The Catholic Argument for Abolishing the United States Department of Education

On October 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act, establishing the United States Department of Education (ED) as a federal agency. While the ED has been praised by both Republicans and Democrats alike, its creation has caused more problems than most Americans realize. The federal government should abolish the U.S. Department of Education due to its usurpation of the father’s right to educate his children and its violation of the United States Constitution. Upon doing so, the federal government will return the right to educate not to state governments but to the father of the family, its natural custodian.

According to the Catholic Church, the fundamental right to education resides with the father of the family. For instance, in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, the Angelic Doctor taught that “the father is the principle of generation, of education and discipline and of everything that bears upon the perfecting of human life.” Although the Angelic Doctor also acknowledged the mother’s role in education in his Commentary on 1 Timothy,he noted that her function is ultimately ancillary, for “the woman…is for the sake of man; therefore, the man should rule [the family].” Can a Catholic Be a So... Trent Horn Best Price: $8.44 Buy New $15.66 (as of 07:21 UTC - Details)

Not only that, but the father also possesses “in a particular way a share in that principle which…is found in God,” the Creator of Heaven and Earth. In other words, just as Divine Providence governs all creatures, so, too, is the father primarily responsible for his family’s well-being. Consequently, his authority must be given pride of place, for it is through his love, vigilance, and care that children are able to attain their full development.

Reiterating St. Thomas’ teaching in the late 19th century, Pope Leo XIII declared in Sapientiae Christianae:

These [parents] hold from nature their right of training the children to whom they have given birth, with the obligation super-added of shaping and directing the education of their little ones to the end for which God vouchsafed the privilege of transmitting the gift of life.

Here, the Holy Father highlights another important aspect of the father’s fundamental right to educate his children. What is this “end” which children are ultimately destined for? It is nothing less than the Beatific Vision—the sheer, gratuitous gift of seeing God face-to-face and living in His presence for all eternity. Thus, by allowing husband and wife to partake in the creation of new life, the Most Holy Trinity has endowed them with the privilege to provide not only for their children’s temporal needs but their spiritual ones as well.

To quote the Angelic Doctor in his Supplement of the Summa: “Nature intends not merely the generation of the offspring, but also its development and advance to the perfection of man considered as man, that is, to the state of virtue.” In light of this observation, if the father fails to direct his children toward the Beatific Vision, then he can hardly be called a parent. After all, the English word “education” stems from the Latin verb educare (“to rear”), which implies the presence of a specific telos embedded within education by God Himself.

How the Catholic Churc... Thomas E. Woods Best Price: $8.00 Buy New $9.06 (as of 05:30 UTC - Details) Additionally, since the public school system in the United States neglects to teach students in accordance with the Deposit of Faith, it fails to take into account man’s supernatural end and implicitly encourages him to place his trust in the State alone. Written to combat the growing influence of so-called “neutral” learning institutions throughout Christendom, Pope Pius XI’s Divini Illius Magistri identified schools “from which religion is excluded, [as] contrary to the fundamental principles of education” on the grounds that they scorn “every sort of dependance on the divine law” and place themselves on an idolatrous pedestal in the process.

The Holy Father predicted that if such “schools” were allowed to remain open, they would be “bound to become irreligious” and make their students “unhappy and helpless.” From a Catholic perspective, then, the State’s usurpation of the father’s right to educate his children ultimately infringes upon the preservation, well-being, and happiness of American families. To quote Pope Pius XI:

Whoever refuses to admit these principles…must necessarily deny that Christ has founded His Church for the eternal salvation of mankind, and maintain instead that civil society and the State are not subject to God and to His law, natural and divine. Such a doctrine is manifestly impious, contrary to right reason, and, especially in [the] matter of education, extremely harmful to the proper training of youth, and disastrous as well for civil society [and] for the well-being of all mankind.

In the early history of the United States of America, the Founding Fathers—a majority of whom were not Catholic, I might add—nevertheless recognized the origin of the father’s right to educate his children via the natural law. As a result, the Constitution contains no explicit language regarding a federal or state role in education, implicitly leaving its regulation in the hands of the father.

However, in the early 18th century, the federal government began to encroach upon the father’s authority. For instance, after admitting Ohio to the Union in 1803, Congress required that all subsequent states after Ohio place public education in their state constitutions as a condition of statehood. Although Massachusetts had been in the Union since 1788 and did not need to comply with this new mandate, it responded by becoming the first state to establish a public school and pass a compulsory school attendance law, doing so in 1821 and 1852, respectively. ESV Church Bible (Hard... ESV Bibles Buy New $10.98 (as of 07:42 UTC - Details)

According to the Massachusetts School Attendance Act of 1852, children between the ages of 8 and 14 were required to attend public school for at least three months of the year. Shortly after the Civil War, Congress created the United States Office of Education (USOE), a predecessor of the ED, in order to collect statistics on state education nationwide and to “share” (i.e., force states to accept) information regarding the organization and management of their respective public-school systems.

Since USOE was a federal institution which disseminated its educational strategies to the states, the argument for its lack of involvement in the public school system is weak. For example, by 1918, 47 other states had adopted compulsory school attendance laws similar in scope to Massachusetts. In light of this fact, it would not be a stretch to link Congress’ early-18th-century mandate with the federal government’s increased role in education throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

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