THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF AMERICA

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 15

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF AMERICA

The Rev. Father Gleeson, of San Francisco is reported in ' The Catholic Citizen' to have spoken as follows :

“The public school system has lost to the Catholic Church 180,000,000 of souls ! . . . A large majority of Catholic children educated in the public schools have drifted into indifferentism, if not into Infidelity, and that is what they desire. Those Catholics, then, with this knowledge staring them full in the face, who send their children to the public schools, with their own good schools at their doors, are traitors to their Church and a dishonor to the faith which they profess. .... We have Catholics now-a-days who are ever trying to pare down the objectionable points of our faith. They love to be called Liberal Catholics ; they are forever trying to explain away what non-Catholics most object to.—Theoretically speaking they believe in miracles, but shrug their shoulders when you ask them to believe the miracle of Lourdes. Veneration of relics, the doctrine of indulgences, and of purgatory they rarely allude to. They never want to hear a sermon on exclusive salvation. They would not be seen wearing a scapular, and don’t know howto say the beads. They have no devotion to the saints, and don’t care to know even the meaning of devotion to the Sacred Heart. If the Pope sounds a note of warning to any people, they say he is meddling in politics. If the Archbishop disapproves of a Society, or condemns an abuse, those very Liberal Catholics shake their very Liberal heads, and say they don’t see anything wrong in it. The Church is not progressive enough for them.” This is strong testimony to the value of secular education, and an unanswerable reason against State endowments to the sects. “ Don’t tell me ‘ you won’t,’ ” said an Elmira father to his little daughter of six summers. “ Well, but papa,” said the artless little one, “ what shall I say when I mean I won’t 1”