ROMAN CATHOLICS.

From the Supplement to Six Months in a Convent.

"It is but a little more than forty years since the first Roman Catholic Sees was created by the Pope in the United States. There are now in the United States 12 Roman Catholics Sees, (including an arch-diocese at Baltimore,) comprising all the states and territories in their "jurisdiction." There is a Catholic population of 600,000 souls, under the government of the Pope of Rome, an Archbishop of Baltimore, twelve Bishops, and three hundred and forty-one priests.
The number of churches is 401, viz.

Louisiana, 27. Delaware, 3

Alabama, 10 New Jersey, 6

Florida, 3 New York, 44

Georgia, 21 Michigan, 15

South Carolina, 11 Ohio, 27

North Carolina, 12 Kentucky, 27

Maryland, 56 Missouri, 18

Virginia, 11 Illinois, 10

Dist. Columbia, 4 Arkansas, 3

Pennsylvania, 57 Indiana, 9

Connecticut, 3 Maine, 2

Rhode Island, 5 Vermont, 1

Massachusetts, 12 Tennessee, 1

New Hampshire, 2 Mississippi, 1

The number of mass houses is about 300; catholic colleges 10; seminaries for young men 9; theological seminaries 5; noviciates for Jesuits 2; monasteries and convents with academies attached for young ladies 31; seminaries, &c. for young ladies, 30; schools of sisters of charity 29; academy for colored girls at Baltimore 1; female Indian school, Michigan, 1. Total number of Catholic institutions for the education of Protestants and Catholics 118; Catholic newspapers 7.- These statistics are drawn from Roman Catholic publications.

In view of this extraordinary progress of a foreign ecclesiastical power in the United States, need we wonder that the Vicar General, the Rt. Rev. Frederic Reze, D. D. of Detroit, himself a foreigner, a subject of Rome, and an agent of Austria, should write thus to a friend abroad in reference to the spread of the Catholic religion in this Republic?

"We shall see the truth triumph, the temple of idols overthrown, the seat of falsehood brought to silence, and all the United States embraced in the same unity of that Catholic Church, wherein dwells the truth and temporal happiness."

Another Catholic in the middle states has said in a letter, "Within thirty years the Protestant heresy in the United States will come to an end! If we can secure the West and South, we will take care of New England."

In a recent publication abroad, entitled 'Letters from Rome,' under the head of Italy, it is said, "The accounts from the New World are cheering. In the United States of America the Catholic religion is making great progress, and the Roman Propaganda is amply rewarded for its exertions, Several new Sees are to be established."
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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There is currently no available "Beginner" label. The following is the default level label: The late 1820s and 1830s saw a Protestant religious revival called the Second Great Awakening which had a strong impact on American religion and reform. The people in New England were strongly opposed to the Catholic Church and its teachings. This article reports on what the writer feels is an extraordinary increase in the number of Roman Catholics (from about 25,000 to 600,000) and that he sees this as a threat to America. The 12 Roman Catholic Sees to which he refers are diocese under the 12 Bishops. American Protestants felt that Catholics gave allegiance to Rome rather than to the American government. The Greenfield Gazette and Franklin Herald was the newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, from June 26, 1827 to June 27, 1837. It changed its name to the Gazette & Mercury.

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