Canon Law: TITLE III: CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Can. 793 §1 Parents, and those who take their place, have both the obligation and the right to educate their children. Catholic parents have also the duty and the right to choose those means and institutes which, in their local circumstances, can best promote the catholic education of their children.
§2 Parents have moreover the right to avail themselves of that assistance from civil society which they need to provide a catholic education for their children.
Can. 794 §1 The Church has in a special way the duty and the right of educating, for it has a divine mission of helping all to arrive at the fullness of Christian life.
§2 Pastors of souls have the duty of making all possible arrangements so that all the faithful may avail themselves of a catholic education.
Can. 795 Education must pay regard to the formation of the whole person, so that all may attain their eternal destiny and at the same time promote the common good of society. Children and young persons are therefore to be cared for in such a way that their physical, moral and intellectual talents may develop in a harmonious manner, so that they may attain a greater sense of responsibility and a right use of freedom, and be formed to take an active part in social life.
CHAPTER I : SCHOOLS
Can. 796 §1 Among the means of advancing education, Christ’s faithful are to consider schools as of great importance, since they are the principal means of helping parents to fulfill their role in education.
§2 There must be the closest cooperation between parents and the teachers to whom they entrust their children to be educated. In fulfilling their task, teachers are to collaborate closely with the parents and willingly listen to them; associations and meetings of parents are to be set up and held in high esteem.
Can. 797 Parents must have a real freedom in their choice of schools. For this reason Christ’s faithful must be watchful that the civil society acknowledges this freedom of parents and, in accordance with the requirements of distributive justice, even provides them with assistance.
Can. 798 Parents are to send their children to those schools which will provide for their catholic education. If they cannot do this, they are bound to ensure the proper catholic education of their children outside the school.
Can. 799 Christ’s faithful are to strive to secure that in the civil society the laws which regulate the formation of the young, also provide a religious and moral education in the schools that is in accord with the conscience of the parents.
Can. 800 §1 The Church has the right to establish and to direct schools for any field of study or of any kind and grade.
§2 Christ’s faithful are to promote catholic schools, doing everything possible to help in establishing and maintaining them.
Can. 801 Religious institutes which have education as their mission are to keep faithfully to this mission and earnestly strive to devote themselves to catholic education, providing this also through their own schools which, with the consent of the diocesan Bishop, they have established.
Can. 802 §1 If there are no schools in which an education is provided that is imbued with a Christian spirit, the diocesan Bishop has the responsibility of ensuring that such schools are established.
§2 Where it is suitable, the diocesan Bishop is to provide for the establishment of professional and technical schools, and of other schools catering for special needs.
Can. 803 §1 A catholic school is understood to be one which is under the control of the competent ecclesiastical authority or of a public ecclesiastical juridical person, or one which in a written document is acknowledged as catholic by the ecclesiastical authority.
§2 Formation and education in a catholic school must be based on the principles of catholic doctrine, and the teachers must be outstanding in true doctrine and uprightness of life.
§3 No school, even if it is in fact catholic, may bear the title ‘catholic school’ except by the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.
Can. 804 §1 The formation and education in the catholic religion provided in any school, and through various means of social communication is subject to the authority of the Church. It is for the Episcopal Conference to issue general norms concerning this field of activity and for the diocesan Bishop to regulate and watch over it.
§2 The local Ordinary is to be careful that those who are appointed as teachers of religion in schools, even non-Catholic ones, are outstanding in true doctrine, in the witness of their Christian life, and in their teaching ability.
Can. 805 In his own diocese, the local Ordinary has the right to appoint or to approve teachers of religion and, if religious or moral considerations require it, the right to remove them or to demand that they be removed.
Can. 806 §1 The diocesan Bishop has the right to watch over and inspect the catholic schools situated in his territory, even those established or directed by members of religious institutes. He has also the right to issue directives concerning the general regulation of catholic schools these directives apply also to schools conducted by members of a religious institute, although they retain their autonomy in the internal management of their schools.
§2 Those who are in charge of catholic schools are to ensure, under the supervision of the local Ordinary, that the formation given in them is, in its academic standards, at least as outstanding as that in other schools in the area.
CHAPTER II : CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER INSTITUTES OF HIGHER STUDIES
Can. 807 The Church has the right to establish and to govern universi-ties, which serve to promote the deeper culture and fuller development of the human person, and to complement the Church’s own teaching office.
Can. 808 No university, even if it is in fact catholic, may bear the title ‘catholic university’ except by the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.
Can. 809 If it is possible and appropriate, Episcopal Conferences are to take care to have within their territories suitably located universities or at least faculties, in which the various disciplines, while retaining their own scientific autonomy, may be researched and taught in the light of catholic doctrine.
Can. 810 §1 In catholic universities it is the duty of the competent statutory authority to ensure that there be appointed teachers who are not only qualified in scientific and pedagogical expertise, but are also outstanding in their integrity of doctrine and uprightness of life. If these requirements are found to be lacking, it is also that authority’s duty to see to it that these teachers are removed from office, in accordance with the procedure determined in the statutes.
§2 The Episcopal Conference and the diocesan Bishops concerned have the duty and the right of seeing to it that, in these universities, the principles of catholic doctrine are faithfully observed.
Can. 811 §1 The competent ecclesiastical authority is to ensure that in catholic universities there is established a faculty or an institute or at least a chair of theology, in which lectures are given to lay students also.
§2 In every catholic university there are to be lectures which principally treat of those theological questions connected with the studies of each faculty.
Can. 812 Those who teach theological subjects in any institute of higher studies must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority.
Can. 813 The diocesan Bishop is to be zealous in his pastoral care of students, even by the creation of a special parish, or at least by appointing priests with a stable assignment to this care. In all universities, even in those which are not catholic, the diocesan Bishop is to provide catholic university centers, to be of assistance to the young people, especially in spiritual matters.
Can. 814 The provisions which are laid down for universities apply equally to other institutes of higher studies.
CHAPTER III : ECCLESIASTICAL UNIVERSITIES AND FACULTIES
Can. 815 By virtue of its office to announce revealed truth, it belongs to the Church to have its own ecclesiastical universities and faculties to study the sacred sciences and subjects related to them, and to teach these disciplines to students in a scientific manner.
Can. 816 §1 Ecclesiastical universities and faculties may be constituted only by the Apostolic See or with its approval. Their overall direction also belongs to the Apostolic See.
§2 Each ecclesiastical university and faculty must have its own statutes and program of studies, approved by the Apostolic See.
Can. 817 Only a university or a faculty established or approved by the Apostolic See may confer academic degrees which have canonical effects in the Church.
Can. 818 The provisions of canon 810,812 and 813 concerning catholic universities apply also to ecclesiastical universities and faculties.
Can. 819 In so far as the good of a diocese or religious institute or indeed even of the universal Church requires it, young persons, clerics and members of institutes, outstanding in character, intelligence and virtue, must be sent to ecclesiastical universities or faculties by their diocesan Bishops or the Superiors of their institutes.
Can. 820 Moderators and professors of ecclesiastical universities and faculties are to ensure that the various faculties of the university cooperate with each other, to the extent that their aims permit. They are also to ensure that between their own university or faculty and other universities and faculties, even nonecclesiastical ones, there be a mutual cooperation in which, through conferences, coordinated scientific research and other means, they work together for the greater increase of scientific knowledge.
Can. 821 Where it is possible, the Episcopal Conference and the diocesan Bishop are to
provide for the establishment of institutes for higher religious studies, in which are
taught theological and other subjects pertaining to Christian culture.