CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 47, 21 March 1874, Page 11

CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA.

Auckland. Tbttlt G )d's ways are not as men's ways. Who could have anticipated that the puritans — " The Pilgrim Fathers " — who originally settled in New Eng'and would actually pare the way for the triumph of the Roman Catholic Church in America ; yet so it is proving at this moment.

In 1825 there was only one priest in the whole Sate of Massachusetts, one in New Ilampshi "c, and one in Maine ; and even co lute m 1844 there were only 30 priests and 60,000 Catholics in all New England. There are now, after an interval of only 2& years, 100,000 in the single town of Boston ; while New England coun's 6 bishops, 441 priests, 332 churches, and nearly one million Catholics. This is not due only to the natural growth of the population, nor to the influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe. The general population in the United States has indeed increased during the present century at the enormous rate of 1433 per cent. ; but the Catholic population has increased during the same period at the rate of 20,000 per cent. No where has this Catholic increase been more notable than in the Puritan States of New England. Row is this to be explaiued ? How do the Americans themselves account for it ? They say it is because New England has investigated all Protestant creeds thoroughly, and dismissed or condemned them all. She now takes up the Catholic creed as being the most satisfactory. "In New England as in Germany," says the Rev. Kent Stone, himself a convert to the Catholic faith, and one who glories in being a descendant of the Pilgiim Fathers in New England, " Protestantism has -worked itself out. Tho people in Massachusetts began with a belief in revelation. At present their only distinct creed is a belief in common schools. What," he a«ks, " is to re-place Protestantism in the hearts of New Englauders ?" lie Kplied — "By the favour of Almighty God it will be the ancient and divine religion of which Protestantism was the perversion and a caricature."

The Protestant people of Auckland, like the Protestant people of New England, hare had " great faith in common Bchools " hitherto. There is, therefore, hope that by and bye they too, like the New Knglanders, wiil come to see the trut i of the Catholic creed and embrace it. It would seem that common or purely seeulir schools may often, by the over-ruling providence of God be made subservient to the advancement of the Catholic religion, however dangerous they may be in their own tature to Catholic faith and morals as a general rule. It is the province of the Almighty from seeming evil ever to educe some good. The highly educated Protestants in Ameiica and Germany, who are now being added in such large numbers to the Catholic Church, were most likely nearly all educated at common or purely secular State schools in tluir youth. To a well cultivated intellect in their case has now been added Che divine gift- of true Christian faith, a happy union which cannot fail to prove in the highest degree beneficial to themselves and conducive to the credit and spread of our holy religion. From the next ceusus you may be able to show how we Stand as to numbers in this Colony. We are increasing by conversions, I know, as well a3 by immigration.