Duties of parents towards their children
In the old pagan world, with due allowance for the operation of the natural law, love and reverence were replaced by authority and fear. The Roman jurisprudence during a time at least exaggerated the paternal power to the point of ownership, but it did not emphasize any duties that he had to perform. His dominion over his children was not less complete than that over his slaves. He possessed an undisputed right of life and death; he might sell them into slavery and dispose of any property they had acquired. Compatible with this general idea, abortion, infanticide, and exposition were widespread. The laws seemed to contemplate these crimes as venial offences and to have been largely inoperative in such cases.
In consequence the filial observance implied in the ancient pietas could not always be translated as affection. This earlier condition was modified by decrees of the later emperors. Alexander Severus distinguished the right of a father to put an adult child to death, whilst Diocletian made it illegal for fathers to sell their children.
Under Christianity parents were not merely the repositories of rights and duties whose affirmation nature demanded, but they were to be regarded as the representatives of God Himself, from whom "all paternity is named", and found in this capacity the way to mingle love and reverence, as well as the strongest motive for a cheerful obedience on the part of the children.
The first duty of parents towards their children is to love them. Nature inculcates this clearly, and it is customary to describe parents who lack this affection as unnatural. Here the offence is against a distinct virtue which the theologians call pietas, concerned with the demeanour reciprocally of parents and children. Hence the circumstance of this close relationship must be made known in confession when there is question of sins of this sort. In the case of serious damage done by parents to their children, besides the sin against justice there is contracted the quite different malice derived from this propinquity. This virtue, interpreting the precept of the natural law, also requires parents diligently to care for the proper rearing of their children, that is, to provide for their bodily, mental, and spiritual well-being. This is so even in the supposition that the children are illegitimate. Parents are guilty of grievous sin who treat their children with such cruelty as to indicate that their conduct is inspired by hatred, or who, with full intent, curse them or exhibit a notable and unreasonable preference for one child rather than another. Parents are bound to support their children in a manner commensurate with their social condition until these latter can support themselves. The mother is bound to do nothing to prejudice the life or proper development of her unborn infant, and after birth she must under pain of venial sin nurse it herself unless there is some adequate excuse.
A father who is idle or unthrifty so that his family is left without fitting maintenance is guilty of grievous sin. Parents must see that their children obtain at least an elementary education. They are bound with special emphasis to watch over the spiritual welfare of their children, to afford them good example, and to correct the erring. The teaching of the Church is that the right and duty to educate their own offspring abides natively and primarily with the parents. It is their most important task; indeed understood in its full sense it is ranked by no obligation. In so far as it means instruction in the more elementary branches of human knowledge it is in most cases identical with the obligation of bestowing care in the selection of a school for the children.
Hence, in general, parents may not with a safe conscience send their children to non-Catholic schools, whether these be sectarian or secularist. This statement admits of exception in the instance where there are grave reasons for permitting Catholic children to frequent these schools, and where such dangers as may exist for their faith or morals are by fitting means either neutralized or rendered remote. The judge in such cases, both of the sufficiency of the reasons alleged as well as of the kind of measure to be employed to encounter successfully whatever risks there are, is, in the United States the bishop of each diocese. The attendance at non-Catholic schools by Catholic children is something which, for weighty motives and with due safeguards, can be tolerated, not approved. In any case parents must carefully provide for the child's religious instruction.
As to higher education, parents have a clear duty to see that the faith of their children is not imperilled by their going to non-Catholic universities and colleges. In the lack of positive legislation before parents can assent to their children attending non-Catholic universities or colleges there must be a commensurately grave cause, and such dangers as may threaten faith or morals are to be rendered remote by suitable remedies. The last-named requirement is obviously the more important. Failure to fall in with the first, provided that means had been taken faithfully to comply with the second, would not oblige the confessor to refuse absolution to such parents. There is an undoubted and under ordinary circumstances inalienable authority to be exercised by parents. The extent of this is a matter to be determined by positive law. In the instances in which it becomes necessary to decide upon one of the parents rather than the other as custodian of the children, the rule of legal preference in the United States is that the children are confided to the charge of the father. There is, however, a growing disposition to favour the mother. Parents have the right to administer chastisement to delinquent children. Their omission to punish suitably may be a serious offense before God.
In the old pagan world, with due allowance for the operation of the natural law, love and reverence were replaced by authority and fear. The Roman jurisprudence during a time at least exaggerated the paternal power to the point of ownership, but it did not emphasize any duties that he had to perform. His dominion over his children was not less complete than that over his slaves. He possessed an undisputed right of life and death; he might sell them into slavery and dispose of any property they had acquired. Compatible with this general idea, abortion, infanticide, and exposition were widespread. The laws seemed to contemplate these crimes as venial offences and to have been largely inoperative in such cases.
In consequence the filial observance implied in the ancient pietas could not always be translated as affection. This earlier condition was modified by decrees of the later emperors. Alexander Severus distinguished the right of a father to put an adult child to death, whilst Diocletian made it illegal for fathers to sell their children.
Under Christianity parents were not merely the repositories of rights and duties whose affirmation nature demanded, but they were to be regarded as the representatives of God Himself, from whom "all paternity is named", and found in this capacity the way to mingle love and reverence, as well as the strongest motive for a cheerful obedience on the part of the children.
The first duty of parents towards their children is to love them. Nature inculcates this clearly, and it is customary to describe parents who lack this affection as unnatural. Here the offence is against a distinct virtue which the theologians call pietas, concerned with the demeanour reciprocally of parents and children. Hence the circumstance of this close relationship must be made known in confession when there is question of sins of this sort. In the case of serious damage done by parents to their children, besides the sin against justice there is contracted the quite different malice derived from this propinquity. This virtue, interpreting the precept of the natural law, also requires parents diligently to care for the proper rearing of their children, that is, to provide for their bodily, mental, and spiritual well-being. This is so even in the supposition that the children are illegitimate. Parents are guilty of grievous sin who treat their children with such cruelty as to indicate that their conduct is inspired by hatred, or who, with full intent, curse them or exhibit a notable and unreasonable preference for one child rather than another. Parents are bound to support their children in a manner commensurate with their social condition until these latter can support themselves. The mother is bound to do nothing to prejudice the life or proper development of her unborn infant, and after birth she must under pain of venial sin nurse it herself unless there is some adequate excuse.
A father who is idle or unthrifty so that his family is left without fitting maintenance is guilty of grievous sin. Parents must see that their children obtain at least an elementary education. They are bound with special emphasis to watch over the spiritual welfare of their children, to afford them good example, and to correct the erring. The teaching of the Church is that the right and duty to educate their own offspring abides natively and primarily with the parents. It is their most important task; indeed understood in its full sense it is ranked by no obligation. In so far as it means instruction in the more elementary branches of human knowledge it is in most cases identical with the obligation of bestowing care in the selection of a school for the children.
Hence, in general, parents may not with a safe conscience send their children to non-Catholic schools, whether these be sectarian or secularist. This statement admits of exception in the instance where there are grave reasons for permitting Catholic children to frequent these schools, and where such dangers as may exist for their faith or morals are by fitting means either neutralized or rendered remote. The judge in such cases, both of the sufficiency of the reasons alleged as well as of the kind of measure to be employed to encounter successfully whatever risks there are, is, in the United States the bishop of each diocese. The attendance at non-Catholic schools by Catholic children is something which, for weighty motives and with due safeguards, can be tolerated, not approved. In any case parents must carefully provide for the child's religious instruction.
As to higher education, parents have a clear duty to see that the faith of their children is not imperilled by their going to non-Catholic universities and colleges. In the lack of positive legislation before parents can assent to their children attending non-Catholic universities or colleges there must be a commensurately grave cause, and such dangers as may threaten faith or morals are to be rendered remote by suitable remedies. The last-named requirement is obviously the more important. Failure to fall in with the first, provided that means had been taken faithfully to comply with the second, would not oblige the confessor to refuse absolution to such parents. There is an undoubted and under ordinary circumstances inalienable authority to be exercised by parents. The extent of this is a matter to be determined by positive law. In the instances in which it becomes necessary to decide upon one of the parents rather than the other as custodian of the children, the rule of legal preference in the United States is that the children are confided to the charge of the father. There is, however, a growing disposition to favour the mother. Parents have the right to administer chastisement to delinquent children. Their omission to punish suitably may be a serious offense before God.
0 comments:
Post a Comment