Had Upper California continued a portion of the Mexican republic, there would have probably been little difference between its ecclesiastical history and that of Sonora or Chihuahua; but the American conquest, and still more the subsequent discovery of gold in the Sacramento River, entirely changed the face of affairs. The crowd of immigrants that flocked into the country was so great as to reduce the original population to comparative insignificance in a few months. A single year sufficed to quadruple the number of inhabitants, and two to increase it tenfold. The new population was indeed a strange one. American it was in its dominant political elements, but fully one half of it was made up of natives of other countries than the United States. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, English, Mexicans, South Americans, Indians, Kanakas, and Chinese all poured by thousands into the New Eldorado, which might with equal justice be styled the modern Babel. Seldom has so radical a change taken place in the population of a country in so short a time, and the church, if she did not wish to lose the territory she had conquered with so much toil, had to commence her mission work over again, and under entirely different circumstances from those under which the Franciscans had begun the work. A very large number of the new-comers were Catholics; but in the excitement of gold-seeking, the hold of religion on their minds had been seriously loosened, and a reckless disregard of all social and moral restraint pervaded the whole population. To restore the sway of religion over minds that had forgotten it, to provide priests, churches, schools, and all the various institutions of Catholic charity, for thousands of her own children, and to make known her doctrines to a still larger number of those who did not belong to her fold, such was the task before the church in California, and to its accomplishment she addressed herself almost as soon as the first immigrants landed in San Francisco.
A frame church, the first in California, was erected in that city for the use of the Catholic miners in 1849, and, as the different "camps" sprang up through the State, other churches were rapidly built up in the more important centres of population. The following year, a new diocese was formed of the territory lately acquired by the United States, and its government intrusted to the Right Reverend Bishop (now Archbishop) Allemany, who was called to that office from his Dominican convent in Kentucky. The new bishop lost no time in hastening to his post, and began his arduous task with rare wisdom and energy. The ranks of the secular clergy were largely recruited from various countries; the Jesuits, who had long been engaged in evangelizing the Indians of Oregon, were installed in the old mission of Santa Clara; a branch of the Sisters of Notre Dame was established in the neighboring town of San José; and the Sisters of Charity took charge of an orphan asylum and hospital in San Francisco.
All this had been done before the close of 1853, or in the height of the excitement of the early colonization, an excitement such as it is hard for the sober dwellers of more settled communities to form any idea of. The population of California resembled an ill-disciplined army rather than a well-ordered community; the immense majority of its members had neither families, fixed abodes, nor permanent occupations, and were ready to rush anywhere at the slightest rumor of rich "diggings." The mines were the great centre of attraction to all, and, as the old ones were worked out or new ones discovered, the entire population moved from one part of the country to another. Towns were built up only to be abandoned in a few months, and even San Francisco itself, in spite of its unrivalled commercial position, more than once was nearly deserted by its inhabitants. Fortunes were made or lost in a few hours, not merely by a few bold speculators, but by every class of the people; and the wild excitements which now and then cause such commotion in Wall street, were constantly paralleled in every mining camp of California. The sudden acquisition of fortune was the hope of every man; and while men were thus uncertain about what position they might occupy on the morrow, few cared to settle down to the routine of domestic life. Except among the Spanish Californians, scarcely any families were to be found in the country, and the standard of morality was such as might be expected under the circumstances. Laws there were, indeed, but the authorities were utterly unable to enforce them, and bullies and duellists settled their quarrels with arms, even on the streets of San Francisco, unchecked by police interference. Murderers and robbers promenaded the towns unmolested, and the idea of official honesty, or of seeking redress for wrongs at the hands of the law, was deemed too absurd to be entertained by a sensible man. Vigilance committees, the last refuge of society seeking to save itself from destruction, offered almost the only protection to persons and property that could be had in many districts. Bands of desperadoes, such as the "hounds" in San Francisco, and Joaquin's gang in the southern counties, openly set the law at defiance, and, in the fever of gold-seeking that pervaded the whole community, no force could be obtained to make it respected.
Such was the population of California when Bishop Allemany commenced his episcopal career; and the prospect of making religion flourish on such a soil was indeed such as might well dismay a fainter heart. Nevertheless he addressed himself to the task, and his toils were not unrewarded. Gradually but decidedly, the moral character of California began to improve, and the more glaring offences against public decency to grow rare. The rush of immigrants slackened in 1852, and something like settled society began to form among the older residents. Of the agents which helped to bring order out of the social chaos of "'49," none was more powerful than the influence of the Catholic Church. Most of the Protestant population had thrown off all allegiance to any sect, and this fact, while it contributed to make them to a great extent regardless of the rules of morality, had at least the good effect of banishing anti-Catholic prejudices from their minds. The church and her institutions were regarded with much respect by all classes in California, even at the time when the Know-Nothing movement was exciting such a storm of fanaticism in the Eastern States. Many Americans had married Catholic wives, or been long settled among the Spanish Californians; the history of the Franciscan missionaries was well known to all, and their devotedness appreciated by Catholics and Protestants alike. All these causes combined to give Catholicity considerable importance in the public opinion, and lent immense strength to her efforts in behalf of morality and religion. Catholic charities stood high in the public favor; the public hospital of San Francisco, after an experience of official management which swept away no small portion of the city property, was intrusted to the charge of the Sisters of Charity; Catholic schools for a long time shared in the public school funds; and Catholic asylums and orphanages were liberally aided by the public. Bishop Allemany was not slow in taking advantage of this favorable state of public feeling to provide his diocese with Catholic institutions. New churches were erected all over the State; schools established wherever it was practicable; and so great progress made generally that, in less than three years after his arrival in San Francisco, it became necessary to divide his diocese. The southern counties of the State, comprising most of the Spanish Californians among its inhabitants, were formed into the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles in 1853. At the same time San Francisco was raised to the archiepiscopal rank. The membership of the Protestant churches of all denominations in the State was then almost nominal, scarcely amounting to two per cent of the population, while the Catholics formed at least thirty per cent. The public, as a general rule, regarded the Catholic Church as the church, and this feeling to a great extent still prevails.
For some years after the erection of the diocese of Monterey, there was little increase in the population of California; indeed, owing to the falling off in the yield of the precious metals, and the discovery of new mines in the neighboring territories, there was at times a considerable decrease in its numbers; nevertheless, the number of Catholics continued to increase, owing partly to the large proportion of Irish among the later immigrants, and partly to the natural growth of the Catholic population, which was more settled than the rest of the community. A further division of the archdiocese of San Francisco was found necessary in 1861. The northern portion of the State, with the adjoining territories of Nevada and Utah, was formed into the Vicariate of Marysville, which was subsequently raised to the rank of a bishopric, with its see at Grass Valley.
Since that period no changes have been made in the episcopal divisions of California; but the second order of the clergy, the Catholic population, Catholic institutions, and Catholic churches have continued to grow in numbers. At present, the proportion of priests to the whole population is nearly three times greater in California than the average for the whole of the Union, being about one priest to every three thousand five hundred inhabitants; while throughout the United States the average does not exceed one to ten thousand. Nevertheless, owing to the extent of the country over which the population is scattered, and the very large proportion of Catholics in it, there is still a great want of more priests and churches, and it will doubtless be some years before it can be adequately supplied.
In no State of the Union have the religious orders taken deeper root or thriven better than in California. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, the Vincentians, the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, of Notre Dame, of the Presentation, of the Sacred Heart, and of the order of St. Dominic, all have establishments within its boundaries.
The Franciscans, as we have seen, were the pioneers of Christianity in California, and, in spite of the oppression of the Mexican government, they have never abandoned the land. A number of them continued to attend to the spiritual wants of the population, both Spanish and Indian, after the control of the latter had been taken from them, and the order has shared in the growth of the church since the American conquest. Two of their former mission establishments are still in their hands, in the diocese of Monterey, in which they have also two schools.
The Vincentians have the only establishment they possess in California in the same diocese, where they opened a college some two and a half years ago, and have since conducted it with considerable success. Los Angeles City also possesses an orphan asylum and a hospital, under the management of the Sisters of Charity, and there are several convents of nuns in different parts of the diocese.
The Jesuits were the first missionaries of California, though the tyrannical suppression of their order, and the barbarous exile of its members from the dominions of the king of Spain, prevented them from extending their spiritual conquests beyond the peninsula of Lower California. It was not until after the American conquest that they were permitted to enter Upper California; but as soon as that event opened the country to them, their entry was not long delayed. In 1851, several fathers of the society, who had been previously engaged in the Indian missions of Oregon, arrived in California, and were put in possession of the old Franciscan Mission at Santa Clara, about fifty miles south of San Francisco. There they founded a college, which at present ranks perhaps first among the institutions of learning on the Pacific coast, and is one of the largest houses of the order on the American continent. The crusade against the monastic orders, which had been inaugurated in Italy shortly before, proved highly profitable to California, as a large number of Italian Jesuits were thus obtained for Santa Clara. A second college was subsequently opened in San Francisco, which has attained an equal degree of prosperity with the older academy, and, in addition, the parishes of Santa Clara and San José are administered by the priests of the order. Altogether, the Jesuits number about thirty priests, and as many, or rather more, lay brothers in California. In the internal administration of the order, California is dependent on the provincial of Turin in Italy, whence most of its missionaries came, and has no connection with the provinces established in the Eastern States. It possesses a novitiate of its own at Santa Clara, and only requires a house of studies to have all the organization of a province complete in itself.