Piety and Observance
101. Piety
1. Piety is the virtue which disposes a person to show due deference, honor, and veneration to those who hold a place of excellence, and who have conferred benefit upon him. Piety is paid first to God, the supreme excellence, the giver of all good gifts. Secondly, piety is honor and veneration shown to parents. Further, piety is due reverence and respect paid to kinsfolk, to superiors in Church or state, to one's government itself and its allies and friends.
2. Piety, as the reverent respect and honor paid to parents, is usually called filial piety. It is a virtue, and therefore consists in more than suitable outward conduct; it involves the heart and mind and will; it means looking after one's parents, lending them needed support, making sacrifice to give them care and comfort in their age, and seeing that they are well attended in illness.
3. Piety is a special virtue which springs from justice. It is specified (that is, given its character as a distinct virtue on its own account) by the fact that a special debt is owed to the principle of one's being- God first, and then parents. The same virtue extends to those that represent the principle of spiritual and political citizenship, that is, leaders in Church and government.
4. Piety and religion are two virtues. They never come into conflict, for virtue never clashes with virtue. Yet in performing the acts of virtues, a person may find himself in conflicting circumstances. In such a case, the essential worship of God must not be neglected out of a mistaken notion of piety towards parents. On the other hand, real neglect of duty to parents cannot be brushed aside in the name of religion. Thus, a man would do wrong to defer his baptism because of parental objection. And a man would do wrong to neglect sick or needy parents so that he might send an alms to a charitable organization, or have means to enable him to attend a religious convention or congress.
102. Observance
1. Observance, as allied to piety, is a subordinate yet a distinct virtue. By observance, one gives honor and respect to those who are in positions of dignity. Piety reveres excellence to which gratitude is owed. Observance reveres excellence in itself.
2. Those who occupy positions of dignity have excellence of office. And they should have excellence in exercising the powers of that office. On both scores, they deserve respect and honor. This respect and honor is shown them by the virtue of observance.
3. Piety is a greater virtue than observance is. For piety reverences those who are in some way akin to us (by creation, blood, or favors conferred), and with these we have stronger bonds than with others whom we are to revere by way of observance.
103. Veneration or Dulia
1. Honor paid to God may be wholly spiritual and in the heart, and it may also be expressed in outward acts and signs. But honor paid to creatures is external, for creatures cannot read the heart. The respect we have inwardly for creatures does not truly honor them until it is shown to them, and this cannot be except in external signs. We honor creatures by words, deeds, sensible signs, salutations, tributes, statues, and so on.
2. Honor or veneration is owed to persons of excellence, whether this be a general or a particular excellence, whether it be official or personal excellence.
3. The honor and veneration due to men is called by the Greek name of dulia. This is distinct from the honor and veneration paid to God, which is latria.
4. There are no essentially different kinds of dulia, but it may be accidentally diversified by the various human relationships on which it is founded.
104. Obedience
1. Obedience is the virtue of conforming ones conduct to the command of a superior.
2. Obedience is a special virtue. Its specific object is a command, expressed or understood. It is a moral virtue, that is, a will-virtue. Obedience is subordinate to the virtue of justice.
3. Obedience is perfectly practiced when it proceeds out of justice through charity. In measuring the greatness of obedience as a virtue, we must not fail to grasp its debt to these fundamental virtues of justice and charity. In itself, obedience is not so great a virtue as the two virtues that give it perfect effectiveness and value.
4. God is to be obeyed always and in all things. For God is the absolute lord of all, the creator and owner of every creature. Justice demands that all creatures should submit wholly to God's will.
5. Human superiors are to be obeyed within the sphere of their authority. They are not to be obeyed when their command is in conflict with the law of God.
6. Obedience to the civil law is the duty of citizens. And Christians, more than others, should understand that the civil order is necessary to man, and that it cannot be preserved without obedience to justly established human law. Yet no citizen is to obey a law that contravenes the law of God. When St. Peter and St. John were ordered by the Council to "speak no more in this name [Jesus]," they answered (Acts 4:19): "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye." A civil law that conflicts with the law of God, is not a law at all, for a law is essentially "an ordinance of reason"; it is complete unreason for men to legislate against the supreme legislator.
105. Disobedience
1. Disobedience is the refusal to conform to the command of a superior. We have seen that obedience is a virtue; it follows that disobedience is a vice. And when a just command, a requirement of law, is disregarded with contempt, we have disobedience of a seriously sinful character. Many acts of disobedience are venial faults, because they are done with thoughtlessness, or for some purpose other than merely contemning the law and thus practically denying man's duty to submit to law. Such acts do not show the full character of disobedience as a vice.
2. For real disobedience is essentially a contempt of just precept or command. A greater sin is contempt of preceptor and commander. Hence, disobedience is not so great a sin as blasphemy, for instance, or murder; these sins involve contempt for God's law, and also contempt for God himself as the supreme excellence and the master of life and death.
106. Gratitude
1. By the virtue of religion, we pay God due honor. By the virtue of piety, we honor God, parents, kinsfolk, and country. By observance, we venerate persons of excellence. By gratitude, we give thanks to benefactors. Gratitude is a special virtue, allied to justice and subordinate to it.
2. An innocent man owes God thanks for innocence; a forgiven sinner owes God thanks for pardon. Innocence in itself is greater than forgiveness; yet to the man forgiven, forgiveness is the greater gift of the two. For forgiveness meets that man's necessity as nothing else could do. As a small but essential help given to a poor man is more to the receiver than a great gift bestowed on a man of wealth, so forgiveness is a greater gift to the penitent sinner than the gift of innocence to one who is without sin to forgive. Hence it seems that the forgiven sinner owes to the bestower of this gift a greater gratitude than an innocent person would owe.
3. We are to render thanks to every benefactor. We owe thanks to God, and, under God, to many of our fellowmen. Gratitude should be expressed in words and deeds according to circumstances and opportunities.
4. Gratitude makes instant acknowledgment of favors by gracious-ness in receiving them, and by the thankful disposition of the heart. Favors themselves are to be repaid at a time convenient to the benefactor.
5. In repaying a favor and in estimating our debt, we take into consideration the disposition of our benefactor even more than the gift he has bestowed. Seneca remarks (De Benef. i) that we are sometimes under greater obligation to one who confers a small favor with a large heart, than to one who gives something greater in a grudging spirit.
6. The return of a favor, the repayment, should exceed in gracious-ness the favor received. Gratitude is due for what is freely given. An exact return of the favor received meets the moral obligation of the beneficiary, but does not include the gratitude he owes. Gratitude is something freely given over and above the amount of repayment. Hence, gratitude exceeds the favor received.
107. Ingratitude
1. Gratitude is a virtue. Its direct opposite is therefore a vice. Ingratitude is the vice which stands opposed to the virtue of gratitude.
2. The vice of ingratitude finds expression in sins of ingratitude. Acts or sins of ingratitude are of three types: (a) failure to return a favor received; (b) failure to express thanks for a favor; (c) failure to notice that one has received a favor at all. These types of ungrateful acts are degrees, and are rated, in the order given, as bad, worse, and worst of all.
3. Conscious ingratitude is always a sin, mortal or venial, according to the nature of the ungrateful act and the conditions of its doing. When ingratitude is complete, it is combined with contempt for the duty and obligation imposed by gratitude, and this can make it a mortal sin. Usually, however, human ingratitude is a matter of negligence or carelessness.
4. We are not to refuse a favor to a person who has proved himself ungrateful. For we are the children of God, who does not cease to shower his gifts on sinners who offend him. We are meant to imitate God.
108. Vengeance
1. Vengeance is the inflicting of corrective punishment on an offender. We speak of vengeance here, not as an inordinate desire for revenge, which is always sinful, but as a virtue subordinate to justice. Vengeance is the virtue which restores the equality of justice upset by an offense. The perfect and permanent establishment of equality of justice will be attained at the end of time, for God says (Heb. 10:30): "Vengeance is mine; I will repay."
2. Among men, vengeance as a virtue seeks to remove harm done and to prevent its recurrence. It stems from justice, and must be suffused with charity. The parent who punishes a disobedient child exercises vengeance as a virtue; so does a judge in court imposing a suitable penalty. A person sins by excess when he administers vengeance with cruelty or brutality; he sins by deficiency when he is remiss to administer correctives that should be administered.
3. True vengeance always tends to the prevention of evil. Persons who will not be moved by positive virtue to preserve the equality of justice, must be prevented from doing evil by fear of losing what they love. Now, the things a man loves most in this world are: his life; his bodily safety and comfort; his freedom; his possessions; his country; and, his good name. Hence, civil laws exact vengeance by prescribing for offenders: death, bodily punishment, imprisonment, fines, exile and ignominy. Under fear of such evils, many who would offend are constrained to observe justice. And those who are subjected to the vengeance of the law, are taught themselves, or teach others by what they undergo, that evils are not to be done.
4. No one justly suffers vengeance save as a punishment for sinful offense. Hence, vengeance never afflicts those whose offense is involuntary, and therefore not sinful. Hardship, indeed, may come heavily upon a person without fault on his part; such hardship is, under God's providence, always medicinal, and has in view the greater good or higher merit of him who suffers it. And in matters spiritual, no one is ever punished without fault. Among men, certain hardships are sometimes inflicted (such, for instance, as disqualification for an office because of a parent's fault), and indeed public order sometimes requires such things. But these hardships are not really the effects of vengeance at all.
109. Truthfullness
1. Truthfulness or veracity is the conforming of speech with fact, or, at any rate, with fact as known. It is the agreement of what is in the mind with what is on the lips. Truthfulness is a virtue, and a moral virtue.
2. Truthfulness is a special virtue, distinct from others. Goodness is the end and object of every moral virtue, and each special virtue is specified, or made a distinct virtue on its own account, by the special aspect of goodness which it seeks or serves. Now, the goodness which truthfulness specifically seeks and serves is that of agreement between thought and speech. Hence, truthfulness is a special virtue.
3. St. Jerome speaks of the truth of life, the truth of justice, and the truth of doctrine. The truth of life means the sum total of all virtues that can perfect a person; the truth of justice is justice itself; the truth of doctrine is true teaching. Truthfulness as a moral virtue is not one of these three objective types of truth; it is a subsidiary or subordinate virtue, yet a distinct one, included under justice. Justice requires balance and due equality. Now, there are balance and due equality, in a moral sense, when what is said agrees with what is known.
4. Truthfulness as a virtue inclines a person to moderate expression and avoids exaggeration. It does not demand that a man tell all he knows; it demands only that what he does tell be the truth as he knows it. Its obligation is not, in itself, a requirement to tell everything; its obligation is that a person speaking must not tell lies.
110. Lying
1. Lying or mendacity is a vice opposed to the virtue of truthfulness. A lie is the intentional telling of a falsehood. But the intention to deceive does not enter into the essence of a lie. Any serious statement which is opposed to the truth as known by the speaker is a lie, whether the speaker intends to deceive anyone or not. And if a speaker says what he honestly thinks is true, but is, in fact, not true, the speaker does not tell a lie. His words make the material for a lie, but they lack the form or essential determinant of a he. The essential determinant, or form, of a he is the intention to speak falsely.
2. Lies are called officious, jocose, or mischievous, according as they are told for profit or convenience, for pleasure or entertainment, or for the purpose of hurting someone or causing trouble. The mischievous lie is the worst of lies; it is often called a malicious He, for it is the fruit of malice or bad will.
3. A lie is always evil. For it is an inordinate and unreasonable thing, and hence an evil, to employ speech, which is the natural instrument for expressing what is in the mind, as a means of expressing what is not in the mind. It is not evil to evade a question; that is, it is not evil, except under extraordinary circumstances, to keep what one knows to oneself. But it is evil to tell lies. Similarly, it is not evil to elude the salesman who wishes us to buy something; it is not evil to keep one's money in one's pocket; but it is evil to buy what the salesman offers with counterfeit money. It is not evil either to speak in figurative language, provided those who hear can, or should, understand what is meant.
4. A malicious lie may be a mortal sin, for it can be a grave offense against charity and justice as well as against truthfulness. But jocose lies (when they are really lies at all) and officious lies are usually venially sinful. A jocose lie often fails to have the character of a lie because it is not a serious statement; those who utter such things, and those who hear, are well aware that the speaker is not manifesting his mind, his knowledge, or his convictions, but is merely jesting.
111. Dissimulation and Hypocrisy
1. What a lie is in words, dissimulation is in outward action. Hence, dissimulation has the character and evil of lying. Yet not every pretense is dissimulation; there is figurative action as well as figurative speech.
2. Hypocrisy is a kind of dissimulation. A man is a simulator when his actions express any falsity. He is a hypocrite only when the falsity which his actions express is that he is a better, or wiser, or holier person than he actually is.
3. All dissimulation is a lie in action. Hypocrisy is a type of dissimulation. Therefore hypocrisy is a he in action, and consequently it is a sin.
4. Hypocrisy (and, indeed, all dissimulation) is a mortal or a venial sin, according to the end intended by the simulator or hypocrite. If this end be directly opposed to charity, and is a matter of importance, the sin is mortal.
112. Boasting
1. Boasting is the making of false claims in praise of one's own qualities or prowess; it is an attempt to lift oneself above what one really is. Boasting amounts to excessive and unjustified claims; and these, in turn, amount to lying. Hence, boasting has the evil of lying.
2. Boasting usually amounts to a jocose lie. It is so in the case of a man who 'likes to hear himself talk," and who delights in bragging for its own sake. Or it may be an officious lie, as it is in a person who recommends himself for a position by making excessive claims of ability. In most cases, boasting does not exceed venial sin.
113. Irony
1. In our present study, irony does not have its usual meaning as a kind of ridicule or mockery. It has the original Greek meaning of dissimulation of one's good qualities; it means pretending, not in honesty and humility but dishonestly, that one is less or worse than one actually is. Thus understood, irony has the character of dissimulation and lying.
2. One lie may be worse than another either in the matter lied about or in the motive of the liar. Now, irony and boasting deal with the same matter, for both are a speaker's words about himself. But the two things differ in motive. And the motive of boasting is usually viler than the motive of irony. The boaster wishes to glorify himself in the opinion of others; the ironical person rather wishes to avoid the offense of seeming prideful or snobbish. Yet sometimes irony is worse than boasting; it is so, for example, when it is used as a cunning means of deceiving persons with a view to subsequent cheating.
114. Friendliness
1. Friendliness or affability is a virtue subordinate to justice which seeks the balance and order of all things, including human relations. Friendliness thus has a special aspect of good to achieve, and is therefore a special virtue.
2. A virtue annexed to another is called a part or a potential part of that other. In this sense, friendliness or affability is a part of justice. It does not cover the whole ground of justice, and therefore is not identical with justice; it is annexed to justice, but is distinct from that virtue.
115. Flattery or Adulation
1. Friendliness or affability is a virtue which strives to make things pleasant. But there are situations in which the effort of friendliness must fail of its object: that is, particular cases in which people cannot or will not be friendly. In such situations, flattery is likely to show itself. Flattery is a sort of lying, and has the evil of lying. It is the effort to please people by praising them for good qualities they do not possess, or approving their bad qualities which should be condemned. Flattery usually has the ulterior view of getting something from those who are subjected to it.
2. Unless flattery is praise of a person's sin or is meant to draw him into sin, it is usually a venial, not a mortal sin.
116. Quarreling
1. Quarreling is a disagreement between people, an altercation in words. When a person makes no effort to be agreeable, contradicts what people say, and gives occasion for bickering, he is quarrelsome. Quarreling is opposed to friendliness or affability.
2. Quarreling seems to be a worse evil than flattery, for the quarrelsome man causes displeasure and the flatterer tries to increase pleasure. Yet sometimes flattery, by reason of the motive behind it, is worse than quarreling.
117. Liberality or Generosity
1. Liberality is a virtue, for it puts to good use the things that might be used for evil purposes-such, for instance, as money or other material things.
2. And, indeed, liberality deals, first and foremost, with money. A liberal man is an open-handed man, who is ready to "liberate" money from his own possession, and thus shows that he is not inordinately attached to it.
3. The proper act of liberality, therefore, consists in making good use of money. Liberality demands that one's debts be paid, and that suitable gifts be made. Merely to be careless with money, neglecting to save what is needed to meet expenses and to have the means of making gifts, is not liberality.
4. Parting with money by giving it to others is a greater act of virtue than parting with it in fulfilling one's own desires, that is, spending it on oneself. The liberal man is praised for giving.
5. Liberality seems to be allied with justice, even though it gives more than is strictly due. Therefore, it is reckoned by many as a part of justice, that is, a virtue connected with justice but not having equal scope with it.
6. Liberality is a gracious and notable virtue, but it is not the greatest of virtues.
118. Covetousness
1. Covetousness is an inordinate love of possessing. It is in conflict with sound reason, and is therefore a sin.
2. Covetousness, as the immoderate love of getting and possessing money, is a special sin. It is a general sin inasmuch as its scope is extended to include inordinate desire of possessing anything: goods, position, knowledge.
3. As a special sin or vice, covetousness stands directly opposed to the virtue of liberality.
4. To covet riches to such a degree as to be willing to do anything whatever to possess them, is a mortal sin. Most sins of covetousness, however, are venial sins.
5. Covetousness, since it can be a venial fault, is not the greatest of sins. Yet great sins indeed may be born of the covetous spirit. The vice of covetousness is hard to cure, but it can be cured.
6. Covetousness is not a sin of the flesh, but of the spirit; it is a spiritual sin, not a carnal sin. For though the riches coveted are material things, the evil of covetousness is in the desire for satisfaction in the possession of these things, and not in the things themselves.
7. Covetousness is that 'love of money" which is the root of evil. Many evils sprout from this root. It is therefore listed among the capital sins.
8. A capital sin is a source-sin, a spring from which other sins readily flow. The sins which flow most readily from covetousness, and are therefore called "daughters of covetousness," are the following: fraud, lying, perjury, dissatisfaction or restlessness, violence, and hard-heartedness.
119. Prodigality
1. Prodigality is an evil by excess at the points where covetousness sins by defect, and vice versa. Thus, in interior desire for riches, covetousness is excessive, prodigality is defective. But in using riches, covetousness is defective, and prodigality is excessive. For prodigality is the careless and foolish squandering of riches.
2. Prodigality is manifestly an evil, for it conflicts with right reason. Aristotle (Ethic. iv 1) says of the prodigal man that his giving is not good, nor for a good purpose, nor is it regulated by reason.
3. But prodigality, in itself, is not so grievous a fault as covetousness, because: (a) it is less unreasonable; (b) it does some good, whereas covetousness does none; (c) it is an evil more readily cured than covetousness is.
120. Equity
1. Equity, sometimes called by the Greek term epikeia, interprets the mind of the lawgiver as to the fact and extent of the law's application in a particular case. Laws have to be general; they cannot express details of every possible case that may in any manner fall under their direction. Lawgivers have their mind and intention on what ordinarily happens. Therefore, in an extraordinary case, the law, which regularly works for good, may impose an evil. It is the part of prudence and justice to interpret the true meaning of the law as touching extraordinary individual cases, and to discover the spirit of the law when the letter is of dubious or evil application. Such interpreting and applying of law are done by epikeia or equity.
2. Epikeia or equity is a virtue. It is a part of the virtue of justice.
121. Piety as a Gift
1. We have seen that the virtue of piety disposes a person to venerate those who have excellence and who bestow benefit on him. Piety thus venerates God, parents, kinsfolk, and country. Now we speak of the supernatural piety which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. By this gift a person exercises the supernatural virtue of filial piety towards God, and worships him as the all-perfect and all-loving Father.
2. Because meekness removes from the soul the obstacles which obstruct the exercise of piety towards God as our Father, it is said that the gift of piety finds a special correspondence in the second beatitude: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth" (Matt. 5:4).
122. The Precepts of Justice
1. Justice regulates our dealings with others-God and fellowman. The Ten Commandments (called the Decalogue) are therefore precepts of justice. The first three commandments regulate our activities towards God; they deal with religion, which, indeed, is the chief part of justice. The fourth commandment regulates piety, which is a part of justice. The other six commandments regulate our just dealing with other men.
2. Since man's first need is truth about God, and direction to God and away from false belief and false worship, it is right that the very first commandment of the decalogue should meet this need: "I am the Lord thy God. . . . Thou shalt not have strange gods before me" (Exod. 20:2, 3). This commandment expresses a requirement of justice.
3. The second commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Exod. 20:7), prohibits at once the lack of reverence which would hinder the full accord of human wills with the first commandment. This too is a precept of justice.
4. External worship is most proper in itself, and is also of the greatest value to man. It is indicated as an obligation of justice by the third commandment of the decalogue.
5. Immediately after the commandments which require just recognition of the First Principle of our being, comes the commandment which regulates our attitude and conduct towards the proximate principle of our being, our parents.
6. After the precepts of religion and piety, all of which are precepts of justice, come the six remaining precepts which belong to justice simply, and direct our duty towards all mankind.