“I NOTICE, for instance, that certain of our critics are particularly shocked by the admirable statement on the part of the English Catholic bishops just before the late General Election in Britain, where they say that it is no part of the State’s duty to teach, and add that “authority over the child belongs not to the State, but to the parent.” Nothing could be more odious in the ears of modern Nationalism—because nothing is more true. In the face of this tremendous claim of the Modern State, a claim which not even the Roman Empire made, the right to teach what it wills to every child in the community, that is, to form the whole mind of the nation on its own despotic fiat—our critics cannot maintain that the Modern State does not pretend to be “absolute.” It is in fact more absolute than any Pagan state of the past ever was. What is more, its absoluteness increases daily; that is why its conflict with Catholicism seems to be inevitable.”
~Hilaire Belloc: from “Church and State.” (Essays of a Catholic)
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