The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-05-04

N0ATDs afN1ON0Axs MAY a,
stances of what I must presume is oc-
curing in other American dioceses.
AS to our losses-This matter was
fully discussed to the justification of
the American church in series of
newspaper articles by John Culinary
Shea, and in his Church History by
Bishop O'Gorman; but neither of those
writer's is ever quoted by men at home
or abroad who are wont to parade
alarming figures as those of our losses.
Such men make no pretense of close
Investigation, beyond quoting some 9TH
ers, who themselves are merest guess
ers. In not few cases are they mani
testify inspired by partisan bias. The
so-called Lucerne Memorial, carried in
1891 to the Vatican by Herr Cahensly,
dared to say that the losses in the
church in America amounted then to
10000, 600; and last year Monsieur Tar
devel of Quebec in q book on the
American Republic, and the American
Catholic church, copies of which were,
not without a purpose, profusely dis
tributed through Italy and other coun-
tries of continental Europe, wrote that
"The church in the United States has
certainly lost one-half Of her children,
perhaps two thirds Of them" John
Culinary Shea, beginning with the
Catholic population in 1920, as given
by Bishop Marechal, and then work
ing from the official statistics Of immi-.
grafton since 1920, stating literally the
Catholic percentage Of immigrants, al
lowing for each decade natural In
crease of one-third over the total fig
ures with which the decade opens, cal
culates that the Catholic population
in 1890 ought to have been 1O,627 900.
Was our actual population in 1890 far
from that figure? And If not, where is
there room to talk Of alarming losses?
In my opinion even Mr.. Shea in cal
culating what should have in 1890 been
our Catholic population, made too lit
tie allowance for immigrants coming
to America who afterwards emigrated
from it, or for the large number of
immigrants from Ireland in the early
decades following their first great rush
to this country, who were prevented,
either by poverty, or premature death,
through hard labor, from marrying
and building up families. Nor, most
likely, did Mr.. Shea take into account
as much as he should have done the
number Of so-called Catholic immi-
grants from certain countries of CONT
mental Europe whose faith had been
lost before they saw America, and
whose apostacy consequently cannot
be ascribed as fault to the church in
this country.
An honored name first gave currency
to exaggerated figures as to the losses
Of the Catholic church in America. It
was that of Bishop England, who
wrote that up to his time it had lost
no less than three millions. The most
superficial glance at early American
immigration shows the utter impossi-
bility that all Catholics who had at
any prior date come into America, and
all their descendants could have, in the
most favorable conditions, summed up
more than a small fraction Of such q
stupendous reckoning. If any basis
was thoughtfully adopted by the bish-
op for his calculation, it was the num-
Der of Catholics who had come into
the Carolinas, as compared with the
number there ut the time he was writ
ing; but the Carolinas had been an ex-
ceptionally unpropitious field for the
preservation of Catholic faith; and
even for those states where slavery
made white labor unwelcome, the fig
ures he gives Of early Catholic arrivals
are beyond all probability. The excuse
for Bishop England's exaggerations is
that he wrote while aboard an Atlantic
clipper, without data, and was address,
ing to the charitable people of Europe
letters praying for missionary aid in
priests and money. OF all others who
have written or spoken on the losses
of the church not one even in name
deserves the slightest attention.
That there were some losses, owing
to the scarcity of priests, absence of
church organization, and the poverty
of immigrants, we do not deny; that
such losses were alarmingly large, we
do deny; and we further deny that
such losses as may from accidental
causes have occurred in the past, sus-
tain the anti-democratic theories of ad-
versaries; that losses such as have oc-
CURED in the past do now occur, or will
in the future, when the cause of past
losses no longer exists. The further
truth indeed is, If matters are deeply
probed, in the age Of unbelief and
materialistic drift, through which we
are~passing, the places are few in the
world where the church has suffered
so few actual losses as she has in
America, or where accessions to our
ranks have gone SO far as to make up
for losses which she may have suf-
fered. 1t is full time that an end be
put forever to huge calumnies upon the
zeal and firm faith of Catholics who
bore the heat of summer and tho co1d