Since the Archbishop made the foregoing observations, the Holy Father, our supreme guide in matters of religion, has published a series of propositions which he had condemned and reprobated on various occasions. We insert three of those propositions which bear upon education:
The forty-fifth is as follows:
"XLV. The entire government of public schools in which the youth of any Christian state is educated, except (to a certain extent) in the case of episcopal seminaries, may and ought to appertain to the civil power, and belong to it so far that no other authority whatsoever shall be recognized as having any right to interfere in the discipline of the schools, the arrangement of the studies, the conferring of degrees, in the choice or approval of the teachers".
The forty-seventh adds:
"XLVII. The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to the 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".
The forty-eighth bears on the same subject:
"XLVIII. Catholics may approve of a 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".
Let our readers attentively consider these propositions. They undoubtedly reprobate what is called mixed education, or the system which endeavours to separate education from religion, as the Queen's Colleges profess to do. They appear to us also most distinctly to condemn the principles on which the National Schools are founded. In many of those schools all religious education is excluded, and in those which are under Presbyterian and other similar patrons, as well as in model and training schools, the rights of the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom Christ gave the power of teaching all nations, are completely ignored. In every National School the teaching and practice of religion are strictly prohibited during the hours of class. Such a system appears to fall under the condemnation of the Holy See. We shall return to this matter again on some future occasion. In the mean time, we shall merely add, that if we wish to be true children of the Church, we must receive with humility, and in a spirit of obedience, the decisions of Christ's vicar on Earth, and reprobate and condemn from the inmost of our hearts the propositions which he, using the power given to him by the Eternal Shepherd of our souls, reprobates and condemns. The only view his Holiness proposed to himself in censuring the propositions we refer to was, to secure for the rising generations the greatest blessing that can be conferred on them—a good religious education, and the preservation of their faith from danger. As dutiful members of the true Church we ought to act on the lessons of wisdom that have been given to us.
Having treated at some length of the education question, the Archbishop next directed the attention of the meeting to the condition of the agricultural and manufacturing interests of Ireland, showing that it is the duty of those in power to apply immediate remedies to the evils of the country, which menace us with universal ruin, and then proceeded to examine the proposed disendowment of the Protestant Establishment. History informs us that the Irish Protestant Church had its origin in an act declaring Henry VIII. head of the Church, which was passed by the Irish parliament in 1536, and in another act of the same parliament by which a similar dignity was conferred on Queen Elizabeth. A statement on this subject made by Dr. Gregg, Protestant Bishop of Cork, in a late pastoral charge, is altogether at variance with history. His Lordship's words are:
"She (the Protestant Church) sprang from the truth, was nurtured in truth, laden with truth, in truth she delights, to the truth she appeals, and by God's gracious blessing, in mighty truth shall she stand".