On Education unconnected to the Catholic faith and the power of the Church
By Pope Pius IX - Schools hostile to the Catholic Church cannot in good conscience be frequented
On the Syllabus of Errors from Pope Pius IX in 1864, we are instructed about these two condemned propositions related to children’s schools:
47. The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to children of every class of the people, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophical sciences and for carrying on the education of youth, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, control and interference, and should be fully subjected to the civil and political power at the pleasure of the rulers, and according to the standard of the prevalent opinions of the age. — Epistle to the Archbishop of Freiburg, “Cum non sine,” July 14, 1864.
48. Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church, and which regards the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life. — Ibid.
What follows is a translation of very “Epistle to the Archbishop of Freiburg, ‘Cum non sine’” from July 14, 1864.
In this letter, Pius IX indicates the doctrine of the Church in matters of instruction and education, principally concerning the teaching given in public schools.
For this translation we used the original Latin and made some corrections with the French translation found in “Les Actes pontificaux cités dans l'encyclique et le syllabus du 8 décembre 1864, Suivis de divers autres documents” from page 458–467, published by
Librairie Ve Poussielgue et Fils, in Paris, France, year 1865.
Letter to our venerable brother Herman, archbishop Friborg in Brisgau
Pope Pius IX
Venerable Brother, Greetings, and (receive mine) Apostolic Blessing.
We learned, not without great bitterness in Our hearts, from several messengers that regulations were being prepared in the Grand Duchy of Baden for the new system of public schools1, regulations which in various ways place in great danger to the instruction and Christian education of young people, because they distance them more and more from the salutary authority and supervision of the Catholic Church. We have not doubted for a moment, Venerable Brother, that you show yourself worthy of yourself by displaying your excellent zeal for the salvation of souls and by furnishing new proofs of your constancy in defending the liberty and the rights of the Church. We do not doubt that you bravely oppose anything that might do the slightest damage to the salvation of souls or diminish and manage in any way that it was the free authority of your episcopal ministry. What was certain for us has been perfectly confirmed by the letters you sent to us on this very important affair and by the memorandum which is annexed thereto. And we greatly rejoice to see you, Venerable Brother, in spite of your advanced age, still fighting for the Church with that intrepidity which you have shown so well in the course of your episcopate, and you have won the praises of this Holy See by merit and by the best right. Indeed, amid the greatest bitterness with which we are afflicted, we are greatly consoled, knowing how God, rich in mercy, will strengthen the bishops all the more with the help of his divine grace for the guardianship of the flock of Jesus Christ, that, in these unhappy times, greater dangers threaten and invade this flock by the work of enemy men.
No one can certainly ignore that the saddest and deplorable condition into which modern society is slipping more and more day by day derives from so many deadly devices that are used to remove from public institutions and domestic families the holiest faith of the Christ, religion and its salutary doctrine, to tighten and bind its force so fruitful in the fruits of salvation. These most pernicious machinations necessarily have their origin in so many evil doctrines, which in this most miserable age, with the greatest damage to Christianity and civil society, have become stronger on every side, so we are very sorry to see them raise their heads higher. And, of course, when the truths revealed by God are shamelessly denied or subjected to the examination of human reason, it happens that the subjection of natural things, which is entirely due to the supernatural order, is completely removed so that men are kept from their eternal end, and their plans and actions are limited to the material and fleeting things of this world. And since the Church, which supports the firmament of truth, was established by its Divine Author, so that she teaches the divine faith to all men, that she preserves whole and inviolable the deposit which has been entrusted to her, and that she directs and shapes, according to the rule of the revealed doctrine, the supporters and propagators of false doctrines are trying everything to rob their ecclesiastical power of their authority in relation to human society. Also, they contrive in all ways and seek all means of diminishing more and more the power of the Church and the salutary force which she has always exercised by virtue of her divine institution and which she must exercise in the institutions of human society (so) they (employ all sort of) means (to) removing the Church from these institutions themselves, and of submitting them entirely to the good pleasure of the political and civil authority, to the good pleasure of the rulers, and to the management of the fickle opinions of the age.
It is no wonder, of course, that such fatal attempts are mainly directed against the instruction and public education of youth, and there is no doubt that human society has to suffer very serious damage. Where the governing authority of the Church has been removed from the public and private education of youth, which is so important to the happiness of Religion and the State. For in this way, human society is gradually deprived of that Christian spirit, which alone can stably preserve the foundations of public order and tranquility, and bring about and control the true and useful progress of civilization, and furnish to men all the help which is necessary for them to attain their last end, that is to say, eternal salvation, after the course of this mortal life. Instruction which has only the science of nature and earthly and social life as its goal, and which moreover departs from the truths revealed by God, necessarily falls into the spirit of error and falsehood, and the education which claims to dispense the help of Christian doctrine and moral discipline to form the still tender souls of the young and those hearts flexible as wax for vice, this education can only produce a generation which, excited and pushed by evil passions and ambitions, becomes as fatal to the State as to the family.
But if this most pernicious way of teaching, separated from the Catholic faith and from the power of the Church, is the greatest harm to men and society, when it a question to institutions2 devoted to letters and to higher education, and intended for the higher classes of society, who does not see that these evils and these damages will be much more serious still, if the same method is applied to the public schools3? Indeed, it is principally in these schools that all children of the popular class should be, from their earliest infancy, carefully instructed in the mysteries and principles of our most Holy Religion, and diligently formed in the piety, honesty of morals, religion, and good civil conduct. And religious education must occupy the first rank and dominate in these schools in such a way, in the double respect of instruction and education, that the other knowledge that is offered to the youth there appears only as secondary and incidental knowledge. Therefore, the youth is exposed to the greatest dangers unless its education in the aforementioned schools is closely associated with religious teaching. Let them be instituted above all to form the people religiously and to foster their piety and the discipline of Christian morality; and it is for this reason that they have always rightly and very justly attracted, more than all other educational establishments, the care, solicitude and vigilance of the Church. And therefore, the plans and efforts to ward off the power of the Church from the public schools proceed from the very spirit hostile to the Church being and from the desire to ensnare in the people the divine light of our most holy faith. Also, the Church, which founded these schools, has always surrounded them with her care and her protection; she has always considered them as the principal part of her authority and of her government, and she holds that whatever separates them from the Church is for the Church and for the schools themselves a cause of great damage. All those, therefore, who falsely declare that the Church must abdicate or interrupt her mediating and salutary power with regard to the public schools, these men ask nothing other than to see the Church go against the commandments of her divine Author and failing in the serious charge which was divinely entrusted to her to procure the salvation of all men. Certainly, in any places and regions that this most pernicious (error) is either undertaken, or the plan of expelling the authority of the Church from the schools was brought to completion, and the youth would be miserably exposed to losing their faith, the Church should not only try everything with the most intense diligence, and never spare any care (effort), so that the same youth receive the instruction and Christian education necessary, but still it would be forced to warn all the faithful and to declare to them that these kinds of schools, hostile to the Catholic Church, cannot in good conscience be frequented.
And we congratulate you, Venerable Brother, for firmly adhering to the teachings of the Catholic Church in regard to the education and training of the youth, and with your commentary you have wisely and consistently opposed all the opinions and ordinances proposed by this Grand Duchy of the Baden concerning the reformation of the public schools, and which bring the greatest destruction to Christian education and absolutely destroy the venerable rights of the Church in a matter of such great importance. We are convinced that you will neglect nothing to defend the rights of this Church intrepidly, and to carefully remove from the education of the young all that could disturb, even slightly, the solidity of their faith, or shake it, or corrupt their religious conscience and sully that purity of morals which our holy faith alone can produce, nourish and increase. We also experience great consolation in seeing that the clergy of your diocese, perfectly remembering their vocation and their duty, employ all their efforts with you to defend the rights of the Church and of the Catholic people of the Grand Duchy. We are filled with no less joy, that this faithful people, who feel very well about the Catholic education of their children, should have nothing more ancient than the same. children should not be taught at all in schools which are directed by the Catholic Church. Raising our eyes therefore to the Lord Our God, we humbly and earnestly ask him to grant the abundance of his grace to You, Venerable Brother, to your clergy and to your faithful people, so that all, strengthened by heavenly help, continue to fight courageously under your leadership for the cause of his holy Church. And as an omen of this help from on high, and as a pledge of the very special benevolence with which We embrace you in the Lord, We impart to you with love from the bottom of our hearts Our Apostolic Blessing, to You, Venerable Brother, and to all the faithful clerics and laymen entrust your vigilance.
In Rome. St. Peter's, on the 14th day of July in the year 1864, in the Nineteenth Year of Our Pontificate.
Pope Pius IX
The original reads “popularium scholarum”
The original reads “publicisque Institulis”
The original reads “populares inducalur scholas”