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Date: 1867-07-06
By: True Witness
Citation: “No title”, True Witness (6 July, 1867)
Other formats: TBA

On the subject of Confederation, and the Local Government of Lower Canada, a correspondent of the Sherbrooke Gazette writes as under:—

In the proposed new constitution there should be the three following guarantees to the Eastern Townships:—

1. Such a reconstruction of the Parliamentary Districts as that the English speaking and non-Catholic population may be permitted, as far as practicable, to act together; and that they may not, by any contingency, be deprived of their proper representation in Parliament.
2. That all churches in the Townships shall possess perfect civil and ecclesiastical equality; and that no religious body or collateral organization shall have the civil power to levy taxes directly or indirectly on its own adherents, for any purpose whatever.

III. That all schools in the Townships, receiving public money, shall be strictly non-denominational. Christian morals shall be faithfully taught, but no sectarianism.

What the writer is apparently aiming at is this:—That that portion of Lower Canada known as the Eastern Townships, should be erected into a distinct or separate State in the proposed Confederation. His demands are not suggestive of any excess of modesty upon his part, or on that of those in whose interests he speaks; and were demands similar in character to emanate from the Catholic minority of Upper Canada—who when the Confederation scheme shall have become un fait accompli will find themselves in the same position as towards a Protestant majority, as will the non-Catholic minority of Lower Canada, as towards a Catholic majority—they would be scouted with ridicule.

The first demand—that with reference to a redistribution of electoral districts in the Eastern Townships—is liable to the objection of vagueness; since it demands that the non-Catholic population of that District of Lower Canada “be not, by any contingency, deprived of their proper representation in Parliament:” without having first given a full definition of what constitutes “proper representation.” It may well so happen that there is considerable difference of opinion as to what is right and “proper” in the premises, betwixt the Catholic and the non-Catholic population of the said Townships; and it would certainly be, to say the least, hasty, and illogical, to leap to the conclusion that the opinion of the latter as to what is their “proper” share of representation in the future local or municipal legislature, is the correct one.

Indeed the second demand enunciated by our writer is so strongly suggestive as to what are non-Catholic notions of propriety, that we are justified in our scepticism on this point. Taking the writer in the Sherbrooke Gazette as in some manner the exponent of the views and wishes of the non-Catholic party, we find that that party is not content with absolute freedom of religion for itself: that it is not satisfied that it be allowed to manage its own religious and ecclesiastical affairs, as it pleases, without interference, let, or hindrance from Catholics; but that it insists upon its right of imposing its own peculiar views of Church government upon Catholics, and of not allowing the latter to manage their affairs ecclesiastical as they please. It is not enough, in short, that all non-Catholics be guaranteed against all imposts, direct or indirect, for the support of Catholic worship, and the sustentation of Catholic religious edifices; but Catholics are not to be allowed to retain the tythe system, or such Church system as to them shall be the most acceptable.

But on the School question—which forms the subject matter of the third demand—even more strongly than on the Church question, does the correspondent of the Sherbrooke Gazette display the cloven hoof; and betray, what indeed could scarce have been kept secret, the real object of his non-Catholic friends—which is to impose by force upon their Catholic neighbors, a system of State-Schoolism which the latter have always protested against, as an outrage upon their rights as Christians and as parents.

The non-Catholics of the Eastern Townships, as represented by the spokesman in the Gazette, have the impudence to demand that there shall be granted to them by law, power to tax their Catholic neighbors for the support of non-Catholic schools; and this is conclusive as to what must be their idea of propriety in other matters, which is as vague and confused as are their notions of morality, and sectarianism.

They ask that in these non-Catholic schools, from which “as strictly non-denominational,” all distinctively Christian or supernatural dogmas must needs be excluded—(since there is no one such dogma to which some professedly Christian denomination or another does not object)—“Christian morals shall be faithfully taught.”—But “Christian morality,” as distinguished from “natural morality,” is a morality based upon certain firmly believed supernatural truths; and therefore, unless such supernatural truths, be taught in the schools, no system of “Christian morality” can therein be taught either: but at best, only a system of bare natural morality, common to Christian, Jew, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Infidel, and Atheist. Attempt to go one step beyond that very limited range of moral truth, which all men hold, and in that they are men or intelligent beings must hold in common, and you quit the domain of natural morality entirely, and encroach upon that of supernatural morality, with which “strictly non-denominational” schools have no power to meddle; seeing that there is not one single supernatural truth, or Christian dogma common to all denominations of professing Christians, upon which to base such a supernatural system. Now a system of morality which has not a supernatural basis, is not “Christian morality” at all, but simply “natural morality.”

The slovenly, slip-shod style in which our non-Catholic opponents deal with Her Majesty’s English, throwing out their words with as little regard to the meaning of those words, as does our old acquaintance Mrs. Partington in her discourse to her grandson, Ike, is but the consequence, as it is the sign, of their loose or disjointed mode of thinking. The man who talks even of teaching Christian morality, without first teaching the Christian dogmas or supernatural truths upon which that morality is based, which vivify it, and alone give to it that peculiar character which distinguishes it from natural morality; or the morality which Christians and Heathen have in common—betrays his gross ignorance, his incompetence to deal with any even the simplest and most elementary social problems of the day. He is one with whom it is impossible to argue because he cannot define; because so limited are his intellectual faculties, he has never yet accustomed himself to analyze, rigorously and exhaustively, the terms he employs. Before he can reason, he must learn to define and analyze; and therefore as a preliminary exercise, here is a task we propose to the correspondent of the Sherbrooke Gazette:

Define your term “Christian morality,” fully and clearly; distinguishing sharply, wherein it differs from “natural morality,” and assigning, at the same time, the cause, nature, and extent of that difference. Define also “Sectarianism.”

In the meantime, as Catholics, and as accustomed to weigh well the meaning of our words, we reject not only as impossible, and as involving a contradiction in terms, the school system which the non-Catholics of the Eastern Townships demand; but we assert that it is iniquitous, and a violation of our rights as parents, to tax us for the teaching of “Christian morality” in non-Catholic schools, in which therefore the supernatural dogmas of our religion cannot be taught.—As betwixt Catholics and Protestants there is, as there is betwixt all men, a “natural morality” in common; but there is no common “Christian morality,” for in the supernatural order Catholics and non-Catholics have nothing in common.—The Christian, or supernatural morality of the former, is the morality which the Church teaches, and which the Catholic accepts as the supernatural rule of his conduct, because the Church teaches it to be so; and the Catholic moreover recognises in the domain of “Christian morals,” no authority, no standard, or test of right and wrong, except the teaching of his Church. She is the Catholic rule of morals as well as of faith; ang besides her, in the supernatural order, we recognise none other.

But a strictly non-denominational school, which as such could not recognise the Catholic Church as the ONE infallible authority on all questions, whether of faith or morals, in the supernatural or Christian order, would be obliged, if it attempted to teach “Christian morals” to assert some other authority in that order; and would therefore be obliged to contradict formally the fundamental article of the Catholic Faith—that upon which the whole Catholic system reposes. Is it then really the opinion of non-Catholics, that it is “proper” to tax Catholic parents for such a purpose? And, nevertheless, without so taxing them it would be impossible to teach “Christian morality” in a non-Catholic school.

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• As a case in point, let us take that of the union of the sexes amongst Christians; and we shall see there is no agreement betwixt Catholics and Protestants—and, we may add—and, just as little amongst Protestants.