Заключение

I. Past history and hopes for the future. Views of Roman Catholic historians and publicists. An overview of the main factors in the successful development of Roman Catholicism in America. The principle of separation of church and state. Independence of church life. Emigration. Monastic orders. Catholic school system. Statistical table. – II. Weaknesses of Roman Catholicism. Lack of organic connection with the native core of the American people. The discrepancy between Roman Catholicism as a system and the social and state sense of the American people. The paralyzing influence of Protestantism. The public school as an anti-Catholic agency and its significance in demoralizing the Catholic population. Attempt to found an independent Catholic Church. – Practical conclusion from the study. The presented process of the century-long development of Roman Catholicism in the United States shows that the factors of this development contain a fairly strong guarantee of its future successes in the country. The very process of development and strengthening represents such energy and rapidity of the internal and external causes operating in it that the optimistic view of those who are vitally interested in the success of Roman Catholicism in America should not seem surprising. Catholic publicists and historians cherish the brightest, most rosy hopes for the future and solemnly proclaim and predict that the future of America belongs precisely to Roman Catholicism. “An observer a hundred years ago,” says Bishop Spalding, “in considering the religious state of this country, could never have imagined that the faith of an insignificant handful of Catholics could have a future in the American republic; Meanwhile, there are now many reasons to think that no other religion can be as confident in the future here as the Catholic one. This is our only historical religion. Outside of it there are views and opinions, but here is an organism that has its roots deep in the hidden layers of past centuries. I am far from thinking that the United States will become Catholic. We do not live in an age when a nation, as such, would want to become or remain Catholic; but what I assert is that the actual state of Catholicism in the United States is such that the conclusion is inevitable that this church is destined to be a great and lasting fact in this country. The difficulties which she has had to overcome in order to secure her present position are sufficient proof of her inner strength and vitality, while the increasing weakness of Protestant sectarianism shows that she cannot expect serious rivalry from any other religious faith. 838 “The future of the United States, says Heckerew, belongs to that religion which, by its conscious possession of truth and the indwelling spirit of divine love, will manage to bring the American people to unity in their religious faith and activity, as they are in reality united in the political sense. It would be the utmost despair of reason to suppose that truth cannot be known with certainty. The idea that the existing discord in religion will continue and increase forever can only find access to base minds and satisfy only the vulgar soul.” 839 “The future of America is ours, says a Catholic essayist. While the preachers of sectarian creeds, in their efforts to impose their peculiar views on society and on each other, have reached their peak and are now descending into the depths of nihilism and refined paganism, the Church (Catholic) in this republic enjoys the primitive vitality of youth and exhibits an unparalleled unanimity in spirit and activity. In its organization there lies a vast store of latent power as yet undiscovered, a mine of mental wealth which awaits only the skillful hand of the prospector to bring it to the surface." 840 "Glory and hope adorn the beautiful, unobscured career of Catholicism in America, says the Catholic historian Murray. Its past history is great. His future is full of hope. It is not indiscreet to predict that within half a century from here the Catholic Church will be the only great religious force that will have a firm grip on the American soul. A learned and honest seeker of truth will happily strive into its bosom. And thus the ancient faith which subdued, civilized and ennobled the rude peoples of the early ages, which exalted woman, saved Europe from the relapse into barbarism, developed art, science, philosophy and literature, educated individuals, sanctified the family and blessed society - this faith and this alone will save the land of Washington and Carroll and illuminate the path that will lead it to glorious appointment." 841 The presented excerpts from the main organs of Catholic opinion in the country indicate that Roman Catholicism harbors hopes bordering on extreme optimism. If their full validity cannot be acknowledged, their logical conclusion from the past historical data of Roman Catholicism in the United States cannot be denied. These data undoubtedly warrant recognition of his important successes in the future. The reasons that gave it the opportunity to develop in one century from insignificance into a majestic church organization exist in the very structure of the life of the country and, as such, will exist for a long time in the future, until the progressive process of historical development significantly changes this structure or puts forward a new force that would counterbalance the conditions favorable to Roman Catholicism. Until such a radical change occurs, if it ever takes place, the factors of Roman Catholic success will continue to operate in a direction favorable to it. In the continuation of these factors lies all the hope and all the strength of Roman Catholicism. The previous study showed in detail the relative importance of each of them, but in order to present a complete picture we will take a general overview of these factors and their significance in terms of conditions favorable to Roman Catholicism. The most common operating reason that made it possible for the unhindered development of Roman Catholicism was the legal principle of separation of church and state and freedom of religious conscience. This principle had a double meaning for him - negative and positive. In the first respect, he contributed to the liberation of Roman Catholicism from the unfavorable conditions of the oppressed situation, removed the chains of slavery from it and gave freedom to the development of its internal forces. In the second respect, it gave it positive advantages over other confessions, since by virtue of this principle, Roman Catholicism, without finding any obstacles or restrictions from the state, could freely put into the field of action such forces that give it an undoubted advantage over fragmented Protestantism; namely the forces of their orders and the centralizing organization. While in Europe Protestantism and the protestatized state, realizing their inconsistency before Roman Catholicism on purely moral grounds, resort to either Kulturkampf or persecution of the Jesuits, in the United States such a phenomenon is impossible, and therefore Roman Catholicism unhindered and completely freely conducts its organizing and propaganda activities - at the expense of the opposite force - Protestantism, which has only one awareness of its internal weakness. and impotent polemic against an advancing and rapidly developing system. 842 But favorable legal conditions would not have been an effective factor in themselves had they not been met with a strong and skillfully created and supported organization of Roman Catholicism, which could take advantage of them for its purpose. Hence the active cause of the success of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States has been this very organization, which, having its center in the pope as the head of the church, acts in complete dependence on this center and directs its organizing forces to the point where the greatest need for them is felt at the moment. The highest hierarchy is completely dependent on the central head of the church, and at its own disposal is an unbound army of priests and members of monastic orders, so that with one wave from above a whole army of devoted champions and ministers of Roman Catholicism can be moved to any part of the globe where it is necessary to support the interests of the system. 843 Such a system made it possible to quickly meet church needs in the United States, when the enormous influx of immigrants required extraordinary strain on the church's forces. In this regard, the monastic orders provided an indispensable service to the church, which, as shown above, emigrated to America in parallel with popular emigration. The main source of the numerical growth of Roman Catholicism was European emigration, and without it it could not have risen from the level of insignificance at which the declaration of the country's political independence found it. This cause will undoubtedly not always operate with the same intensity as before, but it is also certain that it will long continue to serve as a rich source of the quantitative strength of Roman Catholicism in America. “The increase of Catholics in the United States,” says Hecker, was due almost entirely to European emigration, and when emigration diminishes, will not the progress of the Church cease? The number of emigrants may be reduced compared to before, but still, for good reasons, it will remain large. Emigration will continue because the freedom which the people enjoy under republican institutions, and the material advantages which the country offers to the settlers, especially in its cheap and fertile lands, are attractions which are in themselves sufficient to attract large numbers of people to these shores. Millions of emigrants who have settled in the republic as a fatherland act as an attractive force for their relatives, friends and former compatriots. The desire to escape the almost intolerable burden of military service, under the forced recruitment caused by frequent wars and the dangers from rival nationalities hanging menacingly over the political horizon of Europe, will drive large numbers of young and healthy men to a country which has no army and whose geographical position renders it free from every danger threatening its peace. The last and no less reason in this regard is religious persecution; they send a huge number of people, especially thanks to Prince Bismarck, to a land of religious tolerance. For these and other reasons, a constant stream of immigrants will flock to the United States from Ireland, Germany and other European countries. And since three-fifths of the European population are of the Catholic faith, the Catholic Church in the United States can count, at least relatively, on its share of the future settlers.” 844 Another source of numerical strength, namely conversion from Protestantism, has not yet received adequate development and is not of important quantitative significance. But under these circumstances, he will undoubtedly have an important role to play in the future, unless he is paralyzed by another force that is not yet present at this time. The fermentation of the American religious sea will not cease as long as there is a fundamental Protestant principle underlying it, and will constantly send out indefatigable seekers of religious truth, who will find rest in the Roman Catholic Church, as representing the most stable principle in comparison with the wandering Protestantism. In addition to the sources of numerical growth, an important element of the strength of the Roman Catholic Church is its enormous property and large material resources. Thanks to them, it maintains its churches and monasteries, educational and charitable institutions in a way that makes it independent of any other external force except its own internal interests and needs, which puts it in a more advantageous position than the Protestant denominations and communities, which in this respect, having no stable principle, are completely dependent on random external conditions and often the vagaries of the system of trusteeism. By skillful use of political and social influence associated with its wealth, numbers and centralized organization, it is able to occupy the highest social and political positions with its adherents and eliminate from them those who oppose it. As elsewhere, Roman Catholicism in the United States is no stranger to the use of political means to achieve its goals. 845 Finally, the most important source of strength for Roman Catholicism is its system of strictly Catholic upbringing and education. Its network is spread throughout the country and it serves not only as a means of protecting the Catholic population from Protestant influence, but also as an active proselytizing agency. This importance of the school system is fully recognized by the church itself, which therefore spares no effort to maintain and develop it. The Protestantized state, for its part, is aware of the weapon that Roman Catholicism wields in its own school system, and therefore in this area it comes into opposition with the Roman Catholic Church more than in all other respects. The struggle between Roman Catholicism and the state over the school issue continues to this day, and it is not known how it will end. But what is certain is that if the state eventually gives in and satisfies the demands of the Roman Catholic Church, then the latter will receive a new factor for its progressive development and strengthening in the United States. The combination of these causes and factors produced the rapid process of development and strengthening of Roman Catholicism in the United States that we present in this study. To illustrate this process more clearly, here is a statistical table showing the gradual growth of the Roman Catholic Church from the time of American Independence in 1776 to the present. 846 If Roman Catholicism in the United States had only those strengths that we have presented, then the optimistic hopes of Catholic publicists that the future of the North American republic belongs to it would have a solid foundation in reality. But along with his strengths, he also has weaknesses that paralyze his efforts to establish himself more firmly on American soil. Its weakest side is the one that at the same time is the main source of its strength, namely emigration. Its numerical strength and greatness were created almost exclusively by European emigration, and the Roman Catholic Church looks to it as the main source of its growth in the future. But in this very source lies its weakest element. Composed primarily of immigrants, the Roman Catholic Church in America itself is an alien, not grown on American soil, but brought from Europe. This deprives it of one of the essential elements necessary for strong organic development, namely the native feeling of attachment to the country and its institutions. The mass of the Catholic population represents various groups of nationalities, which for the most part did not have time to navigate American soil and live by the traditions of their former fatherlands. Since these traditions are more consistent with Roman Catholicism than with the state goals of the country, a contradiction naturally arises between the native American people, who embodied their sense of state in existing institutions, and the Roman Catholic population, the majority of which does not recognize or understand these institutions. This contradiction constantly makes itself felt throughout the entire history of Roman Catholicism in the United States, and if, due to the principle of separation of church and state, it was not expressed in open repressive measures on the part of the state, nevertheless, on the part of both the state and society there is almost continuous agitation against Roman Catholicism, either in the form of various decrees referring to the forcible introduction of institutions unsympathetic to it (trusteism, compulsory education), or in open uprisings of the native masses against Catholic newcomers (“natives” and “know-nothing”). The awareness of this contradiction led to the fear that Roman Catholicism had in mind the destruction of the republican institutions of the country and, in any case, was incompatible with them. This fear is firmly ingrained in the consciousness of the American people and it is expressed at every more or less outstanding social or political event. During last year's mayoral elections for New York, this feeling was felt with particular force, when huge rallies gathered for open protest against the appointed candidate, by the general conscience of a worthy citizen, but at the same time known for his Catholic zeal. Public opposition to Catholicism is also expressed in literature, and here the bitterness against it reaches such limits that in the heat of polemical fervor both history and the obvious incongruity of the means with the end are forgotten. Anti-Catholic literature in the United States is quite extensive. Not only Protestant theologians, but ordinary public figures, statesmen, novelists and unbelieving professors speak out against Roman Catholicism with pamphlets and polemics. 847 All this clearly indicates that the Roman Catholic Church is an institution alien to the American people and has not yet managed to sufficiently reconcile the American republican consciousness with itself. Like a foreign army, it lives its own special life in America, like a state among states, controlled by foreign power and consisting of foreign members. This is its organic weakness and, as a result, it does not have and for a long time in the future will not have that strength of position in the country, which is possible only with its complete acclimatization on American soil and if its principles correspond to the principles and spirit of American republican institutions. Since in the latter respect the principles of its strict centralization are in clear contradiction with the spirit of the American socio-political structure, its complete identification or reconciliation with the national ideal of the American people seems completely unthinkable and can only be carried out under the condition of concessions on one side or the other. But to assume this concession on the part of American society and the state would mean to assume the possibility of their renunciation of their inner essence, developed by history and the organic development of the internal national character, which is an obvious impossibility. On the other hand, to suppose a concession on the part of Roman Catholicism in favor of the spirit of the American people would be to assume another impossibility, since with the concession of the national character Roman Catholicism loses its essential character as a stereotypical, centralized system and becomes a national church, for which strict papism has no other name than schism. 848 Thus, the contradiction lies in the very essence of the systems of Roman Catholicism and the American socio-political structure, and it will forever serve as an insurmountable obstacle to the realization of the bright hopes of Catholic publicists. This contradiction undoubtedly explains the fact that, given the intensified process of national centralization after the internecine war and its undoubted significance for religious centralization, the Roman Catholic Church cannot derive from this process all the benefit that appears to be its very essence. The people are looking for a strong, united church that would fully correspond to their single strong national body, and at first glance they seem to find it in Roman Catholicism; but at the same time he is immediately aware of the difference between the systems of centralization itself. The people are looking for independent, organic, internal centralization, and Roman Catholicism is an organization alien to it, having its moving center outside its country. This contradiction paralyzes the movement in favor of Roman Catholicism and it explains the fact that conversions to the Roman Catholic Church are not nearly as great as they could be if the church coincided with the spirit of the national ideal. 849 Due to the stated discrepancy between Roman Catholicism and the principles of the national ideal of the American people, the Roman Catholic Church does not have more or less strong support in the fight against Protestantism. The latter, in its principle and actual fragmentation, cannot stand comparison with Roman Catholicism as a dogmatic system and a single strong organism; but at the same time he finds strong support in his greater conformity with the national way of life. Thanks to this, he stands closer to the state and gives the latter a Protestant character. As a result, Protestantism could enter into some kind of alliance with the state to counteract Roman Catholicism. The first is hostile to it as an opposite church system, and the second is no less hostile to it as an opposite political system, animated by a spirit hostile to it. Hence, with united efforts they counteract the hostile system, and Roman Catholicism in many respects has to enter into a struggle not only with Protestantism as a religious teaching, as it should have been under the dominance of the principle of separation of church and state, but also with the state itself, which recognizes as state institutions those that are essentially Protestant institutions. The main institution of this kind is the public school system. The main goal of this system seems to be the implementation of the basic principle of the state, namely the principle of religious equality of all confessions and sects, without preference for one over the other, to achieve which the school underwent secularization, with the retention of the most general forms of the religious element. But with such secularization, the state only openly sided with Protestantism, which is satisfied with general forms of religiosity, and thereby directed its most powerful weapon in the formation of the moral, religious and mental makeup of the people against Roman Catholicism, which considers such a school not only insufficient for itself, but also downright harmful. Hence the open struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the state over the public education system, and it naturally does not contribute to its strengthening on American soil. In its opposition to the state-adopted system of public education, the Roman Catholic Church undoubtedly has serious grounds, since this system, despite its “non-sectarian” character, is essentially Protestant and the entire organization of schooling, as independent of the direct leadership of the church, is imbued with a Protestant character. As a result, it serves as a powerful weapon of Protestantism in the fight against Roman Catholicism. Children of Catholic parents, having gone through this school, lose the specific character of Catholic religiosity and become either indifferent to the Catholic system or completely Protestant. Relying on its advantages as a native American system and as being closer to the basic principles of the country's social and state life, Protestantism could not only passively resist Roman Catholicism, but also make gains at its expense. These acquisitions were especially significant when Roman Catholicism did not yet represent a strong organization that could contain the mass of the Catholic population flowing from Europe into the church. When Irish emigration poured into America in the thirties and forties, the available funds of the Roman Catholic Church turned out to be insufficient for the unexpected need and the masses of immigrants remained outside the actual organization of the church. Many of them naturally therefore got lost among the Protestant population and succumbed to the influence of Protestantism, especially since religious influence found strong support at that time in public opinion. 850 These losses were very significant. The Roman Catholic Bishop England, presenting in 1836 to the Congregatio de propaganda fide an account of the Roman Catholic emigration coming to the United States, expressed his regret at the great loss to the Church from this emigration. “If I say,” he writes, from the data given, that we should, in the absence of loss, have five million Catholics in the United States, and in fact we have less than one and a half million, then our loss must be at least three million and three quarters; and the persons thus lost are found among the various sects in numbers three times greater than the entire Catholic population of the country.” 851 This calculation is undoubtedly exaggerated, but the exaggeration itself indicates truly serious losses. Other Catholic prelates testify to similar losses. When the Irish Catholic scholar Mullen arrived in the United States in 1851 to study the religious state of Irish emigrants, Bishop Reynolds told him: “You will do the (Catholic) religion a great service if, upon your return to Ireland, you will go from parish to parish and tell the people not to destroy their immortal souls by moving here.” 852 Archbishop Yuis also told him: “The people in Ireland do not fully understand the situation of the emigrants; here, thousands of them are lost in the big cities, and even in the villages (in the country) the faith has died out in large numbers.” 853 According to information obtained by Mullen himself, the Catholic Church lost up to two million souls through emigration. 854 In 1853, Reardon, a Roman Catholic pastor in Pennsylvania, wrote to a friend in England regarding Irish emigrants: “They are seeking almost certain destruction for their souls, while their material condition is only slightly improving. For the love of Jesus, try to keep your people at home, for with every face you keep, you snatch a soul from hell.” 855 If the Irish people, the most devoted people to Roman Catholicism, perish in large numbers for the church after migrating to America, then this must be said with even greater force about the German Catholics. They soon succumb to Protestant influence and leave Roman Catholicism. Archbishop Purzel, in Cincinnati, openly complained that "the Catholic Church is losing hundreds of German members who prefer Protestant preaching in German to Catholic preaching in English and who, moreover, want to belong to more societies than the Church allows." 856 In 1850, as a result of this, there were already entire parishes composed exclusively of converts from Roman Catholicism, who had Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and other pastors as their preachers. 857 Protestantism, with its influence, invades the internal organization of the Roman Catholic Church and undermines its foundations. We have seen how this Protestant influence expressed itself in Trusteism and how much effort the Roman Catholic Church had to use to suppress it. But even now it is not yet completely suppressed and, as is known, it is even legally supported in some states, for example. in Massachusetts. And in general, the Protestantized state is reluctant to recognize Roman Catholicism’s full right to manage its church property according to its own canons and, on the contrary, supports the Protestant system of parish self-government, which gives food to trusteeism. Until the state fully recognizes the rights of Roman Catholicism to self-government in the matter of property, trusteeism will constantly threaten the organization of the church and take away many unnecessary efforts from it. The Protestantized school system, despite all the efforts of Roman Catholicism to counteract it by establishing special Catholic schools, continues its Protestantizing influence on the Catholic population. Many of the latter, due to their poverty, cannot bear the double tax (on the maintenance of public schools and on the maintenance of Catholic schools) and therefore, of necessity, send their children to the secularized schools of the state. The result of this is not only private apostasy to Protestantism, 858 but also the development of indifferentism, which prepares the ground for the perception and dissemination of Protestant ideas. Undoubtedly, depending on this influence of the Protestant school is the fact that recently attempts at reform movements among the Catholic population have begun to appear more often and preachers of the “independent Catholic Church” have appeared more often. True, attempts of this kind have so far been unsuccessful and do not represent a guarantee of successful development, but the very fact of their appearance indicates the existence of more or less suitable soil for them. 859 Finally, an element of the weakness of Roman Catholicism is the fact that the Roman Catholic population, consisting mainly of the lower classes and the mass of immigrants, is far from being comparable with the Protestant population in terms of general development and education. The secularized public school, which by its system is not recognized by Catholics, but which is freely used by Protestants of all denominations, stands educationally high. Directing all her efforts towards higher mental development, even if she sins with one-sidedness, then in achieving her direct goal she acts with great success, and thanks to her, that relatively not high, but general level of mental development is developed, which, in terms of practical education and meaning, puts Americans above all other peoples of the world. Catholics, meanwhile, cannot use such a school, and if their efforts in establishing their own schools remain fruitless, then these schools still cannot be equal to state ones. Therefore, the Catholic population in the general mass stands much lower than the Protestant, 860 and this thereby takes away from Roman Catholicism a significant part of its influence, since from the lower degree of mental development of its followers the conclusion is transferred to the system itself, as hostile to mental progress. Thus, from the above it is clear that if Roman Catholicism has many advantages over Protestantism as a strong, historically developed, dogmatic-principled system, which gave it the opportunity to pave for itself a brilliant path of hundred-year historical development in the United States, then at the same time it also has its own weaknesses, which paralyze the completely successful operation of the system and give Protestantism benefits that it could not have in its essence, in a collision with another system, historically strong and great, but without the shortcomings of Roman Catholicism. This exhausts the essence of our subject. If the inquiry must always end in a practical conclusion, it may be this: The historical life of Roman Catholicism in the United States presents many data which suggest the hope of the possibility of success on American soil of such a church which, having all the historical greatness, the strength of the church organization and the integrity of the dogmatic system placing Roman Catholicism above Protestantism, is at the same time alien to the weaknesses that paralyze the completely successful action of the Roman Catholic Church on American soil. soil. We mean the holy Orthodox Catholic Church. It is our deep conviction that the socio-religious life of the American people presents a lot of data on which the Orthodox Church can rely with much greater confidence and hope than Roman Catholicism, as we tried to show in the introduction. Spalding, The religions Mission of the Irish people, pp. 58, 59, 60, 61, – extractions. New York, 1880. Hecker, The Catholic Church in the U. States, p. 22, New York 1880. Catholic World, Vol. XXIII, p. 592, art. The next Phase of Catholicity in the United States. August, 1876. Murray, History of the Catholic Church in the U.S. pp. 537, 588. “It would not be the audacity of Providence to predict, says the Catholic publicist, that the progress of the Church in this country in the future should be faster than heretofore, and that it may not be far off when this vast “continent of Mary” will be one heart and one name obedient to the sacred bride of the son of Mary.” Catholic World. Vol. IV, p. 460, art. The Philosophy of Conversion. When, from the 40s and 50s, Roman Catholicism began to grow and develop especially rapidly, Protestantism was horrified and began a fierce polemic against it in literature and especially from the pulpit. All preaching literature of that period and even until recently is of an extreme anti-Catholic nature and preachers are sophisticated in finding the most humiliating names for the Roman Catholic Church, such as “man of sin”, “synagogue of Satan”, etc. See Mattison, Romanism, p. 4, 5. Barnum, Romanism, p. 700. Barnum, Romanism as it is, p. 695. Hecker, Catholic Church in the U.S. p. 19. Wed. Barnum, Romanism, p. 696. The table is compiled based on the following sources: Murray, History, statistician. tables on pp. 316, 384 and 416. Hecker, Catholic Church, stat. table on page 18. Sadlier, Catholic Directory for 1881 art. table on page 25. Catholic World, Vol. XXII, pp. 709, 710, etc. Draper's famous work "The Conflicts of Science and Religion" is nothing more than a pamphlet directed against Roman Catholicism. The extent to which Roman Catholicism is intolerant of national tendencies in the Church is evident from the fact that the Curia saw a schismatic tendency even in the very name "national" which was supposed to be given to the second Baltimore Council. Catholic World, Vol. VII, p, 619. Catholic publicists are aware of the contradiction of the Roman Catholic system with the basic principles of the socio-political life of the American people and all the resulting disadvantages for the church, and therefore with particular persistence they try to smooth out this contradiction, even proving that the Roman Catholic system, both in the entire church organization and in the structure of monastic orders, is an example of republicanism and democratic self-government. But such efforts reveal even more clearly the real character of the system. See Hecker, The Catholic Church, pp. 8–18. Catholic World Vol. XXIII Art. Church and Liberty. Murray History, Ch. III; Catholic World, Vol. IV, Art. The Church and Monarchy, etc. Back in the 1940s, public Protestant opinion was so strong and exclusive that less courageous Catholics did not have the courage to admit their membership in the Roman Catholic Church for fear of losing public respect. An oral message from an old-timer Catholic artist, Mr. Carter, in New York. National Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 565. Mattison, Romanism, p. 77. Barnum, Romanism as it is, p. 673. Barnum, Romanism, p. 673, Mattison, Romanism, p, 79. The American and Foreign Christian Union for August 1852 published the following extract from Mullen's report: Catholic emigrants from Ireland 1835-1844 = 800,000, 1844-1852 = 1,200,000, from other countries = 250,000. American. Catholic population over 12 years. age in 1840 = 1,200,000. Increase by birth = 500,000. Number of callers = 20,000. The number of Catholics should be 3,970,000. actually 1,960,000. The number of persons lost to Roman Catholicism in the United States is 1,990,000. Mattison, Romanism. p. 79. Barnum; Romanism, p. 673, 674. Barnum, Romanism, p. 674. Mattison notes with pleasure that “every year up to two thousand novelists turn to a better faith,” Romanism, p. 74. In 1879, two “independent Catholic churches” were immediately formed in New York, of which one lasted only three months and turned out to be a speculative trick (See Church Bulletin of 1880 No. 22 and 23 in our American Notes), and the other exists to this day and, in the person of its pastor, Catholic ex-priest James OConnor, is conducting quite noticeable agitation. We had to visit his church many times and listen to his sermons directed against Roman Catholicism. The audience usually numbers up to 1000 people, who enthusiastically applaud him in pathetic places and many of them treat him with warm sympathy, generously helping him with money. We happened to see how OConnor, one evening after his sermon, collected up to $100 from his listeners for the needs of the church. This year he published the "First Annual Report of the Independent Catholic Church," from which it appears that during the year he "received into his church more than 300 persons who professed conversion from the Roman Catholic Church," See First Annual Report of the Independent Catholic Church, New-York, 1881, p. 3. Things are going less well for his other employee, “Bishop” McNamara. Recently, after an anti-Catholic sermon in Hartford, Connecticut, upon leaving the hall, he was met by a large crowd of Catholics, who, after whistles and verbal insults, took up stones, so that the “bishop”, only under police cover, could safely get to his hotel, suffering only minor bruises and damage to his hat, knocked down by a stone. Telegram to N. Y. Herald, April 2, 1881. Catholics themselves admit this. “It must be confessed,” says the Catholic writer, that in the matter of human knowledge the Catholics in the United States generally rank behind their non-Catholic fellow citizens. We recognize this backwardness and can satisfactorily explain its causes.” Catholic World, Vol. XXIII, p. 584. You might be interested in: