Youthfulness

YOUTHFULNESS. - Lat. pueritia: an age of life (v.) that follows infancy and immediately precedes adolescence (v.), preparing, in apparent calm, the overwhelming pubertal crisis of the latter. A phase of "turgor" extending from approximately the 7th to the 12th year of age, it must be considered one of those periods of potential enrichment of the organism and of the mind that always precede, according to the auxological law of alternations (Godin), the dynamic morphological and psychological unfolding of the phases of "proceritas".

I. PSYCHOLOGY OF YOUTHFULNESS

The phenomenal changes observable at that age, as indeed at every other, are in particular causally linked to the new orientation of the endocrine constellation (v. ENDOCRINE, GLANDS), in which, toward the end of F., signs of deficiency of the epiphysis begin to appear, while the thymus still promotes the progressive development of body mass. A progressive accentuation of the function of the adrenal cortex and of the anterior hypophysis marks the characteristics of the endocrine balance proper to F. This transition to new glandular orientations, the apparent organic and physiopsychological calm of that age, marked instead in its depths by a fervent accumulation of abundant material for subsequent constructions and differentiations, makes puerity particularly delicate and in need of prudent caution. It is necessary, particularly at the beginning of this phase of life, not to be tempted by considerations of a practical social nature or of family vanity, pushing the individual toward precocious performance, whether physical or intellectual, before the so-called crisis of "small puberty" is completely finished in him, a critical period of "proceritas" and small schizoidism which between the 5th and 6th year (Pende) closes infancy (v.). Here the principle of physical and mental hygiene must be strictly applied: spare the individual efforts more suited to a later age, e.g., the beginning of a new order of studies or a change of educational direction, in the climacteric periods of life, before the transition from the developmental phase now past is concluded and well balanced. Only at this moment is the individual capable of maximum output with minimum harm; to place a phase shift between the physical, intellectual and moral demand of the moment and the performance possible for the degree of maturity reached can become a paying for precocity with irreparable present and future harm to the healthy evolution of the subsequent ages.

On the physical side, F. needs careful medical supervision, precisely because in it hidden harms can be prepared that laypeople would not see, but whose effects would appear manifest in the subsequent ages. Particularly in the second part of F., or toward its conclusion, there may be in the subject even quite serious manifestations due to new glandular, pulmonary, nervous invasions of the tubercular bacillus, particularly if the individual, in poor hygienic conditions, was subjected to a precocious, ill-considered effort at the beginning of studies.

On the psychological side, F. must be considered an eminently assimilative, imitative, finalistic, extroverted age, with prevalent emotional development, capable therefore of assimilating and capitalizing sensations, feelings, emotions, ideational orientations, good or bad habits which, more or less elaborated, transformed, at times rendered unrecognizable in subsequent periods, will be the basic patrimony, a rich hidden treasure for the emotional, intellectual, even moral developments of the subsequent ages. For this reason F. is a preponderant part of the educative age, which runs from about 7 to 17 years (Pende); with its beginning it usually marks entry into primary school, given that precisely the 6th-7th year is about the legal age for entering elementary studies, while the transition to secondary studies (middle school) will be permitted only toward the end of puerity, at the entry into adolescence, around 11-12 years.

To demonstrate how important F. is for the acquisition of the ideational patrimony, it is recalled that at 7 years of age the brain has by then reached a weight (1128 gr., average) quite close to that of the adult (1370 gr., average), thus by then suited to its instrumental function with regard to the development of intellectual life.

On the educational and moral side, F. is also precious here. The subject, with his first more intimate relations with the extra-familial world (school), begins to form his first circle of acquaintances and has his first experiences in an environment he previously scarcely knew at all, observing and treasuring facts and circumstances that captivate him by their novelty; he begins to feel, in the contrast of the unfamiliar environment, more clearly the impulse of sympathy and aversion; an ever more lively curiosity drives him to the search for causal relations, his mind, on the track of concrete reasoning, goes on formulating extracts; accessible to tenderness, desirous of being esteemed and loved, in school and in games he develops the first sense of justice.

On the side of the passions (v.), in F. those of the so-called concupiscible appetite prevail, whether on the positive side (love, desire, joy) or the negative (hatred, aversion, sorrow), which in shifting undulation betray the easy variation of his emotional life. Gluttony, envy, sloth represent an easy outlet, often material rather than formal, for his faults.

For practical indicative purposes, it is interesting to point out that the boundaries of F., like those of the majority of the other ages, can be well marked by changes in the dental formula, better than by the theoretical limits set by the number of years. In fact at the beginning of F. there is an awakening of tooth eruption of the vegetative type (phase of "turgor") with the appearance of the first large permanent molars (the so-called "seven-year teeth") between the 5th and 7th-8th year, the beginning of the shedding of milk teeth (median incisors) between the 6th and 8th year; at the end of F., the replacement of the milk canines (teeth of animal and relational life) with the robust permanent canines, around the 10th-12th year of age.

Giuseppe de Nismo

II. THE PEDAGOGY OF YOUTHFULNESS

The data offered by psychology concerning childhood give pedagogy the opportunity to recall to mind and to insist upon certain normative laws, which aim to help the development of the personality, exploiting the positive sides and elements of the age and seeking to remove everything that could in the near future cause even significant harm.

1. For intellectual activity

Since the child feels a marked realistic tendency, which gives him a special taste for everything that is mechanics, constructive technique, the execution of models, even in reading he will seek no longer fables and legends, but tales and novels, in which the adventurous type predominates; accounts of travels in countries which before his imagination are still wrapped in a cloud of mystery, awaiting to be dispelled. However, he does not yet possess the critical sense, he does not yet know how to distinguish objectively the true from the invented, and he easily lets himself be swayed and carried away by his subjective interpretations. Hence the necessity of supervising his reading, so that to recreation and instruction there may not be added a too rapid and precocious awakening of morbid instincts, which can lead to fatal consequences.

2. For affective activity

The intense biological activity proper to this period, in which the two sexes begin to differentiate themselves clearly and to note with a certain complacent interest the different physiophysiological characteristics, which no longer leave their mutual behavior so indifferent, brings different consequences for the boy and the girl. The boy needs to expand in games of movement, all the better if under the incentive of competition and contest; he feels the social tendency toward his companions for a longer time, while still retaining predominantly childish attitudes; the girl, on the other hand, who must face puberty considerably earlier than the boy, under the influence of the changes that surprise her and of which she cannot always make sense, easily experiences melancholy, sadness, laziness, listlessness, and therefore feels more driven to a kind of solitude, in which to dream as she pleases, to build golden castles; to accustom herself, in short, to a fictitious world, which could give rise to disgusting awakenings.

Education, therefore, will take on the character of a vigilant art, but serene and easy, open, ever richer in understanding and love. A common trait, both for boys and for girls, besides urging them to study, will be to watch over the relationships they oppose or favor, over the companions they frequent more assiduously, over diligence and constancy in study; this in order to prevent (or at least correct in good time) serious dangers of deviations or behaviors, on the one hand, of giddy gallantry and, on the other, of vain coquetry. In particular, then, for the boy one will begin to instill in him a serious concept of life and of the future that will require seriousness and culture from him; to the girl one will give, at the proper moment, more or less extensively according to the situation, an exact concept of the great mission entrusted to her by God, and of the efficacy and strength of a healthy femininity, which must know how to keep each one in his place and make disappear the foolish conviction that woman is nothing but fragility and weakness.

3. For volitional activity

Since in this period there is not yet that psychic maturity which knows how to measure and sift the consequences of actions and habits, the art of education suggests taking advantage of everything (environment, company, reading, amusements) that can help, support and guide the child. Above all it is important to educate him to will, when it is a matter of duty; and to surpass, from time to time, duty in order to perform also some supererogatory action; to correct slowly, but with constancy, those aspects or those ends of character that are pleasing. The conviction that energy, decision of the will, volition depend on nature and not on art and therefore are not educable, nor attainable by all, does not hold up in the light of serious experience. Any character initially weak, or timid and feeble, or uncertain and irresolute, can be led little by little to attain the possession of a strong and unshaken will (v. VOLONTÀ, EDUCAZIONE delle).

4. For religious activity

Religion (theory and practice) also provides for childhood a program of marvelous efficacy. The child, in fact, is already capable of understanding, if suitably adapted, the principal and most profound truths of Christianity, of the divine life within him, of the respect that derives from it for his own soul and body, of the efficacy of the Sacraments; he knows how to savor the beautiful Gospel and hagiographic narratives, he knows how to understand the love of Jesus and is also capable of responding to it with sublime acts of heroism; the history of the martyrs and of the missions is very rich in examples in this regard. Hence the insistence that religious instruction be imparted from the earliest years. Hence, too, the importance of a profound religious instruction in the parents themselves, so as to be able to instill it in the hearts and minds of their own children, because the art with which they will one day know how to exercise it, with an immediacy that derives, so to speak, from the blood and from the life communicated, finds no counterpart, or only with difficulty, in the art of extraneous masters and teachers.

Celestino Testore

III. THEOLOGY OF YOUTHFULNESS

The recent beatifications of children and adolescents have raised a psychological-theological question: is the heroicity of the virtues possible in a child after the use of reason?

The question is asked, in other words, whether a child can know and love God heroically, evaluate a renunciation and know its scope, overcome himself and triumph despite his tendencies or his age solely for the love of God, whom alone he wishes to please. And whether he can so exercise himself in the field of the Christian theological and cardinal virtues as to acquire a virtuous habit, whereby he acts in a manner superior to the common average.

Among the opposing opinions recently expressed, the opinion of those who answer affirmatively seems more logical.

Divine Grace, enlightening the intellect and strengthening the will, can bring it about that a soul may perform heroic actions with full awareness, anticipating for such a soul, for the faculties of the soul itself, the time of normal development. Tender age is no obstacle to the wonderful effects of Grace, of any Grace, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, an endowment that God always grants to those whom he wills to be saints.

If it is admitted, and facts prove it, that children have performed extraordinary actions at a tender age, with an openness of intelligence and a mastery of will that befit only mature men (for example, Mozart, Leopardi, etc.), how can one fail to admit that this can happen under the omnipotent action of God the Creator, who always acts respecting the freedom of the creature? If prodigies occur in the natural order, there is no reason to consider them impossible in the spiritual one.

One should also bear in mind that the heroic act in a child may consist of a heroicitas of a lesser tone than that required in an adult. Renouncing a game, a sweet, sitting still at one's desk are acts that can attain the heroicity of relative virtue, if done for the love of God.

Indirectly this possibility can be proved, starting from the sad reality of children who are already masters of vice and refined in sin. If, therefore, a child's soul can be clothed in the habit of vice, how can it not, with the intervention of divine Grace and virtue, be cloaked in the garment of the highest virtue? If by nature man, whether young or adult, is drawn to evil, by Grace he is, if he corresponds, almost dragged toward good. Just as the present world especially knows how to provide society with depraved children, the Church, God, who works in her, present great souls of children raised to the glory of the altars, true heroes, of whom the 20th century has examples in Maria Goretti, the Saint of the jubilee year 1930, and also in Dominic Savio, although here we are already further along, at the dawn of adolescence.

Even setting aside such a possibility, privately children may be invoked as blessed intercessors, if they died after Baptism before the use of reason. And for this propitiatory purpose, as well as for the purpose of latria and of thanksgiving, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can be offered, inasmuch as through their intercession spiritual and temporal benefits are asked of the Lord. From this it follows that for them one must not say the Mass de Requie but either that of the day, or, if the rite permits, de Angelis, or even de Requie, but to be applied for all the deceased.

IV. CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH

The Church always carries out a maternal mission of protection toward children, so as to promote works of education and redemption; she watches particularly that they be instructed in the Christian truths and receive the holy sacraments. In this too she follows in the footsteps of the Divine Master, who gave children the greatest prestige against the rules or at least the practice of the pagan world, in which the child was accepted only insofar as he promised to become a citizen useful to society. The parallel Gospel passage of Mt. 19:13-15; Mk. 19:13-16; Lk. 18:15-19, which shows Jesus embracing the children, is of an eloquence and a freshness that enchants. The Greek word (τὰ τεσβέα) makes one think above all of the smallest children, of infants, in whom certain gifts of pre-malicious innocence are more evident, a symbol of another, intentional innocence, the fruit of combat and of struggle against evil, known indeed, but not admitted. All this motivates the appeal to childhood, as a symbol of certain most lovable qualities, above all docility and humility, which forms the object of another Gospel passage, likewise parallel, of Mt. 18:1-5; Mk. 9:32-36; Lk. 9:46-48; and it further explains the harshness of language used against the corrupters of children by Jesus himself, who, though so gentle, went so far as to say that to be drowned in the sea with a millstone around one's neck would be a better fate than to scandalize "one of these little ones..." (Mt. 18:6 and 10; Mk. 9:41; Lk. 17:2).

Jesus does not fail to acknowledge also the defects proper to children. He takes, for example, the occasion from certain caprices of boys, manifesting themselves in their games, to inveigh against the scribes and Pharisees (Lk. 7:31-34; Mt. 11:16-19). But in his eyes, with just evaluation, the defects are covered by the merits, and willingly therefore he sees these children beside him, to receive from them the simple and spontaneous homage, an echo of the very voice of God (Mt. 21:15-16); and he points to them as the subjects of his predilection and of that of those who will wish to be his disciples. Wherefore he declares that he will consider as done to himself any benefit done to each of them (Mt. 18:5).

Not a few are the works, destined for the benefit of childhood, that have arisen in the Church, as a response to this invitation of Jesus, works linked to Orders and to religious institutes, isolated works, arisen through the generous impulse of private individuals and bodies. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful pages of the history of the Church. Among the initiatives that silent and fruitful experience has already tested in this field, the names emerge of a St. Ignatius, of a St. Joseph Calasanz, of a St. John Bosco and of many others, whom it would be difficult to enumerate.

The Church has always jealously claimed for the family and for herself this educating mission, which occupies a place of first importance in the ecclesiastical magisterium (v. INSEGNAMENTO, LIBERTÀ d'; SCUOLA, LIBERTÀ di; cf. the encyclical of Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri, of 31 Dec. 1929).

V. CHILDREN AND ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION

The fruit of the teachings of the Divine Master, of a thousand years of experience in the field of pedagogy and of psychological investigation, is also the ecclesiastical legislation concerning children.

The term puer, synonymous with infans and parvulus according to can. 88 § 3, would appear to be reserved for the child before the age of 7, while the word impubes (impuber) is held in a specific sense to mean the child from 7 to 14 years, if a boy, to 12, if a girl.

But the terminology of the CIC is not always consistent and often the term puer is taken in a broader sense to indicate the child in general before puberty (cf. cann. 1331, 1353).

From birth to 7 years it is held that the child (infans, the term more commonly used in this specific sense) does not have the use of reason (non sui compos); the contrary presumption applies after 7 years (can. 88 § 3): in either case the presumption does not exclude proof to the contrary (presumption iuris tantum). However fitting it may be to accustom children in good time to the observance of ecclesiastical laws, nevertheless, before the age of seven, they are not bound by them, unless it is otherwise provided (can. 12), «whether it be a question of ecclesiastical laws that interpret divine law: thus, as soon as they have reached the use of reason and have been duly instructed, they are bound to receive Baptism (can. 752 in relation to can. 745 § 2 n. 2), Easter Communion (can. 859), the sacrament of Penance (can. 906; Pontifical Commission, 3 Jan. 1918, in Monitore Eccl., 43 [1918], 112), Viaticum (can. 854 § 2), Extreme Unction (can. 940). On the obligation of Confession and Communion before the age of seven see in particular: COMMUNION. Children, even before the use of reason, can validly receive, though unlawfully (for the one conferring it), the sacrament of Order, whereas they are incapable of matrimonial consent and of consent for any contract whatsoever, because they are incapable of a human act. Until the full use of reason they are also incapable of making any valid vow (can. 1307 § 2).

Morally, moreover, children are guilty according to the degree of their use of reason. Where there is no use of reason there is no sin, nor crime nor penalty (can. 2201 § 1). Still in the penal field, children, in proportion to their age, are held capable of sin, of dolus «of the relative penalties (can. 2204); they are never, however, liable to penalties «latae sententiae» (can. 2230), but only to corrective and educational punishments «ferendae sententiae».

Many other legal provisions concern children, without directly binding the children themselves. There exists the obligation to confer Baptism on them (can. 745 § 2 n. 3 «v. BAPTISM); an equal obligation cannot be confirmed for Confirmation (v.) which, for liceity, is to be conferred after the use of reason (can. 786). There also exists the obligation to instruct them in Christian doctrine before and after First Communion (cann. 467 § 1, 1330, 1331), to care for them in a particular way, directing them to piety and to study, if they show signs of an ecclesiastical vocation (can. 1353), to bury them, if possible, in a portion of the cemetery reserved for them, if they died before the age of seven (can. 1209 § 3). For them the Church also provides distinct funeral rites (Rit. Rom., tit. IV, cap. 6), manifesting joy rather than sadness at their eternal salvation.

If, however, they died before the use of reason without Baptism (as regards their final lot, v. LIMBO), the Mass cannot be applied for them, because the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice would avail them nothing. For children who died after the use of reason, on the other hand, the norms of the law common to all the faithful apply for this purpose, if they are baptized; to the unbaptized, if they are not baptized.

The Church further recommends that the confessor use great tact with the very young, and therefore with children in his questioning regarding the matter of the sixth precept of the decalogue (can. 888 § 2), even at the expense of the integrity of the confession (cf. Congregation of the Holy Office, Norms of 16 May 1943). There exists the prohibition against introducing women of any age (and therefore also girls) into the cloister of regulars and anyone (even boys or girls) into the cloister of nuns (can. 598 § 1, 600 and 2342).

On crimes against children, and the treatment of the child in antiquity, v. EXPOSED INFANTS; INFANTICIDE; ABANDONED INFANCY; on the enormous responsibility for their corruption, v. MINORS. On children in the Crusades, v. CRUSADES; on children offered to monasteries, v. OBLATES; on the labor of children, v. LABOR.

Pietro Palazzini

CATHOLIC CHILDREN, ASSOCIATION of: v. UNIONE DONNE DI AZIONE CATTOLICA.