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Show j . CHURCH IN AMERICA. j Where Catholicism Thrives Without j Government Support. j (New York Sun.) j When the abolition of the Concordat j between France and the papacy now j resolved upon by the Combes ministry was first mooted seriously, the French archbishops and bishops were requested to say what, in their opinion, would be j the effect of such a measure upon Catholicism. Cath-olicism. Most of the replies were despondent, de-spondent, but a few prelates took a j hopeful view of the future, pointing out the astonishing progress made in the United States by the Roman Catholic j church during the last half century. Here not only do the Catholic episcopate episco-pate and priesthood receive no aid from the federal or state governments, j and must rely exclusively on voluntary contributions, but Catholics, like all other citizens, are taxed for the sup- j rort of secular schools. It is probable that if all of the French (bishops had before them the latest edition edi-tion of the Catholic Directory, every one of the m would look forward with considerable confidence to the situation with which they will be presently confronted. con-fronted. It is well known that at the outbreak of the revolutionary war j there were very few Catholics in any of the thirteen colonies, except Maryland, and even there thy had long been subject to grievous disabilil ies. Those disabilities were soon removd. however, and toleration became the rule in all of the states which made themselves independent inde-pendent of Great Btitain. Nev rtheless. the expansion of Catholicism i'.i this country did not begin to take place on a great scale until n-ar the close of the first half of the nineteenth century, after the tremendous immigration from Ireland and from the Catholic sections of Germany had set in. At present the Catholic hierarchy in the United States comprises fifteen archbishops and eighty-two bishops, with a corresponding' correspond-ing' number of dioceses. There are over 11,000 churches and more than 13,000 priests, secular and regular; most if not all of the religious orders are tepresented. The total number of children chil-dren in schools, orphanages-and other institutions belonging to the Roman Catholic church is about 1. 137.000. The Catholic population at the beginning of the current year is computed by the Catholic Directory at'llS7.000. The estimate, es-timate, however, is larger by more than 2.000.000 than the computation made by Dr. H..K. Carroll, and published in the Christian Advicate about a year ago. The absolute volume of the Catholic population is sufiiciently impressive: but relatively it is sometimes exaggerated, exag-gerated, because all men, women and children who have been baptized as Catholics are classified as such unless they have formally repudiated the Ro- ' man Catholic church. In the statin- tics of other rehgims bodies only the , "communicants" are enumerated, and , therefore in the case of most of them the figures given should be more than ' doubled if they are to be compared with ' the Catholic returns. According to the Christian Advocate.' the Methodist com- , municants in the United State? ntim- bered 6.0S4.000 in 1903. If we add all 1 persons affiliated by family tier? to ' these communicants we should get a j total considerably exceeding 13,000.000. , The same authority put the total num- ber of Baptist communicants in this 1 country on the same date at 4.620.000. ' We' should therefore be justified in com- puting the Baptist "population" at j , over ten millions.- . The number of Presbyterian communicants in the same 1 year was 1.635,000, which would indi- ' cat a Presbyterian population of up- ' ward of four millions. The Lutherans were somewhat more numerous in 1903. having 1,745.000. while the Lutheran "population" probably fell but little short Of five millions. If we turn to the . number of churches possessed by the different religious organizations, we find the Catholic church surpassed by only four Protestant sects. For example, exam-ple, the Methodists had last year 56.77 churches; the Baptists, 51.142; the Presbyterian. 15.215. and the Lutherans, Luther-ans, 11.785. against the 11.070 attributed to the Catholicf. We have seen that the Catholic priests, secular and regular, regu-lar, are now- computed at over 13.000. The Presbyterian ministers in 1903 numbered 12.207: the Baptist ministers, 35.564. and the Methodists, 39.220. On the other hand, there are more Catholic Cath-olic priests than there are ministers in the Lutheran and Protestant Episcopal Epis-copal churches put together. This certainly is an amazing exhibit I to be made at the end of a half century, cen-tury, "during the whole of which the Catholic church has -received no assistance as-sistance from the federal or state governments, gov-ernments, and during' the. first part of which it was eyed wih a sectarian prejudice that did not always stop short of persecution. If, indeed, the Kndw Nothing party could have had its way. it would have imposed upon Catholic? such griveous disabilities as they had been compelled to bear in Maryland during a section of- the pre-Revolu-tionary epoch. The collapse of the "Native American." which was really an anti-Catholic party, should encourage encour-age French Catholics to face with confidence con-fidence any tria',3 through which they may have to pass. . THE "JEFFERSON 3IBLE." (Helena Independent.) What is perhaps the first copy of the "Jefferson Bible" to come into Montana was received by a Helena man yesterday, yester-day, the book having been received through the courtesy of Congressman Joseph M. Dixon. The so-cal1 1 Jefferson Bible, more accurately . ' Life and Morals of Jesus of Naza: ,'th." is the property of ihe United States. National museum, i having been obtained by purchases in I1S95. The title and very full index are in Thomas Jefferson's own hand. Texts were cut by him out of printed copies ; I of Greek. Latin. French and English testaments and pasted in the book of . blank pages, which was "handsomely i bound in red morocco and ornamented in gilt. Jefferson's idea was thus expressed ex-pressed in a letter to John Adams, Oct. 12. 1S13: "We must reduce our volume to the simple Evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms into which they have been led. by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing ex-pressing unintelligibly for others what they had- not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." Bv resolution of congress the edition of which the book received yesterday is cne. was issued, being printed and bound by the photolithographic process. It is one of the handsomest examples of the work of the government printing print-ing office, and has an introduction by Dr. Cyrus Adler.. librarian of the Smithsonian Smith-sonian Institution. The edition is of 9.000, of which 3.000 are for the use of the scenate and 6.000 for the use of the house. |
