CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1351, 31 January 1912, Page 4

CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

'THE NEW SECTARIAN DOGMAS."

Bishop Cleary, in a brief address at th« opening of a. new convent at Ellcrsjio oi» Sunday, said that Catholics did not withdraw their schools from tho public school system, of which they long formed a part "Our schools were driven out of that' system," ho said, "on what was, in effect, a religious test; driven out because we believe in tho inseparable union ofreligion with education; driven out because our consciences cannot accept tlin new sectarian dogmas that underlie our Education Act, namely, the dogma that religion lias no necessary or useful part in education, and the dogma that a political majority has the moral right to banish religion from the place which it has occupied from immemorial ages in. the school. It is the right and duty of parents to watch over and secure the education of their children in what they conscientiously believe to be the true religion. No political majority can alter or abrogate this dictate of the natural law. No political majority lias the moral right to formulate a religious faith or to define a religious doctrine. These things belong to the spiritual domain: they are outside the proper functions of the civil power. Yet here, in this democratic land, wo fi.nd politicians mostly or altogether unskilled in the principles and methods of education forcing French views of religion in education upon the schools, pressing them upon tho consciences iand purses of dissidents, and turning them, in practical effect, into an established and endowed Slate school creed!

"It so happens that this new State school view of religion quite suits the coim sciences of secularists, agnostics, and such But is not the right to believe to be deemed as sacred in education as the right not to believe? Have not the consciences that reject the State school dog. mas mentioned before the same right to free instruction as the consciences tint accept these dogmas? Why, in a democratic country, make acquiescence in a particular view of religion tho test for State aid in education ? Why favour one vrew of religion at the expense of another view of religion? And whv, since IS/ 1, penalise our Catholic schools, juft because we Catholics refuse, as we hove ever refused, to allow any political party to impose particular views or opinion')) regarding religion upon us, or to deter, mine any one of our articles of fait , -" Ou- education law is a hardship to thn conscientious objector; it represents a highly regrettable form of sectional legislation, namely, legislation grounded upon what is, in reality, n highly sectarian viuw of religion;,it is the negation of one of the ground-work principles of true democracy.