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Show The Emigration Curse. I FATHER SHINNORS. the distin- guished Oblate, contributes to The Irish Ecclesiastical Record for February an article on Ireland and America which will be read with painful pain-ful feelings by Irishmen at home, and especially by Irish Catholics. Father Shinnors lies just returned to his native land from a mission mis-sion tour in the I'nited States. Like every other visitor, he has been impressed im-pressed by the magnificence of the republic re-public and the boundless possibilities of its future; like every other Irish visitor, l.e has returned full of pride at the part played by "Irish hands and brains and blood" in the building up of the great commonwealth. He found, too, the Catholic church in tard seed of the days of persecution which preceded the revolution, into the greatest religious influence in "the country. In the church, even more than in the state, exiled Ireland's part has been influential, effective, and far-reaching. far-reaching. The roll of the American episcopate sounds like an echo of our own. The churches are filled with congregations largely Irish in their composition: and when an Irish mis-sioner mis-sioner fresh from the old country ascends as-cends an American pulpit, or goes into an American parish to preach, the old doctrines and revivify the old fervor, he finds himself surrounded by a peo pie whose faith and sentiments bespeak be-speak their nationality. But strong as is the position of Catholicism in America, Amer-ica, its reckoning proves that there has been an immense leakage of people who ought by their antecedents to belong be-long to the church, but have been irretrievably ir-retrievably lost to it, and among these losses the Irish emigrant and their children chil-dren figure largely. The estimated Catholic population of the United States, according to the best authorities, is now about 10,000,000. Four and a half millions of Irish Catholics Cath-olics have. Father Shinnors estimates, gone to the states. Had these and their children all remained loyal to the religion of their fathers, the 10.000,000 Catholics of America would merely represent rep-resent Ireland's contribution to the American nation. But besides these, as Father Shinnors points out, mil- I lions of Catholics have gone from Germany, Ger-many, Poland, Italy, France, Austria, and Canada, f all had remained faithful to the church, the Catholic population of America would have numbered 20.000.000 instead of 10.-000,000: 10.-000,000: and it . is Father Shinnors' Shin-nors' conclusion that the leakage of the past sixty years must have amounted to more than half the Catholic Catho-lic population, when account is taken of the number of converts. Nor are the 10',000,000 lost merely to Catholicity; they are lost wholly to Christianity and are immersed in the mass of American materialism. "They become atheists and materialists pure and simple." Thia is a saddening picture: but it is doubK- SO to Trishlnon n..uit Freeman, for Father Shinnors declares de-clares that there "are reasons i fear that the g.eat majority of the apostates apos-tates are of Irish extraction, and not a few .of Irish birth." The Irish 'nmi-grants 'nmi-grants are more easily Americanized than the immigrants of any oi her nationality. na-tionality. Other immigrants Lave a language of their own, anj it preserves pre-serves all their religious traditions. "The Irish unfortunately have not a language 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 a few months after thir arrival more American than the Americans Ameri-cans themselves; they are cauvht many of them by the spirit of irreliar-on th?z breathes everywhere around them, and if they do not formally give up the faith they become careless and indifferent, indif-ferent, and by and . by they bring up their children without any knowledge of God or of his church." Ihls Fathe-Shinnbrs Fathe-Shinnbrs rightly describes as ona of 1 he most mournful facts in our muniful history. Father Shinnors . appea.s to tho priesthood of Ireland to do all in thtir power to discourage an emipration that involves such perils to the faith and character of their people. American bishops and priests are most vehement in their appeals to "stop the tide cf emigration." em-igration." Irish -priests, sas the writer, wri-ter, could do much to dest'ov- the glamour gla-mour that surrounds American laoor and American citizenship wi "a a faHe splendor. .That is true. But until much more has been done to make life possible pos-sible for Irish boys and giris iu their old land the tide wilL fio.v. and the melancholy results described by Father Fa-ther Shinnors will follow for thousands of the Irish peasantry. His article is one to stimulate exertion, and to call forth the holiest zeal in the cause by the Irish in Ireland and their friends in Americal ." ' ' ' : |