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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la meihode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOfY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 1,25 ^m m ■is|£ 2.2 163 1: 114 m 1.8 1.6 M APPLIED irvMGE Inc ^^ 165J Edsl Main Street r.S Rochester . New York 14609 USA i^= (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone ^= (--,6) ->i?r - 5989 _ p. PASTORAL LETTEi^ 01 THK ARCimiSItOPS AND niSIfOPS OP TUB KOCLKSIASTICAL PHOVINCKS OP QUEBKO, MO.VTRRAI, AND OTTAWA, RKOAHDIS-O THK SCHOOL QUESTION IN" THE PKOVI.NCK OTf MANITOBA^ ■V WE, nv THE GRACE OF GOD AND OF THE APOSTOLIC SeE, Arch- RfSHOPs AND Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Quebec Montreal and Ottawa, ' To the Clergy, Secular and Regular, and to all the Faithful of these Provinces, Greeting and Benediction in Our Lord. We deem it opportune, Dearly Beloved Brethren, to recall to your minds today some of the <,a'avo principles which govern the relations that exist between the Catholic Church and the schools where children receive their primary instruction and the first lessons in Christian morals. If it is true that the child is naturally dependent on the pater- nal authority, supernaturally he depends on the authority of the Church, which is the supernalural society for which God has created him, and into which he is obliged to enter, because, according to the actual ways of Providence, it alone can help him to attain his finaltend. Baptism, which he receives from the Ghurch^at the request of his parents, gains him admission into this society, whose laws, concerning his salvation, he is ^-2 — bound to observe. Therefore, in the plan of her Divine Founder, not only has the Church a right, it is even for her a duty to direct, through h er ministers, the moral education of her child- ren. This duty follows from the very mission confided by Our Saviour to His apostles and to their successors in the Church : ((Teach ye all nations teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. » (Malt. XXVIII, 20.) Therefore the Catholic Church alone has been commissioned to dispense, throughout all ages,- religious and moral instruc- tion to nations as well as to individuals. Hence she has the mission of directing the teaching of morals not only in the higher schools, but also, and perhaps more especially, in those schools where moral education is closely bound, inseparably united to instruction, as is the case in the primary schools. Without this control of the schools the accomplishment of her mission would become impossible. A child requires to know as soon as possible his duties towards God, and to be warned against evil passions at an age when his soul readily receives those lasting impressions that will aid him to pass through the dangers with which the world and the devil shall strew his path through life. « A young man according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. » (Prov. XXII, 6.) If from early childhood ihe young man has not been brought up in the love of the precepts of morality, he shall hereafter find difficulties well nigh insurmountable to observe those same precepts, and, consequently, to live a supernatural life, a life of Divine grace, and the solicitude of the Church shall find in him. but feeble correspondence with her efforts to conduct him to his final end. The habits of his youth will lead him in an- other direction. Hence it follows that the Church being alone commissioned by God to teach men morals, cannot, at any period of their lives, abandon her mission. She is not free to renounce her action and control in the schools ; under no con- sideration, under no form of government can she approve schools wherein youth receives no moral instruction. There- fore she always has reproved and ever will reprove the schools commonly styled «unsectarian schools hj because such a system is, of its nature, a serious danger to the religious and moral — 8 — education of youth, though accidcnlalUj it have not always a pernicious influence. This deplorable system, approved T)f in certain places, has wrought the loss of numberless souls and has accumulated the ruins of morals wherever it has been applied. Hereupon we have the competent and unchallengeable testi- mony of the Episcopate of the United Slates assembled in plenary Council in Baltimore : « A long experience, » they say, (I has superabundantly proven the grave disasters, the intrinsic dangers, confronting the youth of those regions through the frequentation of public schools. Owing to the system in vigour in these schools our Catholic youth cannot but be exposed to great peril ^regarding their faith and morals. To this cause alone we should probably attribute the great progress of indif- ferentism in these; regions, as also that corruption of morals which has deplorably infested and depraved the youngest of our children.). (Plen. Counc. Bait. II, No. 426.) Consequently, it is with great surprise and profound grief We learn that, even here in oui' own country where religious liberty is so loudly proclaimed, that legalized attempts have been made to introduce that censurable and censured system of unsectarian schools, in order to deprive the Church of a right which is inseparable fi'om the free exercise of Catholic worship, guaranteed by the faith of the treaties. In another province of this land, inhabited by Catholics, they are trying, once more, an underhand and satanic persecution against the sacred rights of the Church. It was with emotion of heart we heard the Venerable Archbishop of St. Boniface raise his voice, once more, against this iniquity. In a pastoral letter, dated the loth of last August, the ■"'■ustrious Prelate makes known this perfidious stratagem foi j,f verling youth, forewarms his flock against it, and lets them jee how odious it is. II A trial of a novel kiu.d has come upon us. In a land where freedom of religion is so loudly proclaimed, fetters have been placed on that liberty. Our social and political institutions warranted protection to all our rights, and now, behold the same rights trampled upon by the very persons who should ' — 4 — safeguard them. Here you are exposed lo porseculion ; not a bloody persecution which altnclis the l)ody or external life, hut a persecution most cunningly masked, which a I lacks the intel- lect, hinders it from being enlightened by Chiislian light and guided by the reflexions of its divine splendours. « Yon are aware that all those whom God has confided toyonr care must l)e formed, from earliest childhood, to a Christian life ; thence the necessity of Christian schools, and any school which has not this character cannot conmiand the confidence of a Christian parent. « You are, then, bound to allow your children lo frequent such schools only as can keep in safety tlieir faith and their morals. Alas I in spite of all your care and vigilance it hap[iens, only too often, that the child that leaves home to go and seek instruction is exposed to pernicious influence. At least, then, let not Iho school of your choice be for these young hearts a place of danger. Let the teachers to whom you confide them give you all desir- able security ! Let them continue to exercise, over your chil- dren, your own sacred ministry. Let school and home harmo- nize in the formation of the heart. Lot the words pronounced bv master or mistress be an echo of those nlleird bv father and mother to the child, when teaching what is to be believed, and explaining the many duties which the service of God and the love of our neighbour demand. » Then His Grace traces clearly the rights of llic minority, and the rights of the Catholic Church, and discloses the nature of those schools which they would impose upon our bicthren in Manitoba. (I A parliamentary majority, heedless of the sad spectacle pre- sented by the ignorance of some of its members in matters regarding education, decreed to abolish our schools, and have decided that Protestant schools only will be acknowledged by the State and favoured by them. Again and again we have heard repeated and seen printed the terms : National Schools^ Public Schools, Unsectarian Schools. All these words may sound more or less harmonious to the ears of certain people, but the puie and simple fact, divested of all deceit and reduced to its dire roolily is that, thn Lcgislaluro, in abolishing Catholic shools, h.is passed laws whicli not only maintain Protestant schools in all tlieir integrity, but oven assnre them, althongh sectarian, the entire share of the pnblic money to which Catholics have a right. The law purposes even to force Catholics to pay to snp- porUheso schools in which the faith of their children cannot hut be exposed, and in which yotir most sacred convictions, My Dearly Beloved Brethren, are as sadly, as they are nnjnstly, belied. ((A cnrsory examination of the new laws sufTices to show that they have been inspired by a feeling hostile to Catholicity, and that the Protestant idea governed all that legislation. » On seeing this slate of things by which it is desired to snatch away the faith of the children in Manitoba, strip the Church of its sacred and indestruclable right, onr hearts are overwhelmed with grief. As the guardians of the prerogatives of our Holy Mother the Church, we cannot look with cold indifference upon the persecutions she would fain be made undergo. It is a cons- cientious duty for us to remind all the faithful of our Provinces of the true doctrine concerning the control of the Church over the education of Catholic children in schools. Without wishing to trespess on political grounds, We believe it necessary to proclaim these principles and to solicit their application in the name of Holy Church. As citizens we might make concessions, but as Catholics we cannot agree to do so. It is likewise the duty of every Catholic, to whatever party or social position he belongs, lo prove himself a submissive and devoted child of the Church; and he is unworthy of this name, who would sacrifice his rights for any secondary consideration. It is treason to allow the Church lo be persecuted, and her chil- dren severed f-om hor by violence. Therefore is it every one's duty to pray v.. labour, each in his own sphere of action, thai perfect justice be rendered and this without upsetting the peace which is so necessary to the prosperity of our Country. Shall bo the present Pastoral Letter read and published in all Churches and parochial chapels of our dioceses, the Sunday following its reception — 6 — Made and signed by Us in the month of March of the year Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-One. E.-A. Card. Taschereai;, Archb. of Quebec. •J- EdouardChs, Archb. of Montreal f J.-Thomas, Archb. of Ottawa. f Jean, Archb. of Leontopolis. (a) f L.-F., Bp. of Three Rivers, •j- Antoine, Bp. of Sherbrooke. •}• L.-Z., Bp. of St. Hyacinthe. •[ N.-Zi5pHiniN, Vic Apost. of Pontiac. f ELPHfeoE, Bp. 01 Nicolet. •j- Louis-Nazaire, Bp. of Chicoutimi. f Andr^-Aliiert, Bp. of St.-Gerniain de Rimouski. By Order of His Eminence and Their Lordships, B.-Ph. Garneau, Pst, Secretary of the Archbishopric of Quebec (a) Former Bishc/p of St. Germain de Rimouski. yfar !C.