“And should constitute a most potent factor in the holy work of making America dominantly Catholic,” added the older man.
“True, Your Eminence. And yet, this great desideratum can never come about until the youth are brought into the true fold. And that means, as you well know, the abolishing of the public school system.”
“What think you of that?” asked the Cardinal-Bishop off-handedly.
The Bishop waxed suddenly animated. A subject had been broached which lay close to his heart. “The public schools constitute a godless sink of pollution!” he replied heatedly. “They are nurseries of vice! They are part of an immoral and 66 vicious system of education which is undermining the religion of American children! I have always contended that we, the Holy Catholic Church, must control education! I hold that education outside of the Church is heresy of the most damnable kind! We have heretofore weakly protested against this pernicious system, but without success, excepting”––and here he smiled cynically––“that we have very generally succeeded in forcing the discontinuance of Bible reading in the public schools. And in certain towns where our parochial schools do not instruct beyond the eighth grade, it looks as if we might force the introduction of a form of the Catholic Mass to be read each morning in the High School.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the Cardinal-Bishop. “Your voice thrills me like a trumpet call.”
“I would it were such,” cried the Bishop excitedly, “summoning the faithful to strike a blow which shall be felt! What right have the United States, or any nation, to educate the young? None whatever! Education belongs to the Church! Our rights in this respect have been usurped! But they shall be restored––if need be, at the point of the––”
“You positively make my old heart leap to the fray,” interrupted the smiling, white-haired churchman. “But I feel assured that we shall accomplish just that without violence or bloodshed, my son. You echo my sentiments exactly on the pregnant question. And yet, by getting Catholics employed in the public schools as teachers, and by electing our candidates to public offices, we quietly accomplish our ends, do we not?”
“But when will the Holy Father recognize the time as propitious for a more decisive step in that respect?”
“Why, my son, I think you fail to see that we keep continually stepping. We are growing by leaps and bounds in America. At the close of the War of Independence the United States numbered some forty-five thousand adherents to the Catholic faith. Now the number has increased to twelve or fifteen millions. Of these, some four millions are voters. A goodly number, is it not?”
“Then,” cried the Bishop, “let the Holy Father boldly make the demand that the States appropriate money for the support of our parochial schools!”