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Divini Illius Magistri is the BLUEPRINT for Catholic education! In this encyclical, Pope Pius XI set down the crystal-clear Catholic teaching on the principles of true Christian education. Basing himself on Scripture, the encyclicals of his predecessors, and St. Thomas Aquinas, the Pope presents the topic under the following main headings:
Christian Education of Youth makes it abundantly clear that all public and most private Catholic schools today do not meet the standards for Catholic education. This is because the blueprint for Catholic education was replaced after Vatican II with naturalistic, humanistic, New Age education. Excerpts: "The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by baptism.... "For precisely this reason, Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life ... in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ. "For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority, by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians ... and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens.... in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave, therefore, is the error of those who ... think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians.... it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. "... there cannot be full justice except in giving to God what is due to God, as the true Christian does. "The extent of the Church's mission in the field of education is such as to embrace every nation, without exception, according to the command of Christ:'Teach ye all nations' (Matt. 28:19); and there is no power on earth that may lawfully oppose her.... the mission to educate belongs pre-eminently to the Church.... "'... it is the duty of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights ... , and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remains under their own control, in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety.' (Pope Leo XIII) "Accordingly, unjust and unlawful is any monopoly, educational or scholastic, which physically or morally forces families to make use of government schools, contrary to the dictates of their Christian conscience, or contrary even to their legitimate preferences. "Besides, every Christian child or youth has a strict right to instruction in harmony with the teaching of the Church.... And whoever disturbs the pupil's faith ... abuses the trust which children place in their teachers.... "... the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church.... it must not be in opposition to, but in positive accord with those other two elements .... Otherwise it is doomed to ... become instead an agent of destruction. "For the mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction ... does not ... make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and textbooks in every branch be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church ... and this in every grade of school, ... [including] the higher institutions of learning as well. "'It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given ..., but also that every other subject taught be permeated with Christian piety.... if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence.' (Pope Leo XIII) "For whatever Catholics do in promoting and defending the Catholic school ... is a genuinely religious work and therefore an important task of 'Catholic Action.'" The school that does not follow this BLUEPRINT is not a Catholic school! Parents and teachers, if you don't want to be "agents of destruction," study and put into practice this encyclical. $2.50, plus shipping & handling Payment Option 1To order online, |
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