164 Pa. 629 | Pa. | 1894
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
This bill was filed to restrain the school directors of Gallitzin borough from permitting sectarian teaching in the common schools of the borough, and from employing as teachers, sisters, or members of the order of St. Joseph, a religious society of the Roman Catholic Church. What seem to us the most material averments of the bill were denied in the answer. The employment, however, of the'members of this society, was admitted. The court, after full hearing, found as a fact: “There was no evidence of any religious instruction or religious exercises of any character whatever, during school hours.” But the court further found that after school hours the schoolroom was used by the teachers in imparting Catholic religious instruction to children of Catholic parents, with the consent of or by request of the parents. This the court enjoined, because it was a use of the- school property for sectarian pui’poses aftei school hours.
As to the fact admitted, that of the eight teachers, six of them were sisters of a religious order of the Catholic church, and while teaching wore the habit of their order, the learned judge of the court below says: “We conclude, as to this branch of the case, that, in the absence of proof that religious sectarian instruction was imparted by them during school hours, or religious sectarian exercises engaged in, we cannot restrain by injunction members of the order of Sisters of St. Joseph from teaching in the public schools in the garb of their order, nor the school directors from employing or-permitting them to act in that capacity.”
This legal conclusion is reached, after a very able and impartial opinion, in which the facts are reviewed, and the law bearing on the question very fully cited. The opinion is so convincing, that it seems to us it must compel the assent of the unprejudiced mind, whether layman or lawyer. In thus expressing our full accord with the learned president judge of the court below, we intimate no opinion as to the wisdom or
“ The court erred in finding that the employment of the Sisters of St. Joseph as teachers in the public schools, and their acting as such while wearing the distinctive sectarian garb, crucifixes and rosaries of their order and sect, could not be enjoined.”
Unquestionably these women are Catholics, strict adherents of that faith, believing fully in its distinctive creed and doctrine. But this does not disqualify them. Our constitution negatives any assertion of incapacity or ineligibility to office because of religious belief. Article 1 of the Bill of Rights declares : “ All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God aecordipg to the dictates of their own conscience ; .... no human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the rights of conscience.”.
If by law any man or woman can be excluded from public office or employment because he or she is a Catholic, that is a palpable violation of the spirit of the constitution; for there can be, in a democracy, no higher penalty imposed upon one holding to a particular religious belief, than, perpetual exclusion from public station because of it. Men may disqualify themselves by crime, but the state no longer disqualifies because of religious belief. We cannot now, even if we wanted to, in view of our law, both fundamental and statutory, go back a century or two to a darker age, and establish a religious test as a qualification for office. In this case, the school board committed no unlawful act in selecting these Catholic women as teachers, because, by moral character and certified attain-
Nor does the fact that these teachers contributed all their earnings beyond their support to the treasury of their order, to be used for religious purposes, have any bearing on the question. It is none of our business, nor that of these appellants, to inquire into this matter. American men and women, of sound mind and twenty-one years of age, can make such disposition of their surplus earnings as suits their own notions. We might
But it is further argued that, if the appointment of these Catholic teachers was lawful, they ought to be enjoined from appearing in the schoolroom in the habit of their order. It may be conceded that the dress and crucifix impart at once knowledge to the pupils of the religious belief and society membership of the wearer. But is this, in any reasonable sense of the word, sectarian teaching, which the law prohibits? The religious belief of many teachers, all over the commonwealth; is indicated by their apparel. Quakers or Friends, Ommish, Dunkards "and other sects, wear garments which at once disclose their membership in a religious sect. Ministers or preachers of many protestant denominations wear a distinctively clerical garb. No one has yet thought of .excluding them as teachers from the schoolroom on the ground that the peculiarity of their dress would teach to pupils the distinctive doctrines of the sect to which they belonged. The dress is but the announcement of a fact, that the wearer holds a particular religious belief. The religious belief of teachers and all others is generally well known to the neighborhood and to pupils, even if not made noticeable in the dress, for that belief is not secret, but is publicly professed. Are the courts to decide that the cut of a man’s coat, or the color of a woman’s gown, is sectarian teaching, because they indicate sectarian, religious belief? If so,, then they can be called upon to go further. The religion of the teacher being known, a pure unselfish life, exhibiting itself in tenderness to the young, and helpfulness for the suffering, necessarily tends to promote the religion of the man or woman who lives it. Insensibty, in both young and old, there is a disposition to reverence such an one, and, at least to some extent, consider the life as the fruit of the particular .religion. Therer fore, irreproachable conduct, to that degree, is sectarian teaching. But shall the education of the children of the commonwealth be intrusted only to those men and women who are destitute of any religious belief?
After a most careful consideration, we see nothing of merit in any of the assignments of error which have been so earnestly pressed in the argument. The decree is affirmed and appeal dismissed, at costs of appellants.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting:
I can go with my brethren on all the questions involved in this case save one. I cordially assent to the proposition that
This is not a question about taste or fashion in dress, nor about the color or cut of a teacher’s clothing. If it was only this I would favor the largest liberty. It is deeper and broader than this. It is a question over the true intent and spirit of our common school system as disclosed in the provisions referred to. If this is a proper administration of the school laws in Gallitzin it would be equally so in any other school district of the state; and if every common school was presided over by ecclesiastics in their distinctive ecclesiastical robes, supplying pupils with copies of their church catechism on application and teaching it before and after school hours to all who chose to remain for that purpose, it seems to me very plain that the common schools would cease to be such and would become, to all practical intents and purposes, parochial schools of the church whose ecclesiastics presided over them.
Clergymen sometimes wear on the street a coat or hat that affords some evidence of their profession, but they do not appear in ehurchly robes when about their daily work, or in any garb that points out- the church to which they belong or the creed to which they adhere. But these six teachers in Gallitzin do just that. They wear, and must wear, at all times a prescribed unchangeable ecclesiastical dress which was plainly intended to proclaim their non-secular and religious character; their particular church and order, and their separation from the world. They come into the schools not as common school teachers, or as civilians, but as the representatives of a particular order in a particular church whose lives have been dedicated to religious work under the direction of that church. Now the point of the objection is not that their religion disqualifies them. It does not. Nor is it thought that church membership disqualifies them. It does not. It is not that holding an ecclesiastical office or position disqualifies, for it does not. It is the introduction into the schools as teachers of persons who are by their striking and distinctive ecclesiastical robes necessarily and constantly asserting their membership in a particular church, and in a religious order within that church, and the subjection of their lives to the direction and control of its