PAPAL AWARDS 2025
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HALL, 21 MARCH 2025
On this day one hundred years ago, the Butler Act was signed into law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools in the state of Tennessee. Its author, Democrat John Washington Butler, sprung into action after hearing a Baptist sermon about a woman who had lost her faith after enrolling in a biology class. The House passed the Act 75 votes to 5, making it a misdemeanour for a teacher to teach contrary to the ‘Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible’, punishable by a fine of up to $500—roughly $10,000 in today’s terms.[1]
Later that very year the infamous Scopes trial, also known as ‘the monkey trial’ or ‘trial of the century’ took place, when a science and math teacher, John Thomas Scopes, incriminated himself in order to test the new law and challenge the idea of the state taking the side of religion against science and of fundamentalist religion against ‘modernism’. The first case ever broadcast on radio, it caused a sensation. William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, chastised the evolutionists for teaching children that humans were but one of 35,000 species of mammal and, what’s worse, that they were descended “Not even from American monkeys, but from old world monkeys.” Scopes was convicted and fined $100.[2] The Butler Act remained law in Tennessee until 1967.
The affair brought to the surface questions about academic freedom, separation of Church and State, tensions between science and religion, and the role of the government in education more broadly. It also raised theological questions about the nature of scripture and its interpretation, especially how to reconcile God’s revealed word with scientific discovery. The lawmakers were sincere in their beliefs and their intention to protect children from harm. Yet we know faith and reason, far from being rivals are complementary—as St John Paul II famously put it, “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”[3]
Of course, the truth of which John Paul II was speaking was not only the correspondence of proposition with reality, fact with formula, but something much richer: the encounter with Jesus Christ, “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6). Great Christian educators enable this encounter, proclaiming the Gospel in word and deed, and giving the witness of their own lives. They form both head and heart, intellect and will, with book smarts and life smarts, offering a deeper wisdom.
Born on this day, not 100 years ago but 550 and 1, was St Angela Merici. She dedicated her life to the education of girls, giving the Church its first female teaching order, the Ursulines. ‘Madre Angela’ sought to ensure that girls received as good an education as boys, and that religious instruction reached all, even the sick, disabled and poor. Through the establishment of schools and orphanages, the Ursulines enriched their girls’ minds and hearts with faith and reason.
It is fitting that the Church honours the contributions of Professor Anne Cummins on this day as she was once principal of an all-girls college in Canberra named after St Angela Merici. As Chancellor Meney noted, Anne applied her wit and experience to helping those in intellectual, financial or other need, embodying the Ursuline spirit in teaching, in leading schools and school systems, and in the university, all in service of the great educational mission of the Catholic Church, as well as other ministries.
Together with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, I congratulate Professor, now Dame, Anne Cummins for her witness to the Christ and service to His Church. Thank you and God bless you!
[1] Butler Act, Public Chapter No. 27, House Bill No. 185 (1925) http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm
[2] The verdict was in fact overturned on a technicality.
[3] Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, Encyclical Letter on the Relationship between Faith and Reason, 14 September 1998, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
