GENIUS — Sarcophagus known as the Good Shepherd with little genii engaged in grape-harvesting and milking (4th century) — Rome, Museo Cristiano Lateranense.
II. DUTIES OF GENII —
1. Love
Besides being a general duty of charity, the love of children is also a specific duty of piety. It embraces three things: willing the good of the children, doing good to them, and keeping them away from evil, whether physical or spiritual.The obligation of love belongs to natural law. Through instinct it is manifested even in animals. Well known are the watchful cares with which animals surround their offspring. The same tendency is manifested in men in an even more evident manner. To such an extent that genii who forget or trample upon this fundamental duty are considered monsters. The children, on the other hand, at least until a certain age, are incapable of providing for themselves: they therefore have the right to be cared for, helped, and defended. To the right of the children there necessarily corresponds the duty of the genii. It must be added that children are an integral part of the genii, born of their union, sharing the same blood, inheriting their good or bad tendencies, and being an extension of their life and love. They therefore deserve to be loved as one loves a part of oneself. This love must be: affective and effective, internal and external, natural and supernatural.
a) Affective and internal. So that they seek and sincerely will the good of the children, both corporal and spiritual, for the present and for the future. Those who hate or curse or desire evil for their children, or offend them with gravely injurious words, therefore sin gravely. In this last case, however, in practice they are often excused from grave sin because they do so in the heat of anger. This love for children must, however, be regulated. It must not be exaggerated, so as to make of the children idols, granting them everything or not correcting them when they do wrong; nor partial, so as to love one child more than another, even if more deserving; nor selfish, that is, it must not be an interested love.
b) Effective and external. The genii, that is, must not only will the good of the children but must also procure it according to their means. Those who do not provide for the children what is necessary for their physical and spiritual health, or who, being able to do so, do not avert an evil that threatens them, therefore sin.
c) Natural and supernatural. Natural, because the children are part of themselves; supernatural, because the genii are co-operators of God in begetting and sanctifying the children.
2) Education. — It is the first good that genii must procure for their children. This too is an obligation of natural law. “Nature,” says St. Thomas, “tends not only to the procreation of the child but also to his development and progress, to lead him to the state of perfect man” (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 41, a. 1).
Genius — Sarcophagus known as the Good Shepherd with little genii engaged in grape-harvesting and milking (4th century) — Rome, Museo Cristiano Lateranense.
Civil legislation too is severe regarding the duties of genii toward their children. Genii who violate the obligations of family assistance, or abuse the means of correction and discipline, or are guilty of maltreatment toward children, are punished with various penalties, which increase proportionately when the child suffers serious or very serious personal injury or death (Cod. pen. it., arts. 570, 571, 572).