Morning journal and courier., 1883-02-26
British Catholicism.
Steady Growth of the Roman Church in
 Recent Years.

Steady Growth of the Roman Church i'm
 Recent Years.
 .IFrom the Pall Mall Gazette.J
 The conclusion drawn by the Tablet from the statistics which it published the other day will not of course very readily commend itself to the Protestant reader, but whatever v1ew we may take of their import, the fig ures are remarkable enough in themselves to suggest serious reflection. The Catholics of England and Scotland, it seems have in creased at between twice and three times the ratio of increase in the population. In the year 1S4O the Catholics of Great Britain numbered 539, 800, the clergy 624 and their churches 522. In 1880 the first of these to- tals had risen to l 1884 ,OOO, the second to 2,2S2 and the third to 1,461. Thus, while the inhabitants of Great Britain have in creased in number by sixty per cent the Catholics have increased by 158 per cent. within the period under consideration. "At present." says their representative organ, five constitute five per cent. of the popula- tion of Great Britain, and should have twen- ty-seven members of the House of Com mons, whereas there is actually but one-the member for Berwick" In the United States for a reason which lies, of course, upon the surface-the growth of the Catholic community has been much more rapid even than this. They have there multiplied 820 per cent, while the rest of the population mas AQV8nC6O 1JS per CSAb. QuE1uR Ino lhSl thirty years. Numbering only 666, ,630 in 1S4O, they have now reached 8 total of 6, 143,- 900. In Australia according to the authori ty from which we quote, the Catholics could on the accession of Queen Victoria "have been almost counted on one's fingers, {" There is now Catholic laity 6oO,0OO strong, at tending 800 churches, and receiving the min istrations of 400 priests and sixteen bishops. Perhaps, however, the most singular exam pie of the vigorous growth of Catholicism which the Catholic journal has instanced IS to be found in India. The number of Cath olics is stated to be l, ,318, ,O00, or more than four times that of the Protestants, and to amount to thirteen sixteenths of all Christian denominations put together. And here, too, the case seems really to be one of genuine missionary success, for Dr. Hunter records in his Cyclopaedia that in the single province of Pondicherry no fewer than 5O,OOO aduiLs were baptized into the Catholic religion Tn the three months ending December, 1ooo Tn tbe United States, on the other hand, the case ia exactly reversed. There at any rate, if would be gratuitous to assume any re- marksble triumph of proselytizing energy for the increase, immense as 1t is, of the American Catholic population during peri cd which covers the years of the Irish exo- dus produced by the great famine may be said to explain itself. And the same explana- tion may be taken perhaps to account. at least in some considerable measure, for the growth of the Catholic element among the people of Australia. But what is the explana- ton as regards Great Britain herself ? Is the increase of Catholicism in the country to be set down to the propagation of the faith" or to the propagation of particular race by whom the faith is held? * That the Irish element in our population shows ten dencv to increase thrice as fast as the Eng lish-or, in other words, that certain influ- ences which tend to lower the standard of living among the working-class of the com munity are nearly three times as active as the influences tending to maintain it-is scarcely 8 comfortable reflection. We may console ourselves to some extent by refecting that processes of this kind are not necessarily be yond the reach of correction, and that they do sometimes, in fact, correct themselves in various ways. But meanwhile the inordinate growth of this particular ingredient in cur social whole seems certainly to be threaten ing us for the time with something like the Chinese problem" of the Americans on a very.sman scale.