Year: 1866

From the Daily News, October 3O.l


The remarkable progress of Roman
Catholicism in the United States nat
urally suggests some speculations as to
the influence which this fact may eXcr-
else in the future fortunes of the Roman
Church. In spite of the complaints
we sometimes hear from the Roman
Catholic clergy, the foreign element in
the States must have stuck pretty gen
orally to its old faith. Upward OF
4, 4,OO0, 900 is not a bad per centage for a
population of 81 100000, when we take
into account the strength of the Puritan
element of the nation; and to English
ears there will be something positively
alarming in the enumeration of 2,7OO
priests, 3 mitred abbots, 40 bishops, and
I archbishops, who constitute the eccle-
siastical hierarchy. The thoughts of
the American observer take quite diff
ferent direction. He looks forward to the
time when the population of the United
States will exceed l00,000,O00, and
he is rather inclined to boast that this
number will include more Roman Cath
olics than any other single country.
When this time comes, the charge can
hardly fail to modify in many ways the
action of the Church whose numbers
will be thus largely increased. Roman
Catholic policy in Europe has long de-
parted from those older and better ira
ditions which give so much dignity to
the annals of the medieval church.
Oppressors have usually some power OF
benefiting their friends, and it is for
this reason, perhaps, that the higher
ranks of the Roman clergy have been so
well inclined to make common cause
with them. The alliance has not neces-
sarily been dictated by purely personal
motives. 1t has at least as often recon-
mended itself to the priest on the score
of the opportunities it offers him OF
teaching what he believes to be the
truth. But, unfortunately for his pur-
pose, he has miscalculated the relative
strength of the parties between whom
he has had to choose. He has eaten his
cake with the King, and now he finds
that he cannot have it with the people.
The unpopularity of the church through
out most countries of Europe at this mo-
ment is rather due to the political asso.
Citations with which she has chosen to
surround herself, than to any dislike to
her doctrines or practices. From all
this in the United States she is free, and
consequently we can easily believe that
her progress in the New World will go
some way to counterbalance her decline
in the Old. She is less heavily weighted
in the race. There are two ways i'll
which this fact must affect the ccclesi-
astical temper. The overwhelming evil
dence that free institutions are not III
themselves unfavOrablc to the spiritual
development of the church must at
length silence the interested clamor OF
those who object to them on that ground
in other countries. Roman Catholics will
learn that the alarm is groundless, eX-
cept when the loss which is feared is one
of political position rather than one OF
religious influence. And the theolog-
ical character which is formed in the
democratic atmosphere of America must
be sufficiently distinct to leaven the
the church in which it grows up. All
the accessories with which the body OF
Roman doctrine is surrounded will
necessarily feel the influence of this
change. The hold which th.y now
have upon the church springs not Sc
much from their being imposed by au-
thority as from their being so rarely
questioned by those who accept them
They are the creation, not of the law


but of u kind of fashion; and it is just
the fashions of the Roman Church
which will be least likely to bear the
VOYAGE across the Atlantic.