State Usurpation of Parental Rights in Colorado Preschool Dispute
The EWTN News article from February 3, 2026 reports on the U.S. Solicitor General’s amicus brief supporting Catholic preschools challenging Colorado’s exclusion of religious institutions from its “universal” preschool program. The brief alleges religious discrimination against faith-based schools that maintain admissions standards based on Catholic teaching regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Becket Law represents the Archdiocese of Denver and several parishes in this appeal to the Supreme Court after the 10th Circuit Court upheld Colorado’s policy.
Naturalism Masquerading as Educational Policy
The dispute exposes Colorado’s program as ideological warfare against Catholic education, despite surface-level claims of “universal” access. The state’s exclusion of schools maintaining moral standards rooted in divine law constitutes open hostility toward religion – a direct violation of Quas Primas (1925), where Pius XI declared: “Kings and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.” By conditioning participation on surrender of Catholic identity, Colorado enforces the condemned proposition that “the Church should be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 55).
Colorado’s exemptions allow differential treatment for some groups, e.g., low-income families or disabled children, but not others.
This admission proves the state’s selective application of “anti-discrimination” principles as weapons against religion. As Pius XI taught in Divini Illius Magistri (1929): “The family holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring” (n. 33). The state’s usurpation of this parental right through secularized preschool programs constitutes what Leo XIII condemned as “the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State” (Au Milieu des Sollicitudes, 1892).
Conciliar Betrayal Enables State Aggression
The involvement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in filing supporting briefs rings hollow given their decades-long failure to oppose the theological errors enabling such persecution. The USCCB’s reliance on Dignitatis Humanae‘s false religious liberty doctrine directly contradicts Pius IX’s condemnation of the notion that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Syllabus, Proposition 15). Their participation constitutes what St. Pius X denounced as “the compromise between truth and error” (Editae Saepe, 1910).
Educational Subversion Through Pseudo-Charity
Colorado’s preschool program embodies the condemned modernist principle that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics because it steadfastly adheres to its views” (St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, Proposition 63). By offering financial inducements to secularize education, the state executes the Masonic plan described in the Syllabus: “the entire government of public schools… may and ought to appertain to the civil power” (Proposition 45). This confirms Cardinal Billot’s warning that “the modern State tends to become omnipotent and absorb all things into itself” (De Ecclesia, 1927).
Judicial Complicity in Apostasy
The Solicitor General’s brief correctly identifies Colorado’s discrimination but fatally accepts the state’s authority to define “acceptable” religious expression – a concession to the condemned error that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (Pius IX, Syllabus, Proposition 3). True Catholic resistance would follow St. Thomas More’s example of martyrdom rather than seeking validation from apostate courts. As Bellarmine declared: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope” (De Romano Pontifice II.30) – much less can secular judges claim authority over divine law.
Conclusion: Return to Christ the King
The Colorado dispute proves society’s accelerating descent into the “abomination of desolation” (Mt 24:15) foretold when nations reject Christ’s reign. Only restoration of the Social Kingship of Christ – not legal maneuvers within corrupt systems – can remedy such evils. As Pius XI proclaimed: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (Quas Primas, n. 19). The current crisis stems from abandoning this truth in favor of conciliar heresies that embolden state persecution of Holy Mother Church.
Source:
U.S. solicitor general backs Colorado Catholics in dispute over universal preschool program (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 03.02.2026