Conclusion

I. Past history and hopes for the future. The views of Roman Catholic historians and publicists. A review of the main factors in the successful development of Roman Catholicism in America. The principle of separation of church and state. Independence of church life. Emigration. Monastic orders. The system of Catholic schools. Statistical table. – II. The weak points of Roman Catholicism. Lack of organic connection with the native core of the American people. The incompatibility of Roman Catholicism as a system with the public and national character of the American people. The paralyzing influence of Protestantism. The public school as an anti-Catholic agency and its significance in the demoralizing of the Catholic population. An attempt to establish an independent Catholic Church. – Practical conclusions from the investigation.

I

The process of century-long development of Roman Catholicism in the United States presented in this work shows that the factors of this development contain a sufficiently strong guarantee of its future successes in the country. The very process of development and strengthening presents such energy and rapidity of internal and external causes acting in it that the optimistic view of those vitally interested in the successes of Roman Catholicism in America should not seem surprising. Catholic publicists and historians cherish the brightest and most radiant hopes for the future and solemnly proclaim and predict that the future of America belongs to Roman Catholicism. “An observer a hundred years ago,” says Bishop Spalding, “in examining the religious condition of this country could not have supposed that the faith of a negligible handful of Catholics could have a future in the American republic; yet now there are good reasons to think that no other religion can be as confident of its future here as the Catholic. This is our only historical religion. Outside of it exist opinions and views, but here is an organism that has its roots deeply in the hidden strata of past centuries. I am far from the thought that the United States will become Catholic. We live not in an age when a nation, as such, wishes to become or remain Catholic; but what I affirm is that the actual condition of Catholicism in the United States is such that it inevitably leads to the conclusion that this church is destined to be a great and permanent factor in this country. The difficulties which it has had to overcome to ensure its present position are sufficient proof of its internal strength and vitality, while the increasing weakness of Protestant sectarianism shows that it cannot expect serious rivalry from any other religious faith.”[1] “The future of the United States,” says Hecker, “belongs to that religion which, through its conscious possession of truth and the divine love dwelling in it, succeeds in bringing the American people to unity in their religious faith and activity, as it truly is united in the political sense. It would be the utmost despair of reason to suppose that truth cannot be known with certainty. The thought that existing religious division will continue and increase forever can find admission only in base minds and can satisfy only a vulgar soul.”[2] “The future of America belongs to us,” says a Catholic publicist. “While the preachers of sectarian doctrines, in their efforts to impose their particular views on society and each other, have reached their apex and now descend into depths of nihilism and refined paganism, the Church (Catholic) in this republic enjoys the primordial vitality of youth and manifests unprecedented unanimity in spirit and activity. In its organization lies an immense reserve of hidden strength not yet revealed, a mine of intellectual wealth awaiting only the skilled hand of the explorer to bring it to the surface.”[3] “Glory and hope adorn the beautiful, unclouded career of Catholicism in America,” says Catholic historian Murray. “Its past history is magnificent. Its future is filled with hope. It will not be immodest to predict that half a century hence the Catholic Church will be the only great religious force that firmly will possess the American soul. The learned and honest seeker of truth will gladly hasten to its bosom. And thus the ancient faith, which conquered, civilized, and ennobled the rude peoples of early centuries, which elevated woman, saved Europe from returning to barbarism, developed art, science, philosophy, and literature, nurtured individuals, sanctified the family, and blessed society—this faith and this alone will save the land of Washington and Carroll and illuminate the path that will lead it to glorious destiny.”[4]

The excerpts presented from the chief organs of Catholic opinion in the country testify that Roman Catholicism cherishes hopes bordering on extreme optimism. While we cannot recognize their full validity, neither can we deny their logical deduction from the historical data of Roman Catholicism in the United States. These data undoubtedly authorize us to recognize its important successes in the future. The causes which enabled it to develop in one century from insignificance into a magnificent ecclesiastical organization exist in the very structure of the life of the country and as such will long continue to exist in the future, unless the progressive process of historical development substantially changes this structure or brings forth a new force that would stand in opposition to the conditions favorable to Roman Catholicism. Until such a radical change, if it ever takes place, the factors of Roman Catholic success will continue their action in a direction favorable to it. In the continuation of the action of these factors lies all the hope and all the strength of Roman Catholicism. In the preceding investigation, the relative significance of each of them has been shown in detail, but to present a complete picture we shall make a general review of these factors and their significance as conditions favorable to Roman Catholicism.

The most general cause that acted to enable unimpeded development of Roman Catholicism is the juridical principle of the separation of church from state and freedom of religious conscience. This principle had a twofold significance for it—negative and positive. In the former respect, it helped to free Roman Catholicism from the unfavorable conditions of oppressed status, removed the chains of bondage, and gave freedom to the development of its internal forces. In the latter respect, it gave it positive advantages over other faiths, since by virtue of this principle Roman Catholicism, meeting no obstacle or restriction from the state, could freely bring into the field of action forces that give it undoubted advantage over fragmented Protestantism; namely, the forces of its orders and centralizing organization. While in Europe, Protestantism and the Protestantized state, conscious of their insufficiency on purely moral grounds against Roman Catholicism, resort either to Kulturkampf or to persecution of Jesuits, in the United States such a phenomenon is impossible, and therefore Roman Catholicism conducts its organizing and proselytizing activities unimpeded and completely freely—at the expense of the opposing force of Protestantism, which remains only with the consciousness of its internal weakness and helpless polemic against the advancing and rapidly developing system.[5]

But favorable juridical conditions would be an inert factor in themselves if they had not encountered a strong and skillfully created and maintained organization of Roman Catholicism, which could use them for its purpose. Hence the active cause of the success of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is precisely this organization, which, having its center in the pope as head of the Church, acts in full dependence on this center and directs its organizing forces to the point where at any given moment the greatest need for them is felt. The higher hierarchy is in full dependence on the central head of the Church, and in its disposal is an unfettered host of priests and members of monastic orders, so that by a single command from above an entire army of devoted champions and servants of Roman Catholicism can be moved to any part of the globe where the interests of the system require it.[6] Such a system made it possible to quickly satisfy the Church’s needs in the United States when a huge influx of settlers required extraordinary exertion of the Church’s forces. In this respect, the monastic orders rendered irreplaceable service to the Church, which, as shown above, emigrated to America parallel with popular emigration.

The chief source of the numerical growth of Roman Catholicism was European emigration, and without it, it could not at all have risen from the state of insignificance in which the proclamation of the political independence of the country found it. This cause will undoubtedly not continue to act with the same intensity as before, but it is equally certain that it will yet long serve as a rich source of numerical strength for Roman Catholicism in America. “The increase of Catholics in the United States,” says Hecker, “has been due almost entirely to European emigration, and when emigration decreases, will not the progress of the Church cease? The number of emigrants may decrease relatively to before, but for substantial reasons it will remain large. Emigration will continue because the freedom which the people enjoy under republican institutions, and the material advantages which the country offers settlers, especially in its cheap and fertile lands, are attractions in themselves sufficient to draw a large population to these shores. Millions of emigrants, having settled in the republic as a homeland, act as an attractive force for their relatives, friends, and former countrymen. The desire to escape the almost unbearable burden of military service through forced conscription, caused by frequent wars and dangers from rival nationalities threatening the political horizon of Europe, will drive a large number of young and vigorous people to a country that has no army and whose geographical position makes it free from any danger threatening its peace. Last and not the least cause in this respect is religious persecution; it sends a tremendous amount of people, especially thanks to Prince Bismarck, to a country of religious tolerance. In light of these and other causes, from Ireland, Germany, and other countries of Europe there will stream into the United States a constant flow of settlers. And since three-fifths of Europe’s population hold the Catholic faith, the Catholic Church in the United States can count, at least relatively, on its share in future settlers.”[7]

Another source of numerical strength, namely conversion from Protestantism, has not yet achieved proper development and does not have significant quantitative importance. But under the given circumstances it undoubtedly has an important role in the future, if only it is not paralyzed by another force which does not yet exist at the present time. The ferment in the American religious sea will not cease so long as the fundamental Protestant principle underlies it, and it will constantly produce tireless seekers of religious truth, who will find rest in the Roman Catholic Church, as representing the most stable principle in comparison with wandering Protestantism.

Apart from sources of numerical growth, an important element of the strength of the Roman Catholic Church is its vast property and great material resources. Thanks to them, it maintains its churches and monasteries, educational and charitable institutions in such a manner as to make it independent of any other external force except its own internal interests and needs, which places it in a more advantageous position than Protestant denominations and communities, which in this respect, lacking a firm principle, are entirely dependent on chance external conditions and often on the caprices of the trustee system. Through skillful use of the political and social influence connected with its wealth, numerical strength, and centralized organization, it is able to place its adherents in the highest public and political positions and to remove those who oppose it. As everywhere, Roman Catholicism in the United States is far from indifferent to the use of political means to achieve its ends.[8]

Finally, the most important source of strength for Roman Catholicism is its system of strictly Catholic education and learning. Its network extends throughout the country and it serves not only as a means of protecting the Catholic population from Protestant influence but also as an active agency of proselytism. This importance of the school system is fully recognized by the Church itself, which therefore spares no efforts for its maintenance and development. The Protestantized state, on the other hand, recognizes what a tool Roman Catholicism possesses in its own school system, and therefore in this area it stands in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church more than in any other respect. The struggle between Roman Catholicism and the state over the school question continues to the present time, and it is unknown how it will end. But it is certain that if the state in time yields and satisfies the demands of the Roman Catholic Church, the latter will obtain a new factor for its progressive development and strengthening in the United States.

The combined action of these causes and factors produced the rapid process of development and strengthening of Roman Catholicism in the United States which has been presented in this investigation. To more clearly depict this process, we offer a statistical table showing the gradual growth of the Roman Catholic Church from the time of the proclamation of American independence in 1776 to the present time.[9]

II

If Roman Catholicism in the United States had only those strong points which we have presented, then the optimistic hopes of Catholic publicists that the future of the North American republic belongs to Roman Catholicism would have solid grounds in reality. But together with its strong points, it also has weak ones, which paralyze its efforts to become more firmly established on American soil.