A Mighty Growth

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 14 March 1907, Page 23

A Mighty Growth

In 1806 there were, in round numbers, five million inhabitants in the United States. Only some 50,000 o^ these were' "Catholics. They^ were ministered to Ly one bishop and forty priests. In fifty years the number of bishops had' risen to 33,- the priests to 1800, and the •Catholic population/ to - 1 about 3,000,000. At the close of last year there were in the Great Republic" one papal delegate, one, cardinal, 14 arctoMshops, 90 bishops, 15,093 priests, 12,148 churches, 86 ecclesiastical seminaries (with 5697 students), 4364 parochial schools (with .an aggregate attendance of 1,098,842 pupils), and 255 orphan asylums (with- 10,588- inmates). So far the returns for last year (which are from the ' 1907 Official Catholic Directory ') are the result of a count of heads. No such enumeration has ever been made of the Catholic population, the figures given under this head in the ' Directory ' being mere estimates bjased on a principle that can hardly fail to— err considerably bv-unlder-statement; The actual Catholic population must be fully 15,000,000 strong. What a triumphal march Catholicism has accomplished in one century under the Stars and Stripes ! It ' has long bean by far the most numerically strongest and most energising faith in the Republic. And it seems destined to achieve still greater triumphs in the future. -To His children, God never closes one door without opening another. The defections of the sixteenth century found thdir compensation in the conquests of the Faith in the New World and the East. The trials of the Church in France have a magnificent offset ' beyond the Atlantic's foam.'"