Education: Education, Sep. 29, 1941

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Catholic Pressure

Bishop Thomas J. Toolen cracked down last week on the Catholics in his sprawling Mobile diocese (all of Alabama, plus western Florida). When registration for the diocesan parochial schools was completed, Catholic parents who were sending their children to public school were by his personal orders forbidden to receive the sacraments of their church.

"The Catholic system of education has been the greatest boon this country has ever known," Bishop Toolen wrote in his severe pastoral letter. "We are prepared to. take care of our children from the first, grade to the university. . . . Catholic parents must send their children to the Catholic school. Parents who do not obey are rebellious and should be treated as such."

Not solidly behind brusque, rotund, aggressive Bishop Toolen is his diocese. Over 8,000 Catholic children are enrolled in the diocesan schools, which are "packed and jammed." But Superintendent William Cornelius Griggs of the Mobile public-school system says there are "many" Catholic children in his schools and that "if all the Catholic children attempted to go to the Catholic schools they couldn't find room for them."

Bishop Toolen has good Catholic precedent to quote. Says Canon 1,374 of the Code of Canon Law: "Catholic children must not attend non-Catholic, neutral or mixed schools; that is, such as are open to non-Catholics. It is for the Bishop alone to decide, according to the instructions of the Apostolic See, in what circumstances and with what precautions attendance at such schools may be tolerated without danger of perversion to the pupils."

Only eleven of the 114 Catholic dioceses in the U.S., however, officially enforce this law. Bishop Toolen is the frankest in asserting it.