More on Christian Education

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance.  O Lord, make haste to help me.

   In the previous post, taking excerpts from Divini Illius Magistri, Pope Pius XI's encyclical on Christian Education, the emphasis was on the role of the Church, its mission to educate for the good of moral and social order.  Today the text speaks about "the true and just rights of the State in regard to the education of its citizens."

   "These rights have been conferred upon civil society by the Author of nature Himself, not by title of fatherhood, as in the case of the Church and of the family, but in virtue of the authority which it possesses to promote the common temporal welfare, which is precisely the purpose of its existence."

   Pope Pius XI also recognizes that the State is to protect the rights of the child "when the parents are found wanting either physically or morally....since, as has been shown, their right to educate is not an absolute and despotic one, but dependent on the natural and divine law, and therefore subject alike to the authority and jurisdiction of the Church, and to the vigilance and administrative care of the State in view of the common good."

   It is important to add that the State must have regard for distributive justice (look for my blog on that subject). "Unjust and unlawful is any monopoly, educational or scholastic, which, physically or morally, forces families to make use of government schools, contrary to the dictates of their Christian conscience, or contrary even to their legitimate preferences."

   Pope Pius XI returns again to Pope Leo XIII and the Catholic doctrine of The Christian Constitution of States in the Encyclicals Immortale Deo and Sapientiae Christianae. He says,"God has divided the government of the human race between two authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, establishing one over things divine, the other over things human. Both are supreme, each in its own domain; each has its own fixed boundaries which limit its activities. "

   The domains are defined. "Everything therefore in human affairs that is in any way sacred, or has reference to the salvation of souls and the worship of God, whether by its nature or by its end, is subject to the jurisdiction and discipline of the Church. Whatever else is comprised in the civil and political order, rightly comes under the authority of the State; for Christ commanded us to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."

   The State is subject to God's law. To deny that is wrong. If we look at our own time and the total secularization of education and the denial of God, we can see that right reason does not prevail and  our civilization is in decay. Our children are not growing up to be good citizens of the State or of God's kingdom. The teachings of Christ are not opposed to the welfare of the State. Pope Pius cites St. Augustine, who even in his time, saw the fallacy of that idea. "...and we today can repeat with him: Let those who declare the teaching of Christ to be opposed to the welfare of the State, furnish us with an army of soldiers such as Christ says soldiers ought to be; let them give us subjects, husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, kings, judges, taxpayers and tax gatherers who live up to the teachings of Christ; and then let them dare assert that Christian doctrine is harmful to the State. Rather let them not hesitate one moment to acclaim that doctrine, rightly observe, is the greatest safeguard of the State."

   In the Renaissance era Cardinal Silvio Antoniano wrote a treatise on The Christian Education of Youth. In it he says "The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth."  By the formation of good Christians good citizens are formed.

   "A good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. ...For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquility by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity."
     8/25/13