The Progress of the Century

by Unknown

THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

During this century the Holy Father has been able to restore the Catholic hierarchy in England, Scotland, Holland, and to create it anew in India. This means the orderly management of the works and the purposes of the Catholic religion, since the episcopate is the divinely instituted organ for its spread and its administration. In many lands a numerous episcopate has sprung up. In our own beloved country it has grown almost at the rate of one see for every year of the century. The apostolic activity of the episcopate has been usually beyond reproach. The care of souls, the creation of parishes, building of churches, convents, schools, and charitable institutions has gone on in every diocese of the Catholic world. Some bishops have distinguished themselves by their sanctity of life and their love for the poor; others by their learning and their skill in their writing works of utility for the faithful; others by their holy martyrdoms, both in pagan and Christian lands; others by devotion to great works of common charity and utility—nearly all by their exemplary lives and the conscientious performance of their duties.

No nation has a monopoly of this outpouring of the highest sacerdotal devotion; and no nation or people, as far as I can learn, has been without a steady succession of remarkable bishops, men who would have done honor to any age of Christian history. I believe that it is the constant and edifying service of the episcopal body which is chiefly responsible for the improvement in learning, morality, and laborious enlightened zeal on the part of the clergy, diocesan and monastic, which it seems just to claim for the nineteenth century. In some lands the episcopal office is freer than in others, and its beneficent activity is more immediate and visible. In all the bishops have kept the bond of unity, often at no inconsiderable sacrifice of personal comfort. Neither schism nor heresy of any formal and noteworthy nature has been connected with the episcopal office. It would ill become me to discriminate where the merits are so equal. I may, however, be permitted to rejoice with my countrymen at the end of the century that the life and the teachings of a Carroll, a Cheverus, a Bruté a Neumann, a Dubois, have not been without salutary effect, and have set a shining mark for the imitation of all coming generations. Particularly have such men inculcated habitual courtesy and charity in dealing with all those who did not share the faith of Catholics. They were fresh from the storms of foreign religious hatred and infidel intolerance, and knew by personal experience the benefit of mutual good understanding and personal respect.

In the United States, particularly, the Catholic episcopate has been very active in providing for the most fundamental spiritual needs of their flocks—churches for religious services, priests for the administration of sacraments, schools for the preservation of the revealed Christian faith, orphanages for the little waifs and castaways of society. Whether short or long, the periods of government of these Church rulers have never been idle nor marked by self-indulgence. Almost every one has left some monument of faith as a contribution to the general good of Catholicism. I would neither exaggerate nor boast, yet it occurs to me, after many years of service, travel, and observation, that few ages of Christianity can show a more laborious and elevated episcopate than the nineteenth century.

The recruiting of the diocesan clergy has been the gravest duty of this episcopate, for religion lives by and for men. It can get along without wealth or monuments, but not without intelligent teachers of its tenets and faithful observers of its precepts. In keeping with the decrees of the Council of Trent diocesan seminaries have been opened where it was possible, and elsewhere provincial institutions of a similar character. Both flourish in the United States, and grow more numerous with every decade. The older clergy, long drawn from the venerable schools of Europe, have left a sweet odor among us, the purest odor of self-sacrificing lives, of devotion to poor and scattered flocks, of patient, uncomplaining contentment with the circumstances of poverty and humility. There is no diocese in the United States where there cannot be heard tales of the hardships and brave lives of the ecclesiastics who laid the foundations of religion. We remember them always, and hold their names in benediction. The younger generation of our clergy enjoys advantages denied to their predecessors; but we consider that they owe it to those predecessors if they have a degree of leisure to perfect the culture of their minds, and a faithful Catholic people to ask for the benefits which must accrue from greater learning, if it be solid and well directed.

Yet I cannot admit that our older clergy were deficient in the learning of the schools. The names of England and Corcoran are at once on our lips, not to speak of a long array of others almost equally entitled to distinguished mention. If the external conditions of the diocesan clergy have improved, their relations to the Church authority have been safeguarded with even greater earnestness and efficiency. The dispositions of synods, provincial councils, and the three plenary councils of Baltimore have, we are happy to say, had little to do with questions of doctrine. They have all been held for the improvement of discipline and notably for the welfare of the clergy. In the same direction, also, have tended the numerous decisions and instructions from the Roman congregations, whose wisdom has never been invoked by us in vain, and whose sympathy for our conditions we gratefully acknowledge.