The Papacy and the Civil Power

Roman Catholics in the United States.-Their Schools under Foreign Priests and Jesuits.-They Accept the Pope's Infallibility.-The Hierarchy and Laymen.-The Government of the United States.—It is Opposed as Usurpation, because not Founded on Religion.-The Roman Catholic Church must Rule in both Spirituals and Temporals.-The People Need a Master. -Their Whole Duty is Obedience.-Infallibility: the Old and New Doctrine.-The Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX.

MANY persons now living will remember when there were very few Roman Catholics in the United States, compared with the bulk of the population; and none at all in some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the country. With the exception of the descendants of the Maryland colonists, and of those who had settled in Louisiana before its purchase, they were to be found only upon the frontier, in the large cities, and with here and there a church in the interior. They were not sufficiently numerous to have attracted any especial attention, and were generally and generously accepted by Protestants as co-workers in the cause. of Christianity. They were not disposed to invite any antagonism with the prevailing Protestant faith, and when such antagonism was known to exist, were prompt and emphatic in rebuking it. Their priests appeared to be humble and unpretending men, professing only the single object of serving their Divine Master, and seemingly ready, when stricken upon one cheek, to turn the other. Humility was one of their most prominent characteristics.

It is Otherwise now. There are seven archbishops, fiftythree bishops, six vicars apostolic, priests whose numbers it

is impossible to compute, and a membership variously estimated by the official organs of the Church at from six to eight millions about one-sixth of our whole population. It is asserted that there are over four hundred educational institutions in the different States and Territories, besides many private schools, under the immediate and exclusive government of the papal hierarchy. In these schools, without any exception, it is made absolutely and indispensably necessary that the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church shall be taught to all the pupils, as the beginning and end of all necessary education; that it shall be fixed in their minds, as a sentiment of religious faith, that, since the decree of papal infallibility, they owe, within the domain of faith and morals, a higher allegiance to the Pope of Rome than to the Government of the United States, or that of any State; and that any violation of this allegiance will bring upon them the severest censures of the Church, and inevitably lead to their eternal punishment in the world to come. There were recently eleven hundred and thirteen teachers in charge of these institutions. They have been selected for this particular duty, on account of their submissive obedience to the pope and his American hierarchs. And besides these, it is said that there are two thousand three hundred and eighty-three sisters of various orders, who have in their hands the training and education of the aggregate number of thirty-three thousand eight hundred and fifty-three female pupils. (')

In a late work the following reference is made to the rapid growth of Romanism in the United States:

(1) "Catholic Family Almanac," 1872, p. 79.

"For the year 1875 the following estimate is made in Sadlier's 'Catholic Directory.' Archbishops and bishops the same as in 1872; priests, 4873; churches, chapels, and stations, 6920, of which 4800 are churches; theological seminaries, 18; studying for the priesthood, 1375; colleges, 68; academies, 511; parish schools, 1444; asylums, homes, and refuges, 215; hospitals, 87; and the Roman Catholic population, exclusive of Baltimore, Charleston, Erie, and Brooklyn—for which no estimates are given — is placed at 5,761,242. By this same statement it appears that in 1814 there were only 85 priests in the United States; in 1834 the number had increased to 308; and in 1837 there were 1 archbishop, 14 bishops, 390 priests, 300 churches, and 143 stations."-New York Tablet, January 2d, 1875.

PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC STATISTICS.

"But it is in our own country, above every other, that the recent gains of Romanism upon Protestantism are the most remarkable. At the close of the two centuries and a half that elapsed from the first settlement of Virginia to the year 1859, the number of Catholics in the United States had run up to two millions and a half only; but at the end of the nine years that succeeded (namely, in 1868) that number had doubled. Twelve years ago they were but a twelfth part of our population; to-day they constitute, probably, more than a seventh."

In the same work a compilation is made from a source considered entirely reliable, as follows:

..2,500,000

"Number of Protestants in the United States in 1859...............21,000,000
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1859...
Number of Protestants in the United States in 1868..
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1868............... .5,000,000

.27,000,000

-Showing that the Catholics had increased, in the nine years from 1859 to 1868, one hundred per cent., while the Protestants had increased in the same time less than twentynine per cent."

Then, commenting upon these important and startling facts, the author continues:

"Those who will verify the calculation of future increase, supposing it to continue at the same relative ratio for four terms of nine years each, commencing with the year 1868, will find that in 1904, that is, in thirty-three years from today, there would be eighty millions of Catholics to less than seventy-five millions of Protestants in the American Union."(")

While it is not by any means certain that the relative ratio of increase here assumed will be borne out by future developments, and exceedingly probable that it will not be, yet the facts stated show so great and rapid an increase of the Roman Catholic part of our population as to render it an important and necessary inquiry, whether or not there is any thing in the demands and teachings of the papacy which requires that so large a body of the citizens of this country

(*) "Debatable Land between this World and the Next," by Robert Dale Owen, pp. 32, 33, and note.

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