From the middle of the 19th century un-til the beginning of the 20th, several po-litical and philosophical movements took place in Argentina. One of the points that united them was the criticism of the interference of the Catholic Church in matters of the State, including education. They defended a free, secular public education. The Church, on the other hand, has made many criticisms of the so-called modernists and their proj-ects in relation to education, considered by her as “enemies of Christianity”. In this sense, the purpose of this article is to bring some of the discussions between modernists and the Catholic Church about education. From the literature on the subject and the analysis of encyclical letters published between 1864 and 1907, it was possible to notice the exercise of the Church in two ways: the first, in con-demning the modernist movements, and the second, the defense of an “ideal” model of education, that is, based on the values of Catholicism.