Beginning with the theme of Freedom of Instruction, it denounces the tyranny and monopoly of the University of France. Had not the spirit of Catholicism, it says, broken the chain, it would soon have become unlawful for one man to tell another the right road, unless he had a bachelor's degree, for doing so was a sort of instruction. The line properly limiting freedom of instruction it finds in the line which divides the truth from falsehood. They who demand liberty of instruction do so in order to teach the truth. But in excluding the teaching of lies, it may be even "necessary to protect children betrayed by the barbarous apathy of their parents."
The writer then asks, But who is to determine what is the lie? Governments? "Until a government can show itself infallible, it must renounce all pretensions to regulate instruction and opinion." The pretension on its part to do so is tyrannical, because interference here is trespassing on the sanctuary, where the truth alone bears rule.
The position that it belongs to a government to fix the limits of freedom of opinion is denounced as having originated in the Reformation, as being Protestant, and, further, as being destitute of foundation. The Church is the moderator of instruction, precisely because she is the infallible moderator of opinions in all that relates to the moral order. Consequently there is in existence a competent, effectual, and revered tribunal. Then follow taunts at journals which complain of communal authorities for giving up their educational rights to the clergy. These are succeeded by jeers at such statesmen as doubt if the liberty of communal authorities extends so far as to give them the right of surrendering their liberty.
The objection is then faced, that liberty may be as justly claimed by the non-Catholic as by the Catholic. Of course, replies the Civiltá, the only case in which that question can become a practical one for Catholics is where they form the majority. Is it to be supposed that a majority shall be bound, for the sake of a minority "to pass a law opening all the pits of hell for its fellow-citizens?... With Catholics the liberty of dissidents cannot be a natural right."
The position taken by statesmen, that the Church is not infallible in politics and economy, and that therefore these subjects must be under the control of the State, is first laughed at. It reminds the writer of a musketeer who should say to his general, "I see that your artillery is of no avail against these Alps; let us open upon them with our rifles." After this comes the principle. The assertion that politics and economy ought to be under the control of the State rests on one or other of three errors: (1) Politics and economy do not belong to the moral sciences; or, (2) The moral sciences are not subject to moral laws; or, (3) The Church is not the authentic exponent of moral law. The first of these errors is refuted by every university in Europe, in all of which politics and economy are classed among the moral sciences. The second is a contradiction in terms. The third is a heresy in every Catholic ear.
It will help to a clear understanding of many expressions which must occur hereafter, if the reader, at this stage, will set before his mind's eye the scope of the three principles here asserted. Phillips, a modern lay doctor, quoted by the humblest polemic and the mighty Civiltá, in his seven volumes on ecclesiastical law (Kirchenrecht), discusses the relations of Church and State at great length. He shows that the Church is supreme and the State subordinate, in all things that come under the divine laws. Holtgreven, a Catholic judge, and an opponent of the Falk laws, explains this clearly: "To the divine laws, in this sense, belong, not only the ten commandments, but also the canons of the Church, as the Council of Trent shows. The things subject to the divine laws include all such worldly things as are connected with morality."[15]
This much is conceded by the Civiltá, that, if danger to the public interests should arise from false teaching of any material science, the government may interfere, as it would in a case of adulteration of food. The Church is not infallible in material instruction.
The article, it will be seen, claims the right to take the teaching of the child out of the hand of the parent, and that of the subject out of the hand of the State.[16] The latter may mix itself up in the matter as to material things, not as to moral. Royal supremacy, in university, college, seminary, or primary school, must not be allowed. It has the twofold evil of setting the authority and responsibility of the parent for his child above that of the priest, and of setting the local authority of the national ruler above the all-embracing authority of the universal one. The State is not only welcome to appear in school, but ought to appear in its subordinate capacity, finding money, secular status, and instruction in material things. But in all that part of schooling which may be called education in the higher sense, of a father, a Christian, or a king, the State is not to have a word to say.
It would seem difficult to ask a community to do an action involving a more serious disregard of moral considerations than to find money and power for schools and colleges, and not have a word to say as to the principles taught in them. We are far from ascribing such a disregard of moral considerations to a devout Ultramontane. On the contrary, he is persuaded that the State, in committing its money and authority to the Church, takes not only the highest human guarantee, but a truly divine one, for the protection of every moral interest. The motto of the article is a sentence intimating that, all over Europe, the question of the future must be the establishment of universities canonically instituted.[17]
In order to the restoration of ideas now undertaken, as preparing the way for the restoration of facts, it was a practical necessity to establish an invariable association between the two ideas of the only Judge of true and false, the only Arbiter of right and wrong, and the one holy Roman Church. This association could not be established so well by any arrangement as by making each school an arena on which every day the authority of both the parent and the State should be—not pranced upon, not even trampled upon, but serenely and devoutly walked over, by what M. Veuillot calls the crushing sandals of the monk.