The Church and eugenics / by Thomas J. Gerard.

  • Thomas John Gerrard
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Church and eugenics / by Thomas J. Gerard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that Christian habit of mind, then there must visit him the fortitude of the legislator. Once more, in the urgent question of dealing with the feeble-minded, it would appear that every virtue is wanted in its highest perfection. Justice is wanted to provide the homes and colonies for those who are unable to support themselves or manage their own affairs. Fortitude is wanted to suppress alike the rash reformer who would resort to surgery with no justification, and the sentimental faddist who, under a plea of false liberty, would stand in the way of every rational reform. Prudence is wanted for those who have charge of the defectives. It is the humaneness of the treatment which is to be the secret of its success. Then for the defectives themselves the virtue of temper¬ ance in all its branches will be the most powerful means of improving their condition. Nothing is so striking in the colonies of defectives than the effect of religion in restoring them to a better life, physically and mentally. The Catholic, with this ideal before him, has no fear for the eugenics of the future. His belief in the Communion of Saints is his guarantee. He knows that in every age in the past, it is Catholicism which has produced the most and the greatest of the real supermen, the experts in moral excellence. If the nineteenth century can witness a Cur£ d’Ars and a Don Bosco, the twentieth and every other century can do likewise.
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