some course of life, art, or profession, C. I. 229; or for his education and instruction, C. H. 162; or unless, against the will of the parents, the son accepted the donation or legacy, or entered upon the inheritance, C. I. 229. Likewise excluded from that usufruct are those things which the son acquired for himself by labor, profession, or separate industry, C. I. 229; C. G. 387; C. B. 1650, 1651, and the goods of the succession of a son as to which parents have been declared unworthy. C. I. 728; C. G. 730.

To this usufruct there inheres the obligation of feeding, sustaining, educating, and instructing the children. C. I. 230; C. G. 385; C. B. 1602, 1603, 1606, 1656; C. L. 148; C. He. 293. Neither father nor mother has the usufruct of the goods of natural children. They can only administer their goods, but with the burden of rendering an account also concerning the fruits. Gousset on a. 384, C. G.; C. I. 184. Cf. C. L. 166, 167.

From C. A. 149, 150, 151, 154, all goods, administration excepted, simply pertain to the son; yet the father can deduct the expenses of education from the revenues. From C. H. 161, goods acquired by children from the goods of the same parents simply pertain to the parents. From the same C. H. 160, the usufruct even of those goods which the son acquired by his own labor and industry pertains to the parent exercising paternal power. From C. L. 145, 146, 147, the usufruct of goods which a son of the family acquires by his labor, his industry, his means, or by any other gratuitous title whatever, pertains to the parents, unless they were given with exclusion of this usufruct, or the children acquire by arms, letters, liberal arts, or acquire by their own labor and industry, but live from themselves with the father's permission.

Usufruct of this sort ends by the emancipation of the son, or by death, or when minority or legitimate age has been completed; by the widowed father or mother passing to other nuptials; if the father abuses paternal power, either by not caring for the obligations imposed or by administering goods badly, with a sentence of the tribunal added; and likewise it ceases with respect to the spouse by whose fault divorce has legally been pronounced. C. I. 156, 228, 232, 233; C. G. 384, 386; C. H. 167, 172; C. B. 1666, 1673, 1679, 1680; C. He. 297 seqq. From C. B. 1661, 1662, usufruct also has an end by the marriage of the son, and by renunciation of the father. From C. G. 384, 386, usufruct is conceded to the father, and after he has died to the mother remaining unmarried, up to the eighteenth year of the children, or their emancipation. Cf. C. L. 149; C. He. 274, 292.

But when the son has become a major, those things which have been done by the parents, if they were done according to law, remain ratified; but otherwise they can be made void by him. And if meanwhile a conflict arises as to goods between father and son under paternal power, the latter will be able to have recourse to the tribunal. C. I. 224, 227, 1304; C. G. 1314; C. H. 165; C. A. 271; C. B. 1667, 1668; C. L. 153; L. 488, 543, 544; Gousset 682; C. He. 283, 284, 297 seqq.

Paternal power is dissolved by the death of the father or son, C. H. 167; C. L. 170; C. He. 274; by adoption of the son, C. H. 167; C. B. 1757, 1765; C. A. 183; by emancipation of the son, C. I. 220, 311; C. G. 372, 476-479; C. L. 170; C. H. 167; C. A. 172, 252. But a son is emancipated by the law itself through marriage, C. I. 310; C. G. 476; C. L. 304; C. He. 14, otherwise from C. A. 175. Emancipation is a legitimate act by which a father dismisses his minor son from his power, so that he is made his own master. Emancipation cannot be made before the completed eighteenth year, C. I. 311; C. He. 15. It is dissolved besides by majority of age, C. I. 220;

C. G. 372; C. A. 172; C. L. 170. Cf. here 664. From C. B. 386, which does not admit emancipation, declaration of majority can be had in the eighteenth year of age. It is likewise dissolved if the father abuses paternal power, with a sentence for the crime added. C. I. Poen. 392; C. H. 171; C. B. 1666, 1680; C. A. 177, 178. Paternal power ought to consist in piety, not in atrocity. If the mother survives, she does not simply lose it, although she passes to other nuptials. Yet in this case, from C. I. 237, she can be removed from the administration of the son's goods. From C. B. 1697, a mother passing to other nuptials loses paternal power in part. Cf. C. L. 155 seqq.; C. He. 286. When parents are interdicted, insane, or mad, their paternal power remains suspended. C. I. 220, 229 seqq.; C. A. 179; C. B. 1676 seqq.

When paternal power has been dissolved, the son of the family becomes his own master. But whether he is his own master or is still subject to paternal power, the father of the family can usefully contract with him, and from the eighteenth year of age he can make a testament. C. I. 763, 1107; C. A. 271, 596; at the sixteenth year, but in a limited way, from C. G. 903, 904. Inst. 1, l. 1, t. 12.

Can a son of the family retain gains which come to him from his own labor, but not from separate industry, in the paternal house? - Several and grave theologians deny. The reason is that then the son of the family laboring is judged to act not in his own name, but as a member of the family, and thus every gain ought to fall to the good of the family. Besides, positive Law does not favor him, but altogether stands against him.

Several also and grave theologians affirm. The reason is that a son is not of worse condition than a servant; therefore at least the wage which would be owed to a servant or to an extraneous person laboring ought to fall to the son. That would certainly be owed to the son if by his condition he is not bound to labor, and he supplies for an extraneous person, or if he spends extraordinary and altogether undue labor in the paternal house. C. L. 144. Nor indeed in these two cases does positive Law seem to stand against him, since they are extraordinary, and, by legitimate epikeia, are not comprehended by positive Law, which regards cases commonly occurring. But then the expenses which the father made in feeding, sustaining, educating him, etc., must always be deducted. For he was not bound to make these for a son able and willing to earn. C. He. 272; Inst. 1, l. 2, tit. 9; L. l. 3, nn. 488, 3; 544, 910; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 57, a. 4; Ithur., Cas. 3; Gousset 683, 684, 991.

Does a son have perfect dominion over movable goods given to him by parents or relatives? - R. Affirmatively, if they are consumable by first use, because they are given to him absolutely for use, unless perhaps some restriction has been added, as would be money for buying books, for paying a pension, etc. "If they are not consumable by first use, as books, clothes, etc., the son generally has only useful dominion, because parents almost do not intend to confer anything else upon him." Thus Gury, 546. But rather it seems that it must be said that, by this very fact that children can by continued use for their own utility consume and destroy these things, they have dominion over these things also directly, although perhaps restricted and not altogether absolute, insofar as, from the mind of the giver, the whole thing is to be turned only to their utility, as, for example, is seen in books, clothes, etc.

Is a son judged to renounce the usufruct to which he has a right, if, with him seeing and silent, the father receives this usufruct? - R. Negatively, at least speaking generally. The reason is that silence would be equivalent to renunciation only insofar as the son could easily protest. Now reverential fear for the most part stands in the way of his being able to do this easily. From C. I. 234, if, after usufruct has ceased, the parents still continue to receive it, with the son staying with them, and without the condition of rendering an account having been established, the parents or their heirs are bound only to the fruits existing from the day on which they are demanded.

1. Aloisius, a young man of noble family and honest morals, desires to enter some strict religious Order, so that more securely he may render his own salvation secure. His father resists the religious vocation of Sempronius [i.e., Aloisius], because, after secretly squandering a great quantity of the goods of the family, he places hope in Aloisius that, by his talent and industry, he may restore the domestic wealth. Aloisius has also a brother already joined in marriage, who, in a short time, on account of his vicious life, consumed his share of the family goods, so that from now on, for himself and his family, there remains scarcely what is necessary for an honorable sustenance. Nevertheless Aloisius, his father being unwilling, enters Religion; and when he has professed, in order to attend more perfectly to Christian perfection and to theological studies, he breaks off all communication with his family, not even sending or receiving letters. Nevertheless he daily prays much and fervently to God for his family, especially for his father and for his brother, whom he knows to be declining from the path of virtue; and, while these are converted to God with a sincere heart, although they afterward fell into graver temporal necessity, and each of them dies most holily, he receives supreme consolation from the news, brought to him by the Superiors themselves, and gladly celebrates many Masses for them.

Q. What are the obligations of children toward parents? What as to the case?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 665, 666. To the second. Aloisius used his right when he entered Religion. For each one is free in the choice of state, as already often said. Moreover, Aloisius is worthy of praise, since for rendering his salvation more secure, he wished to enter Religion and take up the evangelical counsels. Again, he is worthy of praise, since he wished to enter a Religion of stricter observance, in which he could more easily and surely render his salvation secure.

But Aloisius is not held to obey his father and remain in the world, so that, by his own talent and industry, he may restore the domestic wealth squandered by the fault of the father. First, indeed, the whole thing is uncertain. Then, the opulence and honor of the family are of an order far inferior to his own spiritual and eternal salvation, to which, because of this, he most greatly provides by embracing the evangelical counsels. Besides, the good of the family is not necessary to the sustenance of life. "If parents cannot be sustained without the service of children, then children are not permitted, with the parents having been deserted, to enter Religion. But if they can be sustained in some way without the service of the children, not honorably, then because of this the children are not held to leave aside the works of perfection. For it is one thing to provide that someone may in some way live; and another, that he may live honorably. But he who is in the world is held to provide his parents that they may live honorably, if he can; but he who has already entered Religion is reputed dead to the world. And therefore, according to the mode pertaining to him, he is not held to provide that his parents live honorably, but only that they live in some way." St. Thomas, Quodlibet 10, a. 10.

Much less is Aloisius held to abstain from entering Religion so that he may increase the wealth of his brother's family, or so that he may sustain him honorably, since he has been reduced to grave want by his own vices and fault.

Aloisius, after entering Religion and then professing, conducts himself praiseworthily, when he gives himself more perfectly to Christian perfection and to theological studies. For "the religious state can be considered in three ways: first, insofar as it is an exercise tending to the perfection of charity; secondly, insofar as it quiets the human mind from exterior cares, according to 1 Cor. 7:32: I will that you be without solicitude; thirdly, insofar as it is a certain holocaust, by which someone offers himself and his goods totally to God. And according to this, Religion pertains to perfection not only of charity, but also of religion." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 186, a. 1. "Properly, therefore, religious are called those who totally bind and, as it were, hand themselves over to divine service, offering, as it were, a holocaust to God." Ibid. a. 1. But the state of Religion "was principally instituted for acquiring perfection by certain exercises, through which the impediments of perfect charity are taken away." Ibid., a. 2.

Finally, that Aloisius wishes no communication thereafter with his family, even by letters, is also, speaking of itself, a thing worthy of praise; for we read this of several saints, among whom St. Ignatius Loyola, who only once, if I remember well, wrote to his brother from the time of his conversion. And speaking of itself, this difficulty of communication seems also to have been present for Aloisius.

But parents, after the entrance of Aloisius into Religion and after his profession, fell into rather grave need. Aloisius indeed cannot be obligated on account of this to leave Religion, as is clear from the words of St. Thomas just cited. But he does not seem able entirely to neglect the grave need of his parents. "He who has already professed in Religion is regarded as though dead to the world. Hence he must not, on the occasion of sustaining his parents, leave the cloister in which he is buried with Christ, and implicate himself again in secular business. Nevertheless, with obedience to the prelate and the state of Religion being preserved, he is held to apply a pious effort, so far as he can, as to how his parents may be helped." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 101, a. 4, ad 4. "When someone sees his parents to be in necessity and he does not have the care of them, before he enters Religion he is held to minister to them and must not leave them if they cannot be sustained without him. But if after he has entered Religion and made profession, his parents have been reduced to poverty, he ought, so far as possible, with obedience to his prelate preserved, to strive, either through himself, if this belongs to him, or through another, as he can, that assistance be given to his parents." Quodlibet 3, a. 16.

Finally, Aloisius is also to be praised, since he daily prays much and fervently for his family, especially for his father and his brother, whom he knew to be declining from the path of virtue. He receives supreme consolation worthily, because of the news of their conversion and of their most holy death. Finally, he praiseworthily celebrates many Masses for them. For the care of children for parents, especially in grave spiritual necessity of parents, certainly pertains to that love which they owe them. Hence St. Alphonsus, l. 4, n. 333, says: "Children sin gravely if they neglect prayers and sacrifices for their parents." And again: "Children sin gravely, if they do not take care that their parents, in the article of death, receive penance and the other sacraments."

2. Alphonsus, being twenty-one years old, by the counsel of his confessor hears Mass daily in a nearby church, and each week frequents a Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where he also confesses and communicates. Moreover, he earnestly applies himself to the study of canon and civil law, and indeed, by natural inclination, he desires the profession of an advocate. His father, otherwise Catholic, displeased at these things, forbids his son to continue in this course; for he fears lest these spiritual exercises harm his health. Therefore he wants him to abstain from daily Mass and to hear Mass only on Sundays and feast days; and to approach the sacred table at most once a month, since because of Eucharistic Communion he must often be fasting up to the tenth hour. He wishes besides that his son embrace the medical profession; for he himself is a notable physician and has many clients. Therefore Alphonsus refers the thing to his confessor, who responds that he must be patient and obey his father, because a son is bound to obey his father in all things.

Q. Can Alphonsus continue his pious exercises and embrace the profession of advocate? What as to the response of the confessor?

R. To the first, affirmatively. For these things, in the case, do not pertain to the right governance of the house and to the education of the son, but to the spiritual exercises of Alphonsus, the direction of which belongs to the confessor, not to the father. Besides, in the case, the father's fear concerning the son's health is excessive and unfounded. And finally, the choice of profession belongs to the son himself, according to each one's talents and inclination. The father can indeed direct his son by counsel and help him, but not command him in this matter, if the son wishes to embrace a fitting profession. For the rest, Alphonsus must take care that he does not fail in reverence toward his father, and not resist openly, but sweetly persuade him to allow himself to be directed by the confessor.

To the second. The confessor erred in responding that a son must obey his parents in all things. For obedience is owed to a superior or to a prelate according to the mode and order of the superiority or prelacy. Hence, just as secular subjects are not held to obey ecclesiastical superiors, nor vice versa, except perhaps in those things in which the one power depends on the other; so subjects are held to obey their own prelates only in those things concerning which they have been appointed over them. But just as man is created by God, and is subject to God's governance, so also the son is naturally generated by the father; and, in the beginning, indeed, according to body and soul, and then, in the course of time, according to the soul by discipline and education. And therefore the father, in the first place, has right over his children as to domestic intercourse. "The carnal father is partaking particularly of the nature of principle, which is universally found in God. But the father is the principle both of generation and education and discipline, and of all things which pertain to the perfection of human life." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 102, a. 1. Hence the carnal father has the right over his children in domestic intercourse, as also the king in the kingdom, etc. And consequently sons and servants are held to obey the father of the family in those things which pertain to the governance of the house. But secondly, he has right as to the moral discipline and education of his son; wherefore the Apostle says, Heb. 12:9: We had the fathers of our flesh as instructors, and we reverenced them. For the father is held to educate and instruct children. In these therefore the son is held to obey the carnal father, and not in others. Cf. St. Thomas, Quodlibet 2, a. 9; 2. 2, q. 104, a. 5.

3. Virginia, an exceedingly modest and laborious girl, works diligently in her father's shop. But her brothers spend much money in games and drinking parties; her parents, moreover, imprudent and lacking counsel, spend at present everything which they receive, having no care for the future. Virginia therefore, seeing the future needs of her parents and brothers, and wishing to provide both for herself and for her brothers and her parents in case of sickness, of death, or of another rather grave necessity, secretly takes money aside, and by her own industry already has several thousand lire. But afterward, becoming anxious, she refers the whole matter to the confessor.

Q. What dominion do children in the family have over goods? What is to be answered to Virginia?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 666 seqq. To the second. Insofar as Virginia takes money aside, not for herself, but for the whole family, and especially for the needs of her parents, she is safe in conscience, and indeed worthy of praise. The reason is that, since she retains nothing for herself, but spends the whole for the utility of the family and especially of her parents, she injures no one and procures good for all. And indeed, if a wife does not sin by taking something for food, clothing, and other necessities of the family, which husbands often do not care for, and would be sought from them in vain; if a wife, seeing her husband dissipate the goods of the family to the detriment of the family, can hide them and reserve them for the good of the family, as the doctrine of theologians holds, why will not the same thing be possible for a daughter of the family, the mother being dead, for example, or if the mother herself also associated herself with the husband in dissipating all the goods of the family? Cf. G. 824. 2°, Comp. 554.

But insofar as Virginia sets aside money also for herself, so that she may provide for herself for the future time, her parents being dead, she does not seem to be disturbed, although the matter presents greater difficulty. For if a wife, who brought a very small dowry, can secretly and gradually subtract money from a rich and avaricious husband in order to support a very poor and miserable mother, although she knows that the husband would bear this most unwillingly if he knew it; if a wife can do the same in order decently to clothe a son whom she has from a prior marriage, to whom the husband, besides necessary food, scarcely wishes to concede anything else; if finally the same is also permitted to a wife in order to provide for herself for the future, lest she lack the things necessary for preserving the decency of her state, as the opinion of theologians also holds, the same certainly seems able to be conceded to a daughter of the family. Cf. Gury, Cas., v. 1, n. 560, 561. And the reason is at hand: for therefore such an indulgence must be granted to such a miserable wife, if she helps her needy mother or a son born from a first marriage, because the husband cannot reasonably be unwilling in that matter. But therefore the same must be granted to her, if she also provides for herself for the future, seeing that her husband is much older, infirm, and knowing certainly that he will give nothing to her, because a husband must provide for a wife in these circumstances. Now each of these reasons, which militates for the wife, seems also to hold for a daughter of the family constituted in the same straits. Let Virginia therefore take care lest she be led by blind passion; but if the matter is certainly established, she does not seem to be held to restitution, provided that she does not exceed what is reasonably necessary for herself. And especially unhappy Virginia merits indulgence, if, while she sets aside for herself only what is necessary, she uses labor altogether not owed. For something is owed to her extraordinary industry itself; and the industrial fruit is owed to him who uses the industry.

Fr. Gury holds the contrary opinion, Cas. Consc., v. 1, n. 503, who consequently, while in the place cited above he judges that a wife constituted in a similar case must be indulged, nevertheless thinks that a daughter of the family cannot of herself be excused from mortal sin. But the reason which Fr. Gury brings is, "because she committed theft in grave matter against parents reasonably unwilling." But this is precisely what can be denied in our case: namely, that the parents are reasonably unwilling. For if, in a similar case, the husband is not reasonably unwilling toward the wife, why would the parents be reasonably unwilling toward the daughter? - But Fr. Gury objects to himself, l. c., n. 504: "According to several very grave authors, children of the family in a similar case merit at least the wage owed to a servant." He himself responds: "that doctrine is full of dangers and not easily to be tolerated in practice." But that same doctrine the same Fr. Gury, in Comp., v. 1, n. 547, affirms "appears sufficiently probable," and for that very reason just brought forward, "because a son is not of worse condition than a servant." He indeed carefully notes at once in the same Comp., l. c., "that in practice one must not depart from the negative opinion." But, as Fr. Ballerini well observes, "since otherwise he admits that the opposite is probable, he is not to be understood as if an obligation ought, or even could, be imposed on anyone; for a confessor is not a legislator, nor does he have the power of imposing or enjoining a certain obligation when this is uncertain; and it is certainly uncertain when it is probable that it does not exist. Therefore this author only intimates this: that that practice should be prudently advised; prudently, I say, lest, while he fears hallucinations in the penitent, he himself hallucinate more gravely, and thus deprive the penitent of a utility not unjust."

The question therefore is one of prudence, not of liceity. Nor indeed does it avail to object against the argument brought from that case of the wife, that parity is not present; since the goods which she subtracts, as common to herself and her husband, are not only the husband's, but also her own. For Fr. Gury, l. c., openly holds the contrary; for he says that such a wife must be indulged, "if the husband were much older, infirm, and if it were established that he would give nothing to his needy wife, because a husband must provide for a wife in these circumstances." Therefore those goods which the wife subtracts are the husband's goods, not her own. And this is confirmed; for immediately proceeding, Fr. Gury adds these words: "A fortiori a wife would not be condemned who, while her husband was dissipating the substance of the family, would withdraw money and preserve it for the children, or even for herself, if she had goods in common with her husband." Therefore in no way was it a question of common goods.

Finally, since the same Fr. Gury in the two immediately preceding cases, 449, 502, is so easy with a son of the family, it does not appear why he is so difficult in the following case for a daughter of the family. For in the first of those cases, the question is about a son who, after the death of his father, remains with two sisters in the paternal house and alone carries on the father's trade with notable profit; and Fr. Gury says: "Leopoldus, who contributed not only an equal part of the money, but also himself alone the whole labor and industry, ought to obtain the greater part of the profit mentioned. For although the civil law does not except a case of this sort, nevertheless some place seems to be given to epikeia, at least in proportion to the extraordinary and undue labor, according to the judgment of an upright and skilled man. But if he has a certain and evident right to some compensation, strictly speaking, he could make it secretly, if in another way he cannot recover that to which he has a right." Let Leopoldus be removed, let Virginia be put in his place, and certainly the same conclusion remains. But in the other case the question is about a son of the family who trades with his father's money and receives profit from it, and Fr. Gury says: "Nor is Marius held to restore the profit which he acquired by private trade, because it is to be attributed to his extraordinary industry; but the industrial fruit is owed to him who applied the industry." Let it be said not Marius, but Virginia, and here also the same conclusion remains. For that Virginia exercises that extraordinary industry not, as Marius, outside the paternal house, the father unaware, but in the paternal house with the parents present, this certainly does not change the nature and dominion of the fruit of this industry. For a thing always and everywhere fructifies for its owner. But the difficulty would be still less for Virginia if, as can be sufficiently gathered from the case itself, she is no longer a minor, but of age; and there would be no difficulty at all if she were separated in goods from her father and from the family; if she labored not in the name of the father, or in the name of the family, nor by the aid of common money, but in her own name and with her own money, from Virginia's saved frugality, for example, which sufficiently appears in Virginia from the case. For the fruit of frugality from those things which are altogether owed to her in the family, as to a brother, is entirely her own.

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.

Parents owe children: 1. love; 2. education.

The reason of this obligation is founded in the very bowels of nature and in the title of generation. For nature teaches each, indeed even brute animals themselves, which love their offspring and seek out necessary things for preserving their life.

371. • Parents must follow children with an internal love, efficacious and ordered, so that they not only put off every hatred and malevolence of soul, but love them from the heart, and, as much as lies in them, care for their good and provide for them in every matter. For just as each one ought to love himself, so parents are bound to love children sincerely, as something of themselves, flesh from their flesh, so that after God they have nothing dearer than them.

Hence parents sin more or less against the special virtue of piety:

1. Who are inflamed with a depraved affection and unjust hatred against their children, disdain them by their look, or seriously imprecate grave evils upon them, and do not assist them when there is need.

2. Who call them by gravely contumelious names. For thus they provide an occasion of anger to them, and make them morose and contumacious, contrary to that saying of the Apostle, Ephes. 6. 4: And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.

3. Who manifest their hidden delicts to outsiders without just cause. Yet parents can reveal these things to each other, because they communicate in the power of punishing, and it is often expedient that they be known to each for forestalling the perversion of the children, etc.

4. Who love them with an inordinate affection, so that they grant or permit all things to them, lest they sadden them; or who, using untimely goodness, act too remissly toward them, and whether from sluggishness or from cruel benignity, neglect to draw them back from vices by serious precepts or other efficacious means.

5. Who favor one more than the others without just reason, and look upon the rest indifferently, or even hold them as adulterine; for this love of one before the rest is a source and occasion of quarrels, disputes, divisions, and infinite evils in families.

The education of children, both corporal and spiritual, must be procured by parents.

372. • Corporal education requires a threefold providence from parents, namely by reason: 1. of life; 2. of sustenance; 3. of state.

969. Since parents act in God's place with regard to children, they have the right to be loved and honored by them, first on account of God, whom they represent; hence the honor rendered to parents is attributed to God rather than to men. Wherefore to them, as to God, yet in a lesser degree, love, reverence, and obedience are owed: love indeed, because they participate in God's infinite goodness in a finite way; reverence, because divine excellence specially shines forth in them; obedience, since they are made participants of divine authority; concerning these we must speak separately.²

¹ Mayol, op. cit., p. 478-504; Jaugey, p. 448-464; Ball. P., Tr. VI, n. 815-822; A. de Margerie, t. II, p. 138-171; P. Janet, op. cit., p. 143-236; M. d'Hulst, op. cit., 5th Conf.

² And thus we shall set forth the fourth precept of the Decalogue: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee" (Exod., xx, 12). For, as the Catech. Rom., l. c., n. 4, rightly observes, to honor is to think honorably concerning someone, and to consider all his things of very great worth. The other things are joined to this honor, namely love and obedience; for he who loves does not always venerate; he who fears does not always love; but he who honors someone from the soul loves and reveres him.

1. On The Love Owed To Parents.

970. Principle: Children are held to love parents not only from the common law of charity, but from the special precept of piety.

It is proved. For besides motives common to all, there are certain special ones on account of which parents ought to be loved; for by procreating children, they bestowed life upon them, and with it all the goods which flow from it;³ by nourishing and protecting them they preserved that same life, often subtracting very many things from themselves so that they might provide for them; by education they cultivated and increased their faculties; in one word, whatever children have, after God, they owe to progenitors, and on that account they are held to exhibit special love and gratitude to them. In reality if God must be loved because he is good in himself and benign to us, ought not parents likewise to be loved, who, participants in divine goodness, have imitated his benignity toward their offspring?

³ "In thy whole heart honor thy father, and do not forget the groans of thy mother: remember that unless through them thou wouldst not have been born; and repay them as they also did to thee" (Eccli., VII, 29-30).

Wherefore in the Sacred Scriptures God promises all the best things to those who honor and love parents: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived upon the earth";¹ this longevity indeed was highly valued among the Jews. And again: "He who honors his father will rejoice in children, and in the day of his prayer he will be heard... In work and speech, and in all patience honor thy father, that a blessing may come upon thee from him, and his blessing may remain in the end."² Nor otherwise St. Paul: "Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long-lived upon the earth."³

¹ Exod., XX, 13.

² Eccli., III, 7, 9-10.

³ Ephes., VI, 2-3; see other texts in the work La Famille suivant l'Ecriture Sainte, Paris, 1881, p. 233-268.

971. It is declared. This love indeed ought to be internal and external at the same time, and consists in two things: to will well and to do good.

(A) To will well, that is, to pursue them with a pious, tender, and devoted affection, so that one is ready in soul to suffer and do all things for them. - Wherefore children gravely sin against piety who deliberately and seriously wish death upon their parents, or grave damage of soul or body, or rejoice concerning notable damage inflicted on them; likewise those who truly despise them, mock them, affect them with insults and words gravely injurious, or, without a just cause, gravely and deliberately sadden them. - It must be noted that hatred toward parents is more easily a grave sin than toward strangers.

972. (B) To do good, or to show parents signs of benevolence: (a) by a friendly and cheerful face, sweet speech, prompt service, and all those means by which tender and devoted love is manifested. Wherefore those who scarcely show a sign of friendship, but speak harshly or act imperiously, sin more or less, and often gravely.

(b) By assisting them in bodily or spiritual necessity. Thus, when parents labor under infirmity or old age, or suffer from adverse cases, children ought to visit and console them and bring help to them; if they are placed in poverty, not only extreme but grave, they are held to furnish the same food and other necessities of life.

So great is this obligation that, when parents are placed in extreme or grave necessity, a son cannot enter religion, even if he has emitted a vow of entering religion, but ought to remain in the world so that he may assist them, provided that there is no other who can or wishes to furnish this; for the natural law concerning the care of parents precedes an obligation undertaken by one's own will.¹ - But when he has already been professed in religion, he can and is held to go out from the convent for a time, even with the Prelate unwilling, if the parents are in extreme and evident necessity, which cannot otherwise be assisted, on account of the same reason;² but if the religion itself provides necessary things for needy parents (which is altogether fitting as often as this can be done), the religious ought to remain within the cloister. - But if the necessity is only grave, it is disputed; according to the more probable opinion, he is held, with obedience to his Prelate preserved, to use means by which his parents may be assisted.

¹ St. Thom., 2. 2., q. 101, a. 4. - Thus also civil law in most regions; so in France: "Children owe support to their father and mother or other ascendants who are in need... Support is granted only in proportion to the need of the one who claims it, and to the fortune of the one who owes it... If the person who ought to furnish support shows that he cannot pay the support pension, the tribunal can, with knowledge of the cause, order that he receive in his dwelling, feed, and maintain the one to whom he owes support" (Cod. civ., art. 205, 208, 210).

² St. Thom., l. c., ad 4, seems to teach the contrary; but there he does not speak of extreme necessity; for elsewhere he writes (Quodlibet 3, q. 6, art. 11): "He ought, as far as he can, with the obedience of the order preserved, to strive that by himself or by another his parents be assisted, if they shall have been placed in necessity." Besides, the Superior would not reasonably be unwilling who denied permission of going out from religion to him who otherwise would not be able to succor the extreme necessity of parents. Thus St. Alphonsus, n. 67; Jaugey, op. cit., n. 551; Ball. P., n. 148.

973. Likewise they are to be assisted in spiritual necessities, namely by taking care that they obtain all spiritual helps which they need, but especially that to those lying in extremity there be administered the sacraments and other helps useful for dying well. Likewise they ought not to impede them from restoring another's goods before death, or repairing damage inflicted on neighbors, or making a testament for donating something to pious works. - After their death, according to their faculties, let them take care that they receive decent obsequies and that the sacrifice of the Mass be offered for them several times: for piety extends even to the dead.

2. On The Reverence Owed To Parents.

974. (A) Principle: Children are held to show to parents special signs of reverence and honor, according to the custom of the fatherland and of their condition. - It is said special, because greater reverence, other things being equal, is owed to parents than to strangers.

This is certainly openly established from all the places of Scripture related above, in which the matter directly concerns the honor owed to parents. - This is also proved by reason: for honor is owed to those to whom excellence belongs, and indeed the greater the higher their dignity; but parents participate in the excellence of God in a particular way, insofar as they were cooperators of God in the procreation and education of children; they are therefore visible and living images of the invisible God, and their excellence is as it were a certain emanation and participation of divine excellence; therefore to these, insofar as they act in God's place, children ought to show special honor and reverence.

975. (B) They ought indeed to furnish this by heart, word, and work: (a) By heart indeed, by thinking honorably concerning them, acknowledging them as superiors, and conceiving a good estimation of their excellence. Therefore children sin who despise them, disdain them, or are ashamed of them, not wishing to acknowledge them as their parents; this sometimes happens when children are raised to a higher state, while parents live in poverty, but it is deservedly judged unworthy of an honorable man.

(b) Also by word, by speaking with them modestly and reverently, without any sign of contempt, and by saying nothing concerning them which can harm the good estimation which they enjoy among others. - Therefore children sin, and indeed mortally of itself, who deliberately affect parents with contemptuous, mocking, or abusive words, or in a grave matter detract from them, or provoke them to anger without cause; a fortiori those who curse them: "He who shall have cursed his father or his mother shall die by death";¹ "he who curses his father and mother, his lamp shall be extinguished in the midst of darkness."²

¹ Exod., XXI, 17.

² Prov., XX, 20.

(c) Finally by work, by greeting and honoring them according to the custom of the fatherland, and by showing other signs which denote the internal sense of reverence, e.g., by opportunely seeking and following their counsels, especially in matters of great moment, insofar as it can be done. - Therefore those sin gravely who deliberately strike parents, even lightly, or lift a hand for striking, although they do not in reality strike, or injuriously treat them. On the contrary, they ought to bear, conceal, and excuse with all patience, without anger and indignation, their defects, and also rustic, uncivil, or difficult manners: since they also once patiently bore the defects and rough manners of children.

The Wise Man draws all these things together thus:¹ "In work and speech, and in all patience honor thy father, that a blessing may come upon thee from him, and his blessing may remain in the end. The blessing of the father strengthens the houses of children: but the curse of the mother uproots the foundations. Do not glory in the dishonor of thy father: for his confusion is not glory to thee... Son, receive the old age of thy father, and do not sadden him in his life; and if he fails in sense, give pardon, and do not despise him in thy strength."

¹ Eccli., III, 9-14; read the whole chapter.

3. On The Obedience Owed To Parents.

976. Principle: Children ought to obey parents in all honest and licit things pertaining to paternal care, as long as they remain under their power. - Love and reverence are owed for the whole time of life, but obedience strictly binds children only as long as they live under paternal authority; therefore when they have now been emancipated, or have attained majority, or have married, they are now made their own right. Yet if they live under the paternal roof, they are held to furnish a certain obedience to the father, as head of the family.

(A) It is proved. (a) For Scripture often inculcates this: "Hear, my son, the discipline of thy father, and do not abandon the law of thy mother...² Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is just...³ Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is pleasing in the Lord."⁴ (b) And deservedly; for, if in a general way inferiors ought to obey superiors, a fortiori children ought to obey parents: for these, as God's cooperators in the procreation and education of children, participate in his authority in a special way, and therefore have the right of prescribing to children in all things which regard their instruction and discipline; for since the duty and office of educating and instructing offspring is incumbent upon them, by that very fact children are held to obey parents justly prescribing, as God himself, in whose place they act.

² Prov., I, 8.

³ Ephes., VI, 1.

⁴ Colos., III, 20.

977. (B) It is declared. Yet they are not held to obey in all things without any distinction, but only: (a) in licit and honest things; for if parents should prescribe something evil or less honest, e.g., to exercise vengeance, to pursue enemies with hatred, to provoke them to duels, or to steal and inflict damage on others, or to go to dangerous occasions of sin, etc., it would be necessary to resist them, because then they by no means act in God's place: "It is necessary to obey God rather than men."¹

¹ Acts, V, 29.

(b) In all things pertaining to paternal care; since the authority of parents is neither absolute nor universal, but is contained within certain limits, and is restricted to those things which regard the education of offspring and the government of the family. Thus children certainly ought to furnish obedience in those things which regard eternal salvation and good morals, e.g., when parents prescribe attendance at divine offices on feast days, - or forbid that suspect houses and dangerous gatherings be frequented, or prohibit immoderate games, certain associations full of dangers, entrance into taverns given to intemperance, and other things of this sort which can corrupt morals. In all these things, which are now forbidden or prescribed by divine law, there is probably not committed a double sin, one against the special virtue which is offended and another against the obedience owed to parents, unless the violation proceeds from contempt of parents; but the malice of the sin is increased from the irreverence committed against parents, and the young are to be exhorted to declare this circumstance, so that the confessor may be able to hand on opportune counsels concerning this matter. - Likewise children are held to obey in those things which pertain to the administration of the house and family, e.g., as to domestic things not to be alienated or destroyed.

So that a sin against obedience owed to parents may be grave, it is required that parents seriously and strictly prescribe, - that the matter of the precept be grave, with attention to all things, - and that disobedience be fully voluntary. Wherefore not rarely, from the defect of one of these conditions, the sin is judged light, especially when it is committed not from contempt or obstinacy, but from a certain frailty or inborn sense of independence.

978. (c) But children are not held to obey parents in the choice of the state of life, although generally it is greatly expedient to seek their counsel. The reason is that vocation to a particular state is an act of divine providence which transcends the authority of parents; besides, since the happiness of the young depends very greatly on such an election, it belongs to them to choose and embrace this state, according to the sweet inclination which they experience and the admonitions of a spiritual director. Yet it is useful to seek the counsel of progenitors, especially if the matter concerns the lay state, since in these matters they have greater experience than adolescents.

Wherefore children can enter religion or receive sacred orders, while parents dissent, provided they enter this plan not lightly, but after mature deliberation. What power they have in order to matrimony we have already set forth on Matrimony, p. 217-221.

979. Note for practice. Often the young of each sex accuse sins against obedience or reverence owed to parents only in a confused and vague way; and since it is of great importance in our days to strengthen paternal authority, the confessor, with the best counsel, will prudently and diligently ask concerning this matter, so that, the nature of the sin having been detected, he may vividly manifest its malice to the penitents, and sweetly and at the same time strongly exhort the young to honor parents as living images of God, and to obey them as the Lord. - Children who have offended parents ought of themselves to ask pardon; but, if it is foreseen that the matter will be very difficult, this is not to be urged, lest perhaps those who bear this with difficulty be again exposed to the danger of sinning by omitting this petition for pardon; besides they can repair the wounded honor in another way, namely by gentle speech, or by the manifestation of sincere love; for this being posited, parents easily condone this obligation.

The Decalogue contains a special commandment for children, namely, “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.”¹ This precept was expressly re-inculcated by Jesus Christ: “For God said: Honor thy father and mother.”² St. Paul calls attention to the fact that this “is the first commandment with a promise” attached to it.³

¹ Ex. XX, 12; cfr. Deut. V, 16; Tob. IV, 3; Ecclus. III, 3, 5–8; VII, 29.—Cfr. Ehrlich, Randglossen zur hebr. Bibel, I, 344.

² Matth. XV, 4; cfr. Mark VII, 10.

³ Eph. VI, 1–3; cfr. Col. III, 20.

The precept to honor father and mother, therefore, is not merely based on the law of nature, but it is a positive divine law, given for the purpose of materially lightening the duties of parents.⁴

⁴ St. Augustine, Quaest. in Heptateuch., l. I, qu. 153: “There is also a natural order among human beings, that women serve men and children their parents, because here too this is justice, that the weaker reason serve the stronger.” (Migne, P. L., XXXIV, 590).—Cat. Rom., P. III, c. 5, qu. 2.

The term “honor”⁵ signifies not only the love which every man must show to every other man,⁶ but that filial respect which has its natural foundation in the dependence of youth upon age, in a feeling of personal inferiority, and in addition, that pietas which children owe to their parents as the authors of their existence and their educators.⁷

⁵ τιμᾶν, honorare.

⁶ Lev. XIX, 18; Matth. XIX, 19; XXII, 39.—Love for his parents is part of the child’s natural equipment and therefore is not particularly emphasized in Revelation.

⁷ Lev. XIX, 3; Cat. Rom., P. III, c. 5, qu. 7; Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 368: “Children are bound toward their parents by a most special obligation. Three duties, moreover, are to be rendered by children to parents under the title of piety, namely, love, reverence, and obedience. For parents stand in a threefold relation to their children, namely, by reason of cause, by reason of preeminence, and by reason of governance. Consequently children ought to love them as the cause of their existence, to reverence them as superiors, and to obey them as rulers delegated by God.”

The duties that flow from this virtue are three: reverence, love, and obedience.

1. Reverence (reverentia sive timor reverentialis) is a feeling of deep respect, mingled with awe and affection. Children owe reverence to their parents as long as they live, nay, beyond the grave. It should cause them to bear with their parents even if their demands sometimes exceed the right measure, to spare their feelings, and in their conduct towards them to avoid whatever might savor of contempt. Sins which are but venial when committed against others, may be mortal if committed against parents because they violate reverence.⁸

⁸ Cfr. Gen. XLVI, 29; Tob. X, 9 sqq.—Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 2nd ed., 793: “Every hatred, injury, irreverence, and contempt which is judged moderate or light toward another neighbor is grave toward parents; and that which is judged grave toward another neighbor is supreme toward parents (the matter of theft alone is excepted). The reason is taken from the order of degrees, because after God the first degree of union with us is that of parents, and therefore hatred, injury, and irreverence inflicted upon them is always, other things being equal, graver than that inflicted upon other neighbors, even relatives.”

Children sin against the reverence they owe to their parents if they deny them those signs of respect which are demanded by custom or treat them with indifference or neglect. Contempt, mockery, or maltreatment, which would be sinful towards strangers, are a much more grievous sin when committed against parents. To mistreat one’s parents or to curse them was punished by death under the Old Law. Reverence forbids us to reveal the faults of our parents. Children should not sue their parents in court, unless higher considerations of justice or public welfare are at stake, and it is a wise provision of the law which exempts them from testifying against their progenitors. The duty of reverence must not be disregarded even when it becomes necessary to treat parents with physical violence, for instance, in self-defence, when they are insane.⁹

⁹ Linsenmann, Lehrb. der Moraltheol., pp. 651 sq. Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 75, art. 2: “It is most grave to mock God and the things that are God’s (Is. XXXVII, 23); then the mockery of parents holds the second place (Prov. XXX, 17).”—Cfr. Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 372 sq.; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., I, n. 949.

2. Children must, secondly, love their parents. This love is not identical with the charity every man must entertain for all his fellowmen, but a special duty, based upon the fact that children are indebted to their parents, under God, for their life and for innumerable material and spiritual benefits. This filial love should not only be deeply rooted in the heart (amor affectivus), but it should be manifested outwardly in acts of assis- tance and protection (amor effectivus).¹⁰ Children are in duty bound to support their parents when the latter become unable to support themselves.

¹⁰ Ecclus. III, 14–18; VII, 29 sq.; Prov. XIX, 26.—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 369: “Children ought to love their parents with both inward love, pursuing them with a pious and benevolent affection of heart, and outward love, repelling from them every notable evil and injury, showing them also outward signs of benevolence, and assisting them according to their means when they are in need. This is established by natural law. Therefore, although our parents may have defects, however grave, and however they may have acted toward us, nevertheless we owe them life and preservation, which surely is the greatest of all benefits.”

This support is, of course, to be gauged in each case by the child’s ability. When a man has to strain every nerve to provide for his own family, or to pay his creditors, he cannot be held to contribute to the support of his parents except in case of urgent need. But even when children have become wealthy, they are not obliged to support their parents on a scale essentially higher than that to which their station in life entitles the latter. Whatever children do for their parents, however, they should do in such a manner that the latter can feel that the assistance given them is not a cold matter of duty, but inspired by genuine affection. Parents have a right to demand this of their children in view of what they have done for them. The consequences of lack of filial affection are graphically portrayed in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”¹¹

¹¹ Linsenmann, Lehrb. d. Moraltheol., pp. 652 sq.

3. The duty of filial obedience (obedientia filialis) is coextensive with parental authority, and hence comprises whatever is subject to that authority, i. e., all matters of education and domestic government.

a) For minors living under the parental roof the obligation of obeying their parents is a grave one in all important matters. But not all violations of this duty are mortal sins; quite often the guilt is diminished by youthful thoughtlessness, imprudence, or lack of judgment.¹² In the case of children who have reached the age of maturity, however, it is nearly always a mortal sin if they refuse to obey their parents in matters that concern their eternal salvation or are of vital importance for the preservation of peace and good order within the family circle. The sin of disobedience is aggravated by pride, obstinacy, and hypocrisy. Grown-up children may, of course, raise objections against parental commands or orders, but they should present their reasons with respect and deference, and be ready to obey, no matter what the final decision may be.¹³

¹² Ecclus. III, 1; Eph. VI, 1; Col. III, 20.—Gury, op. cit., I, n. 374 sq.

¹³ De Benefic., l. III, c. 38.

b) The duty of filial obedience ceases to bind when parents command their children to do something that is bad in itself or a proximate occasion of sin, for Jesus says, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.”¹⁴

¹⁴ Matth. X, 37; Luke XIV, 26; Acts IV, 19; V, 29.—St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., LXX, s. I, n. 2: “In this matter alone a son ought not to obey his father, if his father has commanded something against the Lord his God. For the father ought not to be angry when God is preferred to him. But when a father commands that which is not against God, he is to be hearkened to as God, because God commanded that one obey one’s father.” (Migne, P. L., XXXVI, 875).—IDEM, Sermones, 100 (al. 7 de Verbis Domini), c. 1, n. 2: “The father is to be honored, but God is to be obeyed; the begetter is to be loved, but the Creator is to be preferred.”—Ibid., c. 2: “Love your parents, but prefer God to your parents.” (P. L., XXXVIII, 603).

Nor does the duty of obedience bind a child in the choice of a vocation or state of life. Parents have no right to compel their children to embrace a vocation which would require them to renounce marriage or the religious life. If they fear that they will be exposed to extreme want through the marriage of a child, or his reception into a religious order, they may demand that the one or the other act be postponed, and in that case the child should not resist. Children may enter a religious order against the will and without the knowledge of their parents if they are unable to overcome parental resistance and there is no danger that the parents will suffer want. Minors, however, should be kept back as long as possible, since in their case the matter is not urgent and their vocation as yet uncertain.¹⁵

¹⁵ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. III, n. 335: “Here it must be noted that children are not bound to obey in those matters which pertain to choosing a state of life. Hence parents sin gravely who compel them, even indirectly, against their will, to choose a state of life, whether religious, clerical, or matrimonial; or, conversely, if without a just cause they unjustly draw them back, even without force or fraud, from the religious, clerical, or matrimonial state, because it especially falls to parents to take counsel for the spiritual good of their children. Hence, if a son feels himself called by God to the religious or clerical state and perceives that his parents will unjustly impede him, he acts more advisedly by concealing the matter from them and carrying out the divine will. It has been said unjustly, for it would have to be said otherwise if the parents opposed him for a just cause, for example, if they would remain in need, or if otherwise a most noble family would become extinct, as Elbel says (Theol. Mor., P. III, n. 539). In this second case, however, I think the son is not bound on that account to abandon his voca- tion.”—Cfr. H. Busembaum, S. J., Medulla Theol. Mor., l. III, tr. 3, c. 2, dub. 1, n. 4: “A child is bound to support needy parents, to such a degree that, if in grave necessity they cannot be helped otherwise, he is bound to remain in the world (unless, however, in this there would threaten him a certain, or at least very probable, danger to salvation); and if he has entered religious life, he is bound to leave and help his parents, provided that their necessity preceded his profession.”—Ibid., n. 5: “But if the necessity arises after profession and is extreme, he is bound to leave, permission having first been sought (though not obtained). But if it is merely grave, such that they can somehow live, he is not indeed bound, yet he can leave if the superior permits. In which case he is bound, insofar as it does not obstruct his purpose, to wear the habit and observe the essentials of religion; but after help has been given to his parents, he is bound to return.” (Tornaci 1876, I, 161).—Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Th., 2a 2ae, qu. 101, a. 4; Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, n. 377; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., I, nn. 946–948.

The duty of obedience ceases to bind, lastly, when a child marries, becomes of age or enters a religious order or congregation. Children who continue to dwell under the parental roof after they have attained their majority, remain subject to parental authority, and this includes sons who are in clerical orders, but have no benefice and are supported wholly or in part by the family.

If a conflict arises between the demands of the parents and those of the children, the presumption is in favor of the parents because they are supposed to have a riper judgment, and it is, generally speaking, not wise to support children who resist their parents. On the other hand it cannot be denied that parents are sometimes unreasonable in the demands they make upon their children. In the same Epistle in which he inculcates the duty of filial obedience St. Paul says: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger.”¹⁶ Parents should always remember that they rear their children not for themselves, but for society, and they must not refuse to make the sacrifices demanded of them on this account. They may not hinder their children from choosing a vocation or establishing a family of their own, merely because they themselves would have to live less comfortably in consequence.

¹⁶ Eph. VI, 4.

The children, on the other hand, must remember that they should not take any important step in life without the consent and blessing of their parents and that if they do so without a just cause, they forfeit an important condition of happiness. Parents have a right to be consulted in regard to their children’s choice of a vocation, and often, when the children are moved by passion or restiveness, the will of the parents represents the counsel of mature wisdom. It may justly be assumed that the son or daughter who marries with due regard to the wishes of his or her parents will be better off than he or she who parts from them in anger and contracts a marriage which they disapprove.

As there are children who, because of mental or bodily defects, cannot take care of themselves, but remain a charge on their parents as long as they live, so, too, it may happen that a child must renounce an independent position in order not to expose his parents to penury. Circumstances may render this an imperative duty, and if the sacrifice is made in the right spirit, it is as much a virtue as making a religious profession.¹⁷

¹⁷ Linsenmann, Moraltheologie, p. 651.—The question whether there are between parents and children mutual duties of justice in addition to those of pietas and the other virtues distinct from justice (e. g., gratitude, veracity, etc.) is controverted among theologians.

Those who take the place of parents, especially guardians and teachers, and, in general, superiors, participate in their rights as well as duties.¹⁸ The rights and duties of guardians are, as a rule determined by positive law.¹⁹

¹⁸ Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 2nd ed., 806: “To these [teachers] pupils are bound to render love, reverence, and obedience or diligence in those matters which pertain to their care. The sins of pupils, therefore, are: unjust indignation, contempt, irritating the teach- er, disobedience in matters pertaining to their care, e. g., studies, insults, abusive words, and other injuries inflicted; although in these matters boys are for the most part excused from mortal sin by levity, imprudence, or passion, so that they are to be condemned not to hell but only to the furnace. Conversely, masters and teachers are bound to render to their pupils love, instruction, correction, and example. This is evident from the nature of their office. Their sins, therefore, are, among others, unjust or indiscreet indignation and rebukes, negligent, incautious, false teaching, omission of due correction, scandals of the little ones: woe to them! Academic masters or teachers are bound to still more duties, which they themselves will have learned from the statutes and the common law.”

¹⁹ C. I. C., can. 765 sqq.; cfr. this Handbook, Vol. II, p. 121.

Sponsors must see to it that their godchildren are raised in the Catholic religion and lead a good Christian life in conformity with the promises made at Baptism. This is a grave obligation which ceases only with death.²⁰ Baptism gives rise to a spiritual relationship between the sponsor and the baptized person. If one is sponsor by proxy, the principal, not the proxy, contracts spiritual relationship with the baptizandus.

²⁰ Cfr. Conc. Trid., Sess. XXIV, c. 2, De Ref. Matr.; C. I. C., can. 769.

Sponsors are absolved from all obligation if it can be prudently presumed that the godchild is properly taken care of by his parents or guardians.²¹

²¹ J. B. Ferreres, Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. II, p. 184; cfr. St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. IV, n. 1476.

The baptizing priest should see to it that the canonical regulations concerning sponsors are duly observed, and instruct the sponsors in regard to the obligations they assume, and also with respect to the spiritual relationship they contract.

It is a bad sign if scholars and pupils do not remember gratefully their teachers and others who have contributed towards the formation of their character and their success in life. As true gratitude is a splendid virtue, so ingratitude is a detestable vice, and if it is formal, i. e., coupled with downright contempt for the favors received or for those who bestowed them, it is a mortal sin, unless the matter involved is so small as to diminish the guilt (parvitas materiae).²²

²² St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 106 sq.; Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 2nd ed., 806 sqq.—Cfr. Pseudo-Augustine, Append. Serm., 265 (al. 215, De Temp.), n. 2: “Know that you who receive children in baptism have stood as sureties for them before God. And therefore always chastise and correct both those who are born of you and those whom you receive from the font, that they may live chastely, justly, and soberly. And conduct yourselves in such a way that if your children wish to imitate you, they may not burn with you in the fire, but may come with you to the eternal rewards.” (Migne, P. L., XXXIX, 2238).—IDEM, De Rect. Cath. Conversat., n. 4 (P. L., XL, 1171).

READINGS.—Catechismus Romanus, P. III, c. 5.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 101–105.—Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 2nd ed., 784 sqq.—Elbel-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 3rd ed., 719 sqq.—J. B. Hirscher, Die christliche Moral, Vol. III, 5th ed., pp. 539 sqq.—V. Cathrein, S. J., Moralphilosophie, Vol. II, 5th ed., pp. 433 sqq.—W. Becker, S.J., Die Pflichten der Kinder und die christl. Jugend, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1898.—T. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 270 sqq.—J. E. Ross, C. S. P., Christian Ethics, pp. 385 sqq.

Offices. Species. Piety toward parents imposes on children love, which corresponds to conjunction and benefit; reverence, which corresponds to dignity and authority; and consequently obedience, which corresponds to the function of generating, since the generation of man is completed only by education perfected.

The two prior offices exist absolutely, are perpetual, and are defined by the divine natural law. The third has its root in the very necessity of children, exists of itself but less absolutely, insofar as parents are really set over the institution of children; it ceases when the necessity ceases; and, both as to the person to whom it is owed, and as to the acts which it embraces, and as to the space of time through which it remains, it is more determined by positive ecclesiastical and civil law.

The three offices are imposed by the virtue of piety, yet so that its own specific ratio is in each. Nevertheless love and reverence will very often be exercised or violated at the same time; and especially reverence will scarcely be able to be violated without an offense of love.

Besides, parents are neighbors toward whom, also by the common title, we must fulfill all the offices of charity and justice. And offices which pertain to personal relations will be commanded by a double title. Thus theft of a thing belonging to parents will of itself offend justice alone, but insult will be opposed at once to justice and to piety.

Finally, the intimate conjunction of persons, or the peculiar reverence to be preserved toward parents, brings it about that what would be light if committed against an external person becomes grave if done against parents.

Therefore some offices are proper to children; others are common offices of neighbor, and these are either separated from the former, or concur with the former, whether they remain in their own degree or, because of that admixture, they themselves are to be urged more severely.

I. Love. counsels unity and concord: concord in intellect, so that, with the right of truth preserved, children may incline to thinking the same as parents; concord in affection, so that the causes of rejoicing and grieving may be the same for both; concord of wills, so that children may strive to fulfill the wills of parents. It counsels besides efficacious benevolence, and obliges one to assist parents if they are in need to be relieved. As was said above, n. 85, parents who are in extreme necessity are to be preferred to all others; in another necessity, wife and children come first in order. Wherefore, to relieve the quasi-extreme necessity of parents, a child will have to make even great expenses: understand those which permit him to preserve his own state, and which, with account taken of his family, he can conveniently bear. Cf. Palm., Op. theol. II, n. 822. In this matter one can also sin by excess, as if a wife should despoil her husband too much in order to assist her parents.

A child sins gravely against the precept of love who gives parents a grave and reasonable cause of sadness, whether through hatred, or through actions which savor of hatred or aversion of mind, or through less good morals: by frequenting bad companions, neglecting studies, prolonging vigils outside the house, etc.

To the office of love it also belongs that children provide for parents when sick the timely use of the sacraments; that, according to their condition and the usages of the pious, they take care that suffrages be made for deceased parents; that they strive to fulfill their reasonable expressed wills, even after the funeral. They judge that a child sins gravely who by evil arts impedes parents from making a testament.

II. Reverence. demands esteem and honor. This is harmed by striking parents; and it is judged to be a grave offense if a child strikes a parent even lightly, or, even without the mind of striking, deliberately raises his hand to strike; it is harmed by disdain and contempt, through insults, reproaches, through even affected ignoring, if, because they are poor, they are not acknowledged. It would be otherwise if a child breaks off association with criminals because of a just cause, for example lest he himself be marked with infamy. And, except for the necessity of the common good, children cannot denounce even true crimes of their parents to a judge.

Which insults or reproaches are grave is to be estimated from the adjuncts: from adjuncts of education, morals, etc. A child will more easily be excused from grave sin who corrects parents acting less rightly or troublesome parents, who yields to impatience, but otherwise demonstrates himself well affected toward parents. And, although this is little to be praised, writers also think it tolerable that a child who has arrived at a very honored position dissembles knowing parents of humble condition, provided he sufficiently provides for their necessities.

III. Obedience. obliges children as long and insofar as they are under the power of parents. This power varies according to the matter and the age of the children.

As regards the salvation of the soul, children are always in their own right; insofar as they are conscious, they can always both embrace the true religion and practice piety in an approved manner. They must receive the counsels of parents reverently in this matter. Must they also follow them? This depends on the piety and prudence of the parents, and on one's own need, since a better counselor can be present or lacking.

As regards the election of a state, a definite state cannot be imposed by parents. Indeed, they themselves, with attention to their condition, must permit and procure for their children a sufficient possibility of choosing. But that children may embrace the state itself, parents must juridically consent: canonically certainly not up to the puberty of the children, which was the rule before the Code, and now perhaps, because of c. 89, up to majority or emancipation. From the very law of nature, when there is question of marriage, a child fails in reverence of itself if he does not ask the counsel of a parent; he fails in obedience if he enters upon nuptials to which, for a just cause, parents are unwilling to assent. Indeed, although it cannot be prescribed that children marry or contract a determined marriage, it sometimes happens that children are constrained by the office of love to make a marriage, because hatreds may be quieted or the poverty of parents relieved. "In the election of a state of perfection, it is often not expedient first to take counsel from parents, since flesh and blood do not grasp the things which are of the spirit; after the matter has been deliberated and firmly proposed, by accident it is often expedient to communicate the matter to parents, but not for changing the counsel" (Lehmk., I, n. 947). Also from the law of nature, those offices regard each parent, whether legitimate or only natural, yet so that of itself the will of the father is to be preferred to the will of the mother.

Positive laws concerning paternal power. define and complete more the indications of nature. By Roman law, paternal power belonged only to the father of the family, while more recent laws imitate natural law more. The Italian Code, title 8 of book 1, treats of paternal power; the French Code, title 9 of book 1.

Those laws at once sanction paternal power and surround with protection persons who, because of age, are weaker in mind. Today, among cultivated nations, paternal power, which formerly was so absolute that it was extended even to the right of killing children (at least immediately after birth), has become more directive than coercive, so that, except for the right of moderate correction, the father almost has to have recourse to the magistrate in order to inflict an afflictive penalty such as prison. And rather it obtains that unruly children are committed to certain special institutions which take care of their correction, with a sufficiently unequal success. Yet paternal power is customarily sanctioned by certain rights over the goods of children, and by a civil obligation by which capable children are bound to furnish support to needy parents.

The protection of weaker age consists especially in several incapacities which vary with age itself. In making juridical acts, they are either supplied by parents or tutors, or helped by a curator of goods. Usually, because this cause touches not only the contracting persons but also their families in the highest degree, full liberty of contracting marriage is customarily deferred longer.

With the explanation concerning the capacity for juridical acts which regard goods remitted to the treatise on justice, we shall briefly set forth what canon law, what the laws of Italy, France, and Belgium have established, noting besides the principal differences of other laws.

Canon law. The Code divides persons according to age into four classes: children, the impubes, pubescent minors, and majors. Children have not yet completed the seventh year: they are judged not capable of themselves, and, as such, from c. 12, are not bound by merely ecclesiastical laws, with the cases expressly excepted of annual confession and Paschal communion, if they have had the use of reason. Boys are judged impubes who have not yet completed fourteen years, and girls who have not yet completed twelve years. These, from c. 167, §1, n. 2, cannot cast a vote in canonical elections, nor, from can. 1224, choose burial for themselves; nor, from c. 1757, §1, give testimony properly so called in judgment (for they can be heard by force of c. 1758); nor, from c. 1795, §2, can they be assumed for the office of experts; and all who have not yet completed fourteen years are excused from penalties latae sententiae, and rather are to be corrected by educative punishments (cf. I, 282, 283, and c. 2230). Minors, before twenty-one years have been completed, who are exempt from fasting, remain in the exercise of their rights subject to the power of parents or tutors, except those acts in which law regards minors as exempt from paternal power. Thus c. 89, which in this way recognizes the principle of paternal power. That paternal power is sanctioned by legal domicile, which, from c. 93, a minor has with him to whose power he is subject; by the faculty of parents or tutor to choose burial for an impubes (c. 1224); of exercising, if they are Catholic, the right of patronage for the minor (c. 1456); of acting and responding in judgment for minors (c. 1648). The excepted cases are spiritual causes and causes connected with spiritual things (c. 1648, §3); entrance into religion, which lies open to those who have completed fifteen years of age (c. 555); marriage, which young men of sixteen years and girls of fourteen completed years can contract, although a greater age (c. 1067), besides a will concordant with parents (c. 1034), is counseled; quasi-domicile, which a minor who has passed infancy can obtain; burial, which pubescent minors can choose for themselves (c. 1223); and the right of active voice in elections, from which only the impubes are excluded.

If, in judgment, there is conflict between the utilities of minors and of parents or tutors or curators, the judge assigns to them a curator through whom they may stand in judgment (c. 1648, §2). Those who have completed twenty-one years have the full exercise of rights; they are subject to all laws, at least general laws, except the law of fasting, from which, from c. 1254, §2, those who have reached the sixtieth year are exempt.

The Italian Code. After the perpetual obligation of honor and reverence has been laid down, a child, from the Italian Code, until majority at twenty-one years or emancipation, is subjected to the paternal power of parents. During marriage, this is exercised by the father; when the father is impeded, it belongs to the mother; when the marriage is dissolved, it pertains to the surviving spouse (art. 220). That power is sanctioned: a) by the right of assigning a residence to the child, indeed, of placing an unruly child, with the president of the tribunal assenting, in a house of education or correction; b) by the right of representing, in civil acts, children born or to be born, and of administering their goods. To remove errors or abuses, several things are provided: where the utilities of the children and of the administrator are contrary to one another, a special curator is put in charge of such business; for more dangerous acts, the solemnities of license, whether of the tribunal or of the praetor, are necessary; inheritances are not accepted except with benefit of inventory (coi benefizio dell'inventario); c) by the legal usufruct of the goods of a child, if you except certain things, especially those which the child acquires in military service or separate industry, or which are bequeathed or donated with a clause excluding usufruct (cf. 229). That usufruct is burdened with the charge of feeding, instituting, and instructing the children (230). This usufruct belongs to him who exercises paternal power; yet the mother acquires the same if, because of causes personal to him, the father has been deprived of the usufruct. The usufruct lasts until emancipation or the greater age of the child. But it ceases by the death of the child or by new nuptials of the surviving parent. To the father, however, it is intact that either by testament or by authentic act he impose on the surviving mother conditions to be observed in the education (even religious) of the children and the administration of goods; yet so that the mother can be dispensed from those conditions by the family council which the praetor (i.e., elsewhere, judge of peace) shall have assembled. Paternal power is dissolved, leaving aside here the case of abuse or of certain penalties, by greater age or emancipation of the children. But a child is emancipated either by marriage, or by a distinct act of him who has paternal power or, this failing, of the family council, provided he has completed eighteen years. Nevertheless, for marriage, the consent of parents or at least of the father is necessary for a son up to twenty-five completed years, for a daughter up to the age of twenty-one years. Parents failing, sons and daughters up to the age of twenty-one years need the consent of ascendants (if they dissent, the assent of the grandfather suffices) or of the family council. Yet recourse can be had to the court of appeal if the dissent of ascendants or of the family council is destitute of a just cause (cf. art. 67). That paternal power is conceded over legitimate children and over acknowledged natural children. Civil effects are generated by civil marriage alone. Contrary, however, to France and regularly to Belgium, civil law does not sanction an obligation of contracting first before a civil magistrate.

France and Belgium use almost the same regime. Yet, in both regions, children already fifteen years old can be emancipated by parents (but not by the family council); the legal usufruct ceases when the children are eighteen years old. In France (law of June 21, 1907), those older than twenty-one years no longer need any consent for celebrating nuptials. Yet they must seek the consent of parents up to twenty-five completed years. But, that not having been obtained, it is enough that through a notary they give notice concerning their future marriage. If parents dissent, the consent of the father suffices. Parents failing, consent devolves upon the nearer ascendants of each line, so that in the same line the will of the grandfather prevails; but if each line dissents, the dissent is held for consent. But those older by birth must notify nothing to ascendants. Ascendants failing, consent is to be furnished by the family council (Conseil de famille). If the child is illegitimate, consent must be furnished by the parent by whom he was acknowledged. If he has been acknowledged by each parent and these dissent, the consent of him who exercises paternal power suffices.

In Belgium, the consent of parents is required up to twenty-five completed years. Yet those older than twenty-one years can bring the cause to the tribunal, which will pronounce concerning the reasons of the parents. After that age, counsel must be sought; and when consent has been denied, they must, by a "respectful" act (acte respectueux) which the notary presents, insist on obtaining consent. Yet when consent has again been denied, the marriage can be celebrated without consent after a month has elapsed.

The principal varieties of other laws to be observed:

1. Concerning the age of majority. This is not everywhere twenty-one years. By the common law of Spain it is twenty-three years (in Aragon it is twenty completed years; in Catalonia and the territory of Navarre, it is twenty-five years). In the Argentine republic there are distinguished minors of fourteen years (who are all judged impubes), and adult minors (or pubescent minors) up to twenty-two completed years. In England, and also in the U.S.A. from common law, it is twenty-one years; yet in eleven States, daughters after eighteen years are of greater age.

2. Concerning the modes and age of emancipation. In Germany, not even through marriage is there emancipation properly so called; but a minor who has completed eighteen years can, with his consent and other conditions fulfilled, be declared greater by the tribunal of guardianships; by which declaration he is juridically assimilated to a major. In the Argentine republic, if you except emancipation for exercising commerce, which is done by consent of father or mother and public inscription in the commercial tribunal, the sole mode of emancipation is marriage. In England it is done by marriage or also by leaving the paternal house because of entrance into religion, military service, or domestic service; in the U.S.A. by valid marriage and consent of parents, if these no longer support the child.

A family council, which supplies the parents, at least through assistance furnished to the tutor in graver acts, is not had everywhere. Thus, in Germany, the province of the family council is entrusted to the tribunal of guardianships, so that only extraordinarily is a family council constituted (art. 1858 ff., Civil Code). But no mention of a family council is had in English or U.S.A. law; none exists in the Argentine republic, where it is supplied by the Ministry of minors.

3. Concerning the subject of paternal power. Sometimes paternal power is possessed by each parent, so that in case of dissent the opinion of the father prevails: thus in Germany, in the Argentine republic; elsewhere, as in Spain, it pertains to the father and, he failing, to the mother; elsewhere it is lost by a widow if she enters a second marriage (either simply, or unless by the former husband before death it is continued to the widow even for this case); while elsewhere, for example in Venezuela, it is preserved even then, with the administration of goods excepted, unless this is confirmed to her by the tribunal; in the Mexican republic, paternal power is exercised also, in their order, by paternal and maternal grandfathers and grandmothers; while in the Chilean republic the rights of paternal power do not pertain to the mother. In England, the right of paternal power indeed passes to the widow, yet so that the will of the father concerning the religion of his offspring remains to be executed. Yet the tribunal has and exercises broad power of ordering matters otherwise for the better utility of descendants.

4. Concerning the amplitude of paternal power. Usually, besides direction of the person, paternal power also embraces administration of the goods of children. Yet not so in the U.S.A. and England, where the curator of the person and the curator of the patrimony are distinguished. Yet regularly the father, or, he failing, the mother, will be deputed by the magistrate to administer goods.

The legal usufruct of parents exists neither in the U.S.A. nor in England.

5. Concerning liberty of marriage. There are regions where, at least for Catholics, the canonical regime of marriage is acknowledged by civil law. Thus the Spanish Civil Code, which therefore reserves civil marriage to those who do not profess the Catholic faith. Besides, other regions are ignorant of the artificial institution of civil marriage, so that, in whatever form mutual consent is expressed, it validly joins spouses also in the civil forum, provided certain conditions are fulfilled. Thus, in the U.S.A., civil law of itself requires in the bridegroom the age of twenty-one completed years, in the bride, eighteen completed years. In several States, however, marriage between the pubescent is already civilly valid if consent is completed by cohabitation or by manifest undertaking of the offices of husband and wife. But other regions have imposed by law the juridical necessity of marriage called "civil." Thus in Germany, where it is required that the man be of greater age or declared greater, and that the woman have completed sixteen years. Other regions besides prescribe, not always under penal sanction, that civil marriage be celebrated before religious marriage. Thus in the Chilean republic; thus in Argentina, where nevertheless no penalty strikes priests who have blessed nuptials not yet civilly celebrated.

At the same time, however, art. 1588 declares that the religious obligations concerning marriage are preserved untouched by the civil law concerning marriage.

Usually, up to a certain age, the consent of parents or even of the tutor must be obtained. Yet often this is not a condition of validity.

In some States of the U.S.A., but not in all, the consent of the father, or, he being dead, of the mother, or, if both have died, of the tutor of the person, is to be obtained for validity by a bridegroom who has not yet completed twenty-one years and by a bride who has not yet completed eighteen years. Nuptials celebrated before twenty-one years without the consent of the father (if the child is legitimate) or of the mother (if illegitimate) are merely prohibited in Germany; and in Spain, nuptials made by a minor without the consent of the father, or mother, or paternal or maternal grandfather, or family council; in the Argentine republic, consent of the father or, the father failing, of the mother, is prescribed to be obtained by minors of twenty years; in the Chilean republic consent is prescribed up to the age of twenty-five years. In the Venezuelan republic no consent is to be sought from a man who has completed twenty-one years and from a woman who has completed eighteen years.

Sometimes the consent of parents can be supplied by the tribunal. Thus, in Germany, if the son or daughter have been declared of greater age, the tribunal of guardianships can supply consent. In England also broad power is possessed and exercised by the tribunal.

Finally, even after the age at which consent must be obtained, it happens that counsel must be sought for lawfulness. Thus, in Spain, the counsel of the father, or, the father failing, of the mother, must be sought.

Piety toward parents imposes on children two absolute offices, perpetual and defined by the natural law itself: love and reverence; from the very necessity of children there arises for them the office of obedience, which supposes parents set over the institution of children, ceases when the necessity ceases, and is more determined by positive human law. In those three offices its own specific ratio is in each; although they are often exercised together.

Nor do they destroy the common offices of justice and charity; indeed, when they concur with them, they urge the same more gravely. Love induces concord, effective benevolence (in the necessity of parents); and under grave obligation forbids a child to inflict grave and reasonable sadness on parents. Reverence demands an internal affection of esteem and an external signification of honor: it is harmed by disdain, contempt, shame, striking; gravity is to be weighed from the adjuncts. Obedience is to be furnished within the limits of the power of parents, yet so that the disobedient, as such, violate no title other than that of piety. Conscious children, as regards the salvation of the soul, are in their own right, so that they can always embrace the true religion and practice piety in an approved manner. Nor can a definite state be imposed by parents. Yet of itself parents are to be consulted concerning marriage; and a child sins against obedience who enters nuptials against a reasonable prohibition of parents.

There exists besides the civil institution of paternal power, which today is sufficiently similar almost everywhere, yet varies in various nations as to the faculty of contracting nuptials, the age and mode of emancipation, and rights concerning the goods of children.

Consult, besides the cited authors, Berardi, Theol. mor. (1905), I, n. 621; Koch, 166; special works and opuscula, for example Guilmont, La culture de l'ame dans l'enfance; Meschler, Principes d'educ. cathol.; Toublan, Directeur des Meres chretiennes, La Jeune Fille chret.; Diessel, Ratschlage; Berthier, La jeune Fille, la Mere, le jeune Homme, l'Homme; Becker, Christl. Erziehung, etc.

By reason of the threefold respect which parents have toward children, children are held to exhibit to parents duties of a threefold genus, which are declared in the following principles.

One and the same piety imposes filial love, reverence, and obedience. Nevertheless he who offends against these three commits a sin diverse in species. Thus, for example, he who in the presence of his parents, from hatred, curses them, has two sins diverse in species, one against love, the other against due reverence.

694. Principles. I. By reason of origin, children are held to exhibit love to parents, even from piety. This is established from natural right, by which gratitude is especially commanded, on account of the greatest benefit of existence and education received from parents. Moreover gratitude necessarily wishes good to parents, which is the same as to love. That love toward parents must be both internal, by which children from the soul wish them well and desire goods for them, and external, by which, according to their powers, they avert evils from them, attest their benevolence to them, and kindly come to their aid when they are constituted in necessity.

Piety through itself urges more strictly; because it imposes obligation not from a common title, but from a special and personal title; and thus a fault which is light if it is committed toward strangers can be grave if directed against parents, because perhaps it will be the occasion of greater sorrow.

Hence: 1. Children sin gravely, both against charity and against the love of piety, who, deliberately and in notable matter, are borne toward parents with ill will, indignation, hatred; - who exhibit signs of hatred toward them, treat them harshly; who look at them with grim eyes, and address them so bitterly as if they hated them; who provoke them to grave indignation, and gravely sadden them; - who wish evil to them, for example death, so that thus they may more quickly obtain possession of their inheritance; who in a notable matter speak evil of them, or calumniate them; who by evil arts impede them from making a testament, or, having already entered into their inheritance, do not execute their last will.

2. Similarly they sin gravely, at least against the love of piety, who do not furnish food to them when reduced to want; - who do not visit them when worn out by disease, old age, or sorrow, and leave them without consolation; - who do not succor them when they are in spiritual necessity, for example by not taking care that, when dangerously sick, they receive the sacraments of the dying; - who dissemble, as if they did not know them; - who, when they have already departed this life, neglect that the funeral rites and suffrages of the Church be paid, in a manner congruous to their condition (III, 333; Instr. catech., P. I, c. 4, n. 1).

Note. In most regions, civil laws agreeing with natural right drive children to this, that they supply FOOD to father and mother, and to other ascendants who are in necessity, that is, food, clothing, and habitation. And indeed this obligation binds children in solidum. In a similar way, son-in-law and daughter-in-law are held to feed father-in-law and mother-in-law. Nevertheless the obligation ceases when the mother-in-law enters a new marriage; likewise it ceases when there die both the spouse who had induced the affinity and the children of this spouse, procreated from the marriage which had been the cause of the affinity.¹

As regards children who would wish to enter Religion, see n. 2137.

695. II. By reason of the personal dignity of parents, children are held to exhibit to them reverence and honor: reverence, so that they acknowledge their dignity, and thence conceive, as they say, reverential fear; honor, so that externally by words, signs, and deeds they profess their preeminence. This is established from Sacred Scripture saying (Deuter., 27, 16): Cursed is he who does not honor his father and mother; and elsewhere (Eccli., 3, 9): In deed and speech, and all patience, honor thy father. Reason supports it: for where there is a special dignity of a person, there special observance is owed.

Hence, children sin gravely, of themselves, against reverence:

1. By an internal act, if they contemn parents in the heart.

2. By word, if in the presence of parents they cast curses or insults against them, calling them, for example, mad, drunk, beasts, thieves, poisoners, wicked. But if they call them "old, ignorant, stupid, etc.," they are not absolutely to be condemned of mortal sin, unless they gravely sadden them thereby. Likewise, "if a son should mock a parent, or utter evil prayers against him, without a depraved mind and secretly, I would not know," says St. Alphonsus, "how to condemn him of mortal sin" (H. Ap., VII, 2).

3. By sign, if they contemn them by laughter, derision, gesture. Likewise, if when advanced to dignities or made rich, from pride they either despise or neglect them, or refuse to know them, or even, which not rarely happens, blush because of them. Nevertheless a son is excused from mortal sin who, on account of a just cause and without internal contempt, pretends that he does not know them, or refuses to have them at his house, for example because they are marked by an infamous crime, or because he himself would suffer grave harm therefrom; provided he furnishes necessary things to them. And the reason is that in such a case the parents themselves are not judged to be gravely or reasonably unwilling (III, 334).

4. By deed, if deliberately and with sufficient advertence they strike them, even lightly; indeed if they only raise a hand, or seize an instrument for striking. Likewise, if in court they accuse them of a crime, though true; for nature itself shrinks from this. - Except the case of heresy, treason, or conspiracy against the prince, if there is no other mode of correcting: for the common good must be preferred to private good (cf. n. 2308). It is also licit for children in court to seek goods owed to them by strict right, which parents unjustly deny to restore.

696. III. By reason of authority, children are held to furnish obedience to parents in all licit things, and in things pertaining to their care, as long as they remain under their power. For children, being born in domestic society, are by this very fact members of the same society, for directing which toward the common good paternal power presides. Sacred Scripture agrees, saying (Ephes., 6, 1): Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is just.

We have said 1. In all licit things; for as parents cannot command the things which are forbidden by God, so neither can children obey them when they command forbidden things, according to what was said n. 692.

2. In things pertaining to the care of parents, namely to the governance of the house, to good morals, to the salvation of the soul. For in these things parents have not only the right, but also the office of commanding.

Otherwise, if it is a question of choosing a state of life, of preserving virginity, and similar things, in which pubescent children are of their own judgment, as will be said in its own place (n. 1951, 1; n. 2137, 2). Meanwhile it should be noted that children are held to seek the counsel of parents if there is question of entering marriage; nevertheless there is not given to them a necessity under grave obligation of following the counsels given. If it is a question of a priestly or religious vocation, the whole business must be brought to its end before God, with the confessor and competent authority helping. But what must be done if parents compel one to enter marriage, see n. 700.

3. As long as they remain under their power; for the power of the father is not perpetual, as perpetual is his right to the love and reverence of offspring. This power ceases when the office of education of the offspring or of domestic governance ceases, for example when children begin to have a hearth separate from the father (cf. n. 698).

697. • From what has been said you will gather: Children sin gravely against obedience, namely by a special sin, and therefore one to be declared in confession, if they refuse to obey parents seriously commanding: 1. In a grave and just matter which regards good morals, for example if children frequent taverns, theaters, and other dangerous places, if they play harmful games; if daughters go out of the house at night, if with suitors, or even with other youths, witnesses being removed, they converse (III, 335; H. Ap., VII, 3).

2. In a grave and just matter which regards the salvation of the soul, for example if against the formal precept of parents they neglect to satisfy the duties which religion imposes; if they neglect to assist at Mass and other pious functions; if for a notable time they abstain from the reception of the sacraments, etc.

3. In a grave and just matter which regards the governance of the house, for example if they refuse to furnish work formally imposed, of great moment certainly; if, because of sloth, they neglect to devote themselves to the study of letters, or to learn an art which befits their condition; if without grave cause they flee from the paternal house. But otherwise, if flight happens on account of a grave cause, for example because in the paternal house there is for them a proximate occasion of sinning which they would not find elsewhere, or because they are treated too harshly, and there is no hope that a change of things will soon follow. - In practice, nevertheless, not rarely the disobedience of children, even in a grave matter, is excused from mortal sin, both because of levity of mind and inadvertence, and more often because of defect of a rigorous precept (cf. n. 325, q. 2 and n. 692).

Note. a) What matter is to be judged grave must be defined by prudent judgment: generally it will be that by whose omission parents, domestic order, or the temporal or spiritual good of children would suffer grave detriment. In these also observe that one act of rebellion less easily constitutes a mortal sin.

b) Let the confessor take care that, in questioning children concerning their threefold obligation toward parents, he not proceed inconsiderately. For often, only incidentally and obscurely, they accuse themselves concerning their manner of acting, although it is very bad; and hence it happens that easily, and without fruit of amendment, they obtain the benefit of absolution. Therefore, their character and their education having been known, they must be asked whether they have gravely harmed father or mother by words, what they did, and with what plan; for there must be attended to the effect of exasperation, sadness, etc., caused in the parent without just motive, and at least confusedly foreseen by the child.

698. • PATERNAL POWER is the right which by force of laws belongs to the father, and subordinately to the mother, over their offspring and over the goods of the offspring. 1. As regards the persons of children, the law everywhere in force imposes on parents the obligation of furnishing food and education according to the condition of fortune and status. It confers the right of custody, whether in the paternal home or in a house of education, and the right of moderate correction. - 2. As regards goods, there will be discussion in the treatise on justice (n. 858). This power indeed arises from the very right of nature; but it belongs to civil law to determine how far this power extends itself, as regards public effects, and when and how it is extinguished. - When parents are lacking, paternal power is conferred on a guardian, beside whom stands a family council under the vigilance of a judge.

Children are distinguished as legitimate or illegitimate. Illegitimate children, that is, those born outside legitimate marriage, are either spurious, that is, incestuous, adulterine, sacrilegious, that is, procreated from parents between whom, at the time when they were conceived and born, by reason of consanguinity, or bond, or solemn vow, marriage could not be contracted; or natural, that is, born from parents who at the time of conception were indeed not joined in marriage, but capable of contracting it.

Natural children can be recognized, in which case they enjoy the rights determined by law; or they can even be legitimated by subsequent marriage, and then they are equated with legitimate children, and the Church herself admits legitimation of this kind (cf. Ferraris, v. Son). Let each person see under what conditions the law grants such legitimation (French Code, 331; German, 1732; Austrian, 160-162). Spurious offspring ordinarily cannot be legitimated before civil law. But the supreme power in the Church can grant such legitimation. See n. 1962.

In FRANCE (art. 371-515) paternal power, which belongs to the father, and, he being dead, absent, or interdicted, to the mother, lasts until the majority or emancipation of the child. Moreover, a son, likewise a daughter, obtains majority as soon as he has completed the 21st year. Emancipation happens by the law itself through marriage; it can also be granted by the father, or, the father being lacking, by the mother after the 15th year has been completed; or, both parents having died, by the family council, but after the 18th year has been completed. The emancipated person has the right of directing his own person and administering all his goods, a curator nevertheless assisting. But as regards marriage, a son before the 25th year completed, and a daughter before the 21st year completed, cannot contract it without the consent of parents; if the parents disagree among themselves, the consent of the father suffices.

In SPAIN, paternal power ceases: 1. by privation: a) if a widowed mother enters a second marriage, unless the husband, by testament, established the contrary as regards those not emancipated; but the mother, if she again becomes a widow, recovers it; b) if father or mother by sentence of a judge are declared incapable because of crime or divorce; but the lost power is restored when the effect of the sentence ceases; c) or if the child, the parents consenting, is adopted by another (Spanish Code, 168-177);

2. by emancipation; and this is a) absolute, by majority, which son and daughter obtain after the 23rd year has been completed. Nevertheless a daughter, even if of majority age, cannot desert the paternal house before the 25th year has been completed, unless for contracting marriage, or father or mother have entered second marriages; - b) relative, alpha) by the marriage of a minor, within the limits of the law (315), beta) by concession of the father, or, he being lacking, of the mother, but not before the 18th year has been completed, gamma) by concession of the family council to orphans of father and mother, but not before the 18th year has been completed, and with the judge of first instance approving. Emancipated persons can direct their own person and administer their goods. But as regards marriage they do not obtain independence in every way. Minors cannot contract without the consent of father or guardian; the father being lacking, without the consent of the mother, in whose default grandfather and family council successively furnish permission. Likewise those of majority age cannot marry without counsel sought from father or mother; but if these disagree, they can contract after three months.

Both request and consent must be established from an authentic document of a notary or judge. A marriage contracted without the counsel or consent of the father is valid; but the goods of the contracting parties will remain separate, nor can the spouses make donations to one another or receive them mutually, nor can a minor administer goods, and he has a right only to food. Spanish Code, 45, 47, 50. Widowers and widows, even minors, do not need the aforesaid license or counsel (ibid.).

In ITALY, the laws are nearly the same as in France. Yet a son can never be emancipated before the completed 18th year (art. 220 seq. and 311).

In AUSTRIA, sons and daughters are ordinarily of majority age and of their own right after the completed 24th year, but extraordinarily even before then, if the father, with the judge approving, expressly emancipates the children, or when the 20th year has been completed permits separate industry (a. 172 seqq.). Indeed, at the insistence of the father, paternal power can, from just causes, be prolonged beyond the 24th year. Besides, a minor daughter delivered in marriage, if the husband dies, returns under paternal power (art. 172-178).

In ENGLAND, the mother has the right of custody over children not yet seven years old; then the father, until they have completed the 21st year: at which age sons and daughters become of majority age and of their own right (Crolly, de Just., n. 466, 469).

In GERMANY, sons and daughters are of majority age after the completed 21st year. When the 18th year has been completed they can be emancipated by sentence of the guardianship tribunal, provided the minor himself and his parents, unless care of the children has been taken away from them, furnish consent. It is not licit for a minor, whether son or daughter, even after emancipation, to enter marriage without the consent either of the father, if he is legitimate, or of the mother, if he is illegitimate, or of the adopter, if he has been adopted (Civil Code, § 2 seq., § 1305 seq.). - As regards religious education, especially of those who arise from a mixed marriage, the whole matter is committed to the law of the particular States. Holy Mother Church is deservedly saddened by these things, because in many respects her rights are harmed. Let these be consulted: Dr. Geiger, Die religiose Erziehung der Kinder; Karl Schmidt, Konfession der Kinder; Lehmkuhl, Das burgerliche Gesetzbuch, where there are many very useful things.

Preliminary note. Just as children are held to honor their parents, so likewise parents are bound to this, that they bear diligent care for children. For the right of procreating and governing offspring was granted to them for this reason, that they may bring the offspring received to its end.

The following things also have force in relation to illegitimate offspring. For although their progenitors do not possess paternal power, nevertheless both are obliged, from natural right, to have care for those to whom they gave life. Many civil laws order the matter otherwise, so that the obligation of feeding the offspring regards the mother alone (cf. French Law, 340); but one cannot stand by this ordinance, not even after the sentence of a judge. See below n. 958. Better is the German Code, § 1705-1718.

In all these things there lies hidden a question of the greatest moment: Whether children possess rights against parents?

Resp. with St. Thomas: Insofar as each is a man, there is justice in some way toward them; but insofar as each belongs to the other, according to this the perfect notion of justice or right is lacking (2.2, q. 57, a. 2, ad 2). - Thus therefore children, as they are men, have a strict right to life, integrity of members, reputation, and honor. This assertion is confirmed by civil law. But children, as they are children, that is, something of the father, have a right to education and food, but of themselves only from charity, for they are destitute of help. But if parents are lacking, relatives or the community are held to supply. See what was said n. 398.

699. Principles. I. Parents, from a special precept, are held to love their children with internal and external love, and this rightly ordered. Nature itself promulgates this obligation, as is established from brute animals themselves, which love and nourish their offspring.

Hence, parents sin not only against charity, but specially against PIETY, more or less according to the gravity of the matter, who have hatred toward their own children, who utter evil prayers against them, who treat them too harshly, who do not succor them when constituted in necessity, who from defect of ordered love indulge them too much, etc., etc.

700. II. Parents are held to procure corporal education for children. He who gives being must also give the things consequent upon being; namely to have care of life, sustenance, and status (Inst. cat., P. I, c. 4, n. 12).

1. In relation to care of LIFE, parents are held, from the very conception of the offspring up to the time when the offspring is truly able to suffice for itself, to confer diligent care toward its preservation, and according to their powers to avert all things which could harm it.

Hence, of themselves they sin gravely: a) Women who bring the existence of the fetus into risk, for example by carrying burdens that are too heavy, sustaining labors that are too toilsome, indulging too much in anger, sadness, lust, and other passions. Cf. Capellmann, Med. past. b) Husbands who treat pregnant wives inhumanely, gravely strike them, exhaust them with excessive labors. c) Spouses who keep little infants with them in the same small bed, with danger of suffocation (cf. Rit. Rom., de Bapt. parv., 32); as also those who use no precautions lest some evil befall their little children through water, fire, animals, iron instruments, etc.

2. In relation to care of SUSTENANCE, parents are held to supply to children whatever things, according to their condition, are necessary for food, clothing, and habitation. They are obliged even if the children have dissipated their part; and therefore parents are held to pay debts which the children contracted for sustenance, but not for other things (H. Ap., VII, 4). See German Code, 1705; Spanish, 155.

Hence: a) The mother is held, under venial obligation, to nourish the infant with her own milk, unless perhaps she has a just excuse, for example that she is weak, noble, or very rich; but then she is held, under grave obligation, to provide for herself a faithful nurse, that is, one healthy and well-mannered.¹ b) Parents sin mortally by exposing offspring in a hospital or public places without just cause, such as can be very great want, or illegitimacy of offspring from a hidden crime;² likewise by casting children out of the house, or not furnishing necessary things, until they can suffice for themselves by their own industry.

3. In relation to care of STATUS, parents are held to procure for children such a condition of life that afterward they can live in a manner which befits their birth; for children ought not to store up treasure for parents, but parents for children (2 Cor., 12, 14). See St. Alph., III, n. 336; H. Ap., tr. VII.

Hence they sin: a) If they do not use at least moderate diligence to acquire goods by which children may be fed and may obtain an inheritance according to their status. b) If by squandering goods they render themselves unable to educate and endow them honorably according to their condition. c) If they do not take care that they go to school, provided the required cautions are present, that they learn an art, or embrace some genus of life by which they may be honorably sustained.³ d) If they unjustly disinherit them, or harm them in the legitimate portion; if they refuse to establish a patrimony for a son wishing to be promoted to sacred Orders; if they deny dowry or the legitimate part of inheritance to a daughter who, after the years of majority, celebrated marriage against their will. Nevertheless to this daughter, if before the years of majority she married an unworthy man, dowry is not owed, according to the more probable opinion; but food is owed to one in need. In a similar way, if a son, against the father's will, took a wife, the father is held to feed him in need and his wife. e) Finally parents sin gravely if they drive unwilling children to embrace a state, whether conjugal, religious, or especially priestly, or earnestly turn them away from such a state. They can be excused, at least for a brief time, by reason of ignorance or inadvertence, which can easily be admitted because of their excessive love (IV, n. 77).

701. III. Parents are held to procure spiritual education for children. Man, created to the image and likeness of God, has been elevated to a supernatural end. Therefore he must be directed to this end by parents. Whence St. Charles Borromeo (Hom. 31, to the people of Canobbio, 1583): "To educate," he says, "is to lead children to Christ."

But spiritual education requires four things for itself, namely instruction, vigilance, correction, and good example (Inst. cat., P. I, c. 4, n. 15-20).

1. It requires INSTRUCTION, according to that admonition of Scripture (Eccli., 7, 25): Hast thou children? instruct them ... from their childhood.

By force of this precept parents must take care: a) that either through themselves or through others fit for it, they instruct children in faith, in good morals, in the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, and in all things necessary for salvation (cf. n. 718);⁴ - b) that they instill into them the highest esteem and love of holy prayer, and render this very familiar to them; - c) that they imbue them with an affection of true devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God; for, as St. Alphonsus testifies, devotion toward the divine Mother is morally necessary for salvation.

2. It requires VIGILANCE. For more precious things are entrusted to parents than to a depositary with whom an earthly thing has been deposited.

Hence, parents sin gravely if they do not remove children from the dangerous amusements of the world, depraved companions, games, conversations, readings, etc.; if, for the sake of learning an art or serving, they place them far from themselves in such families where their faith or modesty is endangered; if they do not keep them away from conversations with persons of the different sex; if they permit boys and girls to sleep in the same small bed, etc.

3. It requires CORRECTION; and indeed serious correction, for Scripture says: He who spares the rod hates his son (Prov., 13, 24); discreet correction, for Scripture adds (Coloss., 3, 21): Fathers, do not provoke your children to indignation, lest they become of little spirit. Therefore first let them admonish, afterward threaten, finally chastise, without imprecation and harmful words.

4. It requires EXAMPLE. For words move, examples draw, especially children.

Therefore let parents conduct themselves cautiously in all things, and, especially in those things which pertain to the worship of God, furnish themselves as an example of good works. Parents sin most gravely when in the presence of children they blaspheme, mock religion, utter or do shameful things, detract from neighbor, or drive them to sin in any way whatsoever (H. Ap., VII, 5).

702. On the obligations of blood relatives and guardians.

1. Blood relatives are held, from piety, to mutual love, assistance, and reverence; more, however, or less, according as they approach parents more or less (cf. n. 484). - Whence he who affects a grandfather, great-grandfather, paternal uncle, paternal aunt, brother, sister, and probably collaterals in the second degree, with hatred or injury, or does not assist them in necessity, must, if otherwise the fault is grave, declare the circumstance of kinship in confession. Otherwise, if the degree is more remote (III, 340).⁵ Cf. what we said n. 687, I.

2. Guardians are held, by force of quasi-contract: a) to bear care of the ward, protect his person, correct him, and educate him in a Christian manner; - b) duly to administer the same person's temporal goods: and this according to the prescriptions of law, so that, the guardianship having ended, an account of all acts may be rendered before the family council, or the guardianship council for illegitimates, according to the rules of justice (see the treatise on Justice, n. 1039 seqq.).

Note. Piety alone can oblige to the same things, namely if someone is a proximate blood relative of the ward, and no other fit guardian or assistant guardian is found. Yet advert that it is not a light thing for Catholics to undertake the guardianship of non-Catholic wards, lest namely they seem to favor heresy by educating them in it; or, by not educating them, to violate the faith furnished to the testator and the court (III, 918; Kon., n. 434).

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

Children ought to love parents with love both internal, pursuing them with a pious and benevolent affection of heart, and external: 1) warding off from them every evil and notable injury; 2) exhibiting to them signs of external benevolence; and 3) aiding them according to their capacity when they are constituted in necessity.

420. You will resolve. - 1° Children sin gravely against the virtue of piety if interiorly they hold parents in hatred; exteriorly exhibit signs of hatred to them; treat them harshly, or look upon them with fierce eyes, just as if they had hatred.

2° A fortiori, if they wish evil to them, and death itself, that they may live more freely, or be able to possess their inheritance, or that they may be liberated from the care and custody of them; if they gravely detract from them before others; 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 on them without a just and grave cause, especially if they sadden them even to tears.

4° If they do not furnish food and other necessaries to parents gravely in need, compelling them to begging or to exercising an art unbecoming to their state; if they do not visit them when sick, afflicted, or worn by old age, or do not sympathize with them and refuse to bring help to them; but especially if they do not aid them in spiritual necessities, namely that Sacraments be administered to them in the article of death, etc. Finally, if, when they have departed this life, they do not take care that the obsequies and ceremonies of the Church be performed in a manner congruent with their condition, or do not pray for them.

421. • Children ought to exhibit to parents reverence both internal, so that they recognize them as Superiors and therefore also have reverential fear toward them; and external, which is placed in words and deeds.

422. You will resolve. - 1° Children sin gravely if they strike parents, even lightly, but injuriously. - Likewise if they show the will of striking, for example by raising the hand against them, or seizing a stick or another instrument for striking. Likewise if in any manner they threaten them with menaces of this sort, etc.

2° Likewise if from the soul or in their presence they curse them; or if they cast insults against them, and afflict them with injuries or contumelious words by which they know they will be gravely offended; if they gravely mock them with laughter, sneers, gesticulations, reproaches, derisions, fierce aspect, etc., provided nevertheless that these things are done from contempt, not from levity or simple rusticity.

3° Speaking of itself, they sin gravely if they reprehend them very proudly and bitterly, exasperate them by contradictions, or address them with harsh words, or without cause afflict them with grave sorrow; and a fortiori if through these things they provoke them even to grave anger; if they studiously refuse them the signs of reverence according to the custom of the fatherland 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 poor, wretched, badly clothed parents, or blush for them, or refuse to acknowledge them, or regard them as unknown and strangers. Except, however, if, with contempt and pride excluded, they pretend for a just cause that they do not acknowledge them, for example to avoid some inconvenience which the son would incur if his parents were known, etc.

Quaer. Do children sin gravely when striking or treating badly and irreverently parents who are dull, insane, delirious from old age, drunk, etc.?

Resp. Affirmatively, if they act from malice or contempt. - Negatively, if rebuke or some somewhat severer treatment is necessary for restraining parents lacking reason.

423. • Children ought to furnish obedience to parents in all things: 1) licit and honorable; 2) pertaining to their care; while 3) they live under their power.

424. You will resolve. - 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 want of consideration or defect of age excuses them in part. - Hence they sin:

a) If, notwithstanding the serious prohibition of parents, they frequent wicked companionships, games of chance or other games of this kind, or dangerous places, as taverns, dances, theaters, or other similar places; daughters especially sin who, against the will of parents or even without their knowledge, converse with suitors, or go out from the house by night, or speak alone with lovers.

b) If, with the command of parents neglected, they notably omit the Sacraments or other offices of religion; if they are unwilling to give attention to letters or arts congruent with their state, and thus consume time and render useless the expenses made for them.

c) If they refuse to execute those things which look much to the good governance and peace of the family, or if they wish to administer all things according to their own judgment, with the authority of the parents spurned, especially if they respond arrogantly and proudly: I will not do it; conduct your own business. - I do not want anything to be prescribed to me. - You bring weariness and disgust upon me, etc.

2° Yet not rarely in practice the disobedience of children can be excused from grave sin because of levity of mind, inadvertence, or because of a certain human negligence, and very often because of smallness of matter. Indeed they must often be judged immune from every fault because of defect of a rigorous precept on the part of the parents. For in order that a sin, especially a grave one, be committed against obedience, it is required that parents seem strictly to prescribe, not merely to advise, solicit, or signify their mind. But a true precept being enjoined is discerned from the serious or severe manner in which the matter is prescribed, and from other adjuncts, for example from the necessity and magnitude of the thing prescribed, from a penalty appended, etc.

3° But in depraved things children neither ought to obey nor can they. This is plain from natural law.

425. Questions. - Quaer. 1° Are children bound to obey parents in the choice of state?

Resp. Negatively, of itself, because: 1° God calling must be obeyed more than men contradicting; 2° in those things which pertain to the nature of the body, man is not bound to obey man, but God alone, because all men are equal by nature: "Hence... children are not bound to obey parents concerning contracting matrimony, or preserving virginity, or some other thing of this kind." St. Thomas.¹ Therefore parents sin gravely who compel unwilling children, either directly or even indirectly, to choose a state, whether religious, clerical, or conjugal; or on the contrary, if without a just cause they impede them, altogether unwilling, from choosing some state of life.

I said, of itself; for otherwise it must be said if parents, because of grave and reasonable causes, contradict children, for example if, constituted in grave necessity, they need the aid of the son, nor can he assist them here in another way except by remaining with them. - St. Alphonsus.²

Quaer. 2° Can children embrace the religious state without the knowledge of parents?

Resp. Affirmatively, of itself. Indeed sometimes the son will act more advisedly if, feeling himself divinely called to the religious or clerical state, and noticing that entrance will be unjustly closed against him by parents, he conceals the matter from them and executes the divine will. Yet this is not to be advised to children younger in age as often as the matter does not press so greatly, or it is not sufficiently established concerning the divine vocation.³

426. • Quaer. 3° Can children enter matrimony without consulting parents?

Resp. Negatively, generally speaking, as to liceity. See what is to be said in the Treatise on Matrimony, n. 1548. q. 8°-q. 10°.

Quaer. 4° What do our civil laws generally establish concerning the obligations of children toward parents?

Resp. I. Concerning the love to be exhibited to them by aiding them when they are constituted in necessity, neither the Common Law nor the Statutes of most States compel adult offspring to this, however rich.¹

II. Our laws prescribe love, reverence, and obedience in this sense, that they attribute to parents (that is, to the father, and, with him lacking, dead or legally impeded, to the mother, and, with both either dead or legally impeded, to the tutor) the right to everything which coheres with the sustenance and education of offspring, minor nevertheless. Hence among other things: a) the obligation of offspring to seek the consent of parents² for licitly entering matrimony; b) the right of domestic correction;³ c) the right of placing offspring with strangers so that they may learn some art or trade, which right nevertheless is variously limited in various States;⁴ d) the right that they can reclaim offspring from whatever place, for example from a monastery which the offspring had entered.

580. Children are bound to show their parents love, reverence, and obedience. This obligation arises from a threefold prerogative of parents: for parents gave existence to their children, upon whom piety or love is thereby enjoined; parents are constituted in dignity, and therefore observance or reverence is owed to them; and finally parents are the governors of education, and therefore children must obey them. This threefold obligation is grave from its genus, so that a child violating either the love, or the reverence, or the obedience owed to parents sins mortally; very often, however, on account of slightness of matter or imperfection of the act, he sins only venially.

a) As regards love. The love owed to parents must be affective and effective.

Affective love requires that children sincerely desire for their parents all truly useful goods, and consequently pray for them to God, the Greatest and Best. Children sin against affective love if they hold their parents in hatred, whether the hatred is one of abomination or of detestation; if they rejoice in their adversities and are saddened at their prosperity; if they wish death upon them; if they do not pray for them over a long period; or if from depraved egoism they desire the paternal inheritance. Hence the following proposition (14) was condemned by Innocent XI: "It is lawful with an absolute desire to wish for the death of one's father, not indeed as an evil of the father, but as a good of the one desiring it, because a rich inheritance is thereby going to come to him."⁹⁹⁶

Effective love demands that children show their parents external signs of love by speaking to them charitably, living peaceably with them, or, if they are absent, visiting them frequently; that they assist them in necessities by providing, for example, food, clothing, and housing, and this obligation binds the children in solidum; and that, insofar as this is morally possible, they offer them consolation and assistance when they are suffering from old age, illness, or some other adversity. Children must especially assist their parents in spiritual necessities, and therefore procure that parents near death receive the sacraments and that the deceased have suffrages. Children therefore sin if they unduly afflict their parents externally; if they subject them to injuries, insulting words, curses, or blows. The injurious striking of parents is almost always a mortal sin, because it includes an enormous irreverence. Indeed, in some dioceses the injurious striking of parents is a reserved sin. A curse seriously pronounced against parents is also a mortal sin. Hence God Himself established: "He that curseth father or mother, dying let him die."⁹⁹⁷ Children likewise sin gravely if they do not assist parents who are in grave necessity. Hence children cannot enter religious life if their parents gravely need their assistance; indeed, if a son had already made religious profession and could not otherwise assist parents in extreme or quasi-extreme necessity, he would be bound to leave religious life. This matter is treated more fully elsewhere.⁹⁹⁸

⁹⁹⁶ Denzinger, n. 1164.

⁹⁹⁷ Ex. 21:17; Matt. 15:4.

⁹⁹⁸ In our Manual of Canon Law, q. 205; cf. also S. theol. 2, 2, q. 101, a. 4 ad 4, and Cod. iur. can. c. 542.

581. It is asked: Is a son bound to pay from his own goods the debts of a father incapable of paying them?

First, an obligation of justice must be distinguished from an obligation of piety. From justice a son is bound to pay his father's debts if he received paternal goods which still remain. For the debts incumbent upon the father must always be subtracted from paternal goods, whether received by a gift inter vivos or by testament. But a son is not bound to repay the expenses which his father made for his education, since he has the right to receive the education owed to him at his father's expense. From piety a son is sometimes bound to pay his father's debts even if this cannot be done from goods received from his father, namely, if otherwise his father's honor would be gravely injured. Nevertheless, this obligation is not usually grave, and therefore from piety alone a son is not bound to pay his father's debts with grave inconvenience to himself. It was said above, n. 402, how a son is bound to fulfill his father's real vows.

b) As regards reverence.

582. The fourth precept of the Decalogue is expressed in these words: "Honor thy father and thy mother."⁹⁹⁹ But to honor, as the Roman Catechism says,¹⁰⁰⁰ "is to think honorably of someone and to esteem most highly all that belongs to him." Hence children must inwardly acknowledge the dignity of their parents and outwardly profess it by words, signs, and deeds.

Children therefore sin: 1. by words, if they address their parents with harsh, injurious, insulting, or cursing words, or speak of them in this manner; for example, if a son calls his father a stupid ass or a decrepit old man; 2. by signs, if they mock or despise them by gestures; 3. by deeds, if they strike them, cast them out of the house, or even raise a hand against them; 4. by omission, if they do not show the customary signs of reverence according to the usage of the country; for example, if they do not greet them, do not rise in their presence, or refuse to acknowledge them before others, unless, however, great harm to the child in goods of fortune or in honor would follow from the acknowledgment. For in that case the parents would not be reasonably unwilling if, in those circumstances, they did not exact acknowledgment from their children.¹⁰⁰¹ Nevertheless, the case in which true harm arises to a child from acknowledging his parents even before others and treating them honorably is exceedingly rare.

c) As regards obedience.

⁹⁹⁹ Ex. 20:12.

¹⁰⁰⁰ Part 3, c. 5, q. 3.

¹⁰⁰¹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 5, n. 334.

583. Children are obliged to execute the commands of their parents in all lawful things pertaining to their care. Hence St. Paul¹⁰⁰² admonishes: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just." "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord." This obligation of obedience is grave of itself, namely, if the parents gravely and seriously command in grave matter. Hence St. Paul calls those disobedient to parents worthy of death.¹⁰⁰³ But for a mortal sin to arise from such disobedience, it is required: a) that the parents seriously command, and not merely admonish or exhort; b) that grave matter be present. What matter is truly grave can scarcely be determined by a general rule. Yet in general it can be said that matter is grave when its omission causes grave harm either to the child or to the family. Hence, for example, a son sins gravely if he does not obey a father who severely prohibits continual drunkenness, fornications, very bad company in taverns, etc.

Note. The obedience owed to parents, even in lawful things, has two limitations:

¹⁰⁰² Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20.

¹⁰⁰³ Cf. Rom. 1:32.

584. 1. As regards its duration. Children must render obedience to their parents for as long as they live under paternal power. But as soon as they have attained majority or have been emancipated, they are now sui iuris and are no longer bound to obey.

A son is ordinarily considered of age, or a major, upon completing his twenty-first year; but he can be emancipated before that time according to the diverse modern civil laws, as was said above, n. 26ff., in the tract on justice. If a son who is of age or emancipated freely remains in his father's house, he is not exempted from the obligation of obeying. A minor son cannot lawfully, against the wishes of his parents, seek his livelihood or live outside his father's house, unless this has been granted to him by legitimate authority. On the contrary, a son who is of age or emancipated can lawfully live outside his father's house, and then he is no longer bound to obey his parents. Nevertheless, a good son always endeavors, according to his ability, to comply with the will of his parents. Although the obligation of obedience sometimes ceases, the obligation of love and reverence toward parents never ceases and is equally incumbent upon children who are of age and those who are minors.

585. 2. As regards the choice of a state of life, children are free by natural law itself and are not bound to obey their parents.

The reason is that in those things which pertain to the preservation of the individual and of the species all men are equal,¹⁰⁰⁴ and it is a great injustice to force one's neighbor into some state of life upon which his earthly and heavenly salvation not rarely depends. Two kinds of states of life are customarily distinguished: primary states, of which there are three, namely, the religious, clerical, and matrimonial states; and secondary states, which are offices rather than immutable states of life, for example, the state of a shoemaker, an advocate, a physician, etc. All theologians teach that a child is free in the choice of a primary state of life, and that parents sin if they force a child to embrace such a state. Hence St. Alphonsus¹⁰⁰⁵ rightly says: "Parents sin gravely who force their children, even indirectly, and against their will to choose a state of life, whether clerical or conjugal; or, conversely, if they unjustly withdraw them, even without force or fraud, from the religious, clerical, or conjugal state, without just cause." On account of the grave necessity of parents, children are sometimes prohibited from entering the religious state, as was said above. But if the necessity is only light, or if a son is wholly incapable of relieving the necessity of his parents, he can freely enter religious life.

It is often not even expedient that a son who wishes to embrace the clerical or religious state ask the counsel of his parents, if they appear to lack sufficient knowledge of these matters and, especially, an unimpaired and untroubled power of judgment. But before a son, after serious deliberation, actually embraces the religious or clerical state, he ought to ask his parents' consent, which, if unduly denied, can be passed over. For then God calling must be obeyed more than parents resisting, since Christ says: "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."¹⁰⁰⁶ But if it is a question of contracting marriage with a particular person, then children are bound to seek the counsel and ordinarily also the assent of their parents, because both prudence and piety and reverence, at least commonly, so require. For children, blinded by a mad love, often wish to contract a marriage which will certainly tend toward their own ruin and the disgrace of the family. But if the parents unreasonably refuse to assent to the marriage to be contracted, the child is no longer bound to obey; indeed, the parents themselves easily sin gravely by unduly impeding or even delaying their child's marriage, since they are often the cause of many sins of incontinence and hatred, or even of despair.

As regards the choice of a secondary state of life, or of a profession, as they say, for example, the medical art, the shoemaker's art, etc., children must obey their parents to some extent. Hence children sin who, against the will of their parents, wish to embrace a profession full of dangers or unsuited to their condition; but, on the other hand, parents also sin who for insufficient motives force a child to practice some art which brings him weariness or to which his abilities are less suited.

¹⁰⁰⁴ S. theol. 2, 2, q. 104, a. 5.

¹⁰⁰⁵ L.c., n. 335.

¹⁰⁰⁶ Matt. 10:37.

586. Scholion. On the obligation of an illegitimate child. A child born outside a legitimate bed, unless afterward legitimated, has neither the same rights nor the same obligations as a legitimate child. Modern civil laws are accustomed accurately to determine the rights and obligations both of the illegitimate child and of his parents. He must render love, reverence, and obedience to one or the other parent, namely, to the one who provides for his education. But he owes nothing to the other parent, who cares nothing for his education, because that parent inflicts upon him, in addition to the injury of an undue generation, also the injury of an education denied or neglected. For by natural law both parents of an illegitimate child are bound to provide for the education of the offspring begotten. What modern laws establish concerning the manner and expenses of the education of illegitimate offspring is sufficiently just and appears to bind in conscience, at least after the sentence of a judge. If, however, the father induced the woman to carnal intercourse by force or grave fraud, then he himself is the unjust damager and consequently is bound to repair all the damages which arose from his unjust action. Therefore he must not only bear the expenses of the education of the illegitimate offspring, but also indemnify the mother. Cf. what was said above, n. 147ff., concerning reparation for an injury arising from defloration or adultery.

I. Obligations of children. - Children ought to render four duties to parents: special love, reverence and honor, obedience, and assistance in spiritual and temporal necessities, as is usually set forth in moral theology.¹

¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae Moralis, II, nn. 810-817.

These constitute the necessary foundation or formal exercise of the virtue of piety.

II. Children sin against parents, and indeed by a special sin grave of itself:

1. Against love, if they hate them or despise them, if they show signs of hatred toward them or treat them harshly as if they hated them, if they are the cause that they are deservedly saddened, especially if gravely, if they wish a grave evil to them or deliberately rejoice over it against the order of charity.

2. Against reverence and honor, if they afflict them with harsh or insulting words, or with words by which they know them to be gravely offended; if they look upon them with a grim eye; if they cast curses or abuse upon them; if they strike them or raise a hand to strike them, unless this would be necessary for preserving their own life or integrity of body; if they are unwilling to acknowledge poor parents from contempt or shame, or with grave sadness to them, unless this is done from true grave necessity and contempt being excluded; if they accuse them in judgment of a crime even true, unless the crime were of such a kind against the common good that it had to be denounced.

3. Against obedience, if they are rebellious or contumacious against the express and just commands of parents; if in a grave matter pertaining to morals, education, salvation of the soul, or governance of the house they do not listen to them; if against their right will they contract marriage with an unworthy person, from which, all circumstances considered, grave disgrace would follow for the family; if they choose a state without consulting parents in circumstances in which these can deservedly be offended.

4. Against assistance, if they do not supply food and other necessities to poor parents who cannot honestly support themselves; if they neglect parents in infirmity, or do not call a physician when they can; if in danger of death they neglect to admonish them or to provide the necessary sacraments; if they maliciously impede them from making pious legacies, or do not fulfill those made; if they do not assist the dead by Christian suffrages.

They sin: a) by a special sin, because hatred of or injury against parents adds to the sin a new species against the special love or piety due to parents;

b) grave of itself, for hatred, malevolence, contempt, or injury, which with respect to another would be light, are easily graver with respect to parents, to whom before others we owe love, reverence, and dutiful service more strictly. Nevertheless the sin can be light either from lightness of matter, or accidentally by reason of age, infirmity, dull judgment, or deficient education. Hence Reuter notes, Neo-conf., n. 138:

If someone accuses himself in general of disobedience or irreverence against parents, the disposition and age of the penitent are to be considered.

a) Therefore if the age is tender, the offense can be supposed not grave.

b) But if the age is more advanced and the disposition seems bold, one must inquire concerning the manner of irreverence and the matter of disobedience; for those things which with respect to others, in the matter of hatred, insult, malevolence, and contempt, are moderate, with respect to parents are grave for children, because after God they are nearest to them.

c) Moreover, custom and the estimation of the people must also be considered, so that judgment may be made concerning the gravity of children's irreverence against parents.

d) But if a child doubts whether the cause for doing or omitting something by which a parent can be gravely afflicted is just, he is bound to abstain, because possession is in favor of the parent; indeed, although it is certain that the parent's exacerbation arises from malevolence or from his difficult and morose nature, nevertheless piety requires that the child avoid, so far as he can, every occasion of exacerbating him.

e) If, however, the exacerbation arises beyond the child's foresight, it is not imputed to him.

III. Children are to be questioned, especially older ones:

1. Whether they have not gravely injured the love due to parents by gravely saddening them or by denying assistance to them.

2. Whether they have transgressed express commands of parents in a grave matter, "as it would be, that they should not go out of the house at night, that they should not play harmful games, that they should not keep company with bad companions, or persons of the other sex, and the like," as St. Alphonsus has, Praxis Conf., n. 34.

3. Whether they have committed grave irreverence against parents by words or deeds, such as by imprecations or grave injuries inflicted in their presence.

In a case of insult inflicted, children are bound to restore the injured honor to them, and indeed of itself by asking pardon in the presence of those in whose sight they sinned. In practice, however, this act is for the most part not to be enjoined, but only advised, especially to boys; for afterward they often either fear to execute it or do not care to, and therefore parents are presumed for the most part to remit this obligation to their children, lest the children again incur an offense of God.²

² Aertnijs, Th. P., n. 36, according to St. Alphonsus, l. c.

IV. Children are to be admonished concerning their obligations toward parents:³

³ See Reuter, Neo-conf., n. 147.

1. If a child accuses himself of disobedience, let him be admonished to remember the greater benefits of parents, and the command of God requiring obedience toward those who hold His place on earth; wherefore a disobedient child has no blessing of God to expect. Especially if the parents are of modest condition, let him remember how many things they have borne for the children, how many nights they have passed sleepless, how many troubles they still sustain so that they may be able to support them honestly and provide for them in the future; wherefore he is unworthy to increase these inconveniences, or to deny them help or the required labor.

2. If a child has gravely offended parents either by disobedience, or by imprecation or injury of honor, let him be admonished, on returning home, to ask pardon and promise amendment; or, if he seems likely to do this only with difficulty, to satisfy his debt by gentle words and ready services, and to reconcile them to himself. Generally, however, it is not expedient to impose on younger persons the obligation of asking pardon for a determinate matter, because it is beyond their strength.

3. If a child complains of a parent's partiality, and thinks that he is treated more harshly while another is favored, let him be asked whether that other is perhaps more reverent toward the parent: if so, let him do likewise; otherwise let him strive in all things to gratify the parents, so that he may not be loved less. Nor is greater love of one child always marked by partiality: thus, if one more virtuous is esteemed more, or if one younger or weaker is loved with more tender affection, another or the older by birth is not therefore objectively loved less than he ought to be. But if the parent truly treats him more harshly, let him be commanded either to be silent or to answer kindly and reverently; for nevertheless the parent remains an eminent benefactor after God and one representing Him among children, who is to be treated with every reverence; and the kindly reverence of the child will be crowned with God's blessing, just as it is apt to conquer and soften the parent's mind.

4. But if, to excuse disobedience and irreverence, the child complains of the father's unfitness for managing the household and his dissipation of it, let him be admonished that he himself should watch over matters more diligently; that when the father is drunk or angry he should be silent; that when he is well disposed he should kindly and reverently ask him to take counsel for his own affairs and for theirs, if this seems opportune; or that he should take care that the father be brought back to better things through a prudent man, such as the pastor, confessor, or a friend; meanwhile let him not omit to pray often and fervently to God for him.

5. If a child is detected as unjust toward the goods or rights of parents, let him be admonished:

a) that concerning things granted to him by the father he cannot dispose except according to the will of the father; but concerning his own things, if he has any, he is bound to provide for his own sustenance, indeed to assist the grave necessity of parents or siblings;

b) that to take secretly from the goods of parents unduly is a sin of injustice, and indeed grave if it concerns a grave thing and they are gravely unwilling, as easily happens if money is taken for forbidden games, drinking bouts, luxury, and other things merely useless or vicious;

c) that injustice committed of itself induces the obligation of restitution. Yet in practice he is not to be forced to this unless he can restore and the grave obligation is certain, nor unless the father is rightly judged not to have condoned it. But what quantity in the case is grave cannot be defined by one rule, but must be judged according to the state of the parents, their resources, affection toward the children, the multitude of children, and the end for which the thing was taken. Thus, if the parents are rich, liberal toward their own, the children few, and the thing is taken for honest uses, the parents are less unwilling, at least as to the substance, than if they are of moderate fortune, frugal, have numerous offspring, or the thing is taken for dishonorable uses.⁴ Therefore all these things are to be considered, lest either a conscience of mortal sin be too easily thrust upon children, or the reins be loosened for stealing.

⁴ Ibid., nn. 143-144.

Concerning this argument it is customary to speak more fully and accurately in the treatise on Justice.

V. Duties of parents. - Parents owe to children: special love, true and sincere, but moderated by Christian prudence; bodily education or care of life, food, and good health; instruction and spiritual education; and provision of a state suitable to the condition and disposition of the children; these things are declared in moral theology.

VI. Parents sin against children:

1. Against love: by defect indeed if they hate them or afflict them with insults, wish evil to them, do not care to provide a good necessary to them or to avert evil from them if they can; but by excess if they love them too much so that they permit them all things, or prefer one to others without sufficient reason.

2. Against bodily care: if they harm offspring already conceived, the mother, for example, by working immoderately, dancing, carrying heavier burdens; the father by exasperating or gravely beating a pregnant wife with danger to the fetus; if the mother, when she can, is unwilling to nurse the offspring, especially with great harm to it, or, when she cannot, does not provide concerning a nurse of good health and honest life, or concerning another suitable means; if parents deny food and other necessities to children or do not employ diligence in procuring them; if without grave necessity they expose offspring in public ways or at the doors of a hospital so that they may free themselves from the burden of providing for it.

3. Against spiritual education, if they compel a child to enter religion, or impede him from it without a just reason; likewise if they truly compel children to determinate marriages; or if they prohibit marriage, unless this is done for a grave and just cause; if they do not care that children be instructed in the true religion and in Christian life; if they send them to heretical or non-Catholic schools, or even to neutral or mixed schools without grave reason and sufficient caution by which the danger of perversion is averted; if they give children bad example; if they do not watch over them, permit them to frequent wicked company, foster illicit loves, make dangerous readings, and do not procure that they fulfill their duties; if they do not correct delinquent children, or, where it is necessary, do not punish them; or, on the contrary, inflict excessive punishments.

4. Against provision of state, if they do not care that children learn a trade or letters so that they may be able to live honestly according to their condition; if they dissipate their goods and have no care of the household estate, by which they may provide for children or leave them an inheritance, so that they may be able to arrive at a suitable state and live honestly.

The sins are grave from their kind; but in individual cases whether parents sin gravely or only lightly must be judged from the gravity of the matter, harm, injury, and from the accompanying circumstances.

VII. Parents are to be questioned:⁵

⁵ Aertnijs, Th. P., n. 36, according to St. Alphonsus, Praxis conf., nn. 35 and 177.

1. Whether they have been negligent in the education of children, by not taking care that they learn Christian doctrine, attend Mass, frequent the sacraments, and avoid wicked companions.

2. Whether they have sent children to Catholic schools, if such are present.

819. Offices of piety in general. - By natural and divine law, under grave obligation, from piety we owe parents a) something per se, that is, that which befits parents insofar as they are parents: 1) the service of love, because they are more closely joined to us and indeed by a special conjunction, for after God they are the principles of our being and greatest benefactors; 2) honor and reverence, because they are our superiors, preeminent in dignity and excellence (Ex. XX, 12; Deut. XXVII, 16; Eccli. III, 1-18; VII, 29; Eph. VI, 2-3; Tob. IV, 3); 3) the service of submission, namely, obedience, because they are governors deputed by God for children (Prov. I, 8; Eph. VI, 1; Col. III, 20); b) something per accidens, that is, by reason of a special circumstance: 4) spiritual and corporal assistance insofar as necessity requires it (Mt. XV, 4 sq.). These are owed respectively to parents by reason of cause, by reason of preeminence, by reason of governance, and by reason of necessity.

The first is an office of natural love and charity, which is presupposed to piety as a necessary foundation; the second and third are formally the proper offices of piety; the fourth is an office of each, which is built upon all the aforesaid.

From these things it follows: 1) hatred, malevolence, personal injury, contempt, which with respect to another would be light, are easily graver with respect to parents, because we owe them love, worship, and service more strictly than to others; 2) those who sin by hatred or injury against parents add to the sin a new species against the special love owed to parents or against piety.

820. The office of love and assistance. - Children are bound to pursue their parents with the highest love after God, and this both affective in the heart and effective in word and work, both internal, by willing them the greatest goods, and external, by praying for their salvation both corporal and spiritual and by exhibiting that love by exterior signs. Thus always and per se; but sometimes per accidens, by reason of necessity, they ought to manifest it by special corporal and spiritual support or help. Hence:

A. Children sin gravely 1) by defect of internal love, if they hate their parents or interiorly despise them; if they rejoice over their adversity or grieve over their prosperity; a fortiori, if they wish evil to them, even death itself, so that they may live more freely, or may possess their inheritance, or may be freed from care and custody;

2. by defect of external love, if they show signs of hatred toward them, seriously detract from them, greatly sadden them, especially even to tears, for example, by frequenting evil companions, neglecting studies, prolonging vigils outside the house.

B. They sin especially by defect of assistance: 1) by defect of corporal assistance, if they do not come to the aid of parents constituted in grave necessity, even if the parents could provide for themselves by some art, but one unbefitting their state; likewise if they do not visit them when sick, console them when sad, defend them when unjustly vexed. This obligation is so strict that, according to St. Thomas, a. 4, ad 3 and 4, offspring are bound to defer entrance into religion and the state of marriage, indeed even not to enter religion, if the parents are in grave necessity and they can help them by remaining in the world: the reason is that this obligation is of the law of nature, while the state of religion or of marriage is a work of liberty. But if the parents were in extreme necessity, a son would even be bound to leave religion, unless there were another means of helping them; but the case scarcely occurs, because extreme necessity does not usually endure;

2. by defect of spiritual assistance, if they do not come to the aid of parents in grave spiritual necessity, for instance, if they neglect to admonish them in danger of death or to provide for them the necessary sacraments; if by evil arts they impede them from making a testament or from making dispositions or legacies for the salvation of the soul; if after their death they do not take care that funeral rites and other offices be celebrated according to their will or condition.

They are not bound to pay a father's debts, unless a) they receive paternal goods: then they are bound from justice; or b) otherwise the honor of the father would be greatly injured: then they are bound from piety, but not with grave inconvenience.

821. The office of reverence and honor. - Reverence demands both that interiorly we acknowledge parents as superiors preeminent in dignity, excellence, and authority participated from God, and therefore conceive reverential fear toward them, and that exteriorly by words, signs, and deeds we demonstrate this reverence.

By defect of reverence, generally children sin gravely against piety:

1. By words, if they deliberately curse their parents, speak ill of them, or cast insults upon them and affect them with injuries or contumelious words by which they know they will be gravely offended; if they provoke them to grave anger, often address them with harsh words, so that they seem to have hatred for them.

Grave irreverence is not to be taken so much absolutely as relatively to the conditions of the family and the customs of the place: what is a lighter irreverence toward a plebeian parent can be most grave if committed against a noble or honored one.

2. By signs, if by laughter or gesture they mock or deride them, or ridicule them by imitating their acts, whether in their presence or in their absence, if they frequently look at them with stern eyes; likewise if they despise poor, miserable, badly dressed parents, or are ashamed of them, or refuse to acknowledge them.

Except if, contempt being excluded, for a grave cause they pretend that they do not know them, for instance, to avoid some grave inconvenience, because then the parents themselves are not considered gravely or reasonably unwilling.

3. By deeds, if they strike their parents, even only lightly; indeed, if with sufficient deliberation they merely raise a hand or seize a stick for striking, even without the intention of striking; likewise if they repel them from the house, from their company; all these, even if they are light in themselves, are gravely repugnant to the reverence owed to parents. Likewise if they omit signs of reverence, such as speaking to them, greeting them, rising, etc., with ostentation or habitually. Likewise if they accuse them of a crime in the external forum, unless another means is lacking for avoiding a common or divine evil.

822. The office of obedience. - Children ought to obey parents in all licit things which pertain to their care, as long as they exist under their power. To the care of parents pertains the governance of the house and the education of children; moreover, children by majority, emancipation, or marriage become persons of their own right, but as to domestic discipline they are subject to parents as long as they live in the paternal house.

Children sin gravely by not obeying parents who command by a serious and rigorous precept in grave matter; but grave matter is that whose omission causes grave harm to the child or the family, as if disobedience conduces gravely to depraved morals, or greatly leads away from salvation, or notably harms in temporal things or honor; especially:

1. In those things which regard the discipline of life: a) as to good morals, if often against the prohibition of parents they frequent depraved company, dances, or other dangerous places, seek forbidden games, have altogether illicit courtships or friendships;

b) as to matters of eternal salvation, if they omit sacraments or other offices of religion, Mass, attendance at catechism, sermons, and prayers in notable matter.

2. In those things which regard domestic governance, if they obstinately refuse to furnish imposed work; if they gravely neglect to apply themselves to the study of letters or to learn an art suited to their condition, with loss of time and expenses; if without grave cause they flee from the paternal house; if against the will of their parents they marry an unworthy wife or marry an unworthy man with disgrace to the family.

Since in the choice of state children are of their own right, because as to the preservation of the individual and of the species all men are equal, in this respect per se they are not bound to obey parents; nevertheless from reverence they ought to seek the counsel of those who naturally are counselors, and also per accidens to obey, in the case in which by reason of education, the honor of the family, etc., parents reasonably command or prohibit in this matter. For just as parents sin gravely per se who compel to a state, even indirectly, or unjustly draw one back from it, so children can sin if in special circumstances parents rightly induce them or turn them away.

823. Corollaries. - 1. When parents are lacking, offices of piety are owed to those who educate children in their place.

2. Similar offices are owed proportionately to other relatives, namely, love, reverence, and, if they hold the place of parents, also obedience; but one sins gravely against piety with difficulty toward them, grandparents excepted.

3. Parents, for instructing boys and youths, often substitute others for themselves, namely teachers, and communicate their authority to them. Wherefore pupils ought to exhibit love, reverence, and obedience to teachers in those things which pertain to studies and good morals according to the contract and received customs, almost as to parents.

Hence pupils, according to the account of the matter, also sin gravely against the debt of reverence or service:

a) If they mock teachers, speak irreverently of them, detract from them, afflict them with useless annoyances, conduct themselves insolently, or provoke others to irreverence and insolence; which in practice is often excused from grave sin because of the lightness of pupils, but if they are older, it will more easily be grave.

b) If they do not obey teachers strictly commanding in those things which pertain to studies, good morals, and the discipline of the school; in which younger pupils are more easily excused from grave sin because of lightness and inadvertence.

c) If at the time of lesson they do not attend and spend the time of study uselessly. To judge the gravity of this sin, there must be considered both the quantity of time which is spent inattentively and uselessly, and the object of instruction and study, and the condition of the persons: it will not be a grave sin unless, in attaining those things which are necessary to state and condition, the pupils are notably impeded.

Let it be noted that for adolescents who are instructed and educated in colleges or boarding schools, strictly only the superiors of the house have directly the authority and power of commanding in place of parents, and therefore disobedience against those who furnish help to the superior, for example, monitors, is more easily excused from grave sin. Besides, by the very fact that someone, in his own name or in the name of his parents, enters a college or seminary, he makes a cession of his liberty in all those things which are contained explicitly or implicitly in the statutes of this house; nevertheless these statutes are regularly merely penal, for unless the contrary is declared by those who have authority, thus from custom, and provided nothing more is demanded than right order, it can be presumed, lest occasions of sinning be multiplied without necessity. But nothing prevents some of those statutes from obliging even to sin, when namely it is so determined either from the will of the immediate superior, or from the ordination of the superior authority on which the house depends. Finally, when the relation between pupil and teacher has been dissolved, the special offices cease, and therefore sins which afterward are committed against a teacher do not differ in species from sins which are done against another neighbor, except sometimes by reason of a certain ingratitude.

4. Domestic servants strictly so called, since they enter the family of the masters, have offices of piety to fulfill toward the members of this family, especially toward the masters themselves. Whence, besides the special offices of justice which are common to them with workers, and which were described above (n. 550), from piety they are bound toward masters as rulers of the family (I Tim. VI, 1; I Pet. II, 18).

Hence they owe:

a) Interior and exterior reverence, on account of which by a special reason they are to abstain from insults, mockeries, detractions.

b) Obedience in those things which regard service, and the governance of the family, good morals, and peace; and, if the servants are minors, also in those things which pertain to their education and instruction.

c) Discretion in preserving family secrets, which they know from their office, and whose revelation is apt to harm the honor or reputation of the family.

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.

I HAVE said in the first question, in expounding the definition of Piety, that children are bound to supply their parents with food and clothing in their necessities. But certain difficulties occur.

The FIRST is; whether children are bound to nourish heretical parents, and some assert it. So Azorius Tom. 2. lib. 2. cap. 3. quaestio 2. Glossa 12. cap. 1. verbo fidelis, d. 30. Castro lib. 2. de iusta haeret. punit. cap. 7. who says that a heretical father is to be preferred to a Catholic stranger.

The SECOND opinion asserts in extreme necessity, but not in grave. So Cara l. 6. quis a liberis, §. et si impubes, ff. de lib. agnosc. Sardus de alim. tit. 7. Sanchez lib. 2. decal. cap. 24. Fagundez lib. 4. cap. 2. num. 6.

NAY, Fagundez adds, nor are they bound in extreme necessity, if the parents try to lead them into error against the faith, and refuse to desist. So it seems D. Thom. 2. 2. quaest. 101. art. 4. ad 1. expounding Lucae 14. Si quis venit ad me, et non odit patrem suum, etc. non potest meus esse discipulus. The same S. Bonaventure indicates in his Commentary on that passage.

MOREOVER the holy Doctor asserts in 4. d. 18. part. 2. quaest. 5. in corpore, that aid must be brought not only to excommunicate parents of whatever kind, but even to strangers in necessity, when they have nothing by which to be sustained. This seems to require extreme necessity, yet not clearly; for it can also be understood of grave necessity.

I ASSERT first, that it is more probable that a son is bound to nourish heretical parents only in extreme necessity.

It is PROVED first. Fathers are bound to their sons by a stronger bond of natural law than sons to fathers; for nature descends from parents to children, not the reverse: But Catholic fathers are not bound to nourish heretical sons, unless they be in extreme need, as Surdus proves tit. 7. quaest. 2. Therefore.

It is PROVED second, because a Father can deprive a heretical son of the inheritance, as is clear from Authent. Ut cum, de appellat. cognosc. §. causas, et l. Regia Hispanae 7. tit. 7. part. 6. et l. Lusitana, l. 4. novae recopil. tit. 88. Now it is the common opinion, as at Molina de primog. lib. 2. cap. 16. Azor. tom. 2. lib. 2. quaestio 6. cap. 5. Sanchez, and Fagundez loc. cit. that in all cases in which parents can disinherit their children, they can also, apart from extreme necessity, deny them maintenance: Therefore.

From this understand what the l. Hispana 8. tit. 23. part. 1. infers, defining that a needy heretical father is to be preferred to a Catholic stranger, in the alms to be bestowed by the son; for it is understood in extreme necessity, as Surdus notes tract. de alim. tit. 1. quaest. 18. et 19. and as the holy Doctor indicates in corpore, loc. cit. when he places first the parents, then the excommunicate pilgrims, when they have nothing by which to be sustained.

A QUESTION arises: Whether the fisc is bound to maintain the alimony of Catholic children from goods devolved to it from a heretical Father. Of this great controversy Peregrinus treats de iure fisci, lib. 5. tit. 1. Farinacius tom. 1. part. 1. tit. de delictis, et poenis, quaest. 24.

The FIRST opinion is that, in the goods of the father being made public, the alimony cannot be computed, nay not even the children's legitima. Many among those cited follow it, to whom I add Guilielmus, Benedictus, citing Raynutius under the word, et uxorem, decis. 5. num. 286. de testam. It seems D. Bonaventure's in 4. loco citato.

The second opinion teaches that children can be denied alimony from their father's published goods by the Inquisitors and the fisc, on account of these two crimes only, namely heresy, and the crime of lèse-majesté. Fagundez says it is today the common one lib. 4. cap. 1. referring to many, with Sanchez lib. 2. Decal. cap. 16.

I assert that the first opinion is probable, namely that the children's alimony is not to be computed in the Father's goods.

It is proved first by the argument of S. Bonavent. 3. with the explanation of the body added. The fisc succeeds to the father's goods: But a father cannot deny his son alimony in extreme necessity. And certainly it seems barbarity, toward infant children, after the inheritance and legitima have been snatched away, finally to deny them even alimony, and to punish the sins of parents in children against Divine law.

Nor let Fagundez say that only the Father is punished. For let it be that the father too is punished as to the patrimony of the inheritance; yet as to the denying of alimony, it is rather the son who is punished. For if any penalties whatever could be imposed to terrify delinquents, it would be lawful also to burn children alive.

It is confirmed, for on account of the crime of heresy of the son himself, his castrensial or quasi-castrensial goods, which belong entirely to the same son himself, cannot be proscribed, as very many teach, whom Sanchez cites lib. 2. cap. 15. to whom I add Diana part. 4. Tract. 8. de Inquisit. resol. 61. Sanctarellus de haeresi, cap. 18. d. 1. and it is clear from l. si filius, C. de bonis damn. Therefore much less, on account of the father's offense, are the son's alimony and maintenance, which are owed to the son by natural law more than castrensial goods, to be proscribed.

You will object first. A parent can subject all his goods to a mortgage by contract: Therefore much more by offense.

It is answered first, by denying the Antecedent; for this would be impious, even if valid; for it is against the law of natural piety.

You will object second, cap. Vergentis, de haereticis, where the Pontiff takes away entirely all succession from the children as to the goods of heretical fathers, and commands, with them wholly disinherited, that all the goods be made public.

It is answered, that odious laws are not to be extended. Now the Pontiff commands that the inheritance be proscribed, but not that alimony be taken from the children, because that would be against natural law.

I confess however that the opposite opinion is also probable.

¶ Under what law then are children bound to minister alimony to their parents; I say they are bound by natural law, as the Theologians commonly teach, with D. Bonavent. serm. 5. in decem praecepta, and in other places adduced quaest. 1. It is proved by S. Bonaventure because nature there binds more strongly, where there is the greater debt; but children owe more to their parents, from whom they have being, than parents to children. And they say this is by natural law: Therefore. See on this matter Fagundez loc. cit. and Rebellius de oblig. iust. part. 2. lib. 5. quaest. 8.

And it is so true, that in extreme necessity children are bound more to their parents than to their own children, as the Theologians teach, with D. Thom. 2. 2. quaest. 26. art. 8. ad 3. and D. Bonavent. as I showed, Tract. de charitate, de ordine charitatis, where I also discussed what is to be done in grave necessity.

But in either necessity of parents it is not lawful for children to abandon them and enter religion. So D. Thom. 2. 2. quaest. 101. art. 4. ad 4. Toletus lib. 5. summae, cap. 1. Alens. 3. p. quaest. 33. m. 4. quaest. 2. Angelus verb. Religio, num. 32. Rosella 2. num. 7. Sylvest. quaesito 7. Azor. tom. 2. lib. 2. cap. 3. quaesito 5. with D. Bonavent. serm. 5. in 4. praecept. et loco cit. in 4. This also is true, if such a necessity begins during the novitiate, as is clear. But in doubt whether the necessity be grave and otherwise not removable, it seems to be in the son's discretion to choose either. See the Doctors also in Bassaeus, V. filius, num. 7.

For one who has a vow of entering religion ought not to enter, while the necessity of his parents lasts: yet if he enters and makes profession, he will sin; nevertheless his profession will be valid; for no law annulling it is found, as Fagundez notes num. 10.

But the grave doubt is: whether, in the necessity of his parents, a son who has made profession in religion is bound to leave it, when he cannot come to their aid in Religion.

In extreme necessity certainly all confess they are bound, as is seen in Sanchez lib. 4. Decal. cap. 20. Bassaeus num. 8. Fagundez num. 21. nor does D. Thom. quaest. 101. art. 4. ad 4. contradict this, as Fagundez thinks.

The question then is in grave necessity, if, remaining in religion, he cannot come to their aid.

The FIRST opinion is that he is bound, the faculty asked, even if not obtained. So Ancona de potestate Papae, quaest. 5. art. 1. Henriq. quaest. 6. quaest. 6. Iansen. in concord. Euang. cap. 60. Viguer. lib. 6. Instit. moral. cap. 6. §. 7. Corduba in Reg. Minorum, cap. 2. quaest. 6. art. 2.

The SECOND opinion is, that he is bound, if the necessity existed before his profession, but not if it came afterward. So Nauar. in man. cap. 14. Tolet. lib. 5. cap. 1. Lopez p. p. Instruct. cap. 34. Rodrig. tom. 1. summae, cap. 6. Cucus lib. 3. Instit. maiorat. tit. 1. num. 126. Bassaeus num. 8. Sanch. summ. lib. 4. cap. 20. num. 14.

The THIRD opinion is, that he is not bound, whenever the necessity may have arisen; yet he can leave, the faculty asked, even if not obtained. So Sà verb. Religio, num. 2. Rosella ibi verb. Religio 2. num. 7. D. Antonin. 3. part. tit. 16. cap. 2. Armilla verb. Pietas. Tabiena ibi. Corduba in summa, quaest. 141. art. 2. Angles flor. 3. part. quaest. un. de voto, art. 2. diffic. 13. Passarellus de privil. minorum, cap. 42. Rodriguez tom. 2. qq. Regularium. Alens. 3. part. q. 33. m. 4. art. 1. Fagundez num. 27. and others.

To me the first opinion seems more probable, because when several laws concur, the higher law ought to prevail; but to succor one's parents is pure natural law, and the first law in the order of charity toward one's neighbor: Therefore the vows of Religion cannot be made absolutely to the prejudice of that law, but conditionally, unless the bond of natural law be repugnant.

Fagundez answers num. 25. that vows are conditional as to extreme necessity, but not as to grave.

But this author ought here to have recalled that he taught, num. 14. et cap. 5. that even in grave necessity the natural precept of coming to the aid of parents presses.

You will say. Sons are not bound to leave their wife, that they may come to the aid of their parents, nor are clerics bound to take up the name of soldiery, that they may succor them, even if no other way be available: Therefore neither are they bound to abandon Religion, when they have delivered themselves to the power of the Prelates.

It is answered, that these assumptions are beside the point. And first I say that the bond of marriage is indeed of absolute natural right, nor does dissolving the bond of marriage help toward aiding parents. For meanwhile he ought, if he can, to aid his parents, even in marriage.

To what is said of soldiery, I answer, that one can also follow the soldiery, if no other way of aiding his parents be available; and acquire castrensial goods; but what then? Can he not accomplish the same with quasi-castrensial goods in the clerical state? As to the power of the Prelates, it is clear that it is conditional, without prejudice to the precepts of nature.

I ADD also that the habit can be laid aside, if otherwise he cannot exercise the work of piety in this case, as Fagundez num. 28. notes.

It is ALSO ASKED: when parents are in extreme necessity, and the son's creditor, is the latter bound rather to the parents than to the creditor.

I SAY, he is bound rather to the parents, and to himself, for in such necessity the debt of justice ceases, because all things, as to their use, are common leg. 2. §. Cum in eadem, ff. ad legem Rhodiamam de iactu. So also think Azor tract. 2. lib. 12. cap. 8. quaest. 5. Paludan. 4. dist. 15. quaest. 2. art. 1. Sotus lib. 4. de Iustitia, quaest. 7. art. 1. Caietanus 2. 2. quaest. 62. art. 5 ad 4. Tabiena verb. restitut. quaest. 4. Fagundez lib. 4. cap. 2. num. 30. Nay, as to dominion all things are common, as I said.

A young man, whom we will call Robert, accuses himself in Confession of having borne a great dislike and even hatred toward his father for many years. His father, he says, was a drunkard, and filled their home with shame and sorrow. He abused the mother and the children, cursed them, drove them from the house by his violence, and even threatened their lives. When Robert was seventeen years of age he left home, against the will of his father, and came to New York to make his way in the world by learning a trade. His father wanted him to remain at home and to go to work for a daily wage, which the father hoped to be able to spend for drink. After Robert had been in New York for a number of years the father died, having wasted in drink everything he possessed, and leaving a good many drink bills unsettled in different taverns. Robert, who in the meantime had prospered greatly and had considerable money in the bank, buried his father as cheaply as possible; in fact, so cheaply that it caused considerable unfavorable talk among the townspeople. Nor did Robert ever afterward have even one Mass said for the repose of his father's soul, or ever offer a penny toward the payment of his father's debts. What judgment is the confessor to form of Robert's conduct?

Solution.—It is necessary to separate the different counts in Robert's accusation in order to form a clear estimate of the sinfulness or lawfulness of Robert's conduct. There are four separate counts in the accusation, namely:

(1) Robert accuses himself of harboring hatred toward his father; (2) of having left home against the will of his father; (3) of having shown disrespect toward his father in the matter of the funeral arrangements, and ingratitude in not having Masses said for his soul; (4) and, finally, of injustice toward others in not settling his father's debts.

Let us take up each one of these four counts of Robert's accusation, and see whether and in how far Robert may have sinned.

1. Robert accuses himself of cherishing a great dislike and even hatred toward his father. Is this odium inimicitiae, or is it odium abominationis? Odium inimicitiae is sinful; odium abominationis need not necessarily be sinful. Odium inimicitiae is the hatred we conceive for some one personally, not merely for the evil that is in him or the wrong that he does, but for himself personally, inclusive of the good there may be in him, and we wish him evil, precisely because it is injury to him. Odium abominationis is something quite different from this. It is the strong aversion we feel for some one not personally, but for his vices and excesses. Thus, we hate, or rather abominate, the drunkard, not because of his individual personality, but because of his drunkenness. We hate his drunkenness, and we shun him, not because of himself, but because of his drunkenness. This odium abominationis may be a venial sin sometimes, but it is not a mortal sin.

Now, as regards Robert's hatred for his father, we are inclined to think that it was odium abominationis, and, under the circumstances, that it was not a sin. If Robert ordinarily showed his father the respect due to him, and obeyed him in reasonable things, then the hatred that Robert feels for his father is nothing more than a just loathing and disgust for his father's excesses. He despises and abominates his father's "weak, sick way of vomiting up his existence"; and in this he would seem to be without sin. Of course, there is always present a danger that this odium abominationis may go over into odium inimicitiae, and become mortally sinful, and Robert must be put on his guard against such a contingency.

2. Robert accuses himself of disobedience against his father in leaving home against his father's wishes. It does not appear that Robert sinned in this. Robert's motive in leaving home was just and honorable; namely, to render his existence useful by learning a trade. His father's motive in keeping him at home—namely, that he might have the benefit of his wages for drink—was unreasonable and sinful. No good reason can be advanced why Robert ought to obey his father, when such obedience would entail lifelong detriment to Robert's best interests. Of course, Robert is bound to see to it that his father does not want for food or clothing; but when the father has wherewith to buy food and clothing, but spends it for drink, there is no obligation for Robert to supply him with food and clothing.

3. The third count in Robert's accusation regards his father's funeral, and having Masses said for his soul. In this we think that Robert sinned. That Robert, who had plenty of money, had his father buried in such a niggardly and miserly way, showed a lack of elementary respect for his father, and was really insulting to his father's memory and savored of revenge. Robert was bound to observe the "decencies" of society in burying his father, for these decencies are founded on the reasonable respect and honor which the conscience and feelings of men decree should be shown to others. There was no obligation for Robert to provide a funeral for his father in keeping with his means; but there certainly was an obligation to give his father decent and honorable Christian burial.

Robert commits a mortal sin also in not having Masses said for the repose of his father's soul. His father is, in all likelihood, in grave spiritual need. Robert has plenty of means at his disposal to succor his father without grave inconvenience to himself. Not to do so is to transgress the law of Christ. For all theologians are agreed that for a child, who has the means, to refuse to have any Masses said for the repose of his parent's soul would be the committing of even a mortal sin (St. Thom. 2 Q. q. 101, a. 2; Ball. P. n. 7; Genicot i. 346, ii., etc.).

4. Finally, as regards the fourth count, there is no obligation for Robert to settle any of his father's drink bills, since he has received no inheritance from his father. "Liberi tenentur solvere debita parentum, tantum ratione honorum acceptorum" (S. Alph. n. 333).