The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools

by Upton Sinclair

That is Proposition 30 of the Syllabus, which denounces as an error the doctrine that

The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons derives its origin from civil law.

Now there can be no dispute that this proposition asserts “immunity” for the Church and for ecclesiastical persons; and the word “immunity” is a technical church word, meaning immunity from civil law—a prerogative which was maintained by the Church until recent times. The question considered in the Syllabus is whether this “immunity” is derived from the State or from God. If it is derived from the State, it can be abolished by the State, and this is the “error” which the Pope is denouncing. He affirms the contrary, that the immunity is from God, and therefore can never be taken away. Is not this the very proposition which Monsignor Noll finds “utterly abhorrent even to the Catholic”?

The Monsignor goes on to discuss the propositions referring to the schools, and to say that they are applicable only where there is union of Church and State, and have nothing to do with the Catholic Church in its relation to our own public schools. “Outside of countries where there is union of Church and State, the Catholic Church does not pretend to have any jurisdiction, nor would she ever dream of interfering with the public schools. The teaching of the Church is that both the State and Church are supreme, each in its own domain.” And then, after reading that, I get the text of the Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, which are part of the supreme law of the Church, and I read:

The Church of Rome is one monarchy over all the kingdoms of the earth, and is, among temporal kingdoms, as the mind or soul to the body of a man, or as God in the world. Therefore the Church of Rome must not only have the spiritual power, but also the supreme temporal power.

And once more:

It is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus Christ for the purpose of obeying the magistrates, or to transgress the laws of the Church under the pretext of obeying the civil law.

In the effort to clear up these mysteries, I wrote to the fourteen catholic archbishops of the United States, also to the papal delegate in Washington, and to the Paulist Fathers in New York. The first reply came by telegraph from the archbishop of New Orleans, referring me to the Catholic Encyclopedia. I consulted in that work the topics “Pius IX,” and the “Syllabus of Errors,” and the first thing I read was that the Encyclical containing this “Syllabus of Errors” “was solemnly received in national and provincial councils by the episcopate of the whole world.” I also learned that “the ‘Syllabus’ is not only the defense of the inalienable rights of God, of the Church, and of truth against the abuse of the words freedom and culture on the part of unbridled Liberalism, but it is also a protest, earnest and energetic, against the attempt to eliminate the influence of the Catholic Church on the life of nations and of individuals, on the family and the school.” And again: “It has done an inestimable service to the Church and to society at large by unmasking the false liberalism which had begun to insinuate its subtle poison into the very marrow of Catholicism.”

But I do not find one word in either of these articles to indicate that the propositions of the Syllabus do not apply to America, but only to countries which have separation of Church and State. I find sweeping endorsements of sweeping propositions; and how can I bring myself to believe that ecclesiastical authorities, solemnly laying down the law for all time, would omit to state such vital qualifications, if they wished such qualifications to be understood?

I have before me a stack of letters from Catholic authorities, also a stack of Catholic pamphlets, and references to a great number of books; I realize now that if I were to make an authoritative pronouncement on the attitude of the Catholic Church toward the American public schools, I should have to write a volume instead of a chapter. How complicated the subject is you may judge from one sentence, quoted to me by Archbishop Keane of Dubuque. This is a statement made by Cardinal Newman, in the course of his controversy with Gladstone over the meaning of the “Syllabus of Errors.” Says the great master of Catholic apologetics: “The ‘Syllabus,’ viewed in itself, is nothing more than a digest of certain errors made by an anonymous writer.” I can only give my reaction to this sentence—it shows me that I should be wasting my time if I tried to understand Catholic controversy. The “Syllabus” is an explicit statement by the highest Catholic authority, that the propositions of the “anonymous writer” are errors; from which it follows that the contrary of these propositions is upon the highest Catholic authority affirmed. If someone tells me that I am reported to have burglarized a bank, that is an anonymous statement; but if I answer, “that is a lie,” then I am making the flat assertion that I did not burglarize a bank. And if anyone denies that, I say that he is not seeking truth, but merely juggling words, and I have no more time to waste on Cardinal Newman.