Fortunately for the interests of religion, the increase in the number of priests kept pace with the wonderful augmentation of the laity. In 1785 there was one priest to every 1,000 laymen; in 1808, one to every 1,500; in 1830, one to every 1,900; in 1840, one to 2,000; 1850, one to 1,200; 1860, one to 2,000; and in 1875, one to every 1,300, or 5,074 priests of all ranks.
Yet, numerous as had been the accessions to the priesthood in those years, the duties and responsibilities of the clerical order increased in greater proportion. The millions of strangers who had sought homes among us, while they preserved their faith and brought with them the grand moral lessons learned in the Old World, could not bring their churches, schools, and asylums. These had to be provided here, and the American priest thus became from necessity a builder and a financier, as well as a teacher and instructor of his people. When the abnormal Irish immigration began in 1847, we had but 812 churches, several of which were small frame buildings, hastily constructed and totally inadequate to the wants even of those who erected them. Many of those have since been pulled down, reconstructed,
or rebuilt, and replaced by substantial brick or stone edifices. This in itself was a work of considerable merit; but when we reflect that since then no less than four thousand three hundred new churches have been added to this number, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the work performed in so short a space of time. Nor are those modern buildings generally of that rude and fragile class which were so common fifty years ago, but, on the contrary, most of them are excellent specimens of solid masonry and architectural skill. The noble cathedrals especially which adorn Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Boston, and other sees, are models of design, durability, and grandeur of which any country or age might be proud. The same may be said, but with greater emphasis, of the Cathedral of St. Patrick now nearly completed in New York—that grand epic in marble, from the tall spire of which the glittering emblem of our salvation is destined at no far distant day to shine down upon a million faithful followers of the cross.
Thus it may be well said that the past quarter of a century was the era of church-building as well as of increase. But the vast energy so displayed was not employed solely in one direction. While thousands of temples have arisen to the honor and glory of God, his afflicted creatures, the sick, unfortunate, and helpless; the foundling infant and decrepit grandsire; the orphan bereft of its natural protectors, and the worse than orphaned—the pariah of her sex—all have been cared for, fed, clothed, consoled, and housed. Eighty-seven hospitals and two hundred
and twenty asylums of various kinds attest the practical charity and active benevolence of the Catholics of America.
It was formerly said that the Catholic Church could not prosper under a free government; that it needed the help of kingcraft and despotic laws to enforce its decrees and sustain its authority. We have proved the fallacy of this calumny pretty thoroughly—so conclusively, indeed, as to excite real or pretended alarm among bigots of all sects and of no sect at all. No people are more at home and thrive better in all respects in this land of liberty than Catholics.
It has also been asserted that we are the enemies of enlightenment. Our hundreds of convents and academies, and thousands of parochial schools, might be considered a sufficient answer to this falsehood. But, in the providence of God, the time has come when we are called upon to take a further step and demonstrate that in the domain of the highest intellectual studies we are a match for the best of our opponents.
We have no means of ascertaining the exact number of schoolhouses which have been built during this period; probably one thousand would not be too high an estimate, and we are inclined to think that there are even more. In the large cities most of the churches have a building for educational purposes attached; in the rural districts the basement is generally used. There are also a number of what are called charity schools, generally under the charge of some of the teaching orders, of which New York alone boasts twenty-four, erected at a cost of four million dollars. There are six hundred and forty academies and select
schools for females, with an average attendance of sixty thousand pupils, for whose accommodation, as well as for the nuns and sisters who watch over them, an equal number of buildings, some very extensive and costly, have been provided.
Though our seminaries and colleges do not show a proportionate ratio of increase, either in numbers or attendance, the result, if taken by itself, is highly satisfactory. In the last century only two of them existed in the United States; up to 1850 ten more were added; in 1874 we had eighteen theological seminaries, attended by 1,375 students, and sixty-eight colleges with over ten thousand pupils and about six hundred professors and teachers.