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Dear Friends and
Benefactors, In a
few weeks, following a hopefully restful summer break, the schools of the
Society of St. Pius X across the United States will again open their doors to
the many children of our faithful, ready to begin a new year of study.
I would like, first of all, to
thank all the benefactors who help to make this possible. To keep our schools
open each year is a financial miracle. Every priest with charge over one of our
schools wonders each year how he will meet the financial obligations of that
school. But Providence watches over us, and for years now our benefactors have
made it happen.
The Society of St. Pius X
recognizes the great importance of schools. We witness the need, firstly, to
protect our youth from the moral corruption of the world. But, more deeply, we
understand the necessity of forming their intelligence — enabling them to think
and judge properly.
It is easy, and necessary, to see
the moral corruption that is brought about by the public schools and even by
so-called “Catholic” schools. The recent events, covered in the news, regarding
Notre Dame University is just one example. By mixing people with various
beliefs, and without any moral guidance, a certain habituation and acceptance of
sin is created. This is, even by itself, sufficient reason to stay away from
these mechanisms of corruption.
What is more difficult to see,
but as necessary if not more so, is the corruption of minds — indoctrination of
the intelligence, formation of the mind according to the revolutionary spirit of
the “rights of man,” according to Freemasonic principles. This spirit
penetrates virtually everything in our world, but it is fostered and cultivated
especially in the modern school.
We see this intellectual
corruption in the way history is taught in the modern school. The history of
Christian Civilization is veiled in enforced silence. Young people are kept in
ignorance of their Catholic or even Christian roots, and of the true —
Christ-centered — history of the world. The only accepted studies are criticisms
of the Church; a distorted and disfigured approach to the Inquisition, Galileo
and the like — a well-planned attack on the Truth and on the Church.
Still more grave, thinking
itself, the mechanism of thinking, is being corrupted. The mind is created to
know the truth, to learn about what is true and what is not, what is reality and
what is not. Undermining this most basic understanding of the intelligence, the
modern school says, “Nothing is really true; we are in fact unable to reach
or grasp the reality of things with certainty.” It’s an old philosophical
error, now very widespread. But if we are not able to know the truth or reality
of things, well then the only thing that matters is the utility of a thing. “What
is the usefulness of this thing? How can I use it? What can it do for me?”
The function or utility of a thing becomes more important than the nature of the
thing itself.
This may sound a bit
philosophical, but it is the root of modern thinking, and in reality the ruin
of thinking — “The intelligence in danger of death,” as Marcel De
Corte put it. It really is the destruction of intelligence. Because if
you can’t know the truth or reality of things, then you cannot judge; you cannot
hold any judgment to be absolutely true. Any idea becomes just an opinion among
many others; your own point of view.
Even your religion becomes just
one among many. For the Catholic Church to stand up in this world and say, “There
is only one true God, one revealed and true Church” — that is more and more
heroic. The origins of the ecumenical heresies of today are firstly
philosophical, and it is this thinking that the public schools enforce in the
minds of the children. It is this thinking that the media are conveying. It is
the politically correct way of thinking, and all are supposed to follow.
I apologize for being a bit
philosophical here, but I think it is important to understand the roots of the
civil and religious crisis in the world.
It is also here that we find the
profound reason for all the sacrifices made for the good of our schools. We want
to save the souls of our youth, and for that we must save their intelligence; we
want them, like us, to believe in Christ the King, Master of our minds and of
our lives.
Your efforts for our traditional
Catholic schools are thus deeply appreciated, and we thank you sincerely for the
generosity that makes them possible.
We assure you of our prayers, and our blessing.
In the
Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Fr. Arnaud
Rostand |
