The St. Johns herald., 1890-05-15
ROmaniSm and Public Schools.

The founders of American indt
 pen1ence threw the country open to
 all corners, without regard to the
 origin of race, religion, or social
 status. They did not judge it nee essary to throw any impeachment in the path of immigration. They
 were not imbued with any preju- dices of race or relig zion. Even An glo-Saxonism was unknown to them Their large and liberal minds were not accessible to narrow Limitations. They saw and felt tie necessity of rapidly increasing the population as the only way of subduing the wilderness condition of the cnun- try. Man prOspers and advances in culture and civilization oml V in the association of large numbers. The law of all individual and social progress is association and co-ope- ration. Single-handed, single-heart- ed, man is but embodied impotence. That life which fills the largest area of activity, exhibits the greatest di- versity of organs and functions CO., operating to one end. The higher the form of life, the greater the number of forces focalizing 10 sus- tain it. America wanted culture, and wanted cultivators. Further. these immortal founders had but one paramount crecd-ireedom and equality. They enthusiastically be- lieved in the power of principles whose electric touch was at once to transform and assimilate the rude and crude masses to whom they opened the portals of liberty. They did not foresec the time when the unchecked current of immigration would assume enormous propor- tions, and deposit on the American shores such mixed multitudes as would defy the normal powers of absorption. They could not fore see that Romanism would raise its serpent-head and set busily at work to palsy and ahnul the beneficial ac- tion and influence of American principles. Much less could they foresee that the free public school, considered by them as the pre-emi- nent agency of fusion among the different if not antagonistic races crowding upon our shores, would be denounced and prohibited by the Romish Church. But the word of command has gone forth. All good Catholics are expected to withdraw their children at once from our pub llc schools, and this in defiance of various State laws requiring their attendance. Mgr. Doane, who was recently given the title of Protono- tarY Apostolic by the Pope, notified the Catholic parishionerS within his jurisdiction, on February 18th last, that they must take their children from the public schools and place them in parochial schools on pen alty of excommunication and de- nial of dissolution. The third Ple- nary Council of Baltimore declared "Wherefore, we would not only ex- hoIt Catholic parents, but we com anand them, with all the authority that is in us, to bestOw upon their most dear children a truly Chris tian and Catholic education; to shield them, even ili their tenderest years, from the dangers of purely secular education, and to send them to parochial or other Catholic in- stitutions." (Third Plenary Coun- cil of Baltimore, Titulus VI, No. 196.) In considering this bitter and concerted attack upon our po- litical institutions, we must not for get that, in his recent encyclical, the Pope boldly proclaimed that as between church and state a Roman Catholics first and highest allegi l ance was due to the church. The IIOifad CfafaS Dictriot Hourt iO ro. |