VII

CONDEMNS PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

THE canon law voices in positive and emphatic terms the hostility of the papal hierarchy to public schools in all lands. Thirty sections or canons of the Codex Juris Canonici are required to state the attitude of the Church of Rome towards public education.

But those canons, like much of the official utterances and propaganda of the papal government, are couched in language deliberately intended to confuse and mislead the general public as to some vital matters. The manner in which the canons are administered by the hierarchy as well as authorized comments by eminent Roman Catholic canonists, however renders the meaning clear.
Canon 1373 says:

"Section 1. In every elementary school the children must, according to their ages, be instructed in Christian doctrine.
"Section 2. Youths who attend the secondary or higher schools should be given fuller instruction in Christian doctrine, and the local Ordinaries should see to it that this instruction is given by zealous and learned priests."

Nothing could be more misleading to the unskilled reader than the foregoing canon. It was manifestly so designed. Taken in the sense which appears from a casual reading, it would meet the approval of Christian parents and citizens in general. Few indeed would make serious objection to the teaching of Christian morality to children and youth. But such is far from the meaning of the law under consideration.

Any suggestion that the Bible be read or studied in school instantly calls forth emphatic and determined objection from every Roman prelate and priest. Indeed, it is they who have been chiefly active in barring the Holy Scriptures from public schools. Virtually the sole objection to Bible reading in school comes from the hierarchy of Rome and is expressed in its diocesan press.

The true meaning of the foregoing canon is that the doctrines and superstitions of the Church of Rome, including the political doctrine that the Pope is the overlord of all civil governments, shall be taught to the exclusion of all other religious views in every school to which Roman Catholic children and youth are admitted. It is a veiled restatement of the mediaeval doctrine that all religious truth has been monopolized by the Papacy and all other doctrine must be silenced.

The Council of Trent bound every Roman Catholic in the world to substitute for the Holy Scriptures the doctrines of Rome purporting to be based on them. That bond is stated in the following profession of faith which all Roman Catholics are required to make:

"I also admit the Holy Scriptures, ACCORDING TO THAT SENSE WHICH OUR HOLY MOTHER CHURCH HAS HELD AND DOES HOLD, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers." —Dogmatic Canons and Decrees, published with Imprimatur of the late Cardinal Farley in 1912, page 176."

In harmony with that doctrine it will be observed that section 2 of Canon 1373 under consideration provides that the Ordinary or Bishop shall see that all religious instruction in School IS GIVEN BY A ZEALOUS AND LEARNED PRIEST. That is the crux of the whole matter. The Roman demand is that religious instruction shall be given in all schools but only by priests and nuns of the Church of Rome and that the doctrines of that Church shall alone be given.

To that end Canon 1399, forbids Roman Catholics, whether children or adults, to have or read original texts or ancient Roman Catholic versions of the Sacred Scriptures if published by non-Roman Catholics, and that canon, together with Canon 1385, forbids Roman Catholics to publish the Holy Scriptures at all without express previous approval of the Papacy or its local enthroned prelate reigning over the territory wherein the publication is planned.

So are all texts, and versions of the Bible and all teaching based thereon rigidly excluded by canon law from Roman Catholic children and adults unless given to them by those expressly authorized thereto by the hierarchy of Rome. No Roman Catholic publisher is permitted to produce such texts or versions and no Roman Catholic is permitted to have or read them when produced by non-Roman Catholics.

The requirement of Canon 1373 and the noisy demand of Roman propagandists for religious instruction in primary and secondary schools is that priests of Rome shall teach in them the religious and political doctrines of popery. Though carefully veiled, that is the issue which confronts the American nation. On that issue Latin America followed Spain, Portugal and other Roman Catholic lands four hundred years ago in accepting the Roman Catholic demand. The result is before the world.

The papal demand and the method of its enforcement in Latin America will be found embodied in existing treaties between the Sovereign Pontiff and the governments of South American countries. Such a treaty made with the government of Colombia December 3, 1887, contains this instructive provision:

"In the universities, colleges, schools and other educational centers, the public education and instruction shall be organized and directed in conformity with the doctrines and moral teachings of the Catholic religion. Religious instruction shall be obligatory in such institutions, and the religious exercises prescribed by the Catholic religion shall be observed in them.—"British and Foreign State Papers, published by the British government, Volume 79, pages 818-825."

The character of the teaching so demanded is exemplified in a Manual of Christian Doctrine. The book was published in 1902 with Imprimatur of the then Roman archbishop of Philadelphia and has run to about sixty editions. On page 132 is this teaching which the hierarchy deems religious:

"What right has the Pope in virtue of his supremacy?
"The right to annul those laws or acts of government that would injure the salvation of souls or attack the natural rights of citizens."

On page 133 this is taught:

"May the State separate itself from the Church?
"No because it may not withdraw from the supreme rule of Christ."

Against such alleged religious instruction given by priests of Rome, may a kind Providence protect us. But papal condemnation of public schools is more pointedly expressed in Canon 1374 of the Codex, which reads as follows:

"Catholic children shall not attend non Catholic, indifferent schools that are mixed, that is to say, schools open to Catholics and non Catholics alike. The Bishop of the diocese only has the right, in harmony with the instructions of the Holy See, to decide under what circumstances, and with what safeguards to prevent loss of faith, it may be tolerated that Catholic children go to such schools."

Leading Roman Catholic authorities explain that the expression "may be tolerated" implies that such toleration is a departure from the canon law and is granted under special circumstances in the discretion of the enthroned bishop and the Sovereign Pontiff. The instruction of the Holy See mentioned regarding the circumstances under which toleration may be granted embodied this provision:

"Generally speaking, such cause will exist it there is no Catholic school in the place, or if the one that is there cannot be considered suitable to the conditions and circumstances of the pupils. Parents who neglect to give this necessary Christian training and instruction to their children, or who permit them to go to schools in which the ruin of their souls is inevitable, or, finally, who send them to the public schools without sufficient cause and without taking the necessary precautions to render the danger of perversion remote, and do so while there is a good and well-equipped Catholic school in the place, and while they have the means to send them elsewhere to he educated; such parents, if obstinate, can not he absolved, as is evident from the moral teaching of the Church."Commentary on Canon Law, Augustine, published 1921, with Imprimatur of Archbishop Glennon, Volume 6, pages 415, 416."

A standard Roman Catholic text book on The Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in United States, by Rev. J. A. Burns, President of Holy Cross College, Washington, D. C., published in 1912 with Imprimatur of the late Cardinal Farley, further evinces the hostility of the hierarchy and the canon law to public schools in this frank declaration which appears on page 223:

"We deny, of course, as Catholics, the right of the civil government to educate, for education is a function of the spiritual society, as much so as preaching and the administration of the sacraments; but we do not deny to the state the right to establish and maintain public schools. The state, if it chooses, may even endow religion or pay the ministers of religion for their support; * * * It may found and endow schools and pay the teachers, but it can not dictate or interfere with the education or discipline of the schools."

Such is the condemnation of public schools by the canon law. Papal hostility to such schools is deep-seated and fundamental. It is embodied in the statute law of the Papacy. It alone is responsible for determined Roman Catholic opposition to legislation designed to make attendance at public schools compulsory. It explains the bitter antipathy and resistance of the hierarchy to all measures designed to strengthen and enrich public education.

To deny the right of Roman Catholics bound by the canon law to teach in schools which that law so condemns is not bigotry. It is simple truth and even handed justice. The canon law and the public school can not coexist in peace.
In August and September each year the three hundred periodicals published in this country by authority of the enthroned hierarchy of Rome admonish their readers, in thousands of columns of thunderous editorials, of the duty imposed by canon law to keep their children out of the public schools. The admonition is effective in placing more than two millions of Roman Catholic children in the parochial schools established here by orders of the Pontifical throne.

Latin America has attended such parochial schools for four hundred years. In consequence illiteracy is nearly universal in those lands and immorality has filled them with mongrel populations that rival in number the white and aboriginal races.