On Christian Education

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

   For a few weeks now, our pastor has been inserting portions of Divini Illius Magistri, the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Christian Education, into our weekly bulletin. I intend to pull out some of it to post here.  It is an incredibly important view of education by the Catholic Church.

   First of all, Pius XI said that, along with the work of salvation of souls, the Church has the right to promote science art, letters, etc. In the so-called Dark Ages, the university system came into being through efforts of the Church. The founding and maintaining of schools and institutions for every branch of learning and degree of culture have been important areas in the ongoing history of the Catholic Church.

   Pope Pius XI notes that such works do not "interfere in the least with the regulations of the State, because the Church in her motherly prudence is not unwilling that her schools and institutions for the education of the laity be in keeping with the legitimate dispositions of civil authority; she is in every way ready to cooperate with this authority and to make provision for a mutual understanding, should difficulties. arise."

   Pius points out that the Church must watch over the entire education of her children, whether in public or private school, to guard regulation of religion and morality.  He quotes Pope Leo XIII that without proper religious and moral instruction "every form of intellectual culture will be injurious; for oung people not accustomed to respect God, will be unable to bear the restraint of a virtuous life, and never having learned to deny themselves anything, they will easily be incited to disturb the public order."

   I can stop right there and look at the headlines almost daily now, of violence perpetrated by our youth, without moral background, neither at home  nor at school. God has been removed from schools and too many have little instruction at home or observance of any religious rites. The injection of race, deliberately, with the purpose of inciting violence, is too easily accepted.

   The family is important in the Church's mission of education. "God directly communicates to the family, in the natural order, fecundity, which is the principle of life, and hence also the principle of education to life, together with authority, the principle of order."  Get that? "authority, the principle of order."

   ".....so by natural right the child, before reaching the use of reason, is under the father's care. hence it should be contrary to natural justice if the child, before the use of reason, were removed from the care of its parents, or if any disposition were made concerning him against the will of the parents." My note:  Beware the efforts to have a nanny for every family to see that the child is educated and cared for as the State ordains, or that the child is removed by law and put into early day care.

   "The family therefore holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth."   These are important words, not to be taken lightly.  Today's fractured families make the initial education of children more difficult; but beware the overreaching State offering to take that burden away.

   Quoting Leo XIII again: "By nature parents have a right to the training of their children, but with this added duty that the education and instruction of the child e in accord with the end for which by God's blessing it was begotten. Therefore it is the duty of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights in this matter, and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their own control in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety."
Whew! It is difficult to find any school today, even some Catholic institutions, that one may confidently send their children.  Home-schooling is proliferating among those parents who care about the spiritual well-being of their offspring as well as the rest of their education.

   A little more from Leo XIII, also quoted in Pius XI's encyclical: "...And therefore, the father's power is of such a nature that it cannot be destroyed or absorbed by the State; for it has the same origin as human life itself."

   Pius goes on: "It must be borne in mind also that the obligation of the family to bring up children, includes not only religious and moral education, but physical and civic education as well, principally in so far as it touches upon religion and morality,"

   Keep in mind that this encyclical was written in the early part of the 20th century. The following quote is quite telling:. "This incontestable right of the family has at various times been recognized by nations anxious to respect the natural law in their civil enactments (my note: natural law is hard to find these days in any deliberations). Thus, to give one recent example, the Supreme Court of the  United States of America, in a decision on an important controversy, declared that it is not in the competence of the State to fix any uniform standard of education by forcing children to receive instruction exclusively in public schools, and it bases its decision on the natural law: the child is not the mere creature of the State: those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty, to \educate him and prepare hi for the fulfillment of his obligations."

   I'm going to stop here. The next post will talk more about the State and its role.

8/24/13