LITTLE APPENDIX: ON PARENTS COMMITTING OFFSPRING TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO BE INSTRUCTED.²

Concerning this question, on June 30 (Wednesday) in the year 1875, there was given by the Supreme Congregation of the Universal Inquisition an Instruction to the Most Reverend Bishops of the United States, which Our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IX, on November 24 (Wednesday) of the same year, deigned to approve and confirm. Indeed I have found nothing in this Instruction by which those things which I taught on this matter in the first and second edition of this Compendium, and in the little work cited at the bottom of this page, are weakened. Yet since those things which proceed from the Roman See have that authority against which it is forbidden to resist, in this edition also of my work I have judged that extracts from this Instruction should be exhibited to readers (p. 471 (b) of this Volume), with certain notes added, by which beginners, confessors, and pastors of souls may be helped to understand it rightly and apply it prudently. - But in this place we resolve the following cases, sufficiently obvious in this region.

435. • Case I. Parents cannot be absolved who hand over children to public schools to be instructed, in which they are compelled to use a Protestant version of the Bible, or to recite hymns or prayers of sects. For faith is not only exposed to danger in schools of this sort, but the precept of confessing the same faith is also violated, or certainly is judged to be violated, through a certain communion in sacred things. Cf. Conc. Plen. Balt. I.³

Case II. Generally parents cannot be absolved who commit children to public schools to be instructed in which, either because of teachers, or because of books, or because of fellow students, their faith or morals are exposed to proximate danger. For they are of the number of those schools which the Holy See, in letters of July 14, 1864, to the Archbishop of Freiburg in Breisgau, declared cannot in conscience be frequented anywhere.

I say: generally they cannot be absolved, because of the exception concerning which we shall treat below.

Case III. Universally parents cannot be absolved who entrust children to public schools concerning which it is unknown whether they are of the number of those about which we spoke in Case II. For it is established that public schools nowadays among us commonly constitute proximate danger because of some one of the three positive causes indicated in Case II; therefore a presumption militates against them; and this presumption yields only to truth, that is, to certainty that this or that public school can be tolerated as not positively harmful. For in moral matters judgment must be made according to what commonly happens.

436. • Case IV. Unless otherwise they sufficiently provide for the Catholic instruction of their children, parents cannot be absolved who hand them over to public schools to be instructed, even if certainly not proximately dangerous, in those places and adjuncts in which they can commit them to some Catholic school. For the precept of instructing offspring as Catholics is not only negative, or prohibiting lest they be committed to proximately dangerous schools, but also affirmative, namely prescribing that some means, and an apt one, be employed by which Catholic instruction of this sort may be obtained. But parents of whom there is question in the case are supposed to neglect or not to employ a means of this sort. Therefore they cannot be absolved.

I said: 1) Unless otherwise they sufficiently provide for the Catholic instruction of children. For a Catholic school, although it is the best and ordinary means for obtaining this end, nevertheless is not the only one; therefore parents cannot be compelled under denial of absolution to employ precisely this means, supposing that on one side the public school is not proximately dangerous, and on the other that the children are sufficiently instructed in Christian doctrine either by the parents themselves or by others. But whether that instruction can be judged sufficient which is handed on once in the week in Sunday schools, or by the priest in church, will have to be judged from the adjuncts. For less suffices for an intelligent and diligent child, especially if he has parents by whom he is duly stimulated and helped in learning, so that he may arrive at a congruent knowledge of Christian doctrine, than for one undiligent and left to himself alone. Yet generally, and according as the condition of things is in most places, this single instruction in the week must be called insufficient.

I said: 2) In those places and adjuncts in which they can commit them to some Catholic school. For there is no obligation of impossible things. But in the matter of which we are treating, not only that which cannot be done physically is called impossible, but also that which cannot be done morally, or without grave difficulty. You have a case of the former, or of physical impossibility, in places in which, or in whose near vicinity, no Catholic school is had; or, if there is question of poor parents, in places in which Catholic schools either are not free, or are absent, or are not present in sufficient number. An example of the latter, or of moral impossibility, occurs in parents for whom that which they earn by daily labor scarcely or hardly at all suffices for bearing those double expenses which civil power exacts for public schools, and the Church for Catholic ones.

437. • Case V. Parents cannot be absolved who, without a proportionately grave cause, commit children to some public school, although not proximately dangerous, in those adjuncts in which this cannot be done without grave scandal. Suppose, for example, a Catholic man conspicuous among his fellow citizens by wealth, authority, or any other cause, in whose parish a Catholic school coexists with some public school. This man, if by his example, and especially if, as is customary for such persons, by praises also directed to the public school, he would induce others either to desert the Catholic school or not to approach it, would certainly be guilty of grave scandal, and consequently not to be absolved.

Yet I said: who without a proportionately grave cause would commit children to a public school, although not proximately dangerous, and this because of the exception concerning which we shall treat below.

Case VI. It can be doubted whether parents can be absolved who commit children to schools in which a Catholic teacher, from some Protestant version of the Bible (which nevertheless the children do not use), reads aloud only those things which are conformable to the Catholic version. And indeed the reason for doubting is that he who uses a Protestant version seems both to acknowledge its authority - since he is judged to read it aloud as the Word of God - and to propose it to children as a norm. Yet if either the children are unaware that he uses a Protestant version, or from the explicit protestation of the teacher, or from the adjuncts, it is sufficiently clear that he does not acknowledge its authority and acts in this way compelled by hard necessity, I would deny absolution neither to the teacher nor to the parents; for then the reason for doubting brought forward will no longer subsist. Yet I suppose that the school is not to be avoided for other causes, and I assume that the benign mind of Mother Church is not to wish to urge the prohibition of Protestant Bibles in such a way that in those adjuncts also in which her law would become harmful it would not be licit even materially to hold them in the hands, so that those things which are conformable to Catholic Bibles may be read aloud from them.

438. • Case VII. What if children are compelled to recite hymns or prayers of sects, but only such as contain nothing heretical, for example the formula of the Lord's Prayer with the addition: "for thine is the kingdom," etc.?

Parents who hand over children to be instructed in schools of this kind cannot be absolved, if hymns and prayers of this kind are employed as the object of a religious act, and not, as hymns often are, as the object of recreation or of natural doctrine. Yet attendance of a school of that sort could be permitted to children who would abstain from every cooperation in these prayers and songs; for by acting thus they would protest against them. But who would expect this from children?

Case VIII. What if children, in places where there is no supply of a Catholic school, could not even learn the art of reading or writing unless they are sent to some public school? I answer by distinguishing. If the children are taught in some school which is not proximately dangerous, absolution cannot be denied to the parents. But if, because of one of the causes indicated above in Case II, it is proximately dangerous, it will again have to be distinguished and the case resolved according to the principles of a necessary proximate occasion. Namely, either the danger which threatens the faith or morals of the children can be rendered remote from proximate, and in reality is rendered remote, or not. If the former, they will be able to be absolved; if the latter, they will not be able. Yet in children that danger can only with greatest difficulty be rendered remote from proximate, since that tender age is almost always imbued with the principles and morals of those whose teachings they constantly hear, or whose familiarity they use. I confess indeed that it seems rather harsh that children be deprived of the opportunity of learning the art of reading and writing; for this is of greatest moment to them, especially today, not only in any social condition which they will sometime obtain, but it can also be very useful to their faith and piety. But if that art cannot be learned without damage to faith or morals, the words of Christ the Lord in Matthew¹ hold good: "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?" St. Alphonsus² resolves an analogous case in the same way, treating of girls who would be taught the art of reading and writing (privately, of course) by men. "Nor should the confessor indulge these girls," he says, "that they be taught to read by men, and much less to write. How many simple girls, who learned to read, have bewailed the ruin of the soul!" Therefore he teaches that neither are mothers to be absolved who would permit this.

439. • Case IX. What if children cannot learn in some Catholic school those things the knowledge of which they will sometime need in their social condition, for instance some language, commercial accounting, mechanics, chemistry, medicine, jurisprudence, and other things of this kind? The case occurs either because no Catholic school is present in which children are taught these things, or because that school cannot be approached except with expenses to which the parents are not equal.

The response given to the preceding case holds entire for the present case. Yet judgment concerning the lesser or greater possibility of removing danger will necessarily be various according to the various adjuncts. Thus in adolescents who are going to devote themselves to higher disciplines in some non-Catholic school, there must be considered not only a stronger or weaker character, and a mind protected more firmly or less firmly by the principles of Religion, and also childhood passed honorably or less honorably, but also the lesser or greater care, vigilance, and authority of parents; and likewise the distance of the place in which he applies himself to studies from the paternal home. For the farther the son's residence is distant from the dwelling of the parents, the more difficult it will be for them to watch over him and to exercise authority and influence upon him. Attention must also be given to the condition of the school itself and of the place, since this renders the danger more or less proximate, or increases or diminishes the difficulty of removing it. Finally, the greater or lesser gravity of the cause by which parents are impelled to hand over children to schools of this sort for instruction must be kept before the eyes; and, with all these things weighed, confessors will have to be either stricter or more benign with parents of this sort. In a word, the solicitude of Holy Mother Church concerning mixed marriages is to be held as the norm by confessors. For just as she never permits those marriages unless precautions have been employed by which the Catholic instruction of the offspring to be born from them is secure, so also confessors should in no case permit children to be committed to schools where the proximate danger of perversion is not removed; and just as absolution is to be denied to the Catholic party who is at fault that offspring is not instructed as Catholic, so also it is to be denied to parents who by their own fault either expose or leave exposed offspring in schools of which we are treating to danger as to faith or morals. Those things which we have said are consonant with what the distinguished Craisson writes in the periodical Revue des sciences ecclesiastiques,¹ and likewise with the Statutes of the Synod of Columbus, 1873.

Case X. If, the non-Catholic father compelling it, a child is committed to a public school to be instructed, the Catholic mother will be able to be absolved even in the case in which the school would be proximately dangerous, provided: 1) she yielded only to violence; 2) she opposes according to her powers the depraved influence of the school; 3) she has care, according to her ability, for the Catholic instruction of the child. Thus almost the praised Synod of Columbus.

440. • Those things which we have said concerning absolution to be denied or not to parents who commit offspring to public schools hold also, proportion observed: 1) concerning Catholic teachers teaching in them; 2) concerning those who are being instructed for the office of teacher sometime to be undertaken in public schools; 3) concerning all who have care of souls and are not solicitous, according to their power, concerning the Catholic instruction of youth; 4) concerning Catholic curators of public schools (members of the school-board). It is helpful to note a few things concerning each.

1° Teachers cannot be absolved who in school use, or read aloud to children from, books which are dangerous to faith or morals, or recite with children hymns or prayers of sects, or order children to recite them. There are some who secretly substitute a Catholic Bible for the Protestant version of the Bible, or certain Catholic sheets, or in books which they are compelled to use and which are not expressly opposed to Religion, amend depraved passages either by opportune explanation or omit them; and these, with those things observed as to Bibles which I said above n. 437, do not seem to be disturbed.

2° Resolve the same concerning those who are being instructed for the office of teacher sometime to be undertaken in public schools, unless they firmly propose, in undertaking it, to abstain from those things from which we just said a Catholic teacher ought to abstain. But if they do not seem likely to be tenacious of this purpose, they are earnestly and prudently to be exhorted that they should rather give themselves to another office or art.

3° Those who have care of souls ought diligently to weigh these words of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore:

"The Fathers of this Plenary Council cannot but voluntarily acknowledge and openly profess that the care to be spent on forming the more tender age and adolescence in Christian morals is to be counted among the principal parts of Pastoral solicitude; and this the more, in proportion as the present enemies of our Religion strive to bring all their arts together, that they may deprave the minds of the young even from their first age."¹

Wherefore pastors are admonished:

a) "That with every zeal by which they are able, they provide for the Christian and Catholic education of Catholic children, and diligently watch lest they use a Protestant version of the Bible, or recite hymns or prayers of sects. Therefore it will have to be watched lest books or exercises of this sort be introduced into public schools, with danger to faith and piety. But everywhere constant and moderate resistance must be made to these efforts of the sects, with the aid of those who have authority to apply an opportune remedy implored."¹

b) That, since this seems to remain "the best, indeed the only" remedy "by which the gravest evils and inconveniences" which are accustomed to exist from public schools "may be met," "in each diocese, near almost every church, schools be erected in which Catholic youth may be imbued both with letters and liberal arts, and with Religion and upright morals,² ... and if there shall be need, and the adjuncts of things allow it, let pastors provide" that from the revenues of the church to which the school is annexed, suitable teachers be had in it.³

c) Let them also "seriously admonish parents" "that they watch more and more over their offspring, and diligently consult and labor earnestly for its right instruction; that they piously conspire with their Pastors, and generously pour out their resources, so that Catholic Parochial Schools may be erected and sustained as quickly as possible."⁴

d) "But since in all parishes exclusively Catholic Schools cannot yet be had because of narrow circumstances, ... Catecheses and Schools of Christian doctrine should be instituted. Let Pastors call boys and girls into their own church on Sundays and other feast days, and sometimes even more often, so that they may studiously and diligently teach them the elements of Christian doctrine."⁵ "Nor should he" (the pastor) "execute this office through others, as the more negligent are accustomed to do, but by himself. For the burden of instructing children in the rudiments of Christian faith is so joined with the pastoral office that he who from sloth or idleness is unwilling to bear it, or casts it back upon others, can in no way avoid the penalties of violated office. This is recalled to memory in express words for all to whom it pertains by the Fathers of the preceding Plenary Council."⁶

And these things indeed, as is plain of itself, are of such a kind that if any one of those who have care of souls should neglect, or be unwilling to furnish, even one of these things - may it be absent! - he would have to be held unworthy of absolution. For what parents are bound under grave sin to furnish from the office of piety, this certainly pastors of souls are bound to furnish from justice. Nor indeed can it be conceived why it would be licit for a confessor to be more benign with a pastor of souls than with parents. For the rest, in many cases it will be difficult for the confessor to judge what a pastor of souls can or cannot do in the special adjuncts in which he is placed, and the penitent will have to be left to his own conscience. Yet woe to this man if, as to this his most grave office, he shall have deceived himself!

4° Unless a founded hope is present that by their influence they will render them notably less damaging, Catholic curators of public schools which are proximately dangerous cannot be absolved; but of the rest, they cannot of themselves be called unworthy of absolution, indeed they are worthy of praise if they accept or retain the office for this end, that books and teachers which are dangerous to the faith or morals of Catholic children may be kept far from the school. For the rest, this class of men in some places causes pastors much work, and generally brings no little detriment to the Church.