The Irish standard., 1911-02-04
Materialist Schools Question Valid
ity of Principle of Religious
Education.
Teaching of the Church on This
Point Shows the Fallacy of the
Contention,
There Can be No Proper Instruction
Without Recognition of
the Deity.

To a current number Of Etudes
(Paris), Jules Grivet contributes a
paper dealing with the indefeasible
right that the Catholic chursh pos
sesses. as against the state, to educate
the children of it's faith according to
the principles laid down by it's teach
ers, says the Irish World.
At the present moment, he implicit
ly declares, there is in most countries
of the world, a movement among lay
men Of the materialist schools to ex-
Guide the idea of religious interference
in school teaching, and to encourage
the laicization of schools. The evil of
the modern state is to wish to govern
men, and form him through lay edu-
cation, without at all considering
either his principles or his salvation.
In fact, it takes no account of spir-
itual or intellectual man; nor regards
him in any way above the animal
that has only to be directed in its
movements and taught fixed rule of
blind obedience to a secular power.
The teaching of the church, in re-
gard to the education of the child, have
been logically reduced from the posi-
tion Of the church itself towards the
state. The church sanctions the mar
riage-bond with its blessing, and, con-
sequently, asks the spiritual care of
the fruit of this union. The bond be-
tween Christian parents represents
the union of Christ and His church,
and calls down upon such union the
grace which will enable the parents to
make of their life, in the spiritual or
der, an imagine Of this union.
Now. the principal end of marriage
is the good Of the church and it's per-
petuation; it is the progress of the
mystical body of Christ, or the forma-
ton of His Kingdom. The church ex-
poets, from the marriage between two
Christians, posterity which shall per-
petuate the body Of the faithful. AS
sacrament, marriage is, therefore, re-
moved from the jurisdiction Of the
thority Of the church.
To the state aooure only the civil
entailments Of the contract. And as
the sacrament Of marriage is sacred
matter, the education of the children,
which is the religious consequence Of
the sacrament, must also be entirely
state to become submitted to the au.
tbority of the church.
The right of the state is to the
right of the church exactly what the
end realized by the state is to the end
pursued by the church, namely, the
enjoyment Of temporal blessings which
lead to spiritual blessings in eternity.
A barometre is not constructed like a
watch or a compass. Everything diff
fers according to the end that is aimed
at. The end in view governs the man.
rer of construction. Education is the
construction Of a man, and is essen
TALLY conditioned by the aim Of his
life in temporal affairs. In this educa-
tion, or forming of Christian youth,
the church has a power and right
which surpass all the temporal powers
and all the rights, because, by the will
of the Almighty, it leads mankind to
an end which governs and supersedes
all ends, namely, the end Of all things
the souls salvation.
All this logically proceeds from the
claim the church has always asserted
to Judge between the faithful and the
state, in whatsoever affects the well
fare Of the former; and, surely, there
is no question which can affect the
faithful more than the nature Of the
teachings to which their children must
submit; nor any to which the church
can assert, on the logic of its teaching
and existence, more justifiable right
of interference. To educate the child,
in the sense in which the church un-
derstands it, is to put into his intelli'
gence consciousness of the last end.
To educate the child is to attach him
with love to this final end. To educate
the child is to teach it by the light of i
truth, and II accordance with it, to)