Texas’ Constitutional Parental Rights: Natural Law Subverted by State Positivism

The Catholic News Agency (November 5, 2025) reports Texas voters approved Proposition 15, enshrining parental rights in the state constitution with 72% support. The amendment declares parents’ authority over children’s upbringing while imposing a duty to “nurture and protect” them. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops endorsed the measure as recognizing “the natural right of parents to direct their children’s upbringing,” though some Democrats and the True Texas Project criticized it as either threatening child protections or redundantly codifying God-given rights. The amendment takes immediate effect upon certification.

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Natural Law Appropriated by Godless Constitutional Framework

The Texas amendment superficially echoes Casti Connubii (Pius XI, 1930), which affirmed parents’ “primary and principal” educational role as “a right inalienable because joined with the strict obligation.” However, embedding this within secular constitutional structures constitutes theft of divine prerogatives. As Quas Primas (Pius XI, 1925) decreed: “Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.” By omitting any reference to parental duties as divine mandates subject to ecclesiastical guidance, the amendment reduces natural law to state concession.

Conciliar Sect Complicity in Secularist Agenda

The Texas Catholic Conference’s endorsement exposes the conciliar sect’s perpetual error: treating temporal powers as legitimate arbiters of morality. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemned the notion that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). When the Conference claims the state “recognizes” parental rights, it inverts the proper hierarchy. As Immortale Dei (Leo XIII, 1885) teaches: “Civil society must acknowledge God as its Founder and Parent… Justice therefore forbids… the State to be godless.”

Silence on Supernatural Ends Condemns Amendment’s Impiety

While Article 15 mentions parents’ duty to “nurture and protect,” it omits the primary parental obligation: leading children to eternal salvation through sacramental life. Casti Connubii explicitly warns that education must “embrace the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral” ordered toward “their last end.” The amendment’s purely naturalistic framing reduces children to state-bound creatures rather than heirs of heaven. This mirrors the condemned modernist error that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Lamentabili, 63).

False Opposition Reveals Shared Naturalistic Foundation

The Democratic opposition’s fear that parental rights might “sideline government protections” and the True Texas Project’s complaint about state overreach both operate within the same revolutionary framework. Both assume the state has autonomous authority to define or limit family rights, rejecting Pius XI’s teaching that “the family is more sacred than the State” (Divini Illius Magistri, 1929). The True Texas Project’s objection – that the state merely “confers” God-given rights – still implies governmental competence to “take away” what belongs to God alone, contradicting Acts 5:29: “We must obey God rather than men.”

State Supremacy Disguised as Parental Protection

Attorney Marcella Burke’s claim that the amendment makes governments “think twice” about interfering actually reveals the diabolical inversion. When she states “no rights are absolute” and cites abuse exceptions, she empowers the state as ultimate judge over family life. Contrast this with Arcanum (Leo XIII, 1880): “The family has at least equal rights with the State in the choice and pursuit of the things needful to its preservation.” By codifying exceptions to parental authority, the amendment follows the condemned proposition that “the State is the origin and source of all rights” (Syllabus, 39).

Low Voter Turnout Exposes Democracy’s Fiction

The article’s note that only 15.8% of registered voters participated demolishes any pretense of “popular mandate.” The pitiful 2.9 million voters (in a state of 30 million residents) approving constitutional changes proves democracy’s bankruptcy. Pius VI condemned such systems in 1791: “All civil authority derives from the national will opposed to divine law.” When 57% of Austin voters opposed the measure, it merely proved urban centers’ apostasy – not the legitimacy of subjecting divine institutions to ballot boxes.

Conclusion: Parental Rights Without Christ the King Are Chains

Texas’ amendment continues the modern states’ usurpation described in Quas Primas: “When once men recognize… that Christ has been given all power in heaven and on earth… a force binding men together will arise.” Until civil laws explicitly acknowledge submission to Christ’s social reign, even well-intentioned measures like Article 15 remain Satanic counterfeits – granting “rights” the state cannot confer while denying the Sovereign who alone guarantees them.

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Source:
Texas voters approve adding parental rights amendment to state constitution   (catholicnewsagency.com)
Article date: 05.11.2025