Slovak State Usurps Parental Rights as Compromised Bishops Fail to Defend Catholic Education
EWTN News reports on November 6, 2025, that Slovak President Peter Pellegrini signed into law an education overhaul threatening Catholic schools through discriminatory funding mechanisms. The reform imposes state-controlled online student registration, compulsory pre-school for 4-year-olds (later extending to 3-year-olds), and allows underqualified personnel to teach. Private and Church-run schools face financial penalties unless they comply with state mandates to “serve public interest” and admit students under government criteria. The Slovak Bishops’ Conference (KBS) claims it will “monitor implementation” despite admitting the regime ignored its objections. Former Education Minister Ján Horecký condemned the law as “discriminatory” and an assault on parental rights. Notably, KBS representatives recently participated in a Roman pilgrimage, groveling before antipope Leo XIV at a Vatican audience—an act revealing their de facto submission to the conciliar sect’s authority.
State Enforces Educational Totalitarianism Under Guise of “Modernization”
The Slovak regime’s assault on Catholic education follows the modernist playbook: centralization of power, elimination of particularisms, and substitution of parental authority with bureaucratic diktats. By mandating uniform registration systems and compulsory pre-school attendance, the law operationalizes the condemned thesis that “the State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, Error 39). The provision allowing “less-qualified personnel” to teach exposes the regime’s contempt for intellectual formation—a natural consequence of divorcing education from its primary end: the cultivation of souls for eternal salvation (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri).
Most pernicious is the funding mechanism coercing Catholic schools to either secularize or starve:
“Such schools can receive full funding if they admit students in accordance with the new rules, provide free education, or clearly serve the public interest.”
This weaponizes economics to enforce ideological conformity, reducing education to a servitium publicum (public service) stripped of supernatural purpose. The “public interest” criterion directly contradicts Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas, which declares Christ’s kingship over all societies, demanding that “rulers and legitimate superiors… exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King.”
Episcopal Cowardice Masquerading as Vigilance
While KBS claims it is “fundamentally in conflict” with the law, its actions betray complicity. A conference that merely “monitors” tyranny—after admitting its suggestions were ignored—fulfills St. Pius X’s warning about modernist infiltrators who “lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis). Their disobedience is theatrical, designed to placate traditional Catholics while surrendering to the state’s demands. Compare this to the uncompromising stance of true pre-conciliar shepherds like Cardinal József Mindszenty, who declared: “When the Church’s laws are in conflict with Caesar’s, the Catholic must choose the law of Christ the King.”
The bishops’ pilgrimage to antipope Leo XIV confirms their apostasy. Auxiliary “Bishop” Marek Forgáč’s fawning declaration—that they were “very encouraged” by the antipope’s words—proves their allegiance lies with the conciliar sect, not the immutable Ecclesia Dei. Authentic Catholic bishops would have echoed St. Athanasius: “Even if Catholics faithful to tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
Theological Bankruptcy of “Public Interest” Education
The law’s demand that schools “serve the public interest” operationalizes the heresy of religious indifferentism condemned by Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos. By subordinating Catholic formation to secular utility, Slovakia enforces the modernist dogma that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics because it steadfastly adheres to its views, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress” (St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, Error 63). This reduces education to vocational training, amputating its supernatural dimension—precisely the error denounced by Pius XI as “satanic” in Divini Illius Magistri: “There is no true education which is not wholly directed to man’s last end.”
Horecký’s criticism—that the law shifts “decision-making about children from parents to the state”—identifies the core issue but neglects its theological gravity. The state usurps the primacy of parents as primary educators (Canon 1113, 1917 Code), violating the divine order established in Casti Connubii: “The family holds directly from the Creator the mission of transmitting life and education.” Slovakia’s regime thus embodies the “pest of indifferentism” Pius IX anathematized (Syllabus, Error 79).
Symptomatic of Post-Conciliar Apostasy
This conflict exposes the conciliar sect’s terminal hypocrisy. While “bishops” feign concern for Catholic education, their very office derives from antipopes who sanctioned the destruction of Catholic schools via Vatican II’s Gravissimum Educationis—which praised state schooling and omitted any mention of Christus Rex. The Slovak law merely implements the revolution John XXIII unleashed when he abandoned Quas Primas’s mandate for the “public veneration” of Christ’s kingship over nations.
Until Catholics recognize that NO agreement with modernist regimes is possible—and that true bishops would excommunicate legislators violating God’s laws—such assaults will intensify. As Archbishop Lefebvre warned before his own apostasy: “We are not a school of thought. We are the Church.” That Church commands defiance, not dialogue, when states wage war on Christ the King.
Source:
Slovakia passes school reform criticized by bishops and educators amid funding concerns (catholicnewsagency.com)
Article date: 06.11.2025