This is no novel doctrine, as some assert. In the beginning of the century, the illustrious Pius VII., in an Encyclical letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic world, July 10th, 1800, thus writes:—
"It is your duty to take care of the whole flock over which the Holy Ghost has placed you as Bishops, but in particular to watch over children and young men. They ought to be the special object of your paternal love, of your vigilant solicitude, of your zeal, of all your care. They who have tried to subvert society and families, to destroy authority, divine and human, have spared no pains to infect and corrupt youth, hoping thus the more easily to execute their infamous projects. They know that the mind and heart of young persons, like soft wax, to which one may give what form he pleases, are very susceptible of every sort of impression; that they keep tenaciously, when age has now hardened them, those which they had early received, and reject others. Thence the well-known proverb taken from the Scripture, 'A young man according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.' Suffer not, then, venerable brethren, the children of this world to be more prudent in this respect than the children of light. Examine, therefore, with the greatest attention, to what manner of persons is confided the education of children, and of young men in the colleges and seminaries; of what sort are the instructions given them; what sort of schools exist among you; of what sort are the teachers in the lyceums. Examine into all this with the greatest care, sound everything, let nothing escape your vigilant eye; keep off, repulse the ravening wolves that seek to devour these innocent lambs; drive out of the sheepfold those which have gotten in; remove them as soon as can be, for such is the power which has been given to you by the Lord for the edification of your sheep."
Rescripts of His Present Holiness Condemning the Queen's Colleges of England.
Our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., consulting for the special wants of the Catholics of Ireland, has not ceased, almost from the very beginning of his glorious pontificate, to repeat similar instructions in his apostolic letters to the Irish Bishops. Hence, by his rescripts of October 1847, and October 1848, he condemned, from their first institution, the Queen's Colleges, on account of their "grievous and intrinsic dangers to faith and morals"; and since then he has frequently repeated his sacred admonitions, warning the bishops and the faithful people to beware of evil systems of public instruction; and to secure, by every means in their power, the blessings of Catholic education for the rising generation.
Resolutions of Irish Bishops in 1824 and 1826.
Nor have the Irish prelates been unmindful of their duty in this respect. In 1824, that is to say, five years before Catholic emancipation, and in the midst of the struggle for that recognition of the existence of their people as citizens, they presented to Parliament a petition, from which I make the following extract, which clearly shows their conviction of the necessity of religious education:
"That in the Roman Catholic Church the literary and religious instruction of youth are universally combined, and that no system of education which separates them can be acceptable to the members of her communion; that the religious instruction of youth in Catholic schools is always conveyed by means of catachetical instruction, daily prayer, and the reading of religious books, wherein the Gospel morality is explained and inculcated; that Roman Catholics have ever considered the reading of the Sacred Scriptures by children as an inadequate means of imparting to them religious instruction, as a usage whereby the Word of God is made liable to irreverence, youth exposed to misunderstand its meaning, and thereby not unfrequently to receive in early life impressions which may afterwards prove injurious to their own best interests, as well as to those of the society which they are destined to form. That schools whereof the master professes a religion different from that of his pupils, or from which such religious instruction as the Catholic Church prescribes for youth is excluded, or in which books and tracts not sanctioned by it are read or commented on, cannot be resorted to by the children of Roman Catholics; and that threats and rewards have been found equally unavailing as a means of inducing Catholic parents to procure education for their children from such persons or in such schools; that any system of education incompatible with the discipline of the Catholic Church, or superintended exclusively by persons professing a religion different from that of the vast majority of the poor of Ireland, cannot possibly be acceptable to the latter, and must, in its progress, be slow and embarrassed, generating often distrust and discord as well as a want of that mutual good faith and perfect confidence which should prevail between those who receive benefits and those who dispense them."
The Irish Bishops again expressed the like sentiments in 1826.
Address of the National Synod of Thurles.
A National Synod met in Thurles in August, 1860, and again the Prelates spoke words of instruction, of which recent sad events in France have furnished a new and most melancholy confirmation.