What Catholics "should they persist ... cannot receive absolution in the Sacrament of Penance"

Excerpts, Various | Various | Vatican/Popes/The Holy Office

[sinkspur]

It reënforces the fact that Catholics today cannot send their children to public schools in the USA where they are not merely taught regarding "the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life" but rather are taught a vast array of things within a pedagogical and philosophical system that is anti-Catholic in its substance and in its result.

When cheapskate USA Catholics spring for enough Catholic schools for all Catholic children, you may have a point.

Until then, most Catholics are not going to homeschool; they have no alternative but public schools.

[Siobhan]

Somehow a paragraph vanished in posting ... so briefly ....

Likewise, Catholics cannot approve of any public system of education which forms the minds of children in such a way that they are ultimately alienated from Western civilization and are hostile to the Catholic Christian worldview much less the Catholic faith.

[narses]

"Until then, most Catholics are not going to homeschool; they have no alternative but public schools."

Wow, so money comes before the souls of our children? There are many Catholic schools available, and many Catholic home school programs. If your friends are so weak in their faith they send their children to pubic schools, you can bet they won't see vocations.

[Polycarp IV]

It is not a sin, of any kind, to send children to public schools. That is absurd on its face, Brian.

Sorry Sink, it ain't absurd, unless Leo XII, Pius IX, and Pius XI are now absurd in your view.

NOTHING has changed since their day to change the Truth of their exhortations, has it? What modern circumstances make their points universally 100% wrong?

It CAN BE a sin to send children to public schools, in some circumstances, regardless of your opinion. What is absurd is your blanket statement, in defiance of multiple Papal proclamations otherwise, that it can not ever be sinful.

[sinkspur]

Wow, so money comes before the souls of our children? There are many Catholic schools available, and many Catholic home school programs.

Catholic schools around here are jammed to the gills, with waiting lists.

If your friends are so weak in their faith they send their children to pubic schools, you can bet they won't see vocations.

LOL!!! The public schools where I live are superior to the Catholic schools, in basic instruction. We've got families transferring in so they can send their kids to school here.

As for vocations, I know as many priests who came from public school backgrounds as from Catholic school backgrounds. God calls where He will.

[TradicalRC]

We got the schools, its the parents who are too cheap to spend money on Catholic education because the Almighty Dollar is more important to them. I know of several Catholics who are better off financially than my family that do not care for Catholic schools.

Home schooling is getting more popular every year, it used to be the counter-cultural left that did it in the sixties and seventies but I think the counter-cultural right is dominating the home schooling effort.

[Siobhan]

Until then, most Catholics are not going to homeschool; they have no alternative but public schools.

Everyone has alternatives. Everyone.

[Arthur McGowan]

That statement that Catholics MAY approve...of public schools is a condemned proposition. Thus, the Pope was not teaching that Catholic may approve, but that they may not.

[Siobhan]

What is absurd is your blanket statement, in defiance of multiple Papal proclamations otherwise, that it can not ever be sinful.

Bumpity bump bump.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Self-mutilation IS a sin.

[Siobhan]

Yes. I am repeating myself, but I am so struck at how the Pope's judgement continues to speak to our own time with so much variation in situations and compromises accepted over the years. Here is a plumb-line straight and true. It comes from another age, addressing primarily a very different set of political situations and difficulties but it provides us with a tremendous mechanism for evaluating the current argument in favor of sending Catholic children to public schools in the USA as well as for an emphatic counter-response in the negative for the aforementioned reasons.

[Smocker]

I'd say there are a number of Catholic schools today which are probably worse than the public schools of yesterday were. Not to mention so called Catholic colleges.

Homeschooling, the only way to go.

[narses]

Yeah, sure. "Vocations" from schools that teach secular humanism? "Vocations" from families who worry about money not faith? They happen deacon, but nowhere near as often as vocations from decent, orthodox Catholic schools. If the DEMAND for the "inferior" Cattholic schools in your area is so strong that you have waiting lists, can you speculate as to WHY that is?

[Desdemona]

Well, since the public schools were set up in the USA to counter the Catholic ones....

Seriously, academically, at least around here, the public and non-Catholic private schools do have the advantage, with a couple exceptions. And the Catholic high schools are financially out of reach for a lot of people, not that there aren't those who sacrafice a lot to send their kids to them. Now, that's not to say that people couldn't home school if they wanted.

True confessions...I went to public school for two years and, frankly academically I was met at my level. Where we were living at the time, there just wasn't an alternative. In Catholic schools I was always coasting to straight A's with no homework. Socially, they were comparable. There was an elite group and the rest of us suffered.

Having said that, due to what is NOT taught and what is mistaught, I can't imagine why any Catholic would send their kids to public school. They embody everything our faith fights. Well, except for the band programs, if there is one after cutbacks. Personally, home-schooling truly sound like the way to go.

[narses]

That statement that Catholics MAY approve...of public schools is a condemned proposition. Thus, the Pope was not teaching that Catholic may approve, but that they may not.

It seems that at least one Deacon disagrees with the above sentiment though.

[narses]

U.S. Supreme Court
PIERCE v. SOCIETY OF THE SISTERS OF THE HOLY NAMES OF JESUS AND, 268 U.S. 510 (1925)
268 U.S. 510

PIERCE, Governor of Oregon, et al.
v.
SOCIETY OF THE SISTERS OF THE HOLY NAMES OF JESUS AND MARY.

SAME
v.
HILL MILITARY ACADEMY.

Nos. 583, 584.
Argued March 16 and 17, 1925.
Decided June 1, 1925.

[268 U.S. 510, 511] Mr. Willis S. Moore, of Salem, Or., for other appellants.

[268 U.S. 510, 513] Messrs. Wm. D. Guthrie, of New York City for appellee.

[268 U.S. 510, 521] Mr. J. P. Kavanaugh, of Portland, Or., for appellee Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

Messrs. George E. Chamberlain, of Portland, Or., and Albert H. Putney, of Washington, D. C., for appellant Pierce.

Mr. John C. Veatch, of Portland, Or., for appellee Hill Military Academy.

[268 U.S. 510, 529]

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

These appeals are from decrees, based upon undenied allegations, which granted preliminary orders restraining [268 U.S. 510, 530] appellants from threatening or attempting to enforce the Compulsory Education Act1 adopted November 7, 1922 (Laws Or. 1923, p. 9), under the initiative provision of her Constitution by the voters of Oregon. Judicial Code, 266 (Comp. St. 1243). They present the same points of law; there are no controverted questions of fact. Rights said to be guaranteed by the federal Constitution were specially set up, and appropriate prayers asked for their protection.

The challenged act, effective September 1, 1926, requires every parent, guardian, or other person having control or charge or custody of a child between 8 and 16 years to send him 'to a public school for the period of time a public school shall be held during the current year' in the district where the child resides; and failure so to do is declared a misdemeanor. There are [268 U.S. 510, 531] exemptions-not specially important here-for children who are not normal, or who have completed the eighth grade, or whose parents or private teachers reside at considerable distances from any public school, or who hold special permits from the county superintendent. The manifest purpose is to compel general attendance at public schools by normal children, between 8 and 16, who have not completed the eight grade. And without doubt enforcement of the statute would seriously impair, perhaps destroy, the profitable features of appellees' business and greatly diminish the value of their property.

Appellee the Society of Sisters is an Oregon corporation, organized in 1880, with power to care for orphans, educate and instruct the youth, establish and maintain academies or schools, and acquire necessary real and personal [268 U.S. 510, 532] property. It has long devoted its property and effort to the secular and religious education and care of children, and has acquired the valuable good will of many parents and guardians. It conducts interdependent primary and high schools and junior colleges, and maintains orphanages for the custody and control of children between 8 and 16. In its primary schools many children between those ages are taught the subjects usually pursued in Oregon public schools during the first eight years. Systematic religious instruction and moral training according to the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church are also regularly provided. All courses of study, both temporal and religious, contemplate continuity of training under appellee's charge; the primary schools are essential to the system and the most profitable. It owns valuable buildings, especially constructed and equipped for school purposes. The business is remunerative-the annual income from primary schools exceeds $30,000-and the successful conduct of this requires long time contracts with teachers and parents. The Compulsory Education Act of 1922 has already caused the withdrawal from its schools of children who would otherwise continue, and their income has steadily declined. The appellants, public officers, have proclaimed their purpose strictly to enforce the statute.

After setting out the above facts, the Society's bill alleges that the enactment conflicts with the right of parents to choose schools where their children will receive appropriate mental and religious training, the right of the child to influence the parents' choice of a school, the right of schools and teachers therein to engage in a useful business or profession, and is accordingly repugnant to the Constitution and void. And, further, that unless enforcement of lthe measure is enjoined the corporation's business and property will suffer irreparable injury.

Appellee Hill Military Academy is a private corporation organized in 1908 under the laws of Oregon, engaged [268 U.S. 510, 533] in owning, operating, and conducting for profit an elementary, college preparatory, and military training school for boys between the ages of 5 and 21 years. The average attendance is 100, and the annual fees received for each student amount to some $800. The elementary department is divided into eight grades, as in the public schools; the college preparatory department has four grades, similar to those of the public high schools; the courses of study conform to the requirements of the state board of education. Military instruction and training are also given, under the supervision of an army officer. It owns considerable real and personal property, some useful only for school purposes. The business and incident good will are very valuable. In order to conduct its affairs, long time contracts must be made for supplies, equipment, teachers, and pupils. Appellants, law officers of the state and county, have publicly announced that the Act of November 7, 1922, is valid and have declared their intention to enforce it. By reason of the statute and threat of enforcement appellee's business is being destroyed and its property depreciated; parents and guardians are refusing to make contracts for the future instruction of their sons, and some are being withdrawn.

The Academy's bill states the foregoing facts and then alleges that the challenged act contravenes the corporation's rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and that unless appellants are restrained from proclaiming its validity and threatening to enforce it irreparable injury will result. The prayer is for an appropriate injunction.

No answer was interposed in either cause, and after proper notices they were heard by three judges (Judicial Code, 266 [Comp. St. 1243]) on motions for preliminary injunctions upon the specifically alleged facts. The court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed appellees against the [268 U.S. 510, 534] deprivation of their property without due process of law consequent upon the unlawful interference by appellants with the free choice of patrons, present and prospective. It declared the right to conduct schools was property and that parents and guardians, as a part of their liberty, might direct the education of children by selecting reputable teachers and places. Also, that appellees' schools were not unfit or harmful to the public, and that enforcement of the challenged statute would unlawfully deprive them of patronage and thereby destroy appellees' business and property. Finally, that the threats to enforce the act would continue to cause irreparable injury; and the suits were not premature.

No question is raised concerning the power of the state reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare.

The inevitable practical result of enforcing the act under consideration would be destruction of appellees' primary schools, and perhaps all other private primary schools for normal children within the state of Oregon. Appellees are engaged in a kind of undertaking not inherently harmful, but long regarded as useful and meritorious. Certainly there is nothing in the present records to indicate that they have failed to discharge their obligations to patrons, students, or the state. And there are no peculiar circumstances or present emergencies which demand extraordinary measures relative to primary education.

Under the doctrine of Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 , 43 S. Ct. 625, 29 A. L. R. 1146, we think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children [268 U.S. 510, 535] under their control. As often heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged by legislation which has no reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the state. The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

Appellees are corporations, and therefore, it is said, they cannot claim for themselves the liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees. Accepted in the proper sense, this is true. Northwestern Life Ins. Co. v. Riggs, 203 U.S. 243, 255 , 27 S. Ct. 126, 7 Ann. Cas. 1104; Western Turf Association v. Greenberg, 204 U.S. 359, 363 , 27 S. Ct. 384. But they have business and property for which they claim protection. These are threatened with destruction through the unwarranted compulsion which appellants are exercising over present and prospective patrons of their schools. And this court has gone very far to protect against loss threatened by such action. Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33 , 36 S. Ct. 7, L. R. A. 1916D, 543, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 283; Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312 , 42 S. Ct. 124, 27 A. L. R. 375; Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 , 44 S. Ct. 15.

The courts of the state have not construed the act, and we must determine its meaning for ourselves. Evidently it was expected to have general application and cannot be construed as though merely intended to amend the charters of certain private corporations, as in Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 , 29 S. Ct. 33. No argument in favor of such view has been advanced.

Generally, it is entirely true, as urged by counsel, that no person in any business has such an interest in possible customers as to enable him to restrain exercise of proper power of the state upon the ground that he will be de prived [268 U.S. 510, 536] of patronage. But the injunctions here sought are not against the exercise of any proper power. Appellees asked protection against arbitrary, unreasonable, and unlawful interference with their patrons and the consequent destruction of their business and property. Their interest is clear and immediate, within the rule approved in Truax v. Raich, Truax v. Corrigan, and Terrace v. Thompson, supra, and many other cases where injunctions have issued to protect business enterprises against interference with the freedom of patrons or customers. Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U.S. 229 , 38 S. Ct. 65, L. R. A. 1918C, 497, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 461; Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443 , 41 S. Ct. 172, 16 A. L. R. 196; American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U.S. 184 , 42 S. Ct. 72, 27 A. L. R. 360; Nebraska District, etc., v. McKelvie, 262 U.S. 404 , 43 S. Ct. 628; Truax v. Corrigan, supra, and cases there cited.

The suits were not premature. The injury to appellees was present and very real, not a mere possibility in the remote future. If no relief had been possible prior to the effective date of the act, the injury would have become irreparable. Prevention of impending injury by unlawful action is a well-recognized function of courts of equity.

The decrees below are affirmed.

Footnotes
[ Footnote 1 ] Be it enacted by the people of the state of Oregon:

Section 1. That section 5259, Oregon Laws, be and the same is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

Sec. 5259. Children Between the Ages of Eight and Sixteen Years.-Any parent, guardian or other person in the state of Oregon, having control or charge or custody of a child under the age of sixteen years and of the age of eight years or over at the commencement of a term of public school of the district in which said child resides, who shall fail or neglect or refuse to send such child to a public school for the period of time a public school shall be held during the current year in said district, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and each day's failure to send such child to a public school shall constitute a separate offense; provided, that in the following cases, children shall not be required to attend public schools:

(a) Children Physically Unable.-Any child who is abnormal, subnormal or physically unable to attend school.

(b) Children Who Have Completed the Eighth Grade.-Any child who has completed the eighth grade, in accordance with the provisions of the state course of study.

(c) Distance from School.-Children between the ages of eight and ten years, inclusive, whose place of residence is more than one and one-half miles, and children over ten years of age whose place of residence is more than three miles, by the nearest traveled road, from a public school; provided, however, that if transportation to and from school is furnished by the school district, this exemption shall not apply.

(d) Private Instruction.-Any child who is being taught for a like period of time by the parent or private teacher such subjects as are usually taught in the first eight years in the public school; but before such child can be taught by a parent or a private teacher, such parent or private teacher must receive written permission from the county superintendent, and such permission shall not extend longer than the end of the current school year. Such child must report to the county school superintendent or some person designated by him at least once every three months and take an examination in the work covered. If, after such examination, the county superintendent shall determine that such child is not being properly taught, then the county superintendent

shall order the parent, guardian or other person, to send such child to the public school the remainder of the school year.

If any parent, guardian or other person having control or charge or custody of any child between the ages of eight and sixteen years, shall fail to comply with any provision of this section, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be subject to a fine of not less than $5, nor more than $100, or to imprisonment in the county jail not less than two nor more than thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.

This act shall take effect and be and remain in force from and after the first day of September, 1926.

[Polycarp IV]

Personally, home-schooling truly sound like the way to go.

Which is the point in this little exercise ;-)

The bottom line is that BOTH public schooled and parochial schooled Catholics have been and still are losing their faith.

The principles that Leo XIII, Pius IX, and Piux XI applied to public schools are today equally applicable to most Catholic schools.

As such, the prohibitions against public schools today would also apply to Catholic schools.

Thus Catholics must find a 'third way."

Many have found it in homeschooling.

My point was that homeschooling is the answer to the problems outlined then with public schooling and apparent today with most Catholic schooling.

People need to understand the overwhelming moral imperative to homeschool.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The importance of keeping a Christian, moral, and spiritual dimension in education is a grave matter. Obviously, in the U.S. there is a lot of confusion and raw emotion about this. The Catholic Church in the U.S. is not always offering the best possible "Catholic" options in this area which adds to the confusion and chaos. It still remains the duty of parents to make sure that education retains a Christian (Catholic) dimension. Bishops and priests have also not always assisted in keeping education properly Catholic.

[narses]

I agree. When there is no orthodox, Catholic choice, the ONLY choice is to homeschool.

[Siobhan]

I have a child in Virginia who sends their older children to a public school because it is the only school in their rural environment. I have no doubt that there are many, many parents who send their children to these schools having weighed all the options available, having said their prayers, having sought advice from their priests. But we are at a place where the plumb-line of the Syllabus even applies to many a so-called "Catholic" school, so we are really talking about a much bigger wide-ranging problem.

I could never have sent my children to a public school because I had learned from early on that it was simply not to be done for the sake of the little souls in my care. We have so much work to do in rebuilding everything everywhere. So God bless all Catholic parents who struggle. God bless Mother Assumpta Long and her Sisters. God bless the Nashville Dominicans. God bless the Catholic homeschool groups like the one at Our Lady of Walsingham down in Houston, Texas. And finally, Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.