PRIDE. - It is the disordered love of one's own excellence (Sum. theol., 2a-2ae, q. 84, a. 2). By excellence must be understood everything that elevates one's own person and that is sought precisely with a view to highlighting and elevating one's own person.
Whereas humility inclines one not to wish to attribute any good to oneself, but to God alone, s. tends to attribute everything to itself; and it is therefore an inner swelling of the mind, whose acts are: a) to consider greatly one's own real and apparent perfections and instead to conceal one's defects; and consequently to persuade oneself that one has a perfection superior to that which one actually possesses; b) to attribute not to God, but to oneself, the gifts possessed, whether natural or supernatural; c) great esteem for one's own perfection and complacency in it; d) aspiration to great things, freedom from subjection to anyone, considering oneself more perfect than all; aspiration to dignities and honors as due to oneself, in preference to all others; grief, anger and complaints when one fails to obtain them; e) refusal of subjection even to superiors, of whom the proud person considers himself more prudent and whose orders, at least in his own interior, he despises; f) finally sometimes rebellion against God himself, as though he were not needed. This last is the greatest act of pride and therefore a mortal sin in its own genus (ibid., 2a-2ae, q. 162, a. 5; cf. again St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, XXIII, ch. 6: PL 76, 258-59). Such was the sin of Lucifer, who dared to set himself in opposition to God himself with the blasphemous challenge: I will ascend into heaven, ... I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High (Is. 14, 13-14); and he was at once punished with hell (cf. ibid., 14, 15 and Lk. 10, 18). Such too is the sin of those who refuse to submit to the authority of the Church, or to accept her magisterium.
From what has been said, pride is distinguished into perfect and imperfect. a) Perfect is that of one who so loves his own excellence as to refuse to subject himself to God or to those who govern us in God's name; it is a mortal sin; b) Imperfect is that of one who does not refuse obedience to God or to those to whom he must be subject, but loves his own excellence more than is right. It is a venial sin when it is not joined to grave contempt for others.
St. Gregory the Great (Moralia, XXXI, ch. 45: PL 76, 620-21), with whom St. Thomas agrees (Sum. theol., 2a-2ae, q. 132, a. 4), places pride not among the capital vices, but above them all, as it were the mother and queen of all vices, because, although not all sins are of pride, nevertheless pride can lead to any fault. In particular, from pride there derive almost necessarily presumption, ambition, vainglory (v. under the individual entries). Pride then easily leads to harshness and intransigence toward others. It is an eminently antisocial vice and stands at the origin of most conflicts among men, driving them to use a different measure for themselves and for others.
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Andrea Gennaro