The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-07 00:00:00

Pius IX. on Popular Education.

Pope Pius IX. has addressed a brief to the Arch-
bishop of Friburg respecting the new law epon
primary schools in the Duchy of Baden. His Holi-
ness begins by stating that he has heard with much
sorrow that measures are preparing in that duchy
which gravely imperil the education of the young
by withdrawing them more and more " from the
salutary discipline and the vigilance of the Catholic
Church." Pius IX. states, however, that he is at
the same time " overwhelmed with joy" to find the
Archbishop, although advanced in years, fightiug as
vigorously as ever for the faith. The brief con-
tinues thus :—Of a truth no one can be ignorant
that the sad, the deplorable condition to which
society finds itself more and more reduced, has its
source in the baneful machinations employed on all
sides to withdraw more every day from public eflu-
cational establishments, and even from the bosom
of families, the holy faith, the religion of Christ, his
doctrine of salvation, and so to hamper its actions
as to render it impossible. These pernicious
machinations proceed by a necessary conse•
queues from all those detestable doctrines
which in these unhappy times we have the
misfortune to see everywhere spread themselves
abroad, and audaciously raise their heads to the
great detriment of the Christian republic and civil
society. Bat if detestable mode of teaching,
separated from the Catholic faith and the power of
the church, is a source of evil to private individuals
and society, when the teaching of letters and
sciences and the education which the upper classes
of society obtain in the public schools are alone con-
cerned, who does not see that the same method will
produce much more baneful results if it is applied
to the popular schools? It is especially in those
schools that the children of the people of all condi.
tions ought from their tenderest infancy to be care-
fully instructed in the mysteries and precepts of
our holy religion, and formed with diligence to
piety, integrity of manners, religion, and honesty
of life. * * * The design of withdrawing the
popular schools from the power of the Church,
and the attempts made to realise it, aro inspired
therefore by a spirit of hostility against her,
and by the desire of extinguishing among nations
the divine light of our very holy faith. The
Church, which founded those schools with so much
care, and which has always maintained them
with so much zeal, considers them as the
bettor part of her ecclesiastical authority and
power, and every measure the result of which is to
cause a separation between the schools and the
Church causes her,as well as the schools themselves,
the greatest injury. Those who pretend that the
Church ought to abdicate or suspend her moderating
power and salutory action over the popular schools
ask her in reality to violate the commands of her
Divine Author, and to renounce the accomplishment
of the duty which has been imposed upon her from
On high to watch over the salvation of all men. In
every place, in every country in which this design
should be formed, and above all be executed, of
withdrawing the schools from the authority of the
the Church, and in which youth would consequently
be miserably exposed to the danger of losing the
faith, the Church would most assuredly be under
the rigorous obligation, not only of making every
effort, and of employing every means, in order to
obtain for youth the instruction and education ne-
cessary for it, but even of warning all the faithful
and of declaring to them that such schools insti-
tuted against the Catholic Church cannot in con-
science be frequented. The brief concludes by
congratulating the Archbishop upon the energetic
opposition he has manifested to the reform of the
popular schools in Baden, and implores God to
assist him and his faithful coadjutors in their struga
gles " for the cause of the Holy Church."