The Progress of the Church in the United States [pp. 1-19]

Progress of the Church
These tables show at a glance the
disproportion between the Catholics
of the North and those of the South.
In only one Northern state (that of
Maine) is the proportion of Catholics
as small as 5.45 per cent. of the whole
population; while there are no fewer
than five Southern states in which it
is less than three per cent. If we
leave out New Mexico, Texas, Louis iana, Missouri, and Maryland, where
the preponderance of the faithful is
due to special causes, we find that in
the other Southern states the average
proportion is not above four per cent.
In other words, in these regions the
Church has little better than a nominal
existence. This is partly because the
stream of European immigration has
always flowed in other directions, and
partly because the negroes generally
adhere to the Baptist or Methodist
sects in preference to the Church.
But when we examine the tables
more in detail, we see that in both
sections the ratio of Catholics varies
greatly in different states. It is easy
to account for this difference in the
South. Six states only have any con siderable number of Catholic inhabit ants. Louisiana and Missouri owe
them to the old French colonies around
which the Catholic settlers clustered.
In New Mexico, more than three fourths of the people are of Spanish Mexican origin. Texas derives a great
number of her inhabitants from Mexico,
and has received a large Catholic emi gration both from Europe and from the
United States. Maryland, the germ
of the American Church, owes her
religious prosperity to the first English
Catholic settlers; and the. Church in
Kentucky is an offshoot of that in
Maryland. Such are the special causes
of the great differences between the
churches of the various Southern states.
In the North there is less disparity.
European immigration has produced
a much more decided effect in this sec tion than in the preceding. From
this source come most of the faithful
of New York, Oregon, California,
Ohio, and New Jersey. In Ohio the
Germans have done the principal part,
and they have done much also in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The
effect of conversions is more perceptible in Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, and New York than
elsewhere. In many of the states,
however, and especially in Pennsylvania, we find numerous descendants of
English Catholic settlers, while the
old French colonies of the West have
had their influence upon the population of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois, and also of the northern part of New York, where the
French Canadians are daily spreading
their ramifications across the frontier.
If we look now at the localities in
which the proportion of Catholics is
greatest, we shall notice several interesting points touching the laws which
have determined the direction of the
principal development of the Church,
and which will probably promote it in
the future. In the South there are
what we may call three groups of
states in which the Catholic element
is notably stronger than in the others.
One belongs exclusively to the Southern section, and consists of Louisiana,
Texas, and New Mexico, having an
aggregate Catholic population of 380,000 in 1,363,800, or 28 per cent. The
other groups (Missouri, that is to say,
and Maryland and Kentucky) form
parts of much larger groups belonging
to the Northern states. The first of
these latter, and that to which Maryland and Kentucky are attached, consists of Pennsylvania, New York, New
Jersey, and Ohio. Its aggregate population is 11,647,477, of whom the
Catholics are 2,240,000, or nineteen
per cent. This group contains the
ancient establishments of Maryland
and Pennsylvania-good old Catholic
communities, in which the zeal and
piety of the faithful possess that firm
and decided character which comes of
long practice and time-honored traditions. It contains, too, the magnificent seminary of Baltimore, founded
and still directed by the Sulpitians.
This is the largest and most complete
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