Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-05-12

an Irish priest of the Roman
Catholic church, has recently
printed in The Irish Ecclesi-
astical Record of Dublin an article
which suggests the question written
above. He had made mission tour
in the United States and his article.
1t may be presumed, is the result Of
his observations on that tour
He is primarily concerned for the
losses of his own church in the
United States, and writes:
The population of the states has
been Increasing by leaps and bounds.
Has the church increased her mem
bership in the same ratio? The an
swer must. unfortunately. be a de-
cided negative. There are many con-
verts, but there are many more apos-
tates. Large numbers are rescued
from inhdelity or heresy. but larger
numbers lapse into indifferentism and
irreliglon. They begin by being bad
Catholics and they end in agnosti-
cism. It is very hard to give even an
approximate guess at the number OF
these, deserters, but II is, alasl too
evident that they may be counted by
the million. During the last so
years, 1 think, II Is no exaggeration
to say that as many as 100000 men
and women Of the Irish race emigrated
to America. OF these nearly all were
Catholics, and nearly all left their
homes in the prime of youth or In
the full strength Of early manhood.
With the proverbial fertility of the
Irish race is it too much to say that.
at present, there ought to be as many
as 1000 900 Catholics of Irish birth or
blood in the United States? But be
sides these you have to reckon some
millions of = Catholics from other
countriesN from Germany, Poland.
Italy, France Austria and Canada.
I do not think. therefore, that 1 am
very wrong In asserting that II all
emigrants and their children had
remained faithful to the church, we
should today have in America popu-
lation of 10000. 900 Catholics. In 9TH
er words the leakage of the past 60
years must have amounted to more
than half the Catholic population, as
account must be taken OF the large
numbers of converts that 1 have al
luded to.
Treating specially of the defec-
tions among the Irish, he says:
One cannot conjecture with any
thing like accuracy, but there is no
doubt that the proportion is large.
Indeed, there are reasons to fear
that the great majority of the apos-
tates are of Irish extraction, and not
few of Irish birth. For the Irish
seem to get much more easily Amer
cahized than other people, and to be
Americanized Il use the word in
an obvious sense) is to be dechris-
tianized. other immigrants, such as
Germans and Canadians, keep up
their language, and their ignorance
of the language of the country is
protection for their faith. The Irish
unfortunately have not a lam
guage Of their own to preserve. and
the consequence is that they plunge
at once into the habits and manners
and modes of speech OF those around
them; they become q few months af-
ter their arrival more American than
the Americans themselves; they are
caught many OF them by the spirit OF
irreligion that breethes everywhere
around them.
When the writer says ito be Amer
icanized is to be dechristianized' he
seeks to qualify the expression by
affirming that, he uses it Sin an OBJ
vious sense" but the exact force of
the qualification is not so obvious,
unless he means to impeach the
Christianity of all the churches but
his own in the United States. II
this be his meaning he puts the idea
very extensively in a subsequent
passage in which he sets down the
sentence that America is the road
to hell" That paragraph reads:
From Cardinal Gibbons. from Arch
bishop Corrigan, from Archbishop
Ryan, from every American eccle-
siastic that takes an interest in. our
Catholic nation, comes the constant
cry to the Irish hierarchy and clergy:
Stop the tide of emigration. Save your
fiocks from the American wolf. Sacri-
flee not your faithful children to
Moloch. For your people, America is
the road to hell!
Can such a charge against Amer
lea be sustained? What fact or con-
dition makes our country the road
to hell?
Is il because English is spoken
here, as seems to be suggested?
Why does not the speaking Of Eng
lish thus demoralize and dechris-
tianize the Irish who remain in
Ireland? Does English make Irish
men religious on the east side of the
Atlantic and make them sceptics on
the west side. when once they have
come over the sea? Again. is the
English language infected with
scepticism, as the languages of
Germans and French Canadians are
not?
Is 1t due to our free institutions
that America is the road to help"
Is then civil liberty the foe of
Christianity? Are republics high
ways to hell and monarchies means
of grace? Was 1t monarchical
France or republican France that
produced the infidelity which
blazed forth in the French revo-