FATHERLAND AND PATRIOTISM. - Patria comes from pater, "father": it is the land in which one is born and in which one's forebears have lived in family continuity. Its external elements are the land, fatherhood and nationality; its internal elements, national consciousness and traditions. It is not an arbitrary creation of the spirit; rather it springs immediately from the social nature of men and evolves freely under the impulse of providential influences. The concept of patria must be distinguished from that of society, of nation and of State. The notion of patria adds to that of society the note of continuity, which the term society does not imply in itself. This enduring unity corresponds to that of nation; but while patria designates more especially the land, nation more properly the aggregate of men whom birth unites as descendants of the same ancestors, State, on the other hand, designates rather the politically organized people: it is the political and juridical notion of patria.
According to the teaching of St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 101, a. 1), patria is that in which one is born and reared and to which one is therefore bound by a complex of duties. The same St. Thomas links his doctrine on this point with what Cicero had already taught, for whom love toward the patria is included in pietas (v. PIETA), that is, in those very duties that man has toward God and his relatives. This pietas is expressed through officium, that is, through deference, and through cultus, that is, through reverence and honor, whereby it is not exhausted in mere outward obedience but in the intimate subjection of the spirit, in the manner of what is owed to God and to one's relatives. As for the extension of these duties, St. Thomas considers more directly persons rather than the State in the abstract: "by the cultus of the patria is meant the cultus toward all fellow citizens and toward all friends of the patria." And rightly so, because the State can be changed and even fought against, when it does not correspond to its task, it can sometimes vary in its territorial extent, while it remains substantially the same as regards the individuals who are part of the State itself.
By the term patriotism is meant that fervent and disinterested sentiment that impels the citizens of every class to promote the greatness, the glory and the well-being of the patria in a manner conformable to justice and charity.
Bibliography12 works
Angelo Criscito