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JULY 30, 1949
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
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(DraWn by James Knudson, Los Angles Tidings’ Staff Artist)
Editorial in Secular Newspaper
Terms Barden Bill "Outrageous"
MR. JACOBS ON FEDERAL AID
Out of the present controversy
over Federal aid to education
should come a clarification of
many notions which now seem to
be badly confused. Catholics have
no interest in merely massing
their political strength to get what
they believe to be simple justice.
They want their position to be
understood. Many Catholics them
selves do not seem to understand
it.
For example, Andrew Jacobs, a
member of Congress (D., Ind.),
made a statement published in the
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD on
July 7. Speaking as a Catholic,
he takes exception to the Catho
lic position on Federal aid. He
rejects the claim that “exclusion
of parochial schools from Federal
aid is discriminatory.” Why is he
critical? ' Because he thinks that
“our parochial schools are an ad
junct to our religion, established
for educational use instead of us
ing public schools, solely for the
sake of the child’s religious trains
ing.” In other words, 8ur only
reason for having parochial schools
is religious. Since we cannot ex
pect Federal support of our re
ligion, we cannot expect it for our
schools.
Let us examine this position. It
assumes that the state-run, relig
ionless school is the normal way of
getting an education; in fact, the
only normal way. A voluntary' and
religious school is a departure from
normality. If we wish to depart
from normality for the sake of our
religion, we must pay the conse
quences.
A bad fallacy lurks behind this
reasoning. The basic fact of edu
cation is the right of parents to
shape the schooling of their chil
dren. Any state which arbitrarily
dictates to parents by subsidizing
a secularistic form of education
and refusing to subsidise the kind
of schooling parents prefer, to that
extent violates parental rights.
Neither England nor Scotland nor
Canada nor The Netherlands vio
lates parental rights in this way.
Russia does. Hitler had moved far
in the same direction.
Very few people in the United
States seem to realize that we are
moving farther and farther from
real democracy in education and
closer and closer to the pattern
set in totalitarian countries. We
do not as yet prohibit free schools;
we only penalize parents who pre
fer them. The penalties are get
ting heavier every year, the more
heavily we tax parents to support
state-run schools without using
public funds to support schools of
the parents’ choice.
If religion cannot be taught in
state-run schools, that only proves
that the state should not dominate
education. It should provide an ac
ceptable alternative to its own re
ligionless schools, available to all
on the same terms as state-run
schools.
Strictly speaking, education —
the determination of what a child
will study, think and believe—is
not a proper function of govern
ment. Government has an inter
est, a, limited interest, in educa
tion, and has a right to set cer
tain standards for the common wel
fare. Government also has a duty
to assist parents in fulfilling their
responsibilities. But to take it for
granted, as the vast majority of
Americans seem to take for grant
ed, that government lias the right
to determine the content of edu
cation, is morally wrong and so
cially dangerous. The mere fact
that we have made this mistake
for the past hundred years in our
state systems is no reason for ex
tending it for the first time to our
Federal system.
Mr. Jacobs calls our parochial
schools “adjuncts of our religion."
They are much more than that.
They are schools in the very same
sense and conducted for the very
same purposes as state-run schools.
Catholics claim public support for
parochial schools as general edu
cational institutions. Not as relig
ious institutions. If we are aiding
education, why shouldn't we aid
all education, for all our children?
Why should the presence of re
ligious disqualify an institution?
It doesn't in the GI Bill of Rights.
The only reason for denying us
Federal aid is that,, besides teach
ing every subject taught in state-
run schools, we also teach religion.
We call that discrimination against
us on religious grounds.
In the New Jersey bus transpor
tation ease (1947), Justice Jackson
did not seem to know what the
“function” of the parochial school
is. It might be asking too much to
suggest that Congressmen and
judges visit such a school. So let
us merely ask: how can you explain
the way graduates of parochial
schools fit right into the curri
cula of public high schools except
by the fact that they have received
a general elementary education?
(AMERICA).
WHAT LARGE TEETH YOU
HAVE. GRANDMA!
’’’he "President’s Commission
on Higher Education” has re
cently submitted a report to the
Chief Executive on the basts of
which, legislation is already being
prepared for Congress. This is a
matter of truly great concern not
only to those within the “ivory
tower” of academic circles but to
all citizens without exception.
Education in our country is of
fered under two auspices, the
State and private institutions—we
do not like to say “public and pri
vate” auspices, because the latter
are, as far as the beneflciatries are
concerned, quite as “public” as the
former. And in the long run, it is
the “public” that foots the bills for
their maintenance. The existence
of the so-called “private” institu
tions has always, under our free
dom. been respected as tlie right
of all who feel that state-control
led and maintained institutions are
unable to prepare the oomplete
man for the full life.
The President’s report states
accurately enough the present-day
needs of both the qualified stu
dent and of the educational insti
tutions of the country but it con
tains an implied threat of conse
quences which, we believe, are
contrary to the American tradition
of education and of freedom. It
recognizes quite boldly thqt mod
ern education, as opposed to the
fee-less lectures of the monks of
old needs money and lots of it if
it is to continue as it is, not to say
progress.
But the report suggests that if
Federal funds were to assist edu
cational institutions, these funds
would be available to. state-control
led schools only. This means that a
capable student unable to finance
his own education, and hence need
ing a “Federal scholarship,” must
attend a state-controlled school,
or none at all. Thus the report
foresees the gradual decline and
elimination of private institutions,
even the best endowed of them,
which ultimately could not com
pete with the fabulous resources
of Federal-controlled schools.
In the first place, and this is
bad enough, the report disparages
by implication the magnificent
contribution to our democratic
way of living made in the past and
in the present by private institu
tions.
But what is. worse, the report
unblushingly describes a complete
ly secular concept of education as
the ideal of its slate-controlled
schools. This shocks, but does not
surprise, observers of the “ideal
ism” of the proponents of the Mc
Collum and similar cases who
completely misread the “separa
tion of Church and State “provi
sions of our Constitution. What
they mean by “Church” it is ob
vious, is religion, and what they
mean by "religious” is God and
the things of God. This it is, and
not “the Church” that men, some
men, would sunder from this mod
ern state. The President’s Report
is another notice served by those
who forget, or prefer not' to re-
memoer that. American education
and American democracy is not
godless in its beginnings and is
not completley a-religious even to
day. N
How many times must we sum
mon ostriches from their sandpits,
how many times must it be point
ed out that man is more than a
mere material being, that he has
a concomitant spiritual and super
natural existence? flow many
times must it be said that “educa
tion” which denies this directly
or indirectly will inevitably pro
duce an intellectual peasantry of
the unhappiest order?
If the President’s Report, in its
present form, fs translated into
law, we shall have slavery in the
name of Freedom and blindness in
the name of Light.—(The Pilot).
DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH
In furthering its principle of
seeking to divide in order to con
quer, the enemies of the Church
make an invidious distinction be
tween the laity and the Hierarchy.
Woodrow Wilson wrote in his
“New Freedom:” “The Roman
Catholic Church was then ( in the
Middle Ages), as it is now, a great
democracy. There was no peasant
so obscure that he might not be
come a priest, and no priest so
humble that he might not become
Pope of Christendom.” That is a
complete answer to those who.are
scandalized by Bishops but find
nothing to criticize in Commissars.
Archbishop Richard J. Cushing
of Boston emphasized the democ
racy of the Church by asserting
not long ago that not one father of
an American Bishop is a college
graduate. They did not have great
wealth to bestow on their sons. But
they had character and a love of
the learning whieh was denied
them.
Pope Pius X was the son of a
peasant. Pope Pius XI was the son
of a weaver. Popt Pius XII is a
member of an old Roman family.
In each case it was zeal, ability,
learning, but above all character,
sanctity of personal life, which ele
vated them step by step in careers
which reached a climax in corona
tion as the Pope of Christendom.
Of our American Cardinals, one
was born in Whitman. Mass., one
near Scranton, Pa., one in Nash
ville, Tenn., one at Ml. Savage,
Md. Two of the four most recent
ly deceased were natives of New
York City, a third came from Low
ell, Mass., and the fourth from
County Meath, Ireland. None had
any relatives near or distant, in the
Hierarchy; none had anything to
recommend him but His heart and
BOSTON. — (NC>—The Barden
Bill to extend Federal aid to edu
cation is called “an outrageous
thing” and an aid to atheism, in
an editorial which has been given
a full page in the Boston Daily
Record.
(The editorial has been repro
duced in whole or in part in Hears!
newspapers throughout the United
States.)
The editorial contends that “It
is a dangerous thing in itself for
the Federal Government to provide
money for the support of Ameri
can schools, since Federal control
would inevitably grow out of such
support,” and adds that “for the
Federal Government to offer fi
nancial support to American
schools while at the same time de
claring war against other Ameri
can ^schools, as the Barden Bill
proposes to do, is an outrageous
thing.”
“It is an un-American thing, a
direct menace to all religious free
dom in America,” the editorial
says. •
“If the American people value
their freedom to worship God as
they please, they will protest this
dangerous measure by telephoning
or sending telegrams or writing
letters to their Congressmen in
Washington—at once.
“It is important for the people
of Massachusetts to remember that
mind. And if there were many
times as many Bishops necessary,
there would still be no dearth of
priests of equal competence for
the posts.—(Tlie Catholic News).
the exist mcc of denommaikin d ,
schools m tlie very salvation o4j
scores of their cities a«d towns. ^
“If these denominational schools
were to close and transfer their i
students to the public schools, tan '
rates would be doubled and, in
many instances, trebled.
“Obviously, therefore, the de
nominational schools benefit peo~j
pie of all creeds, directly and in-i
directly.’’
The editorial says His Eminence 1
Francis Cardinal Spellman, Arch
bishop of New York, “was en
tirely accurate” in his denunciation
of the Barden measure; that it
sincerely hopes New England Sena
tors and Congressman ‘ will join
. in the repudiation and rejection ofi
, the unfair and un-American Bar-
| den Bill, “and that it trusts “that
in the future none of them will I
even consider an aid-to-education
bill that ignores the crying needj
for training according to God s
Divine teachings and puts a pre
mium on materialism and eventual
ly communism.”
“As matters now stand,” the
editorial points out, “the parents
of denominational school children
are providing vast sums of money
for the support of public schools.
“They do this without complaint.
“But how long would they en
dure this if they were told that
their sons and daughters would be
penalized because they go to in
stitutions that teach them to love
and respect God instead of the
public institutions which omit God
but do not necessarily omit ma
terialism, atheism and commun
ism?”
TO THE CATHOLICS OF GEORGIA
I bee to call your attention to the Female Orphan Benevolent Society which kw
• been in existence for many years in this diocese and whose purpose is to help support
Saint Mary’s Home for orphan girls in Savannah.
In this issue of “The Bulletin”, is published an application for membership in the
above mentioned society. The advisory board of Saint Mary’s Home ask that those who
can afford membership in the Female Orphan Benevolent Society and who arc not en
rolled among its members make use of this application. It oan be incited to St. Mary's
Home, East Victory Drive, Savannah, Georgia.
Faithfully yours in Christ,
Membership and Its Privileges
The payment of the small sum of $3.00 a year entitles you
to full membership in the Female Orphan Benevolent Society
and the inestimable privileges attached therto. Twice a
month the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered at St. Mary’s
Home; daily the prayers of the orphans and Sisters ascend to
our Heavenly Father, and regularly each month Holy Com
munion is offered for spiritual and temporal welfare of the
living and deceased patrons, members and benefactors. Do
not disregard these priceless benefits. EVERY CATHOLIC
IN GEORGIA SHOULD BE A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY.
If you are a resident of Savannah, Albany, Athens, Atlanta,
Augusta Brunswick, Columbus, Dublin, Macon, Milledgeville,
Rome, Valdosta or Waycross, send your name in to any of the
Lady Collectors in these cities and you will be called on regu
larly for the amount you desire to subscribe. If you reside
elsewhere in Georgia, send your subscriptions to the Female
Orphan Benevolent Society, Savannah, Georgia. Acknowledge
ment will be made promptly and your name will be inscribed
on our Roll of Honor.
For your convenience, a form of Application for Member
ship appears below:
Application for Membership
To The Officers and Members of tbe Female
Orphan Benevolent Society, Savannah, Ga.
Please enroll my name as a member of your Society.
I agree to pay until further notice
Dollars annual duns, payable
NAME
ADDRESS
CITY 1 7..