STATE, OBLIGATIONS OF ONE'S OWN. - By "state" here is meant not only the unchangeable conditions of life by which we are bound toward others (a state deriving from sacred Order, religious profession, or marriage), but also those other conditions of life that have a certain stability. Understood in this way, states (professions, employments, services and offices) are the places assigned to each person by God in the order of human society; not privileges, but sources of responsibility and talents for which one must give an account. Their multiplicity and variety, necessary for man's social life and for the organization of the Church, goes back to God, the author of nature and of society.
Consequently: 1) all professions, whether necessary or useful to the common good, are morally good and in conformity with human dignity, even if manual and lucrative. This does not exclude the existence among states of a vast and complex hierarchy deriving from their origin and especially from the perfection, necessity and difficulty of the various states, and, within the same state, from the particular demands of each person's rank or activity; 2) Providence assigns each person to different states, both by bestowing the natural and supernatural gifts necessary and by providing the means to carry out this providential plan. This carrying out, however, arises, as a rule, from the free choice of the subject. Two classes of duties can therefore be examined: the one preliminary and relating to the choice of a state; the others, which are called duties of one's own state in the strict sense and which arise from the state already chosen and operative.
I. THE CHOICE OF ONE'S STATE
A state sometimes emerges from the very fact of birth, as that of a son or a subject; at other times from circumstances of the individual or of the environment; at still other times from evident necessity of civil and ecclesiastical society, as when one is called by the pope to the episcopate; at other times, finally, from an extraordinary call of God, as in the case of Jeremiah or Jonah (cf. Jer. 1:6-10; Jon. 1:1 ff.). In the other cases, which are the majority, the will of God is more or less precise and must be investigated until one has a moral certainty proportionate to the gravity of the commitment to be undertaken. Such a choice and investigation entails, besides asking the necessary light from God, an attentive and realistic knowledge and evaluation of the qualities and capacities, as well as the tastes, of the subject; of the effective possibility of realizing, in time and place, one's desires — for even in the field of professions and occupations one can speak of demand and supply with consequent deflation and inflation; of the nature and difficulty of the state both in itself and in relation to the subject, and of the advantages and disadvantages, of a spiritual and material order, that it entails; aiming to know not so much the excellence of the state in itself, as to perceive to which state the subject is called.
The importance of the choice demands that it be made in good time and that the Church, the family, the school and professional associations contribute to it, according to their means and in their own field, fostering the orientation of individuals and the selection of members in the various professions. But it is ultimately the right and the burden of the subject who, in this, is not subject even to his parents (Pius XII, Radio Message for Christmas 1942). This does not mean, of course, that the subject must not take due account of their advice and that of superiors and of the spiritual director, nor that he cannot be bound, even in the choice of a state, by previous particular moral obligations (he could not, for example, leave the house if he were truly necessary to the life of his parents) or by requirements of the common good or by limits imposed by authority. Special circumstances may also sometimes counsel the choice of a provisional state, while awaiting the possibility of a change.
These criteria must inspire not only the generic choice of a state such as the military or medical profession, but also the specific choice of rank, office and the like: not all those who are called to military service can serve in the same branch or in the same rank, and different qualities are required in a health officer of a large municipality isolated from centers and different ones in a physician in free practice; different ones in the general practitioner and different ones in the devotee of a given specialty.
The choice imposes the obligation of preparation and education, sometimes of a trial period and apprenticeship, according to the circumstances of the subject and of the profession and the laws that may be in force, which bind also in conscience.
Just as he sins by pusillanimity, that is, against the virtue of fortitude, who refuses, without proportionate reason, offices imposed by superiors or willed by the common good (and then only an evident incapacity can be a sufficient reason), so he violates justice who accepts a task, whether private or public, of which he knows himself incapable; of his fault those who urge or favor him become accomplices: parents, superiors, examiners, electors. It may be lawful to elect, and on the part of the subject to accept, one who is less capable, when it is a question of a necessary office and there is lacking anyone better prepared for it.
The laws that regulate the beginning of a profession or of a trade (examination, registration in the rolls and the like) must also be observed; whoever obtains an employment or an office by illicit means that are determining causes of obtaining the office itself must not only submit to the established penalties (cf. CIC, cann. 149, 153-54, 729, 2371, 2392-95, etc.; Italian Penal Code, arts. 316-24, 476-93), but must, albeit in such a way as to safeguard his good name, leave the post unjustly obtained and make reparation for the damages caused to third parties. Nor must the laws of charity be neglected, which sometimes require that one yield an office or superfluous bread to one who has grave need of it.
II. DUTIES TOWARD ONE'S OWN STATE
It is not useless to point out that these duties do not exempt one from those incumbent on every man or those deriving from another source; in the case of collisions of duties, the more grave and urgent ones are to be preferred, according to the fundamental norms of morality. Therefore the physician, the teacher, the craftsman, etc. must observe, together with the specific duties of their state, those common to every man, to every citizen, father of a family, etc. Indeed the skill and capacity that is presupposed and required in every state will be a source of orientation and of extension of the common duties: the physician will practice charity especially toward the sick, while every intellectual will have to feel more urgent the invitation to instruct the ignorant, to admonish, etc.
A fundamental duty common to all states is that of exercising one's office with that diligence which is required by the public or private good and has been, explicitly or implicitly, promised. Such a promise exists, at least implicitly, in the acceptance of the office, by which a hiring of works or contract for work is perfected (others see in it a mandate or an innominate contract or a quasi-contract); whence arises an obligation of commutative justice in favor of the party in private offices; toward society and also toward the citizens for whom the activity proper to that particular office is destined, in public ones. Hence also the nature and the obligation of repairing the damages caused.
This fundamental duty requires:
1) the expertise or theoretical and practical competence necessary for the right fulfillment of the obligations of one's state; ordinary expertise, which suffices at least for the common and urgent cases and difficulties, according to the circumstances of the state and of the environment. It must be greater the more grave are the possibilities of the subject and the responsibilities of the office, and it must extend not only to theoretical and practical, specific and technical knowledge, but also to the moral and religious norms that regulate that state and that constitute the deontology of the magistrate, of the entrepreneur, etc. This expertise will often require avoiding what is alien to one's activity and will have to be kept alive and up to date. Whoever knows or prudently doubts that he lacks this or another necessary quality, not only sinned in accepting the office, but is obliged to resign or to remedy his deficiency, guarding himself in the meantime against the errors and damages which he will meanwhile be bound to repair.
2) Ordinary and suitable diligence in the exercise of his activity. Diligence, like expertise, must be proportionate to the responsibilities that arise from the state, and, within the same state, from the particular post or office. A grave negligence is a grave injustice that entails the burden of repairing the damages. No inconvenience intrinsic to the profession excuses one from its faithful fulfillment; in public offices the public good must always prevail over private utility and, even in private offices, whoever exercises them is obliged to face the inconveniences and dangers, even unforeseen ones, that are by their nature connected with the office itself. He also violates justice who, without proportionate reason, abandons his office before the agreed or fixed term.
Professional activity must be carried out in such a way as not to prejudice the higher interests and duties of man; indeed it must be considered as a means subordinate to the higher spiritual exigencies: as a gift granted in order to serve Jesus Christ in one's brethren, making them sharers in those same gifts (cf. 1 Pt. 2:10).
It is a duty to feel, without sectarianisms, indeed in full harmony and collaboration of all forces and all associations, bonds of particular charity toward those belonging to the same state; to favor professional unions tending to spiritual and material elevation, participating actively in their life.
Also the laws that regulate the exercise of the various states bind in conscience and must be known and observed (cf. Cod. civ. it., arts. 2060-2642); likewise the contracts regularly stipulated either by associations or by private individuals and the tariffs and fees fixed by the competent bodies. Whoever exercises a public office can demand nothing for the fulfillment of his duty, beyond what is established by law or by legitimate custom: in the contrary case he is obliged to restitution. Nor may he accept what is offered to him spontaneously for an illicit end, nor what is forbidden by the laws or what can be a cause of scandal or an incentive to prevarication (cf. CIC, can. 736; Cod. pen. it., arts. 316-22).