Where Is Catholicism Effective?
Ross, J. Elliot
596 WHERE IS CATHOLICISM EFFECTIVE? By J. ELLIOT ROSS AMI wrong in thinking that a comparison of the religious facilities in the various dioceses of this country will be both interesting and...
...The Sisters of Charity are more powerful in their sympathy than the priests...
...That means that the number of priests would have a smaller influence on the average than the other figures...
...I do not wish to pin very much faith on them...
...Those for priests, churches, and converts are taken from the Official Catholic Directory...
...It is at least a debatable question...
...Boston, New York, and Brooklyn bring up the rear, with only 4 percent as many churches as Baker City...
...But that condition does not prevail in any diocese in this country...
...Belmont Abbey—as it was then called—leads with 6.30...
...And when we find the dioceses with the largest number of children in Catholic schools again in the South and West, and find the large dioceses of the East far down the line—though not as far down as regards priests and churches—we may well wonder what it really means...
...The highest dioceses are in the South and West...
...On the contrary, they are talking of decentralization...
...They realize that their facilities have really not kept pace with the increasing numbers...
...The same thing is true of beds in Catholic hospitals...
...Baker City leads once more for beds in Catholic hospitals, with nearly one bed for every twenty Catholics...
...But I think that both of them are quite important...
...At the other end, we find a number of cities, representing a highly industrialized life...
...With these reservations, however, and with no desire to be dogmatic, I submit the following summary, directing the reader to the forthcoming pamphlet for fuller tables: In regard to the number of priests per thousand Catholics, it is rather surprising that the highest dioceses arc quite consistently from the South and West...
...Boston is eighty-second, with 17 percent as many priests relatively...
...The basis of the whole computation is the Catholic directory, and I have not very much confidence in the accuracy of its surveys...
...Baltimore has about one bed for every 150 Catholics, or 16 percent as many as Baker City...
...Moreover, the great eastern dioceses, where we are accustomed to think the Church strongest and best organized, are down further still...
...As usual, the next highest dioceses are from the South and West...
...A large number of children in Catholic schools in proportion to the Catholic population is a good proof of a healthy religious condition...
...In regard to hospitals, I would not go so far as to say that they are as essential for healthy Catholic life as priests and schools...
...Statistics are never perfect, and in this case there is the added difficulty of trying to represent a moral quality by a numerical symbol...
...If this had not been done, then the number of children in Catholic schools and the number of beds in Catholic hospitals would have had undue influence, because the figures in these cases are so much larger than in the others...
...Philadelphia seventyninth, with 2.26...
...After what we have seen of the constituents going to make up the index number, it is not surprising that Belmont Abbey leads...
...In the foreign mission field, it is being recognized that they are a very necessary element in successful work, and I believe they are just as necessary here at home...
...But of the people I asked for advice no two agreed on the relative importance, I have, therefore, first of all reduced them to a percentage of the highest in each group...
...And it is true that a few people do get great advantages from this concentration of population...
...Or rather, may we not have accepted a real prosperity as being wide-spread and complete, when it was reaching only a small number of the total or was not reaching as high a proportion of the total as was being done in some other places...
...But in spite of this, have we not always assumed that there were more priests per thousand Catholics in New York than in Georgia, in Massachusetts than in South Carolina...
...New York is eightyfifth, with 16 percent as many...
...and Boston ninety-sixth, with less than one bed for every thousand Catholics...
...And while it is not as necessary that a Catholic should go to a Catholic hospital when he is sick, as that he should be educated in a Catholic school, still the number of beds available in Catholic hospitals would seem to throw some light on the condition of Catholic life in any community...
...Boston is ninety-seventh, with onetenth as many...
...On this basis, the total Catholic population in the United States in 1924— excluding Greek Catholics and Catholics in Alaska— was 18,910,757...
...New York is seventy-second, with 2.71 598 beds per thousand Catholics...
...And it is interesting to note that some of the dioceses making it almost a reserved case for parents to send their children to any but a Catholic school, come quite far down on the list...
...Oftentimes the priests in whose parishes they live do not know them for Catholics, and would have no way of approaching them if they did...
...About the same relative results are shown for the number of churches with resident pastors, and the total number of churches...
...People imagine that it is great to live in the biggest city in the country, or the biggest city in one's section...
...If we assume that these index numbers really represent some approximation to the actual condition, then we have come by another route to the conclusion Father M. V. Kelly reached years ago...
...Boston stands two places below New York, with ninety-nine children, or 34 percent...
...The results are not perfect, certainly...
...The matter of mixed marriages will occur immediately to everyone...
...Wilmington is fiftieth, with an index number of .27...
...There will probably be a difference of opinion as to the value of converts and beds in Catholic hospitals as indicating the condition of the Church...
...It is thirty-ninth on the list, with only a little more than a fourth as many priests per thousand Catholics as Belmont, North Carolina...
...The first diocese of the East in the number of churches with resident pastors, is Ogdensburg, but it is forty-sixth on the list...
...Moreover, our hospitals reach numbers of non-Catholics who would never enter a Catholic church...
...Certainly we can have unanimity on the importance of children in Catholic schools as indicating the condition of Catholicism in any community...
...I do not know that his conclusion commended itself to very many...
...Density of Catholic population would, apriori, make it easier to get a larger proportion of Catholic children into Catholic schools...
...I know that the accuracy of the Catholic directory has been seriously impugned...
...I shall not attempt to determine the reason for this, nor to evaluate its effect on the real condition of the Church...
...He maintained that the Church was recruited principally from the country districts, that she lost out in the cities in a few generations...
...In some points he may have been too radical...
...The eastern dioceses with fewer priests, and churches, might nevertheless be better served because the Catholics are concentrated in a small area...
...and New York is ninety-third, with .11...
...Prejudice is broken down, and some preparation made for later conversion...
...We have something of the same sort in a purely worldly field...
...Sometimes we can get a better perspective of ourselves through the eyes of someone else, and this is true of our hospitals...
...And if they are not converted, at least they rarely leave the hospital as bigots...
...If you want to get a keen appreciation of this fact, stand at the Times Square subway station any evening at five o'clock...
...and those for beds in Catholic hospitals, from the Catholic Hospital Association...
...This is followed by a number of other dioceses from the South and West, and Wilmington is again the first eastern diocese...
...The figures do not agree with preconceived ideas, and so they are wrong...
...But it would have been impossible, or very difficult, to get these figures for any great number of the dioceses...
...The Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association of Georgia, for instance, quotes a South Georgia preacher as asking: "Why was it that it [Catholicism] ever held sway...
...Naturally, other elements enter into the question of religious conditions...
...But may there not be another explanation to this very surprising result...
...Naturally, these different elements—priests, churches with resident pastors, total churches, children, converts, hospital beds—have not the same importance in Catholic life...
...In order to check them somewhat, the Catholic population was calculated from the deaths and marriages given in the directory...
...There is a glamour about big cities...
...Of course, if Catholics formed practically the whole of any community, then the number of converts proportionately would necessarily be small...
...Baltimore comes next with one point lower...
...But as a matter of fact, we find Nashville heading the list with nearly three hundred children in Catholic schools...
...One big church in a large city manned by five priests might serve 5,000 Catholics more effectively, if they lived right around it, than twenty churches served by ten priests, but scattered over several hundred square miles...
...Taken by themselves, these figures are probably not 597 very significant, because the element of density of population might explain them...
...Now I know that the reaction of a great many to these figures will simply be to throw them all aside...
...Philadelphia is sixtyninth, with a fifth as many priests per thousand Catholics as Belmont...
...But this is not surprising...
...It stands fifteenth on the list, and has 181 children in Catholic schools per thousand of the Catholic population, or 62 percent as many as Nashville...
...And even with our limited number of elements, I think that we can get some sort of idea of the religious conditions in the various dioceses...
...But the general idea that the Church is healthier in country districts, in spite of certain handicaps, than she is in congested centres of population seems to be borne out by the present study...
...The highest dioceses are from the South and West...
...Wilmington is still among the first of the eastern dioceses, being four places below Ogdensburg...
...And when we have substantially the same results for converts, for beds in Catholic hospitals, and especially for children in Catholic schools, I believe that a different aspect is put on the situation...
...Non-Catholics look upon them as one of our greatest assets...
...But this is not true of children in Catholic schools...
...Numerous converts in proportion to the number of Catholics is likely to indicate healthy Catholic faith...
...Philadelphia is further down, being eighty-second, with 16 percent as many as Belmont...
...Here we are dealing with a certain definite capacity...
...But, of course, a comparison cannot fairly be made on a direct basis...
...Whereas the community with a small number of children in Catholic schools, proportionately, is exhibiting a condition that demands explanation...
...But does the average man get as much out of living in a big city as he would in a small one...
...But the point is at least arguable...
...It is true that among the tail-enders we have some small towns and rural dioceses...
...They are the number of priests, the number of churches with resident pastors, the total number of churches, number of children in Catholic schools, the number of converts, and the number of beds in Catholic hospitals...
...May we not all along have been deceived by an appearance of prosperity...
...And where their Catholic life is strong, their mere example will be a powerful means of conversion...
...New Yorkers do not boast so much as they used to about their numbers jammed in on Manhattan Island...
...Belmont Abbey leads as regards churches with resident pastors, but is ousted by Baker City for the total number of churches...
...No one can calculate the good done by our hospitals in this way...
...At any rate, I have ventured to make such a comparison, selecting first of all, six elements for which figures could be easily obtained...
...Ogdensburg is again the first eastern diocese, but fifty-one behind the leader...
...Then very close together, come Boise, Baker City, Charleston, Des Moines, Little Rock, Lincoln...
...These two make up for any smallness in the percentages of priests...
...Something of this is beginning to be realized...
...Philadelphia is twenty-first, with 171 children, or 58 percent...
...Here we are dealing, not with the number of schools, but with the number of children actually in them...
...I tried, therefore, to devise some satisfactory system of dealing with them...
...But these figures are nevertheless the best we have...
...Philadelphia is sixty-sixth, with an index number of .20...
...The number of Communions is another...
...the eastern dioceses are far down the line...
...These elements were therefore reduced to a rate per thousand Catholics...
...By J. ELLIOT ROSS AMI wrong in thinking that a comparison of the religious facilities in the various dioceses of this country will be both interesting and instructive...
...There are Corpus Christi, Lafayette, El Paso, San Antonio...
...It is the hospital system...
...But I do think that they are very important...
...and Brooklyn is ninetyeighth, with 11 percent as many...
...But this is not unreasonable, I think, as the number of churches with resident pastors and the total number of churches are intimately connected with the number of priests...
...those for children, from the Directory of Catholic Schools and Colleges...
...In this they are simply following the general impression I think we all had, that these dioceses were comparatively undeveloped...
...New York is last of the dioceses, giving figures on this point, and has 9 percent as many such churches as Belmont...
...There might be a satisfactory explanation in a particular case—as in the Santa Fe diocese—but generally speaking, I think we are justified in concluding that the number of children in Catholic schools is a safe indication of Catholic health...
...The first eastern diocese—unless we call Springfield, Illinois, or Cincinnati, eastern—is Wilmington...
...It is true that one priest in a city parish can look after more people effectively than a priest with a scattered country district...
...It has only about a third as many such churches, relatively to Catholic population, as Belmont...
...Limitations of space forbid printing the tabulated results here—a longer article on this same subject, including the tables, will appear soon in Rural Life, from which it will be reprinted as a pamphlet issued by the National Catholic Welfare Conference— but the total varied less than 3^2 percent from the total given in the directory...
...A little thought will convince anyone that our hospitals are an exceptionally effective means for bringing back many fallen-away Catholics...
...There are a few relative changes in the column showing the total number of churches per thousand Catholics, but in general the results are the same...
...whereas a lack of converts proportioned to the number of Catholics is likely to indicate that the Catholics themselves are rather apathetic toward their religion...
...Brooklyn comes next to Boston, and has the same percentage...
...The next diocese is Savannah with 3.89...
...It is not counting every hospital as the same, whether it has 300 beds or only twenty-five...
...Boston is eighty-seventh, and has an index number of .13...
...Generally speaking, I think, we can say that the dioceses having the highest index number have no large cities, and are comparatively unindustrialized...
...Wherever a community of Catholics is really vigorous, I am confident they will manifest an eagerness to bring the light of the true Faith to those outside...
...This is certainly true of Belmont Abbey, Boise, Charleston, Savannah, Little Rock, Nashville, Mobile...
...New York is seventy-sixth, with 104 children, or approximately one-third as many children relatively as Nashville...
...Being approached at the most susceptible time, Catholics who have been away from the sacraments for years yield to the sympathetic charity of the Sisters, and return to the Church of their childhood...
...In this case, Baltimore is the first eastern city, but stands thirty-eighth in line...
...And these critics may be right in this...
...and then, in order to embrace easily all the elements in the comparison, a simple average was calculated...
...Even after reducing them to a percentage basis, the fact that in the case of priests per thousand Catholics the highest diocese, Belmont Abbey, was so far ahead of all others, tended to reduce the other figures as compared with the percentages in the other groups...
...There are Newark, Syracuse, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, Providence, Fall River, New York, Detroit...
...I wish merely to point out that this is an unexpected result of reducing the directory figures to a per thousand basis...
...The figures are all for the year 1924...
...In other words, Baker City has seventeen times as many beds relatively to its Catholic population as New York, twenty times as many as Philadelphia, and fifty times as many as Boston...
Vol. 5 • April 1927 • No. 22
