The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1891-09-18
ARREST Who Fights ParochIal Schools.

ARREST Who Fights ParOchial schools
An event that may have profound anc
far.reaching significance Is reported from
Faribult, Mich. Rev. FIR. Jas. j. Conry, the
Catholic priest there, has clUsed the parochia
schools of that city and turned their contro
formally over to the city school board. lie
says he does this because he Is anxious that
these children may ''receive In their civic
training perfect preparation for the duties
and responsibilities of American citizenship
training such as they do not and cannot
receive In any purely sectarian school. TO
keep them In the latter, he declares, Is to put
them at disadvantage with their future fell
low citizens, to get them out OF sympathy
with the spirit and intent of our free In
sttutions, to bring their religion and patrlot-
ism into antagonism. In other words this
| Catholic priest accepts In Its entirety the
| fret. school argument. He recognizes that
lines of isolation Of creed or race cannot be
drawn In republic without irreparaole
injury to that republic, that the only way to
incucate the broad views and the tolerance
OF opinion, that are the only safe foundation
for free Institutions, Is educating the chill
dren together. He sees, what has long been
evident to clear.viewed patriots, what Is be-
Ing demonstrated In many Of the cities to-
day, and what the fathers sought most Snx'
iously to guard against, that 1t needs only
two or three genel atlons Of training OF Pro-
testant and Catholic children In distrusi and
prejudice, such separation Is boand to build
N htptnclou1 hast IN nttnrlV wreck the
institutions In which the best hope OF human
ity Is involved. He says he has no fear but
the church can hold Its own eagainst secular
education; II he had 1t would In his view
prove that the dependence Of the church Is
on ignorance. lhls Is point for the de-
nouncers of ''godless schools" to think of.
Isn't 1t pretty nearly what their attitude
means. He even goes so far as ~ believe that
the reading of the Bible or the repetition OF
the Lords Prayer, with which the schools
are opened, will not have any deleterious In
fuence upon Catholic children. All he asks
for his church is fair field and equal show
ing In the rights of citizenship. And isn't
this the self.respectng attitude!
But the most important thing In FIR. Conry's |
action Is the inference, almost unavoidable,
that it has the authority of his ecclesiastical
superior, Bishop Ireland, Unless 1t has
such sanction 1t is simply an act of re-
bellion that would place him outside the
church, and he would not take 1t unless ready
to secede, of which his letter gives no indica-
ton. Archbishop Ireland has long been under
stood to regard parochal schools with doubt
full favor, and to be ukewarm In his support
of them. FIR. Conry IL native of Wiscon-
sin, of Irish parentage, and has been for
some years at st. Paul under the immediate
influence of Archbishop Ireland, whose broad
patriotism ana thorough Amerlcanlsm he has
absorb I'd In large measure.
Does FIR. Conry's action mean that Bishop
ireland has determined to throw the great
weight of bis name, his learning, his qnuoubt.
ID piety, and his exalted position In the
church on the side of free schools? II so one
II the most threatening problems of Ameri.
as future Is near solution. No doubt nine
enths of the Irish voters of the country, men
Who appreciate common school education and
lesire 1t above all else for their children,
would welcome the change of policy. and the
anne is true In less degree of Catholics Of
ther nationallties. Indeed practical obser-
,ation in Brattleboro or anywhere else,
hows that 1t is only by appeal to the Catho.
lc mothers that the parochial schools get any
nance of life, whatever.
Cardinal Gibbons once said that the Roman
catholic church In America Is distinctively
american In its sympathies and Intentions.
there is certainly large element of 1t that
las no sympathy with and only yields re.
uctant obediance to the importation of old c
World methods such as the parochal school
and looks forward with generous 9
ope to the time predicted by Bishop Ireland
q bis address at the laying of the corner U
tone of the University at Washington, when q
lie church shall become the mother of re- II
ubllcs and the worldwide ally of free and t
rogressive government. a
Such day would seem In the historical b
lew to be far off. But men like Gibbons, v
'eland and Conry In this country and Car Il
Inal Levigere In France are doing great u
ork to hasten It. And the Pope's encyclical I
n labor shows that even he feels the impulse "
the age. e