Chapter X: The Canon Law Code and Catholic Education

THE Catholic position with regard to education is nowhere stated more plainly, more briefly, and more authoritatively than in the recently issued Code of Canon Law. In a few short paragraphs the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on this important subject is set forth, and the policy to which the Church has constantly adhered is explained. It may be worth while to direct the attention of our readers to those Canons. They will help to clear up hazy notions on the subject, and they will help us to realise how closely it is bound up with our Christian faith. One of the fundamental principles is laid down in Canon 1113, which is as follows: " Parents are bound by a most serious obligation to procure as far as possible the religious, moral, physical, and civil education of their children, and to provide also for their temporal welfare." By "civil education" without doubt the Code means the imparting of that knowledge and training to the children which will enable them to fill worthily the place which they are destined to occupy in civil life. We may notice how broad are the ideas of the Church. She is influenced by no narrow spirit in her educational aims. By the law of nature the young during their years of immaturity are to be fitted to take their place in life. The duty of so fitting them is imposed by nature on those who brought them into the world. By the very nature of things parents are responsible for the education of their children, and, as long as they do their duty, they cannot be deprived of that responsibility by any human power. Religion gives its sanction to this natural duty and enforces it. The Fourth Commandment indeed only makes express mention of the duty of children to respect, love, and obey their parents; parents have a right to this. But they have this right because they have the corresponding duty of bringing up, educating, and providing for their children as long as these are unable to provide for themselves. The mutual relation of parental duties and parental rights is brought out in Canon 1372 of the new Code: “Parents, and all who are in the place of parents, have the right and most serious duty of procuring the Christian education of their children." There we come to another great principle of Catholic education, the rights of the Christian Church. Catholics, as members of the Church, fully recognise and admit the rights of the Church in the education of her children. She received her commission to teach from her Divine Founder. "Go," He said, "teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." The Church, then, is under the obligation to teach especially her own members what their duties are, and what is the extent and limit of them. She is faithful to her office and insists that baptised Christians shall receive a Christian education. A Christian education means that nothing should be taught Christian children which may weaken their faith or endanger their morals. It means that the relative importance of the various departments of education should be settled according to the teaching of Christ. The tendency is to relegate religious and even moral education to a secondary place in the school curriculum, or altogether to pass over those all-important subjects. Christ put them first, they belong to the greatest and the first Commandment. In a scheme of Christian education they must retain their pre-eminent position. As Canon 1372 says: "All Catholics are to be brought up from childhood in such a way that not only nothing be taught them which is opposed to the Catholic religion and to good morals, but so that religious and moral training hold the first place." Practically, as the Catholic Church knows only too well from long experience in many lands, this position of honour for the Catholic religion and for Catholic morality can only be secured by Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. In other schools, even if there is no hostility to Catholicism, the atmosphere is chilled by a still more deadly indifference in which the tender plants of Catholic faith and morals in the young cannot live and thrive. The Church has the duty and the right to protect her children from these dangers, and so she forbids them to go to non-Catholic schools. Canon 1374 enacts: “Catholic children must not go to non-Catholic, undenominational, or mixed schools, which are open to non-Catholics." In order that Catholic children may be able to obtain the kind of education which their faith requires, the Catholic Church claims the right to found Catholic schools. For many centuries she has exercised this right. The Third Council of the Lateran decreed as follows: " Since the Church of God, like a good mother, is bound to provide so that the poor who can get no help from the wealth of parents should not be deprived of the opportunity of learning and making progress in letters, let a competent benefice be assigned in every cathedral church to a schoolmaster, who will teach clerics and poor scholars for nothing." The Fourth Council of the Lateran in A.D. 1215 renewed and extended this law to all other principal churches. Those decrees were inserted in the “Corpus Juris” authorised by Gregory IX., and they were taught in all the schools of Canon Law throughout Christendom. They were quoted as Chapters 1 and 4 in the Title “De Magistris.” It is not without precedent, then, that the Catholic Church enacts as follows in the new Code the Catholic education of their people. In striving to obtain their educational rights they are not striving after power or money, they are simply doing their duty. The new Code is not silent on this point. Canon 1379 prescribes: “If Catholic elementary and secondary schools do not exist, Bishops must take care that they be built." The Catholic position, then, on the education question is clearly outlined in the new Code of Canon Law. It may be stated in this way. The education of children belongs by natural and divine law to their parents. This does not mean that the parents can give them any sort of education they like, or no education if they so please. They have the right because they have the duty to so educate their children that they may be fit to take the place in life which is destined for them, and attain the end for which they came into the world. Catholic parents recognise this duty, and they also recognise their obligation to accept the teaching and guidance of the Catholic Church as to the nature, extent, and limits of this and of all their other duties. Moreover, the Catholic Church has received a divine commission to teach religion and morality to all men, and more especially to her own baptised members. Practically, she can only exercise her right and fulfil her duty by requiring that Catholic children should be educated in Catholic schools under Catholic teachers. For centuries she has exercised this right, as history abundantly testifies. I can imagine some of my readers asking: “And where does the State come in? Has the State no rights and duties with regard to the education of its citizens?" The State has similar rights and duties with regard to the education of its citizens to those which it has with regard to their other natural rights. The State has the duty and the right to defend and protect the lives of its citizens. It cannot deprive them of their lives unless they have forfeited them by their crimes. The State has the right and the duty to protect the property of its citizens. It cannot deprive them of it, although it may levy contributions for the common good. Just in the same way it is the province of the State to protect and defend the natural right of parents to educate their own children. The State was founded to protect the natural rights of its members. It betrays its trust and becomes a tyrant if it takes them away. A Socialist State would be guilty of robbery if it deprived its members of their property against their reasonable wish. A State which obliges parents to send their children to schools where they receive an education of which the parents reasonably disapprove introduces Socialism into education. The State has the right to compel negligent parents to do their duty. If parents are bringing up their children in crime and vice, the State in the last resort can remove such children from the control of their unworthy parents. But as long as parents do not abuse their parental rights and desire to do their duty by their children, it only remains for the State to provide them with the means of giving their children an adequate education. This is all that Catholics at any rate ask of the State. They ask for a fair share of the public money which is devoted to education. The State may, of course, see that it gets good value for the money that it provides. If it were satisfied with fulfilling these legitimate functions, the education question would be solved as far as Catholics are concerned.

“The Church has the right to found schools of all kinds and of all grades” (Canon 1375). It is well known that very many of the oldest educational foundations in the country owe their origin to the provident action of the Catholic Church. To prevent the main object of Catholic schools being forgotten the new Code lays down that "Religious instruction must be given in all schools of whatever grade suitably to the age of the scholars" (Canon 1373). It is to be noted that the Catholic clergy, Bishops and priests, are bound by these laws, not less but more than the laity. One of the chief burdens and anxieties of the Catholic clergy is to provide for The State would have no reason to mistrust or complain of its Catholic subjects. They have shown in the great war that they yield in patriotism to none, and that they are fully ready to take their share in the common burdens. The Catholic ideal is that parents, Church, and State should loyally work together to give such an education to the young that when they come to maturity they may be fitted to take their place in the national life, lead good, decent, and useful lives, and save their souls in the end.

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