AT a reception recently tendered Monsignor Satolli in this city, the pope’s delegate presented a paper on education. The following are quotations from the published address:—
Education of the young is as important a safeguard of the nation as are courts and armies. It is of great moment, then, that we should understand in what true education must consist.
In what does this educational safeguard consist? Let the delegate reply:—
The young should be educated both in mind and heart, according to the constitution of the State, according to the great principles of morality and according to a true religious spirit.
But what are the “great principles of morality,” and in what does the “true religious spirit” consist? Here it is:—
I will add that it is well that young men should have from their earliest days, a just idea of what the pope is, how lofty his dignity, how great his authority, how beneficial his actions. His dignity and his power come directly from Christ, and the exercise of this power can only be for the benefit, religious and social, intellectual and moral, temporal and eternal, of humanity.
It therefore follows that the safeguard of the United States lies in teaching the [29] young that Jesus Christ has delegated his power on earth to the pope, and that the exercise of this power is for the benefit, religious and social, intellectual and moral, temporal and eternal, of humanity. But we know that to teach the youth this is to undermine the safeguards of society. We know that the exercise of this “great” “authority” of the pope has always been and ever will be the curse, religious and social, intellectual and moral, temporal and eternal, of humanity.
But the delegate anticipated dissenters, and remarked in this connection that—
One who cannot see or would venture to deny the justice of these considerations would merit no attention from reasonable and well-thinking men.
We cannot see the justice of these considerations and therefore venture to deny them; and although we may not “merit” attention, we are very certain we will erelong receive attention. [30]