
 
 <J 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 13
 
 THE DECAY OF THE CHURCH 
 OF ROME
 
 THE DECAY OF 
 THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH McCABE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1910
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Introduction ..... i 
 
 II. The Latin World : France . . .11 
 
 III. The Latin World : Italy . . . .43 
 
 I V. The Latin World : Spain and Portugal . . 68 
 
 V. The Latin World : Spanish America . . 97 
 
 VI. The English-speaking World: Great Britain . 128 
 
 VII. The English-speaking World: The British 
 
 Colonies ...... 15 1 
 
 VIII. The English-speaking World: The United 
 
 States ...... 17 1 
 
 IX. The Germanic World: The German Empire . 196 
 
 X. The Germanic World: The Austro-Hungarian 
 
 Empire . . . 227 
 
 XI. The Germanic World: Switzerland . . 248 
 
 XII. The Germanic World: Belgium . . . 258 
 
 XIII. The Germanic World: Holland . . . 276 
 
 XIV. Russia ...... 285 
 
 XV. Conclusion ...... 296 
 
 Index. . . . . • 3 11
 
 THE DECAY OF THE CHURCH 
 OF ROME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IS the Church of Rome gaining or losing ground 
 in the worn field of religious controversy ? 
 No other issue, perhaps, in the spiritual struggle 
 of our time attracts a wider interest, yet is concealed 
 from the inquirer by a more perplexing tangle of con- 
 tradictory statements, than this. To many the Church 
 of Rome seems to silence all question by its display 
 of vitality. Growing outward from the most fascinat- 
 ing city in the world, sending its roots deep into the 
 life of the past 2000 years, spreading its branches to 
 the outer limit of the five continents, it gives one an 
 instinctive feeling of strength and endurance. It 
 has survived the fiercest storms that have swept over 
 Europe for many ages. Ancient Rome, at least in 
 the days of Diocletian, employed its vast energy to 
 tear it from its soil, yet in a century's time it looked 
 down on the ruins of the Western Empire. It stood 
 proudly out from the barbaric waves that rolled down 
 from the north, and gathered from them greater force 
 than ever. It flourished through the lethal degrada- 
 tion of the next five centuries, and drew fresh energy 
 from the menacing revival of intellectual life. It 
 reeled for a moment at the mighty upheaval of the 
 Reformation, and then produced a power that almost
 
 2 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 restored its proportions. It came almost unscathed, 
 apparently, out of the first revolutionary fires of a 
 century ago. Is it possible that it will succumb to 
 the new and subtler forces that seek to loosen its 
 great frame in our time ? 
 
 It is hardly surprising that, with so wonderful a 
 history, the Church of Rome should still impose, even 
 on many who wholly reject its creed, a firm belief in 
 its solidity and durability. The prophecy with which 
 Macaulay flattered it in a rhetorical mood has been 
 repeated, in less graceful and more sincere terms, 
 by social observers of the most diverse schools. The 
 more jealous adherents of other Christian bodies have 
 not indeed been disposed to share that belief, save 
 in the sense that Rome will lose its proper characters, 
 and merge, an indistinguishable element, in the fed- 
 eral Church of the coming time. But social students 
 who regard the religious movements of our age from 
 neutral eminences have been remarkably unanimous 
 in the expectation that Rome will outlive all the other 
 Christian bodies. The Positivist pays Rome the 
 tribute of borrowing what he thinks to be her im- 
 perishable forms. The Rationalist is almost always 
 convinced that, in his familiar phrase, the last stage 
 of his war will be the struggle of Rome and Reason. 
 The new science of sociological anticipation is entirely 
 with them. Mr H. G. Wells foresees a decay of 
 Protestantism and growth of Catholicism in the 
 twentieth century ; he announces to us that proces- 
 sions of shaven monks will be more familiar on the 
 moving platforms of the tense cities of the twenty- 
 first century than they are in the streets of Europe 
 to-day. 
 
 In this state of public feeling the Protestant is apt 
 to take alarm at every parochial increase of Catholicism, 
 and join with trepidation in the common cry of papal
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 expansion. Little reflection is needed, however, to 
 discover that this common expectation of an increase 
 of Romanism does not rest on statistical inquiry, but 
 on much frailer considerations. To the Positivist 
 indeed it should be evident that, in sharing Roman 
 forms, he has incurred a share in Rome's decay. 
 Nor is the Rationalist more fortunate in the grounds 
 of his conviction. Rome alone, he says, rejects the 
 modern clamour for the use of reason in religious 
 matters, and bids its followers establish their allegiance 
 rather on the sentiment of faith and the dictates of 
 authority. Where the corrosive action of reason is 
 admitted, he urges, dogma surely decays ; and the 
 day will come when those who indulge private judg- 
 ment will find the ground eaten from under them, 
 and the more emotional will shrink in alarm into the 
 temple of Romanism, there to meet the last tide on 
 the massive rock of authority. The flaw of the theory 
 is that its starting-point is wholly false. The Roman 
 Church has more than once warmly rejected the 
 notion that she asks her followers to rebuke reason 
 and stand by faith alone. Her theologians in fact 
 denounce as "Protestantism" the theory that faith is 
 an emotion, and not a deliberate adhesion of the in- 
 formed judgment. 1 Time after time the Church has 
 compelled those of her apologists who inclined to 
 depreciate reason to subscribe to the proposition that 
 "reason precedes faith and prepares the way for it." 
 Thus the whole Rationalist anticipation of her success 
 is groundless and negligible. 
 
 In more specious language the historian and the 
 social observer put forward their belief in the dura- 
 bility of Rome. The non-Roman Churches, they 
 urge, are temporary and comparatively frail structures, 
 built in a moment of heated dissent, out of the material 
 1 "Theologia Dogmatica," H. Hurter, S.J., i. 472,
 
 4 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 of the older Church ; and they declare that the motive 
 for this dissent and for the erection of separate 
 Churches — the corruption of Rome — is gradually 
 losing its force. Many ages ago the Romans doomed 
 the great Flavian Amphitheatre to decay, and built 
 churches and houses out of its denuded fabric. Their 
 little structures are tumbling into ruin to-day, or have 
 long since crumbled into dust, and the massive 
 Coliseum rises in silent triumph over their puny re- 
 mains. The pyramids of Gizeh have been despoiled 
 by the builders of many ages ; but their enduring mass 
 has looked down on the decay of one generation of 
 despoilers after another. So, the social prophet says, 
 will the colossal framework of the Roman Church 
 look down on the crumbling fabric of the dissenting 
 bodies. 
 
 But the spectacle of the Coliseum looking down on 
 the shrunken churches at its feet is hardly a congruous 
 figure of the situation. Rome has now far less than 
 200,000,000 followers : the Protestant Churches have 
 some 300,000,000. Indeed the theory that the 
 Protestant Churches are no more than embodiments 
 of temporary revolts against passing abuses that were 
 detected in an enduring system is a very superficial 
 one. It accords neither with the broad features of 
 religious evolution nor with the facts of religious 
 psychology. Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohammedan- 
 ism — nay, Christianity itself — had the initial character 
 of a protest or revolt, yet the life-giving motives and 
 the structures endure. In nearly all the great schisms 
 of religious history the virility has passed into the 
 dissenting body. 
 
 We must abandon all hope of forming a sound fore- 
 cast of Rome's future on these speculative grounds, 
 and approach the subject on the lines, and in the 
 temper, of ordinary sociological research. The pro-
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 cedure is more profitable, if more laborious and less 
 artistic, and the conclusion is far more interesting. 
 One has to sift the literature of many lands for positive 
 indications of Rome's position, but they are at length 
 discoverable in sufficient abundance to yield a very 
 safe, and a somewhat startling, conclusion. I may 
 formulate at once the thesis that will be rigidly 
 demonstrated in the following chapters. 
 
 Instead of showing signs of increase, the Church of 
 Rome is rapidly decaying, and only a dramatic change 
 of its whole character can save it from ruin. 
 
 Recent religious statistics assign, on the average, 
 some 250,000,000 out of the 550,000,000 Christians of 
 the world to the rule of the Vatican. 1 If this estimate 
 were even approximately correct, we should find the 
 utterances of the present head of the Roman Church 
 not a little perplexing. A few years ago Rome lost 
 the ablest pontiff it has had in modern times, and over 
 his remains the Catholic press chanted a psalm of 
 triumph for the progress that their Church had made 
 since the death of Pius IX. The successor of Leo 
 XIII., a simple, honest, courageous bishop, more 
 endowed with piety than diplomacy, then took up 
 his station at the Vatican observatory. Surveying 
 Italy and the Catholic world for the first time from 
 that peculiar eminence, and after his first consultations 
 with the chief officials of his Church, Pius X. broke 
 into a remarkable lamentation. Only in the dark 
 visions of Revelation could he find anything like the 
 
 1 Benham's Dictionary of Religions estimates the Roman Catholics 
 at 220,000,000. The same figure is given by a Dominican priest, 
 Pere Sertillanges. On the other hand a pseudo-statistical article in 
 The Strand Magazine (August 1906) gives the number as 353,000,000 
 — 100,000,000 more than the most zealous Catholic claims ! 
 The utter futility of all these "statistics" may be gathered from the 
 fact that they all assign 36,000,000 Catholics to France, where 
 there are certainly not more than 6,000,000.
 
 6 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 spectacle unrolled before him. Every movement of 
 his age betrayed to his saddened eyes the activity of 
 Antichrist. Such sombre passages as these occur on 
 every page of his first encyclical to the Catholic world : 
 
 "The present most afflicted condition of mankind 
 did exceedingly affright us. For who does not know 
 that now, more than in all past ages, the society of 
 men is stricken by a most grave and deep disease, 
 which, growing daily graver and eating it utterly 
 away, hurries it to ruin ? 
 
 "It must needs be that he who ponders on these 
 things will fear lest this perversity of men's minds 
 may be, as it were, a foretaste and a beginning of the 
 evils that are to be looked for in the last days." 
 
 Such profound dejection on the part of the man 
 who knows best the real strength or weakness of his 
 Church cannot be encouraging to our prophets ; and 
 we shall see, as we proceed, that this first lamentation 
 was only the prelude to a career of tragedy, as Pius X. 
 saw how his adoption of spiritual weapons, instead of 
 the carnal devices of his predecessors, only accelerated 
 the pace of the catastrophe. The main purpose of 
 this work is to discover the grounds of the Pope's 
 pessimism, and see if it be anything more than the 
 bursting of too inflated a hope. After minute and pro- 
 longed research in English, American, French, Italian, 
 Spanish, Dutch and German works and periodicals, 
 some personal acquaintance with Catholicism in 
 several countries and a correspondence with well- 
 placed observers in most countries, I am able to give 
 a fairly precise account of the present position of 
 Romanism, and to compare this with its position 
 about the middle of the last century. The result is 
 singularly interesting. One finds that instead of 
 having made considerable progress during that time, 
 it has lost nearly a third of its dominion. Moreover,
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 the process of decay has been increasingly accelerated 
 of late years, and the causes of it are of such a 
 character that there is no reasonable ground for a 
 hope of arresting them during the pontificate of 
 Pius X. The familiar figure of about 250,000,000 
 represents faithfully enough what the Roman Catholic 
 population of our planet ought to be (really 270,000,000) 
 if the Vatican had done no more than retain its fol- 
 lowers of eighty years ago, and their children. But 
 the figures and facts I have gleaned from the literature 
 of Europe and America show that at least 80,000,000 
 must be deducted from this total, if it is to express, 
 in any reasonable sense, the actual number of Roman 
 Catholics. This is indeed a moderate expression of 
 the Church's loss, and it was the discovery of this 
 appalling leakage from his Church during the brilliant 
 reign of his predecessor that wrung that simple cry 
 of distress from the uncalculating pontiff. Romanism 
 has entered upon a remarkable phase of disintegration. 
 This summary statement will be fully vindicated 
 in the course of the following inquiry. For the 
 moment I will give only a few of the larger indications 
 that may reconcile the reader to so sensational a 
 declaration. 
 
 It is usually thought that the Roman Church is 
 making progress at least in England and the United 
 States. That is quite easily shown to be not merely 
 untrue but singularly opposed to the truth. In the 
 relevant chapter we shall find American Catholics 
 complaining that there has been a loss of ten, fifteen 
 and even twenty millions in the States in the course 
 of the nineteenth century, and mainly in the second 
 half of the century. As to England, I published 
 some years ago in The National Review a careful 
 analysis of Roman Catholicism which made it clear 
 that there has been a leakage in this country of about
 
 8 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 2,000,000 during the half century. France, of course, 
 figures at the head of the list. If it be true — a point 
 we will discuss — that there are only some 4,000,000 
 sincere Catholics left in France, as Sabatier maintains, 
 and the political situation seems to imply, the loss 
 here since the Second Empire must be counted in 
 tens of millions. Several millions must be added to 
 the loss from Italy. North Italy is lost to the 
 Vatican, and Central Italy is throwing off its 
 allegiance. Spain and the Spanish peoples of South 
 America add several millions more to the list of 
 seceders ; and the leakage in Austria, Germany and 
 other countries will bring the total well beyond the 
 figure I have given. 
 
 But the numerical aspect of the result is not the 
 most important for the serious and disinterested 
 observer. The real strength of the Church is far 
 below what its shrunken arithmetical total would 
 suggest, however low a figure we may adopt. Time 
 after time we find that the Church is utterly unable 
 to carry its most cherished designs in countries where 
 even the corrected statistics seem to give it a pre- 
 ponderant strength. I need only mention the situa- 
 tion in Italy or Mexico or Austria. Catholic Italians 
 are now encouraged to vote, yet they have only 
 exhibited their pitiful weakness. Mexican and other 
 Spanish American Catholics show a similar impotence. 
 This and other circumstances warn us that the figures 
 we reach must be examined from a further point of 
 view. Their cultural value must be estimated. We 
 must see what is the proportion of children in them, 
 and what the proportion of those illiterate, or poorly 
 literate, masses whose creeds are little more deliberate 
 than those of children. I do not mean that we should 
 apply any high cultural test, as in that case the failures 
 would always work out at about eighty per cent., in
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 all religions and apart from them. But compare a 
 more or less educated and alert democracy with a 
 quite or nearly illiterate one. Contrast Piedmont 
 or Lombardy and Calabria : Prussia and Bavaria : 
 France and Spain. The result is very ominous for 
 the Church, and profoundly important for the social 
 prophet. It shows that fully eighty per cent, of the 
 actual supporters of the Vatican belong to the illiterate 
 masses of the population ; and we shall further 
 discover that, in proportion as education is given to 
 them, they tend to discard their allegiance to Rome. 
 When you go on to analyse the figures, where it is 
 possible, into men, women and children, you find 
 another weakness in Rome's 180,000,000 followers. 
 
 Further comment on the results of my inquiry must 
 be postponed until the conclusion, but I may at the 
 outset express a hope that the inquiry has been con- 
 ducted in the spirit of the historian or the social 
 observer. Rome is still one of the great spiritual 
 powers of the world, and any appreciation or forecast 
 of social forces that shakes off our insular limitations 
 must know it accurately. It has now shrunk far 
 below Protestantism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hindu- 
 ism or Mohammedanism, in regard to the number of 
 its followers, but it is the second great force in what 
 we vaguely call our Aryan world. Apart from com- 
 parison, indeed, its internal development is one of 
 very great interest. Romanism of the older type is 
 obviously doomed. How will it choose between its 
 proud attributes of immutability and immortality? 
 What is the real nature of the process that is enfeeb- 
 ling it, and how far is it likely to go ? These are high 
 questions, and they who would answer them must have 
 a very sure knowledge of Romanism to-day. Notic- 
 ing that people's estimates of its recent fortunes and 
 its present position are always vague, and generally
 
 10 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 contradictory, I have gathered together what indica- 
 tions can be found, and present them in this essay. 
 
 For convenience of arrangement I take the chief 
 branches of the Roman Church in three groups : the 
 churches of the Latin world, the English-speaking 
 world, and the Germanic world. This grouping, with 
 its vague allusion to philological divisions, does not 
 affect my conclusions in the least, and is only adopted 
 for the purpose of making a clear and orderly present- 
 ment of my material. It need, therefore, cause no 
 surprise if I do not adhere rigidly to it, or if the 
 ethnographer decline to sanction it.
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LATIN WORLD— FRANCE 
 
 HE distinction, if not antithesis, of Latin 
 and Teuton is a familiar one to the student 
 
 -*- of religious development in Europe, but I 
 employ it with a warning to the reader that he must 
 attach no psychic significance to it. I put Italy, 
 France, Spain and Spanish America together 
 because they are the lands one thinks of above all 
 as "Catholic countries," and have some bond of 
 language. Such a bond, however, is often found to 
 indicate an enforced and external unity, lightly link- 
 ing - races of the most diverse character. The Romans 
 engrafted their culture on very different stocks in 
 Italy, Gaul and the Iberian peninsula, and the later 
 immigrations of barbarians increased the distinctness 
 of the three races that we sometimes unite with such 
 facility. 
 
 From the point of view of this inquiry, however, 
 the grouping is convenient and natural. The re- 
 ligious history of Europe has somehow accentuated 
 the distinction between Latin and non- Latin peoples. 
 Poland and Ireland apart (for political reasons), the 
 civilised world of the sixteenth century fell into two 
 fairly clean halves after the earthquake shock of the 
 Reformation. One almost sees the old frontier of the 
 early Roman Empire standing out once more. The 
 appeals and menaces of the Reformers have little 
 power beyond that frontier to shake the allegiance to 
 the old capital of the Western Empire ; while to the 
 north of it the land is easily fired with rebellion against
 
 12 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the enervated Roman court. Here and there pro- 
 vinces wavered, but the counter- Reformation quickly 
 came to strengthen the instinctive feeling of loyalty 
 to Rome, the more natural master, and the Latin 
 peoples became the Catholic Church of modern 
 Europe. 
 
 For three centuries the maps of the Vatican have 
 coloured France, Italy and Spain with the blue of in- 
 corruptible fidelity. From them the missionary propa- 
 ganda could be energeticallypushed beyond the frontier. 
 There is, perhaps, no one feature that more impresses 
 the student with the power of the Roman organ- 
 isation than this never-wavering effort, through ten 
 generations, to recover the " lost provinces." Millions 
 of lives and incalculable devotion have been expended 
 in the struggle. But Rome's attitude in the meantime 
 toward the faithful Latin races is less edifying. In 
 Spain, behind the shelter of the Pyrenees, secure 
 in the general illiteracy of the people, the Church of 
 Rome has retained to our own day the open sale of 
 indulgences that inflamed the moral sense of northern 
 Europe four centuries ago. In Italy the Vatican has 
 smiled indulgently on the licence of priests and people, 
 fostered a most injurious system of mendicancy and 
 almsgiving, and kept the mass of the people in a state 
 of dense ignorance. In France, until the Revolution, 
 the higher clergy purchased the favour of the power- 
 ful by ignoring, or generously sharing, their scepticism, 
 their licence, and their feudal exactions, and enjoined 
 patience and ignorance on the mass of the people. 
 
 A day will come when historians will wonder how 
 the Vatican ever acquired a reputation for statesman- 
 ship. In the small, momentary ruses of diplomacy 
 it has usually been able to command the services of 
 skilful men, but its whole management of the Latin 
 races has been devoid of any large statesmanship. In
 
 FRANCE 13 
 
 spite of its imposing profession of a view that ranges 
 over eternal things, it has lived from decade to decade 
 like an Oriental, and has singularly failed in prevision. 
 Its belief for instance that the great Aufkldrung of 
 the eighteenth century was but a passing gleam, and 
 that it would never dawn on the mass of the people in 
 Italy and Spain, shows neither inspiration nor human 
 sagacity. At all events, few other rulers could have 
 any doubt about it to-day, yet the Vatican still acts 
 on the belief of Gregory XIII. The Pope of the 
 twentieth century rebukes intellectual advance with 
 peevish references to Antichrist, and meets the social 
 revolt of the workers with the old maxims of resigna- 
 tion to the poor and philanthropy to the rich. 
 
 It is hardly surprising to find that the reaction is 
 proceeding rapidly. France is more effectively lost 
 than Germany was in the sixteenth century. In Italy 
 rebellion is spreading along a line that, to the thought- 
 ful observer, threatens to go far ; it is following in the 
 wake of popular education. In Spain the more alert 
 and better-educated provinces are seething with anti- 
 clericalism, and the movement spreads in proportion 
 as schools are opened or improved. The circumstance 
 is not only in itself a grave indictment of the Roman 
 system, but, showing as it does an intellectual rather 
 than an emotional revolt, it gives more promise of 
 permanence. Jesuit intrigues and rhetorical appeals 
 are useless in face of such a movement. It is already 
 plain that the energy of the reaction is in proportion 
 to the length of time during which the Church held 
 the people with the narcotics of ignorance and social 
 apathy. 
 
 "Catholic countries" are disappearing from the 
 map of the world. That is the issue of the next four 
 chapters. 
 
 The first and most resolute of the Latin races to
 
 14. DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cast off its allegiance to Rome was France. Natural 
 as the rupture seems to us who look back on the 
 long preparation for it— on the disintegrating action 
 of the encyclopaedists, the dynamite of the Jacobins, 
 the politic reconstruction of Napoleon, and the folly 
 of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.— it was little ex- 
 pected in France half-a-century ago. Wayward 
 and petulant as she had always been, the "eldest 
 daughter of the Church " seemed to have returned to 
 a docile temper. French troops guarded Rome against 
 the faithless Italians. French missionaries were the 
 glory and the hope of the Propaganda. French offer- 
 ings filled most of the caisse at the Vatican. French 
 bishops carried the doctrine of papal infallibility. 
 France seemed more likely to remain Roman than 
 Italy. Yet in the course of a single generation the 
 Church of France has fallen. "It is disappearing 
 day by day," says a French bishop. "We are re- 
 duced to an insignificant minority," says a prominent 
 abbe. 
 
 How this dramatic fall has come about, and how 
 far it is a real, and not an apparent, transfer of 
 allegiance, is the first point of inquiry. No one, 
 I think, questions the shrinkage of the French 
 Church. 1 
 
 Its complete political impotence is too obvious 
 to admit a doubt of its decay. But it is important 
 to make clear what were the proportions regained by 
 the Church under Napoleon III., and to what actual 
 proportions it has shrunk in our time. 
 
 Some of the most recent authorities that one would 
 
 1 The Catholic Month (March 1908, p. 230) says: "It is absurd 
 to imagine that the present Government in France has to deal with 
 a majority, or even a well-organised and substantial minority, of 
 practical Catholics. The bulk of the people simply do not care 
 about religion."
 
 FRANCE 15 
 
 be disposed to consult on the condition of Catholicism 
 in France assign, in the conventional way, 36,000,000 
 out of the 38,000,000 (now 39,250,000) inhabitants 
 of the country to the Vatican. Thus Dr Jurashek, in 
 one of the finest statistical works of recent years 
 ("Die Staaten Europas"), and the last edition of the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica (which makes additional 
 confusion by describing the remaining 2,000,000 as 
 Protestants, whereas the Protestants number only 
 700,000). How grave authorities come to endorse 
 such ludicrous statements is one of the mysteries of 
 "religious statistics." So long as thirty years ago, 
 at the last religious census, one-sixth of the population 
 of France refused to describe themselves as Catholics, 
 and the increasing weakness of the Catholics at every 
 election since that time makes it obvious that the 
 number of seceders has enormously increased. 
 
 The serious student of French history is quite 
 prepared to hear of the decay of Romanism in the 
 country. In spite of a remarkable series of changes 
 in its fortunes, as it rose or fell on the great waves 
 of French political life, the Church has steadily 
 declined, since the days of Voltaire. It would be 
 difficult to say how low it really fell during the great 
 Revolution. The revolt was so predominantly social, 
 and the conduct of the higher clergy and the monks 
 had been so flagrantly anti-social, that millions might 
 show a bitter anticlericalism, yet retain their faith. 
 Taine affirms that even in the sombre days of 1793 
 the bulk of the workers of Paris were Roman Catholics. 
 We need not linger over the point. Whatever the 
 loss may have been, Napoleon's reinstatement of the 
 Church and rich endowment of the clergy made France 
 a Catholic country once more. The ignorant masses 
 returned to their cure's, and the follower of Voltaire or 
 Diderot found a less congenial world than he had
 
 K> DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 done under Louis XVI. The restoration of the 
 Bourbons completed the recovery of the Church. 
 Free thought had caused the Revolution, men said, 
 and it must be rigorously suppressed. The dainty 
 noble hastened to lock it up in his heart, and to join 
 with the clergy in a fierce and penetrating inquisition. 
 The Voltairean has not, as a rule, the stuff of martyrs 
 in him, and he almost ceased to propagate his opinions. 
 He did indeed nurse, in secret, an angrier flame of 
 revolt than ever, as he shrank under the brutalities of 
 the "white terror" ; but the prevailing tone was such 
 at Paris, so late as 1838, that Talleyrand and others 
 had to submit to the rites of the Church in order to 
 secure decorous funerals. 
 
 In 1830 we find Lamennais claiming that there are 
 25,000,000 Catholics in France. Probably the figure 
 is exaggerated, as the Church was then entering upon 
 one of its recessionary periods. Fifteen years of folly 
 and abuse of power had ended in the July Revolution, 
 which naturally initiated a fresh outburst of anticleri- 
 calism. But the Church was saved, largely in despite 
 of itself and of the Vatican, by the brilliant group of 
 writers who waged in its service, under the reign of 
 Louis Philippe, one of the finest and most successful 
 crusades it has ever witnessed. Veuillot says that to 
 see a young man enter a church at Paris in the thirties 
 made much the same impression as the entrance of a 
 Mohammedan would have done. By the forties the 
 tide had turned. "Are we assisting at the funeral of 
 a great cult?" an official had asked in 1830. Ten 
 years later the same official observed that Catholicism 
 seemed to be entering upon a period of prosperity 
 equal to that it enjoyed in the thirteenth century. 
 The struggle between the Voltairean and the preacher 
 was essentially one of rhetoric, and the preacher won. 
 In 1843 the clericals had "only one real friend in the
 
 FRANCE 17 
 
 Chambre" 1 ; after the elections of 1846 they had 
 146, and they were equally successful in 1848. 
 Napoleon's rival in 1849 was making a great effort 
 to secure the support of the clericals, and the ex- 
 Carbonaro was forced to favour them. They con- 
 tinued to make progress throughout the Second 
 Empire, though Napoleon's Italian policy injured 
 them. While they complained that he let the Pied- 
 montese overrun Italy, his defence of Rome gave 
 an impetus to anticlericalism. 
 
 The Revolution of 1870 offered only a momentary 
 check to the advance of the Church, for the ghastly 
 struggle of 1 87 1 now prompted many Liberals to 
 regard it as an ally in the repression of Jacobinism. 
 Following the example of Thiers, says Anatole France, 
 the younger bourgeois were for pacific co-operation 
 with the clergy ; though the revolt was now spreading 
 rapidly amongst the workers and the peasantry. We 
 shall have frequent occasion to deplore the extra- 
 ordinary errors of statesmanship that mark the history 
 of Rome in the second half of the nineteenth century, 
 but few have been more fatal to it than the great 
 blunder of its attitude towards the third Republic. 
 At that time (Mr Bodley rightly observes in his 
 " Church in France ") the Church was in a much better 
 position than it had been for many decades ; and the 
 middle-class Liberals were prepared to act with it, 
 in view of the rising menace of the proletariate. The 
 Chambre formed after the elections of 1871 was the 
 most Catholic that France ever had in the nineteenth 
 century. More than 500 deputies sat on the Right, 
 and only about half that number on the Left. At the 
 
 1 " L'Eglise de France et L'Etat," by the Abbe Bourgain. I follow 
 this zealous Catholic writer almost entirely from 1830 to 1880, so 
 that the reader may not suspect me of exaggerating the Church's 
 recovery in order to exaggerate its present fate. 
 
 B
 
 18 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 census of 1871 only 85,022 of the population described 
 themselves as of no religion, and 580,750 as Pro- 
 testants. No doubt, such figures must be regarded 
 with great discretion. We shall have frequent 
 occasion to distrust or reject census declarations of 
 relieion. But the whole of the available indications 
 point to the preponderance of Catholicism in the 
 country. Privileges were accorded to the Vatican 
 that had been withheld in the reign of the fanatical 
 Charles X. The papal nuncio was consulted in the 
 nomination of bishops, and the Vatican appointed 
 them almost as it pleased. Mgr. Dupanloup was all- 
 powerful at Paris. The Chambre voted prayers to be 
 said in all the churches in France, and declared the 
 project of building a church on Montmartre to be "of 
 public utility." An extraordinary series of measures 
 favouring the clergy was passed between 1871 and 
 
 1875. Bishops were put on the Conseil Superieur 
 de l'instruction publique, and priests on the commit- 
 tees of public assistance. Sabatier cannot be far from 
 the truth when he says that the Catholics numbered 
 30,000,000 out of 36,000,000 at that time. Even in 
 
 1876, the last year when the religious qualification 
 was inserted in the census paper, 29,000,000 described 
 themselves as Roman Catholics, and in the circum- 
 stances the figures have a weight that no one attaches 
 to such declarations in modern Spain or Italy for 
 instance. 
 
 The country was overwhelmingly Catholic in the 
 early seventies. The statistics of the religious con- 
 gregations will, perhaps, serve best to illustrate this. 
 I will deal more fully with these bodies presently, 
 but may here note their growth as a symptom of the 
 strength of Catholicism in the sixties and seventies. 
 Many of these monastic and semi-monastic bodies were 
 permanently illegal in France throughout the nine-
 
 FRANCE 19 
 
 teenth century. Jesuits, of course, crept easily enough 
 through the bars of Napoleon's Concordat. In the 
 reign of Charles X. a zealous, astute, intriguing body 
 spread throughout the kingdom under the name of 
 the " Peccaminaristes." Every child knew that they 
 were the followers of St Ignatius. But the other un- 
 authorised bodies had been less bold. They had only 
 14,000 members in France in 1877. By the end of 
 the century they had increased to 75,000, besides 
 "authorised" monks and nuns. In the fifties their 
 property was valued at 50,000,000 francs: by 1880 
 the value had grown — on a moderate estimate — to 
 700,000,000 francs. This does not mean that 
 Catholicism increased after 1870, but it does show 
 the solidity and generality of the religious sentiment 
 on which they throve. 
 
 However, I do not know of any writer who would 
 challenge the statement that in the early seventies 
 the Catholics numbered at least 30,000,000 out of 
 36,000,000. We have thus one of the terms of 
 comparison. The next point is to show that to-day 
 they are certainly not more than 6,000,000 out of 
 39,000,000. To establish this I rely almost entirely 
 upon the words of the French clergy themselves — 
 which alone would suffice — or of writers who regard 
 this appalling loss with concern, and are not likely 
 to exaggerate it. Laborious proof may not seem 
 necessary to some, as the expulsion of the religious 
 congregations and the disestablishment of the Church 
 are so fresh in the memory. A vast change has 
 obviously taken place from the days when (in 1871) 
 the deputies of the Right were twice as numerous as 
 those of the Left, and legislated freely for the bishops. 
 To-day, though allying themselves with political 
 groups (Antisemites, Monarchists, Nationalists, etc.), 
 that are often not peculiarly Catholic, the faithful in
 
 20 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 France have been utterly unable to arrest the most 
 deadly blow that has been aimed at their Church since 
 1790. At a time when every man with a spark of 
 real faith in him was urged to vote against the ruling 
 power, when the strangest of comrades were welcomed 
 if they would but help to overthrow Combism, we 
 must assume that the whole force of Catholicism was 
 mustered ; and there was never a moment's doubt as 
 to the issue. They only proved themselves to be a 
 negligible minority of the electorate. The nation 
 was shown to be overwhelmingly non-Catholic. With 
 a generosity that contrasts finely with the use that 
 Catholics had made of power whenever they recovered 
 it, the new France calmly broke the links that had 
 bound it to Rome for the greater part of its history. 
 So tiny were the flamelets of rebellion that followed 
 this, one of the heaviest blows inflicted on Rome since 
 the Reformation, that the French authorities genially 
 sent their pompiers to extinguish them. 
 
 But the Church in France had meddled with political 
 matters, and a captious apologist might suggest that 
 French Catholics voted according to their civic rather 
 than their religious sense, in spite of ecclesiastical 
 orders and the dire peril of their faith. In any case, it 
 will be interesting to run over the many positive in- 
 dications that are found of the extraordinary weakness to 
 which the Church has been reduced. One cannot read 
 without a movement of pathos as well as amusement 
 the successive declarations of the French clergy during 
 the last three decades. During the eighties they are 
 full of hope and energy. Their attempts to foist 
 a foolish " Henri V." on the country, or to embroil 
 France with Italy over the Pope's temporal power, 
 have led to a strong anticlerical movement, and 
 Gambetta's "Voila l'ennemi!" has sonorous echoes. 
 The proclerical majority in the Chambre sinks to a
 
 FRANCE 21 
 
 minority in 18S1. In ten years their parliamentary 
 friends have sunk from 500 to 80. But they are still 
 buoyant, and fight with redoubled energy. Secular 
 education, civil marriage, divorce and other "products 
 of the pit" are passed in the Chambre. In 1885 
 (when the elections have a complication of Chinese 
 trouble) the Catholics return 204 members to their 
 opponents' 380, and the anticlerical measures continue. 
 In 1889 they blunder again — into the adoption of 
 Boulanger — and the Right rises to 211 members 
 (against 364). In three months Boulanger is flying 
 across the frontier, and they sink down the last slope. 
 In 1893 they return thirty-five rallies and fifty-eight 
 Conservatives. There is "a violent crisis," the Abbe 
 de Broglie says ; and another clerical writer, Dr Iilie 
 Meric, admits that " the people have for the moment 
 lost in some districts the serene docility of faith." In 
 1892 Leo XIII. had tardily advised them to support 
 the Republic — "There is the only corpse the Church 
 is wedded to," he is reported to have said, pointing to 
 the crucifix — and this is all they gain. They fight on 
 and blunder on — into the Dreyfus affair (1897) — an d 
 a chill of despair comes over Catholic writers, as the 
 century draws to a close, and Waldeck- Rousseau 
 opens the last act. 
 
 " After thirty years," says the Abbe Naudet (" Pour- 
 quoi les Catholiques ont perdu la bataille "), "the 
 Catholics of France have lost everything but their 
 money." Two years later they will complain that 
 they have lost that. " The faith of Christian France 
 is disappearing day by day," says Mgr. Turinaz 
 (" Les perils de la Foi "). The clergy have fought the 
 great battle since 1870 with supreme devotion. They 
 have contested every inch of ground in the secularisa- 
 tion of the Republic. They have often, in spite of 
 their better judgment, obeyed implicitly every order
 
 22 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 from the Vatican. And they have suffered the most 
 signal defeat that was ever inflicted on a French 
 army. 
 
 That their political fortunes faithfully reflect the 
 rapid decay of their Church will be quite apparent 
 from the authorities I will now quote, which put the 
 position of the French Church beyond cavil. In the 
 year 1894 Taine made the first conscientious attempt 
 to estimate the decay of Catholicism in France. A 
 more admirable authority on the subject could hardly 
 be discovered than this profound social student, the 
 historian of France in the nineteenth century, the 
 Positivist who regarded the decay of faith with genuine 
 concern. 1 He collected, as far as possible from Catholic 
 sources, a large number of statistics and facts bearing 
 on the condition of Catholicism. He was compelled 
 to come to the conclusion — he came to it with great 
 regret — that there were only between 7,000,000 and 
 8,000,000 Catholics left in France, and that, of the 
 adult Catholics, there were four women to one man. 
 "The workman," he said, "has shaken off the obliga- 
 tions of the Church, and the peasant is shaking them 
 
 off" (p. 147)- 
 
 To follow Taine's researches in detail — and indeed 
 all that follow in this essay — one must remember that 
 the tests of Catholicism are more easily applied than 
 the tests of membership of a Protestant Church. The 
 Protestant may be absent from service three Sundays 
 out of four, and from communion for many years, 
 without our needing to refuse him membership of his 
 Church. With the Catholic it is entirely different. 
 
 To omit mass on one Sunday, without grave excuse, 
 
 1 The results of his investigation are given in his " Origines de la 
 France contemporaine," vol. vi. Throughout the present work all 
 quotations from books of which the title is foreign have been 
 translated directly and literally by myself.
 
 FRANCE 23 
 
 or communion at one Eastertide, is a mortal sin, 
 entailing eternal damnation. To this terrible dogma 
 the Church is absolutely pledged. No man who really 
 subscribes to the teaching of Catholicism can habitu- 
 ally neglect the Sunday mass, or the Easter com- 
 munion ; or, at least, only a very vicious minority can 
 do so. The number of Catholics who attend mass 
 on Sunday (with a proportional allowance for very 
 young children and the ailing) is the real number of 
 Catholics in any town or country ; and it is the same 
 with the "Easter duty" — the communion that must 
 be received about Easter. Except in certain parts of 
 Catholic countries, where the clergy are too timid to 
 insist on the law, and connive at wholesale absten- 
 tion from mass, those who call themselves Catholic 
 and evade these duties are few in number and are 
 not entitled to the name. This must be kept clearly 
 in mind throughout our inquiry. 
 
 As far as Paris was concerned, Taine was assured by 
 a Catholic prelate that only 100,000 of the 2,000,000 
 inhabitants make their Pdques, or receive the Sacra- 
 ment at Easter ; and of these four out of every five 
 were women. In other words, of the whole population 
 of Paris over ten years of age (the age when the 
 practice of communicating usually begins) only one 
 female in twelve, and one male in fifty, observed this 
 decisive command of the Church. No doubt, a larger 
 number attended mass on Sundays, though Mgr. 
 Turinaz (" Perils de la Foi ") found the number extra- 
 ordinarily low ; and no doubt many were still vaguely 
 Catholic, yet did not even attend mass; but these 
 figures of the Easter communion are generally re- 
 garded by the clergy as most conclusive. Paris, like 
 most large Catholic cities, has long borne its religion 
 lightly, and allowed momentary political gusts to chill 
 it, to say nothing of other disturbances. Some years
 
 24 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 ago I attended high mass at the Madeleine, and saw 
 a Frenchman leave the church (and presumably forfeit 
 mass, and incur damnation) because an extra sou was 
 demanded of him for the use of a chair in the nave. 
 But when all allowance for temperament and tradition 
 has been made, when the figures have been propor- 
 tionately augmented by the sick and the young, it 
 remains true that barely a tenth of the Parisians were 
 Catholic in 1894. Three-fourths of its children were 
 still baptised, and three-fourths of its marriages and 
 burials were still of a religious nature ; but such cere- 
 monies have too festive and social a character to 
 outweigh the grave tests of the Sunday mass and 
 Easter communion. And the proportion shrinks 
 every decade. For the rest of France, Taine found 
 that only one woman in four and one man in twelve 
 gave practical indication of belonging to the Church of 
 Rome. " In many villages the high mass on Sundays 
 is attended only by women, and those often few in 
 number, one or two troops of children, and a few old 
 men," he says. It was not merely the workers of the 
 large towns who had left the Church. At the large 
 village of Bourron only 94 out of 1200 inhabitants 
 made the Easter communion ; in 1789 the proportion 
 of communicants in that village had been returned as 
 300 out of 600. In fine, Taine's inquiries amongst his 
 Catholic friends yielded the general result that, of 
 the adult population (or, rather, the population over 
 the age often) of France about 5,250,000 fulfilled the 
 duty which the Church imposes as a solemn condition 
 of membership. About one-sixth of the population of 
 France being under ten, we may add 1,000,000 or 
 slightly more children, and we have the total number 
 of real Catholics in 1894 as about 7,000,000. 
 
 I have taken next the clerical criticisms of Taine 
 that I could discover, and other clerical pronounce-
 
 FRANCE 25 
 
 ments on the subject. The Abbe" de Broglie set out 
 to oppose him, but he brought no different statistics. 
 He merely objects that the figures "seem to be 
 exaggerated," and that he will not accept them. But 
 he incidentally confesses that there is a "violent 
 crisis," and a "real danger." In many places in the 
 provinces there are no more pratiquants than at Paris, 
 he says, and the women are beginning to desert the 
 Church. Amongst the workers there is a nucleus of 
 "Catholic Socialists," which is "small in number but 
 solid " ; the rest of the workers have " passed from 
 indifference to hostility " ; even in the rural districts 
 the number of "fervent Catholics" is small. He 
 reconciles himself to the situation on the ground that 
 the efforts of their opponents have drawn off only the 
 large body of merely conventional Catholics and left 
 the "solid core." We shall see presently something 
 of the solidity of the core. 
 
 Dr £lie Meric (" Le clerge" et les temps nouveaux ") 
 wrote before Taine, in 1892, with the obvious aim of 
 soothing the Catholic laity under the stress of their 
 situation. There is no actual decadence in France, 
 he says, but "owing to the frantic efforts of the 
 sophists the people have lost for a moment, in certain 
 districts, the serene docility of faith" (p. 52). He 
 offers consolatory thoughts to the faithful. The first 
 is that, whereas the religious houses in France in the 
 eighteenth century were — he quotes the words of 
 a French bishop to the king (p. 509) — "the resort of 
 infamous brothel-frequenters," they have now, in 1892, 
 160,000 strict inmates of convents and monasteries in 
 the country. That consolation did not long survive. 
 His second point is that the Church has gained in 
 other lands far more than it has lost in France. This 
 is the favourite retreat of the French Catholic writer. 
 £. de Vogue, G. Fonsegrive and Pere Sertillanges
 
 26 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 make the same point, while admitting the heavy loss 
 in France. Me>ic says that the Catholic population 
 of England has risen from 120,000 to 1,700,000 in 
 the course of the nineteenth century. We shall see 
 that in England the Church has really lost in that time 
 about 2,000,000 followers. Pere Sertillanges says 
 that more than 20,000,000 have been added to the 
 Church in America in the nineteenth century. We 
 shall see that that is more nearly the measure of its 
 loss there. These writers cleverly conceal what is 
 due to large movements of population ; and then 
 describe their opponents as "sophists." 
 
 A more candid and more recent (1897) French 
 clerical writer on the subject is the Abbe Dessaine, 
 in his " Le Clerge Francois au vingtieme siecle." 
 His chapters made their first appearance in the Catholic 
 periodical Le Peuple Frangais, and his book is ap- 
 proved by the Bishop of Laval. M. Dessaine is 
 frank. Taine's figures, he says, were too flattering 
 to the Church ; or at least its condition is worse in 
 1897. "Ecclesiastical vocations diminish from year 
 to year in frightful proportions, and nearly all the 
 bishops raise a cry of alarm " (p. 7). There have 
 been heroic efforts made to save France, but "the 
 results are in heartrending disproportion to the efforts 
 made" (p. 16). If by Catholics one means those who 
 practise the Catholic religion they are in "an almost 
 insignificant minority " {tine minorite" presque infime, 
 p. 17). The Church has been sinking for a quarter 
 of a century. " The total of baptised Frenchmen 
 who are absolute strangers to any practice of religion, 
 indifferent to every religious question, except when 
 there is question of a scandal or some other trouble, 
 would be stupefying" (p. 17). There has been an 
 " incredible loss of faith " in the provinces that were 
 once noted for their religion — provinces that are far
 
 FRANCE 27 
 
 removed from the centres of irreligion and are well 
 provided with clergy, such as Brittany. " The women 
 are nearly as bad as the men." In a "Catholic" 
 district with 2300 inhabitants he found that only 
 200 went to church on Sundays. "In the large towns 
 the proportion is still sadder." He was himself cure 
 of an urban parish with 21,000 inhabitants. Of these 
 less than 1200 went to mass on Sundays. In a town 
 that was regarded by its clergy as "one of the best in 
 France" he found that not 100 men entered the 
 chapel on Sundays in a parish of 5000 souls that he 
 knew well. The very name of priest "excites rage 
 and ridicule everywhere." Finally, in 1897, the 
 Catholic schools still stood side by side with the 
 secular schools. But, while there were 2,271,000 
 boys in the "godless" schools of the Republic, there 
 were only 409,000 boys in the religious schools. 
 
 And these terrible and pathetic confessions are 
 true. Since that time the stalwart Bishop of Nantes, 
 Mgr. Turinaz, has added to the "cry of alarm" with 
 his little brochure " Les perils de la Foi." " The faith 
 of Christian France is disappearing day by day " is 
 his summary conclusion. An article by a Catholic 
 writer in La Revue (January 1902) confirms the 
 estimate. Mr Bodley ("The Church in France," 1906) 
 does not attempt to express the numerical strength of 
 the Catholics in the country, but he points to many 
 indications of their weakness. The trouble about 
 M. Loisy, and even about the disestablishment of the 
 Church, aroused, he says, far less interest in France 
 than out of it. The Catholics, he insists, began the 
 third Republic in a better position than they had 
 had under the second, but "identified themselves with 
 the most inept political party that ever irretrievably 
 wrecked a powerful cause " (p. 51). He notices that 
 the province of Burgundy has for many years returned
 
 28 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 only one Catholic to the Chambre amongst its 
 twenty-seven deputies ; and this one, M. Schneider, 
 is regarded mainly as a large and philanthropic 
 employer of labour. 
 
 So far I have quoted only Catholic or pro-Catholic 
 writers, but there are points of interest in works by 
 the anticlericals Yves Guyot and Anatole France 
 that deserve consideration. Guyot, in particular, 
 whose " Bilan social et politique de l'Eglise " contains 
 a large amount of statistical information, has some 
 authoritative pages on the religious life of Paris. A 
 recent Catholic writer, M. de Flaix (" La statistique des 
 religions a la fin du XXme siecle "), boldly describes 
 Paris as "thegreatest focus of religion on the earth," and 
 Lucien Arr£at (" Le sentiment religieux en France") 
 informs his Catholic readers that so late as 1897 they 
 were ninety-eight per cent, of the population. One 
 wonders what religious writers really hope to gain by 
 such statements. In 1901 M. Guyot made an inquiry 
 into the church accommodation of Paris, and a very 
 generous calculation of its churchgoers. Paris had 
 then seventy-one parish churches, and a population 
 of 2,714,000: one church to 28,225 inhabitants! The 
 eleventh arrondissement had 239,149 inhabitants and 
 three parish churches, with seating accommodation 
 for 3300 collectively. If we allow twelve masses to 
 each church on a Sunday morning, and assume that, 
 on the average, the churches are three-quarters full, it 
 would still be true that only a little more than ten in 
 a hundred of the inhabitants went to church. In 
 point of fact M. Guyot found only 950 (of whom only 
 eighty-nine were adult males) assisting at high mass 
 in the three churches together on 25th August 1901. 
 Allowing 300 for each low mass (an exorbitant allow- 
 ance), he finds that, at the most, only one in forty- 
 three of the inhabitants (and these are for the vast
 
 FRANCE 29 
 
 majority women and children) of the eleventh ar- 
 rondissement at Paris is a practising Catholic. 1 
 
 As to the provinces, he quotes the Abbe Crestey 
 ("L'esprit nouveau "), saying that in many parishes only 
 three attend mass — the priest, the server and the 
 sacristan (p. 33), "in half the country parishes, at 
 most, one quarter of the peasants go to church 
 regularly " (p. 37), and "of 36,000,000 Catholics we 
 must strike off 25,000,000," and of the remaining 
 11,000,000 to whom he would allow the name, a 
 very large proportion do not practise (p. 36). 
 
 Anatole France (" Leglise et la Republique") gives 
 a few indications of the state of religion in the provinces. 
 He quotes from Jules Delafosse (a deputy of the 
 Right), a description of a part of Limousin, where 
 neither men, women nor children go to mass (p. 104). 
 They are all baptised, and show no hostility to the 
 Church ; but they seem to listen with quaint placidity 
 to its command to go to mass every Sunday under 
 pain of eternal damnation. It is not for us to object 
 if the Church numbers them amongst her children. 
 M. Anatole France also quotes a Catholic journal Le 
 Briard, which made a careful inquiry into the subject. 
 It found that of the 216,000 inhabitants of La Brie, 
 a rural Catholic province, there were only 50,200 
 practising Catholics. 
 
 A more satisfactory knowledge of religious life in 
 the provinces may be obtained from an article by 
 Leonce Hays in the Revue Catholique des Eglises 
 (July 1907). Here the life of a whole department, and 
 by no means one of the more advanced, is minutely 
 
 1 He notices the fact that at Paris civil funerals are still only 
 twenty-three (now twenty-five) per cent, of the whole. This merely 
 reminds one of festive and ceremony-loving Japan, where a man 
 is always ushered into the world by Shinto priests and out of it by 
 Buddhists. We must rely on the graver tests.
 
 30 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 analysed by a Catholic writer. The diocese of 
 Angouleme, which he studies, is coextensive with the 
 department of Charente, with a population of 351,000. 
 So remote is it from Parisian life that as late as 1898 
 five of its six deputies were Bonapartist. It has 340 
 acting priests, but "celebrating his mass every 
 morning in a quite empty church, not administering 
 the sacraments sometimes for months at a stretch, 
 and finding only a moderate amount of religion in the 
 small section of his people who do their Easter duty 
 and hear mass on Sundays, the priest of Charente 
 needs a great deal of energy to maintain his activity 
 and his fervour" (p. 398). In one parish of 500 souls 
 only fifteen to twenty go to mass regularly on Sunday, 
 or to communion at Easter ; many of the others hear 
 mass occasionally, and a large number twice a year. 
 Most of them have their children baptised, and have 
 religious marriages and funerals, but " from mere 
 custom." This parish is "above the average, rather 
 than an exception, in the diocese." In many parishes 
 the only males to attend mass are "the sacristan, 
 one or two old men, and a few children." Vespers 
 are attended by only four or five, sometimes fewer, 
 persons in many parishes. Most of the peasants work 
 on Sunday morning (which is equally forbidden by 
 the Church under pain of eternal damnation). The 
 only district which affords precise figures of Easter 
 communions claims 1290 out of 9150 inhabitants. A 
 few districts are slightly better, but most are much 
 worse than this. In a parish of 400 souls no one 
 made an Easter communion in 1904. A parish of 
 1600 had thirteen Easter communicants, including 
 one male. 1 M. Hays concludes that only 5 per cent, 
 of the males over twelve, and 25 per cent, of the girls 
 
 1 The one man who figures in so many parochial lists is, of course, 
 the paid sacristan.
 
 FRANCE 31 
 
 and women, fulfil this very grave obligation of the 
 Catholic Church in the whole department ; and the 
 number decreases of late years. As to those who do 
 go to communion, " it seems that their faith is not 
 very ardent." When a curd was about to administer 
 the sacrament to a dying paysanne, he asked if she 
 believed in the Real Presence. " Ni zou cr£ ni zou 
 decr6" (I neither believe nor disbelieve it), she 
 answered. The whole department, almost, is in a 
 condition of blank religious indifference, and it is at 
 least an average department of France in regard to 
 religious practices. It differs from most of the other 
 departments only in the fact that it scarcely shared 
 the Catholic revival in the middle of the century. In 
 its actual proportion of practising Catholics, and its 
 sorry exhibition of the character of the few millions 
 that remain "faithful," it is typical. It is a complete 
 error to speak of a " solid core " remaining after the 
 Church's losses. 
 
 In conclusion I turn again to a pro-Catholic writer 
 who gives a general estimate of the strength of 
 Catholicism in France — Paul Sabatier, in his " Lettre 
 ouverte a S. E. le Cardinal Gibbons" (1907). The 
 American prelate had used language of great violence 
 in regard to the " tyranny " of the French Government, 
 and had trusted that the French nation would rise 
 against it. Sabatier, one of those cosmopolitan 
 Protestants who have even affection for the Church 
 of Rome, and watch its losses with regret, made a 
 rejoinder that gently exposed the extraordinary ignor- 
 ance of the situation on the part of American — and, 
 we may add, English — Roman Catholics. The action 
 of the French Government he described as wholly just 
 and proper in substance, and humane, if not generous, 
 in form. And to justify the reoccupation of ecclesi- 
 astical property by the Government (when the Pope
 
 IV2 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 had forbidden the French Catholics to form the as- 
 sociations to receive it that they were generally willing 
 to form), he wrote this interesting paragraph, which I 
 translate literally : 
 
 "As long as the Church was a public service, it 
 was endowed, like all the other public services of the 
 country ; if, as we are assured by the men who speak 
 with authority on this point, the number of French 
 Catholics is now not more than three or four millions, 
 it is perfectly just that the endowments the Church 
 had when she had ten times that number of followers 
 should return to the State" (p. 21). 
 
 Here, from the pen of a writer more deeply sympa- 
 thetic to Catholicism than any other man who does 
 not actually share it, a writer in close touch with the 
 Catholics and of great authority on religious questions, 
 we have a terrible statement of loss sustained. Sabatier 
 confirms my estimate that earlier in the century the 
 Catholics numbered 30,000,000 at least ; he goes 
 far below my estimate of their actual strength. He 
 attributes to them a loss of 27,000,000 souls. On 
 the most generous calculation possible, he cannot 
 be more than 2,000,000 out. That leaves an in- 
 disputable loss of 25,000,000 for the latter half of the 
 century. 1 
 
 No wonder that, scarce as vocations are, the priests 
 are abandoning the Church for lay employment in 
 large numbers. In one recent year (1901) 348 priests 
 seceded from the Church, as Professor Frommel wrote 
 in The Exa??iiner. In October 1907 these seceding 
 
 1 Through a London clergyman in touch with the Parisian clergy 
 I learn that they claim there were 5,000,000 Easter communions 
 in France in 1907. The number, no doubt, has been generously 
 rounded. But, even as it is, it would mean a Catholic population 
 of only about 6,000,000. The Protestant bodies number about 
 500,000 followers. The population is 39,252,267 (in 1906).
 
 FRANCE 33 
 
 priests found themselves strong enough to establish 
 a monthly journal, L'Exode, " organe du mouvement : 
 Hors de Rome," which gives interesting details of the 
 disruption of the greatest body of clergy the Roman 
 Church ever possessed. 
 
 In the case of France, then, we can make a fairly 
 precise determination of the fortunes of the Church 
 of Rome. Within half-a-century it has fallen from the 
 position of a Church of 30,000,000 in a population 
 of 36,000,000 to a shrunken body of (at the most) 
 6,000,000 in a population of 39,000,000. It is, of 
 course, a mere popular fallacy that the population of 
 France is stationary. It has steadily though slowly 
 increased, while the number of the faithful has rapidly 
 decreased. In conclusion we may find it instructive 
 to glance at the causes of the shrinkage, and to see 
 if the remaining body does really constitute the "solid 
 core " that it is represented to do. 
 
 In view of the fluctuations of religious life in France 
 it is especially desirable to notice the causes of the 
 present decay. Is France once more merely lying in 
 the valley between two great waves of religious suc- 
 cess? Is the fourth revolution to be as temporary in 
 effect as the first three ? No ; the careful reader of 
 French history will perceive much surer indications of 
 permanence in the present attitude of France toward 
 the Roman Church. It is no longer the expression of 
 a mere superficial Voltaireanism or a passing political 
 resentment. The revolution has been singularly free 
 from what foreigners are pleased to regard as French 
 levity of character or explosiveness of sentiment. It 
 has been a cold, judicious, slow and temperate dis- 
 missal of the Church from the life of the majority of 
 the nation. Even those social students, like Bodley 
 or Sabatier, who regard that dismissal with concern, 
 describe it as just and inevitable. In mind and heart 
 e
 
 34 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the nation has definitely turned away from Rome ; 
 and the fault is largely Rome's. 
 
 In all the countries that we are going to consider 
 the chief and general cause of the decay of Romanism 
 is the spread of culture. It is in the darker provinces 
 of the world that loyalty to the Vatican remains 
 strongest, in the completely illiterate districts of Spain 
 and southern Italy, in the south and west of Ireland, 
 the valleys of Bavaria, the remoter tracts of Canada, 
 in South America, and so on. The moment these 
 provinces are lit with some real dawn of culture — the 
 moment, not only what is called elementary education, 
 but real freedom to read, impulse to read, and modern 
 books to read, are granted — the loyalty begins to 
 wane. It is found that the familiar dogmas lie outside 
 the world of serious intellectual occupation : that you 
 can count on your fingers the men of great distinction 
 in history, science or philosophy who even nominally 
 respect Catholic doctrines like transubstantiation or 
 infallibility. The people are assured that these intel- 
 lectual leaders are too proud to submit, and so forth, 
 but their sound sense resents the threadbare device. 
 The enlightened world has travelled beyond the 
 Middle Ages. The awakening masses will follow 
 them. 
 
 This is the broad interpretation of the decay of 
 Catholicism in all lands, but there are special causes 
 or conditions in each country. In France the chief of 
 these were, probably, the life of the conventual com- 
 munities, the interference of the clergy in politics and 
 the despotism of the papacy. I have quoted a French 
 priest who, amidst the losses of his Church, found 
 consolation in the fact that 160,000 monks and nuns 
 found sustenance still in France. He seems to have 
 had no suspicion that here was precisely one of the 
 grievances of the French laity ; but three years later
 
 FRANCE 35 
 
 Waldeck- Rousseau opened the historic debates con- 
 cerning them. It was found by the Government that 
 the religious congregations had accumulated enormous 
 wealth in the course of half-a-century. At the begin- 
 ning of the Second Empire their property was valued 
 at 50,000,000 francs : by the end of the century it had 
 attained the value of 1,000,000,000 francs. 1 
 
 Besides this huge capital locked up in mortmain, 
 many of the congregations had enormous incomes. 
 The French nation decided to put an end to this 
 irritating and economically unhealthy state of things, 
 and the orders were mostly expelled, after being 
 allowed time to realise their property. 
 
 In order to appreciate fully how much the debates 
 on the religious congregations contributed to the 
 decay of religion in France one must understand, not 
 only that the wealth was out of all proportion to the 
 professed condition of the monks, and was largely 
 withdrawn from ordinary circulation, but that the full 
 application of it was cloaked in a suspicious mystery, 
 and the acquisition and control of it were in many 
 respects most offensive. English journals often mani- 
 fested a misplaced sympathy with the monks, where 
 a closer knowledge of the facts would have filled 
 their columns with resentment. The question is a 
 large one. I can do little more than suggest its 
 extraordinary features. No monks or nuns — the 
 Jesuits and similar associations are not monks — can 
 own any property, either individually or collectively. 
 
 1 This is the Government estimate, on which Catholic orators 
 threw endless ridicule. But it is certainly far short of the true 
 value. There were then 17,000 of these religious establishments 
 in France, with an average of ten inmates. To put the total value 
 of their real estate at ^40,000,000 is to ascribe to them an average 
 value of ^500. As a former monastic trustee, and one well 
 acquainted with monastic life on the Continent, I do not hesitate 
 to say that this sum should be at least doubled.
 
 36 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 To do so would be, in their belief, the most deadly 
 sin they can commit. Who, then, is the owner of the 
 property they hold ? The debates of Catholic jurists 
 on the point have a Gilbertian aspect, for, as a rule, 
 they can find no owner at all. Some ascribe the 
 ownership to the original donors, who fancy they 
 have entirely parted with it : others to the Pope, who 
 has not the remotest knowledge of or interest in it. 
 For practical legal purposes one or two monks, or 
 one or two discreetly chosen laymen — frankly de- 
 scribed by French canonists as prtte-noms — lend 
 their names as legal owners, though it is well under- 
 stood that this is a mere fiction. Conveyance, etc., 
 is prudently conducted through Catholic solicitors 
 in burlesque fashion. I have in this way bought and 
 sold thousands of pounds worth of property for a 
 few pence (which never changed hands) in the heart 
 of London. If legal processes arise, the monks 
 present themselves on oath as the legal owners. 
 They are indeed enjoined by papal decrees that they 
 "may with a clear conscience affirm, even on oath, 
 that they intended to acquire the ownership and the 
 right to dispose at will of the property in their 
 possession according to the normal tenor of the 
 civil law." x 
 
 Meantime, they are reading stories daily in their 
 monastic literature of monks who were cast into outer 
 darkness for possessing as much as a penny ; and 
 they make civil declarations, with an equally "clear 
 conscience," that they own no property at all — when, 
 as in France in 1900, there is question of taxation. 
 
 These elusive operations of their casuists are 
 usually clothed in the decent veil of a dead language, 
 
 1 See the papal decrees in P. M. Marres, " De Iustitia," p. 440, 
 and Gury-Ballerini, " Compendium theologise moralis" (ii. No. 178) ; 
 also the later chapter on Belgium.
 
 FRANCE 37 
 
 and in non-Catholic countries are little appreciated. 
 In France they are familiar enough, and are found 
 even in vernacular treatises (for nuns) such as 
 Craissons' " Des communautes religieuses," in which 
 there are whole chapters on what are unblushingly 
 called xhzprete-noms. The French Government knew 
 well that it was these prete-noms who were referred 
 to when the Benedictines declared that the property 
 they used belonged to laymen ; indeed after their 
 expulsion the Benedictines were found to be offering 
 £ 100,000 for a domain in England, and most of the 
 other monks took great wealth in their emigration. 
 The officials also knew that the monks were forbidden 
 to invest their money in ordinary stock, and needed 
 special permission from Rome in each case to do so. 
 That a nation which was now overwhelmingly non- 
 Catholic should feel impatience at these manoeuvres 
 of the religious communities in their midst can hardly 
 be a matter of surprise. 
 
 But the French layman's impatience was stimulated 
 
 when he found, or suspected, that this wealth was 
 
 being transferred to Rome, or being used in the 
 
 secret efforts to destroy the Republic. Mr Bodley 
 
 will assuredly not be suspected of injustice to French 
 
 Catholics — his work is marred rather by deep injustice 
 
 to the more advanced of their opponents — and we 
 
 saw his remark that "they identified themselves with 
 
 the most inept political party that ever irretrievably 
 
 wrecked a powerful cause," the Royalist cause. Even 
 
 F. Brunetiere admitted in the Deux Mondes that 
 
 "des imprudences avaient et6" commises sur le terrain 
 
 politique." Indeed every attempt to clear the clergy 
 
 of this charge would be an impeachment of their 
 
 zeal. No one doubts that the position of the Church 
 
 would be vastly changed by a return of the Orleanists. 
 
 One would prefer to regard it as a point of honour
 
 38 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 for Jesuits and Dominicans to intrigue for the restora- 
 tion of their Church. But it was equally a point of 
 honour for a republic that found itself thus attacked 
 — found its army and navy filling with officers who 
 enjoyed the guidance and help of Pere Dulac and 
 Pere Didon — to make the intrigue impossible. 
 
 Thus the religious congregations contributed to 
 the downfall of the Church of Rome in France. 
 They performed no service in the least proportionate 
 to the vast wealth they accumulated, and they were 
 instinctively disloyal to the form of government that 
 has proved best for the country. They ignored the 
 Concordat, the unauthorised bodies growing far 
 beyond the authorised (and useful) bodies ; and so 
 the Republic tore up Napoleon's Concordat, and 
 bade the Church realise the true slenderness of its 
 proportions. 
 
 The present "hors de Rome" movement has, 
 therefore, far more serious grounds than any that 
 preceded. It has every indication of stability and 
 permanence. It remains for us only to glance at 
 what the clerical writer calls the " solid core " that has 
 been left behind, and see if its loyalty is such as to 
 afford some security against further heavy losses. 
 Unhappily for the Vatican, it is one of the most 
 restless and recalcitrant bodies of clergy and laity 
 in the Church, and the strain laid upon it by an 
 unenlightened papal policy is very severe. During 
 the debate on the Associations Bill in the Senate a 
 Catholic senator, M. Dupuy, pleaded for his Church 
 on the ground that it was at last moving with the 
 advance of thought. He pointed to the liberty 
 enjoyed by M. Loisy. Within a week or two a 
 document came from the Vatican putting four works 
 by the Abbe Loisy and two by the Abb6 Houtin on 
 the Index! Houtin and other scholarly priests, and
 
 FRANCE 39 
 
 many laymen, at once left the Church, and Loisy is 
 now rejected from it ; later, when the French Govern- 
 ment invited the Catholics to form associations cul- 
 tuelles for the purpose of taking over the property 
 of the disestablished Church, two-thirds of the bishops 
 decided to do so, and twenty of the leading laymen 
 (Brunetiere, De Mun, etc.) wrote a public letter in 
 support of the project. 1 But the Vatican sent strin- 
 gent orders that they must not enter into the Govern- 
 ment's plan. M. Briand, anxious to make the 
 position of the clergy easier, informed them that a 
 simple annual declaration would suffice to enable 
 them to use the churches. Again many of the 
 bishops had already directed their clergy to comply 
 when an uncompromising prohibition came from 
 Rome. For ten years the French clergy had been 
 hampered in their struggle by the unwise policy of 
 the Vatican. It is recorded that Leo XIII. said to 
 the Archbishop of Albi, when he came to pay his 
 annual visit, " Well, monseigneur, is it to be schism ? " 
 "fa depends," the archbishop is reported to have 
 said. Travelling in France in September 1905 I 
 read in a Parisian journal an interview with the same 
 prelate on the action of certain civic officials who 
 had compelled a convent to dismiss a young lady 
 who sought the veil, while her mother claimed her. 
 The prelate fully approved of the nuns being com- 
 pelled to give her up, and not obscurely declared his 
 conviction that the day of nunneries was over. In 
 September 1906 the Matin, a Catholic organ (quoted 
 
 1 The decision of the bishops was taken just after the election 
 of 1906. They knew that, while Cardinal Gibbons was calling 
 for a civil war, and they themselves had made the most strenuous 
 efforts to secure political support, the issue of the election was a 
 further gain of fifty-eight seats by the Left ! In the new Chambre 
 415 Republicans, Radicals and Socialists faced a paltry Opposition 
 of 175 reactionaries. The Vatican also must have known this.
 
 40 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 in The Daily News, 9th September 1906), had an 
 article on the Eucharistic Congress of Tournay, at 
 which the papal legate (and chief candidate for the 
 papacy) presided. " Not a sign of the three virtues 
 of Faith, Charity and Humility was discernible in 
 the gorgeous ceremonial," it said : " nothing but wor- 
 ship of the Pope in the person of his legate, Cardinal 
 Vanutelli, nothing but incessant genuflexions and 
 changes of robes. The whole thing was a parody 
 of true religion. . . . Roman fetichism, not the Catholic 
 religion." 
 
 And with these and a hundred other symptoms 
 before his eyes Pius X. has moved blindly from one 
 piece of despotism to another. Under his inspiration 
 the last sparks of enlightenment are trampled out in 
 the French Church. Every expression that shows a 
 tendency to approach the scholarship of the greater 
 theologians of Germany and England is bitterly 
 assailed, and its author is driven into silence. 1 
 Between an Archbishop of Paris who believes the 
 world is 6000 years old (Houtin says) and the Syllabus 
 of Pius X. the educated Catholics of France are in 
 sad straits, and their number steadily diminishes. A 
 Catholic periodical at Lyons, Domain, in terminating 
 its existence as soon as the recent Syllabus was 
 published, said : 
 
 "After recent events, the intentions and ideas of the most 
 sincere Catholics have been obscured and misunderstood to such 
 an extent that it seems to us necessary to wait until tranquillity is 
 restored before we resume our labours. . . . The decree of the 
 Holy Office will annihilate critical exegetics in Catholic schools." 2 
 
 1 See the remarkable picture of the inner life of the French 
 Church in Houtin's " La Bible au vingtieme siecle." 
 
 2 Two other French Catholic journals, La Quinzaine and La 
 Revue cThistoire etde litterature religieuses, have also been suppressed, 
 and a further three {La vie Catholique, La Justice sociak, Leveil
 
 FRANCE 41 
 
 French Catholics are to-day of three chief types : 
 (i) the thoroughly and deliberately orthodox, who 
 are few, (2) the Liberals, who are being driven 
 out of the Church, and (3) the still large majority 
 of conventional Catholics, who are only waiting to 
 be affected by modern criticisms or grievances, and 
 are daily diminishing. In this predicament, enfeebled 
 in its resources, hampered by a foreign authority 
 that refused to understand the times, and rent by the 
 struggles between the progressive and the reactionary, 
 the French Church is bound to sink lower and lower. 
 There is not even in France the ambiguous promise 
 of a future that the Catholic Church has in many 
 other countries, where it will in time be summoned 
 to an alliance against the advance of Socialism. It 
 is, indeed, in these troubled political waters that the 
 French clerical diplomatist fishes, with many other 
 weary anglers. The ever-threatening split between 
 Liberal, Radical and Socialist Republicans might 
 give fresh life for a time to the drooping energies of 
 the priests. But the Liberals of France can never 
 enter into that alliance with the clericals that we may 
 in time see them contract in Italy or Germany. It is 
 by spiritual effort alone that the Church may recover 
 any ground. Certain political contingencies might 
 encourage it to make such an effort. At present it 
 seems incapable of the exertion. It is either deluded 
 with the new papal idea that strict fidelity to medieval 
 
 democratique) are under discussion by the Catholic authorities as I 
 write. The modern inquisition set up by Pius X. is equally busy in 
 other countries. The Studi religiosi of Dr Minnocchi, the most 
 cultured Catholic journal of Italy, has been forced to close its 
 career, and the Rinnovamento of Milan has been put on the Index. 
 In Germany Father Miiller, editor of the Renaissance (Munich), 
 has been suspended, and a review entitled The Twentieth Century 
 has disappeared. So the " unity " of the Roman Catholic Church 
 is to be restored.
 
 42 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 standards, and absolute scorn of modern research, will 
 ensure for it the intervention of a miraculous power; 
 or, in its more enlightened representatives, it is 
 wrapped in silent and mournful contemplation of the 
 
 ruins of its once glorious edifice.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LATIN WORLD— ITALY 
 
 THE story of the decay of Romanism in the 
 other Latin countries follows so closely the 
 story of its fortunes in France that our task 
 here will be to give positive indications of loss rather 
 than historical explanations. The rationalistic culture 
 that flourished in France in the eighteenth century is 
 the first stage in the modern disruption of Catholicism. 
 Strict as the Inquisition was, the works of the French 
 writers passed the Pyrenees and the Alps, and be- 
 gan the disintegration of the faith in Spain and its 
 colonies, and in Italy, where traditions of the Re- 
 nascence still lingered in cultured circles. The start- 
 ling glare of the Revolution drew wider attention 
 to them, and Napoleon's troops beat down for a 
 few years the clerical barriers set up against them. 
 Liberalism came to birth in the whole Latin world, 
 and set about its centenarian struggle with the 
 CathoHc clergy and Catholic rulers. 
 
 In Italy the serious decadence of Romanism may 
 be dated from the later sixties — as in France — when 
 an almost united Italy made pressing overtures to 
 Rome to enter peacefully into the national life. A 
 light scepticism had spread amongst the middle class 
 long before that time, but the Pope could have 
 secured the neutrality of the sceptics and the enthusi- 
 asm of the faithful if he had appreciated the moment 
 of destiny. He might have reigned over Italy, a 
 co-ruler with the king, with more dignity and profit 
 than he had ever done before. He chose to adopt an 
 43
 
 44 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 attitude that has utterly failed in its design, and that 
 laid a severe strain on the loyalty of millions. At 
 once scepticism penetrated to a deeper level, and the 
 rebellion began in earnest. 
 
 The Catholic temper of the nation had been sorely 
 tried from the beginning of the century. The papal 
 reception of the revolutionary outbreak had been as 
 little enlightened as that of the Reformation by the 
 court of Leo X. In the eighteenth century the echo 
 of the thunder beyond the Alps had been heard with 
 momentary petulance by the frivolous groups at the 
 Vatican. Why should these turbulent, vulgar monks 
 disturb so pretty and balanced a world, so refined an 
 alliance of art and religion and culture? The story 
 was repeated in the nineteenth century, with the same 
 sequel. The rulers of the Papal States, and their 
 " beloved sons " in the Austrian and Bourbon princi- 
 palities, learned as little as Louis XVIII. did from 
 the new quickening of the people's blood. At their 
 restoration in 1815 they abolished almost all the 
 reforms that the French had introduced and revived 
 the older abuses. The Inquisition, the ecclesiastical 
 method of administering justice, the restriction of the 
 press, the crude old fiscal system, and many other 
 evils, were restored. The new demand for popular 
 education was met by restoring the Jesuits and en- 
 trusting the schools to their discreet management. 
 Mr Bolton King, it is true, holds that Cardinal 
 Consalvi moderated for a time the reaction that oc- 
 curred under Pius VII. This is a statement of Ranke's, 
 but it is vigorously discredited by Dollinger, and other 
 historians. In any case Consalvi's efforts were soon 
 thwarted, as all admit, by the weakness of the Pope 
 and the violence of his advisers. " I don't want learned 
 men : I want good subjects," the Austrian emperor 
 had said. That was not a novel sentiment in Italy.
 
 ITALY 45 
 
 In the succeeding decades the life of the papal 
 court and the administration of the Papal States were 
 distinguished for all their old corruption. "A few 
 scholars," says Mr King, "a few ecclesiastial statesmen 
 of ability, and a few old men of simple pious worth, 
 only set in blacker relief the general worldiness and 
 frivolity of the Roman Court. " 1 Bribery and corruption 
 flourished to a frightful extent among the clerical 
 administrators. It is true that the papal court was 
 wealthy enough to refrain from imposing heavy 
 taxation, but in all other respects the inhabitants, 
 says Orsi, "paid for the honour of being ruled by 
 the successor of St Peter by exclusion from all the 
 advantages of modern civilisation." 2 Brigandage was 
 so rife that 9000 soldiers had to guard the roads when 
 the King of Prussia visited the country. The police 
 were wholly occupied with the extinction of whatever 
 sparks of higher ambition fell upon the land. One 
 of their documents is known that enjoins a special 
 surveillance of "the class called thinkers." In the 
 provinces only 2 per cent., at Rome itself only 10 
 per cent., of the population attended school, where 
 they received a miserable instruction, often for only 
 two hours a day. Traffic in sacred things and sacred 
 offices was open and flagrant : the public lottery was 
 worked on Sundays in the interest of the Exchequer : 
 all distinctively modern works, and even such journals 
 as The Times, were on the Index. And while the 
 indolent and sensual Gregory XVI., "absorbed in 
 ignoble pursuits " (says Mr King), excluding even 
 railways from his territory lest they do "harm to 
 religion " — whilst this pontiff was characterising the 
 new humanitarian thought in the most malignant 
 terms, we find the poorer people living in " infinite 
 
 1 " History of Italian Unity," p. 73. 
 
 2 " Modern Italy," p. 127.
 
 i(> DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 degradation " under the shadow of the Vatican, 
 Rome generally "as immoral as any city in Europe," 
 and Naples, with its 40,000 lazzaroni, disclosing 
 "unfathomed depths of degraded life." 
 
 The action of Napoleon in Italy, beneficent as it 
 was in social respects, had presented itself in too 
 violent a form to the Catholic Italian to prove educa- 
 tive. But he had at least left the fair vision of a 
 united Italy in the land, and his saner and juster 
 administration could not be forgotten. These 
 memories soon began to germinate in the minds of 
 the brave and the thoughtful. Secret societies spread 
 throughout the country. The famous Carbonari were 
 by no means consistently anticlerical. They dreamed 
 at times of a new papacy leading a regenerated Italy. 
 But the feeling of political rebellion that they fostered 
 was always apt to spread into the domain of doctrine, 
 and materially aided the growth of the Voltairean 
 scepticism of men like Confalioneri and the more 
 profound religious revolt of the followers of Mazzini. 
 Gregory XVI. had to complain in 1832 (Encyclical 
 of 15th August) of "the existing widespread un- 
 belief." Against that "unbelief" all the rulers of 
 Italy, except the Sardinian monarchy, waged a bloody 
 and implacable war. But the brutal measures of the 
 Papal, Austrian and Neapolitan rulers, and the heroic 
 struggles of the early Italian Liberals, cannot be en- 
 larged upon here. 
 
 Pius IX. succeeded in 1846 to the rule of the Papal 
 States. By that time most of the other European 
 nations had entered seriously upon the work of 
 social reform, but the inhabitants of the Papal States 
 were, says Orsi, "still in the most absolute ignorance 
 and squalor." For a few years the new Pope re- 
 sponded to the significant welcome that had been 
 given him, and sanctioned a few moderate reforms.
 
 ITALY 47 
 
 But the sight of the fresh revolutionary movement 
 that was coming down from the north, and the in- 
 surrection at Rome, from which he fled in terror, 
 threw him into the arms of the reactionary cardinals. 
 The state of things set up by the cardinals after the 
 return from Gaeta was described by the English 
 ambassador as "the opprobrium of Europe." We 
 who know that Pius IX. was declared to be infallible 
 a few years later, and is about to be canonised in our 
 time, look on the spectacle with curious feelings. 1 
 We see a timid and nebulous pontiff, surrounded by a 
 circle of prelates, not unlike the cordon of grand dukes 
 round the Tsar, with a cardinal (Antonelli) at their 
 head who was to leave a fortune of 100,000,000 lire and a 
 natural daughter (Countess Lambertini) clamouring for 
 a share of it, fencing off their profitable little kingdom 
 from the spirit of the age by terrors of inquisition, 
 regiments of police, the refusal of general education, 
 and the drastic suppression of economic study. When 
 in 1859 the Austrians were driven out by the allied 
 French and Italians, and the dream of a united Italy 
 illumined the mind of every patriot, the attention of 
 the country became concentrated on the papacy. Mr 
 King ventures to say they beheld " a power . . . 
 clinging to its poor rag of earthly dominion, while 
 it vented its screeds of impotent passion, and forgot 
 bare morality in lust of revenge." Certain it is, at 
 least, that "the Pope's unctuous patronage of iniquity 
 was digging a gulf between the papacy and Italy," 
 and the Vatican's reliance on foreign intervention 
 
 1 Infallible, of course, only in dogmatic teaching. But a theory 
 that would ask us to believe that a supernatural oracle existed at 
 the Vatican, ready to give absolute inerrancy in such remote 
 details as immaculate conceptions, yet unwilling to grant any 
 assistance whatever in these more momentous affairs, is hardly 
 entitled to respect.
 
 48 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 only enlarged it. One has only to read a clerical 
 historian like Balan to realise how Italy's serious 
 defection from the papacy, on more than political 
 grounds, dates largely from this fateful decade be- 
 tween i860 and 1870. The notorious Materialist, 
 Moleschott, expelled from Germany, found a congenial 
 home in Italy, and spread his convictions there. The 
 ex-priest, Ausonio Franchi, was made professor at 
 the university of Pavia, and led a considerable party 
 of Rationalists. Hegelianism was taught in the 
 university of Naples. An ex-priest, Trezza, taught 
 in the Instituto Superiore at Florence. Balan protests 
 indeed that "the chairs at the universities, gymnasia 
 and lycea were full of apostate priests ." " Veramente," 
 he concludes, after many pages on the growth of 
 Rationalism in the sixties, "l'ltalia dopo il i860 
 parve terra di conquista dei ribelli a Dio." 1 How 
 the misguided pontiff met the gathering storm is 
 familiar enough. He issued the Syllabus. Theo- 
 logians still dispute as to the technical fallibility or 
 infallibility of this document, but if ever a pope in- 
 tended to teach dogmatically, urbi et orbi, Pius IX. 
 then did. Many of the theses he condemned are 
 now truths that the Catholic apologist hastens to 
 profess : 
 
 "At least there is some hope of the eternal safety 
 of those who live outside the true Church. 
 
 " Every man is free to embrace the religion which 
 his reason assures him to be true. 
 
 " Divine revelation is not perfect, and is therefore 
 subject to indefinite progress, in harmony with the 
 advance of reason. 
 
 " In certain Catholic countries it has been very 
 
 1 "Continuazione alia Storia Universale," vol. ii. pp. 477.481: 
 "In truth after i860 Italy seems to have been conquered by the 
 rebels against God."
 
 ITALY 49 
 
 properly laid down that immigrant non-Catholics shall 
 have the free exercise of their religion. 
 
 " The Roman Pontiff can and ought to be recon- 
 ciled with progress, liberalism and modern civism." 
 
 The condemnation of such theses as these did not 
 tend to close the ever-widening gulf. 
 
 On the political side the papal attitude was equally- 
 disastrous to Catholicism. It is said that the Vatican 
 would now be prepared to make peace with Italy if 
 the Leonine City alone (a very small strip of Rome 
 about St Peter's and the Vatican) is conceded to it. 1 
 In the sixties such a proposal would have averted a 
 whole generation of suffering and prepared an alliance 
 of Quirinal and Vatican against Socialism that would 
 at least have mitigated the actual losses of Rome. 
 But the inspiration of the Vatican, whatever its 
 source, has been consistently unfortunate. Pius IX. 
 maintained the gulf between his interest and that 
 of Italy by his violent insistence on a complete re- 
 storation of the Papal States. Leo XIII. restricted 
 the demand to the city of Rome, but the nation had 
 passed hopelessly beyond the point of entertaining 
 such a proposition. Pius X. is furtively letting it be 
 understood that the Leonine City will suffice him, 
 but the nation is rapidly moving on to a point of 
 indifference to the Vatican's good-will. The great 
 blunder of the claim of temporal power led to others. 
 Pius IX. withdrew sullenly into the Vatican, and 
 refused to gratify Rome with the solemn or brilliant 
 pageants which the ritual of St Peter's can provide. 
 Leo XIII. saw the crude error of this attitude, and 
 quickly reversed it ; but he in turn maintained the 
 prohibition to Catholics to take part in the general 
 elections of the country. Pius X. has retracted the 
 non expedit, but the last elections show how fatal the 
 1 So King and Okey, in " Italy To-day."
 
 50 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 long political paralysis has been to the Catholic forces. 
 Finally, while Pius IX. missed the great opportunity 
 of offering Rome, and taking his place as virtual co- 
 ruler of the nation, Leo XIII. made an equal blunder 
 in refusing the princely state and salary decreed to 
 the Pope since 1870. The few million lire of the 
 Peter's pence collection are a poor consolation for 
 the spectacle that "affrights" Pius X. to-day. 
 
 With the history of the relations of Church and State 
 in Italy since 1870 I need not deal, and I hasten to 
 give positive indications of the losses sustained by the 
 Vatican. The usual compiler of religious statistics 
 finds his task a light one in regard to countries 
 where the decennial census reports the religion of the 
 inhabitants. If we follow his example, we shall find it 
 difficult to understand the papal lament and the obser- 
 vations of every informed writer on the religious con- 
 dition of Italy. At the census of 1901 the population 
 was discovered to be 32,500,000, and of these no 
 less than 97 per cent, (or 31,500,000) described 
 themselves, or were described, as Roman Catholics. 
 Even here, it is true, we find a significant change. Of 
 the outstanding million, 65,595 (of whom 30,000 are 
 foreigners) wrote themselves " Protestants " and 35,6 1 7 
 "Jews." "No religion" was entered on the census 
 papers by only 36,092, whom we may take to be the 
 more militant Freethinkers of the large towns. But we 
 have in the end the remarkable item of 795,276 whose 
 religion is "not known." Clearly these are seceders 
 from Catholicism. As this item is almost a new 
 appearance of the last two decades it is in itself a 
 formidable evidence of leakage. In 1871 this class 
 numbered only 48,000, while 997 of the population 
 were " Catholics." 
 
 But no serious social student will fancy he has the 
 number of the real adherents of the Vatican in this
 
 ITALY 51 
 
 census report or, if any do, the facts and figures we 
 shall give presently must undeceive him. It is very 
 well known how the indifferent commonly avoid 
 the inconvenience that their heretical opinions might 
 entail by the cheap device of writing themselves 
 orthodox. 1 In Italy, where Catholicism has come to 
 be quite consistent, in men's minds, with a complete 
 disdain of Rome and all its ways, as well as a genial 
 indifference to its moral theories, a little heresy on 
 the less important questions of doctrine need not 
 excite scruples. The educated Italian is a Catholic 
 much as the educated Japanese is a Shintoist ; while 
 Socialism, which the Vatican has emphatically de- 
 nounced as putting a man outside the pale, has made 
 extraordinary progress amongst the masses. The 
 entry of "Catholic" in the census paper very often 
 means only that one is neither Protestant nor Jew. 
 
 The defection of the educated classes is pointed 
 out by nearly every writer on Italy. King and Okey 
 declare, in their most careful and authoritative work, 
 that "there can hardly be any doubt, from the confes- 
 sion of the Catholics themselves, that Catholicism 
 has small hold on the educated classes," and that 
 "the professional classes and the great majority of the 
 university students are, and have been for many years, 
 either indifferent or hostile." 2 Deputies, they tell 
 us, who attend mass when they are at home in the 
 
 1 Another aspect of the matter comes out in such experiences as 
 the following. A friend of mine had occasion to settle in Germany 
 for a year. The vigilant police provided him with a form on which, 
 amongst a hundred minute details, he was to declare his religion. 
 " None," he promptly wrote. " Aber, das ist unmoglich," said the 
 paternal officer. He was obliged to write some positive epithet on 
 the paper. In Spain the officials count all who have been baptised 
 as Catholics. We shall see, as we proceed, some most extraordinary 
 corrections of census figures. 
 
 2 " Italy To-day," p. 30.
 
 52 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 provinces dare not do so at Rome, so general is the 
 feeling that cultured men are no longer Catholics. 
 Fischer, another cautious and authoritative writer, 
 says that " indifferentism is, perhaps, more widespread 
 amongst educated Italians than in the corresponding 
 class of any other nation." 1 One of the latest and 
 most authoritative French works on Italy tells the 
 same story. The writer on the religion of the Italians 
 says that almost every educated Italian will declare 
 at once that religion "does not exist" amongst his 
 class. 2 That these statements are justified will not 
 be doubted by anyone who is acquainted with Italian 
 life and literature. The best journals, magazines and 
 works in the country reflect such a temper on the part 
 of the cultivated community. Of the 9975 books 
 published in 1900 — the last year for which I have the 
 figures — only 698 were religious works ; and this list 
 includes Rome. In 1894 Professor Haeckel, a notori- 
 ous opponent of Catholicism, celebrated his sixtieth 
 birthday. Amongst his gratulatory telegrams was 
 this official message from the Italian Minister of 
 Public Instruction: 
 
 " Italy, that you love so much, takes cordial part in all the honours 
 that the civilised nations of the earth are heaping on you in com- 
 memoration of your sixtieth birthday. In the name of the Italian 
 universities, which love you so much, and so much admire your 
 undying work, I send you a heartfelt greeting and wishes for a long 
 and happy and active career." 
 
 Four years later the Royal Academy of Science at 
 Turin awarded the Bressa prize — a diploma and large 
 sum of money — to Haeckel's " Systematische Phylo- 
 
 1 "Italien und die Italiener," p. 417. 
 
 2 " L'ltalie Geographique," etc., ed. R. Bazin. The writer of the 
 section on religion, a Catholic, who does not welcome the statement, 
 is content only to pronounce it " exaggerated." There are, of course, 
 educated Catholic Italians — apparent rari.
 
 ITALY 53 
 
 genie," as the most meritorious scientific work pub- 
 lished in Europe between 1895 an d 1898. A few 
 years later again, we find the Ministry of Public In- 
 struction offering its Collegio Romano for the holding 
 of a Freethought Congress at Rome, and granting 
 considerable privileges to the assembled enemies of 
 the Vatican, a matter to which I shall return later. 
 
 Such facts as these, which could hardly occur in 
 any other Christian country except France, fully sub- 
 stantiate Herr Fischer's estimate of the educated 
 Italians. However they may describe themselves 
 in the idle formality of the census, they have, to say 
 the least, ceased to be predominantly Catholic. Such 
 men as Lombroso, Sergi, De Amicis, D'Annunzio, 
 Ardigo, Ferri, Ghisleri, etc., stand, in their several ways, 
 for the thought of modern Italy. They are humanists 
 and scholars. The narrow supernaturalism of the 
 Vatican, enforced with medieval vigour and crudeness 
 by the simple-minded pontiff, is disdained by them 
 and their readers. The selfish clericalism of the 
 Vatican, covering itself with thin pretexts of spiritual 
 independence, offends their patriotism ; and the im- 
 punity of their rulers and officials, involved as they 
 are in a maze of standing anathemas, excites their 
 ridicule. They have with them most of the informed 
 minds of the country, and they smile at the Vatican's 
 huge following of peasants, women and children. 
 The few cultivated men who wish to remain Catholic 
 are driven out, or chilled into silence. It is only two 
 years since the ablest of them, Fogazzaro, had his 
 greatest novel, " II Santo," put on the Index, because it 
 hinted that the avarice and stagnation of the Vatican 
 are ruining the Church. The middle class is lost to 
 the Church in Italy. 
 
 When we pass to the workers we find that a like 
 rebellion is spreading amongst these with extraordinary
 
 54 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 rapidity, and has already withdrawn, directly or in- 
 directly, some millions of the proletariate from clerical 
 influence. A new force has arisen in the country, 
 which the Vatican dreads more than the accommodat- 
 ing scepticism of the cultured. If the decadence of 
 Catholicism in Italy depended wholly upon intellectual 
 criticism of its doctrines, the papal authorities would 
 have little ground for their pressing anxiety. It is 
 not merely that the bulk of their followers are still 
 quite illiterate, and are likely to remain indifferent to 
 intellectual issues for some generations. The more 
 important point is that, as Professor Fiamingo ob- 
 serves, with the majority of the Italians religion is 
 neither a judicial assent to doctrines nor a deep feeling 
 in regard to personality. It is mainly a facile com- 
 pliance with certain customs of immemorial antiquity. 
 The orenerous observance of these external forms that 
 he sees often disposes the traveller to think they have 
 a deep inner inspiration, but a closer scrutiny will 
 undeceive him. He will hear the Catholic fisherman 
 laughingly call his neighbour a " Joseph" on account 
 of some fancied resemblance of his child to the priest, 
 with an implication that would shock a Protestant 
 unspeakably. Their fishing and their crops depend 
 on these magical rites ; and their clergy have never 
 pressed them heavily in the matter of God's com- 
 mandments, if they have been somewhat exacting in 
 regard to the " commandments of the Church." On 
 such a temper, amongst grossly illiterate peasants, 
 difficulties of science and history and philosophy have 
 little effect. 
 
 Unhappily for the Church, France has directed into 
 Italy a new current of interest, and withdrawn millions 
 of the most intelligent workers from the Vatican's 
 allegiance. The artisans are following the example 
 of the Rationalistic middle class, and the peasantry
 
 ITALY 55 
 
 are beginning to join them. Merciful as the sun of 
 Italy is to poverty, the transition into the new in- 
 dustrial order has been attended with much suffering. 
 Leo XIII., in his later years, had told the worker that 
 he who rebels against the present order of the world 
 rebels against God, but other preachers were amongst 
 them, conjuring up before them a vision of the fairer 
 earth that might become the home of their children. 
 Before i860 the Italian authorities suppressed all study 
 of economics — suppressed even private associations 
 for the study. To-day Italy is one of the foremost 
 nations of the world in it, and the reaction on papal 
 influence is very great. 
 
 Nearly every modern writer on Italy lays great 
 stress on the recent growth of Socialism. "It is 
 possible," says Mr E. Hutton, by no means a sympa- 
 thetic writer, "that the immediate future of Italy is 
 in the hands of the Socialists, and, as I believe, it 
 is certain that this is the case unless the king can 
 bring himself to make peace with the Vatican." 1 
 Another writer who is antipathetic to Socialism, the 
 Rev. Tony Andre, says : " Socialism is, in Italy, 
 a latent danger, too grave and too threatening for 
 the dlite of the nation to do otherwise than study the 
 means of remedy" (p. 185). King and Okey point 
 out that Catholicism is "fast losing ground" in the 
 northern towns where Socialism is strong. At Milan, 
 "once a Catholic stronghold," the Catholic vote is 
 now less than one-third of the Socialist vote at 
 municipal elections. At Bergamo, a strong Catholic 
 centre, the orthodox organ complains that "the 
 Socialists are gaining ground and taking the working 
 men and women from us." 2 "Socialism," they con- 
 clude, "barely existed in Italy ten years ago," but is 
 
 1 " Italy and the Italians," p. 54. 
 
 2 " Italy To-day," p. 30.
 
 56 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 now "the most living force in Italian politics." Paul 
 Ghio, in his recent "Notes sur L'ltalie contemporaine," 
 presses the same fact, and adds : " The authorities 
 themselves are obliged to admit that the Socialist 
 propaganda coincides with the progress of the educa- 
 tion of the working classes and with the amelioration 
 of their morality." He quotes a speech in which the 
 Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, Signor Galimberti, 
 speaks with great praise of the Socialist efforts to 
 kindle a "political conscience" in the masses, just 
 after the Socialist Congress of 1902. 
 
 The impressions of travellers must be read with 
 discretion, but I cannot forbear to relate one that 
 gives a trustworthy estimate of the strength of Social- 
 ism in Italy. A few years ago I passed through 
 Genoa on my way to Rome. As the train moved 
 slowly down the last slopes, and I caught murmurs of 
 " Genova," I turned to the windows. It was past 
 midnight, but not a single light illumined the dark 
 masses of houses beyond ; one saw only the fitful 
 glare of torches on fixed bayonets, as the troops 
 marched by the train. I made my way through the 
 town by matchlight, and found the hotels denuded of 
 all but indispensable servants. And when the sun 
 flashed on the town the next morning I found it in 
 the most complete idleness imaginable. Not a train 
 could be moved on the line ; not a boat dare stir from 
 the harbour. Not a limb would bend in the town 
 without permission. The very washerwomen, work- 
 ing gaily in the white marble basins in the slums, had 
 strung overhead a protesting banner : " Obbligate 
 di lavorare." The whole town lay under the spell of 
 some power antagonistic to that of Church or Govern- 
 ment, at whose 20,000 troops the workers smiled 
 grimly. The Socialists at Milan had declared a 
 general strike.
 
 ITALY 57 
 
 Such experiences, however, are apt to lead to super- 
 ficial and incorrect judgment — the kind of judgment 
 that the traveller often forms as to the religious 
 condition of Italy when he witnesses great religious 
 festivals, and is ignorant that these are often main- 
 tained by the commercial interest of non-Catholics, or 
 are mere outbursts of gaiety. Let us turn rather to 
 the more prosaic teaching of statistics. The Socialists 
 made their first appearance at the polls in Italy in 
 1895, when they registered 60,000 votes. In 1900 
 the number rose to 164,000; and 1268 communal 
 councils were captured by them. In 1904, a few 
 weeks after the general strike by which they had 
 paralysed trade and so intensely exasperated the 
 middle class and all who catered to foreign visitors, 
 they polled more than 320,000 votes. 1 An increase 
 of 450 per cent, in nine years is a formidable phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 But let us examine the figures a little closer. Until 
 1904 it had been papal policy to forbid the Catholics 
 to take part in the general elections, but at the 
 beginning of that year Pius X. urged them to be more 
 sensible of " their duties as citizens." This was 
 intended and construed to be a withdrawal of the 
 
 1 The figure is sometimes quoted with an insinuation of scepticism, 
 so I went through the returns in the Giornale oV Italia, and found 
 it correct. The Socialists lost seven seats, in the general exaspera- 
 tion against them, but it is their total vote that counts for our 
 purpose. There are twenty-seven Socialist deputies in the Camera 
 to-day, besides thirty-seven Radicals and twenty-one Republicans, 
 who are equally anticlerical. I may observe that the programme 
 of most of the Italian Socialists is merely what we should call 
 "advanced Radicalism," but the Vatican is irreconcilably opposed 
 to it, and every man who adheres to it has quitted the Church. A 
 recent Italian writer of distinction, Dr Murri, insists emphatically 
 on this. Socialism, he says, " has made its very system and law out 
 of opposition to the Church and religion," and "Socialism organises 
 irreligion" (his italics, " Battaglie d'oggi," iii. 137).
 
 58 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 non expedit (the direction not to vote), and a Catholic 
 electoral campaign was set afoot. The result was 
 very instructive. In the first place the withdrawal of 
 the non expedit made no appreciable difference in the 
 number of voters. Both Liberal and Socialist votes 
 were sufficiently increased to account for the 4 per 
 cent, rise in the total number of votes cast. In the 
 next place, as 627 per cent, of the electorate voted, 
 and the proportion is only 63*5 at the municipal 
 elections, at which the Catholics were accustomed to 
 vote, it is clear that few now abstained on principle ; 
 though doubtless many did from ignorance and 
 apathy. Yet we find that the Socialists alone (who 
 "organise irreligion") numbered a fifth of the entire 
 voting electors, or 320,000 out of 1,600,000. But as 
 the Radicals and Republicans differ from them only 
 in their economic ideal, and are equally estranged 
 from the Church, we must associate them with the 
 Socialists for the purpose of our inquiry ; and we saw 
 that they returned more than twice as many deputies 
 to the Camera as the Socialists (fifty-eight to twenty- 
 seven). To these we must add further the middle- 
 class Liberals, who have generally rejected the papal 
 teaching (as Murri fully confesses) and the whole of 
 the Freemasons, who have close upon 200 lodges 
 in Italy. It will thus be seen at a glance that the 
 Church has lost the allegiance of four-fifths of the 
 elite of the nation, the literate and enfranchised class. 
 In this, as we shall see, clerical writers like Murri fully 
 concur. 
 
 Let me put the situation in another way, as it is 
 very important to consider the question of literacy or 
 illiteracy in a country in which secession from Rome 
 has always followed upon education, and the work of 
 education is being rapidly extended. Of the 3 1 ,000,000 
 who are described as "Catholic" in the census at
 
 ITALY 59 
 
 least ii.ooo.ooo are children under fifteen. Of the 
 remainder more than 10,000,000 are women and girls, 
 whose education has been particularly neglected in 
 Italy; though the women of the towns are largely 
 following their husbands out of Romanism to-day. 
 Of the 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 men (over the age of 
 twenty) 44 per cent, are illiterate. There remain 
 some 4,000,000 or 4,500,000 literate and mature males. 
 Of these — if the analysis of the voters be applied, as 
 seems proper, to the whole class — the Vatican has 
 certainly not the allegiance of 1,000,000. Dividing 
 Italy into zones, as we must, we find that the northern 
 provinces (which have 40 per cent, of the whole 
 population) are quite dominated by the anticlericals. 
 The central provinces may be said to be at least 
 fairly divided in clerical and anticlerical influence. 
 The southern provinces are solidly Catholic. Now, 
 according to the official returns, the illiterates are only 
 28*3 per cent, of the inhabitants in the northern 
 provinces; 51*5 in the central provinces ; and 697 in 
 the southern. In Piedmont, which is predominantly 
 anticlerical, the illiterates are only 17*69 of the popula- 
 tion ; in Calabria, which is wholly Catholic, they are 
 7870 per cent. 
 
 This is a sufficiently terrible state of affairs for the 
 papacy, but it is not the whole truth. It must not 
 be imagined that the Vatican has control of anything 
 like all the woman, children and peasants of the 
 country. In the northern towns the Socialistic and 
 other seceders now generally take their wives and 
 families with them, and they are winning the illiterate 
 peasants of the countryside. The Socialists, for 
 instance, began to work in the rural districts in 1897. 
 At the Socialist Congress of Bologna in 1901 there 
 were represented 704 peasants' leagues, with a total 
 membership of 144,078. And the militant Free-
 
 CO DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 thought campaign, which is carried on from Milan 
 and Rome, has also considerable success among the 
 women and peasants, and provides schools, festivals, 
 ceremonies, etc., for the children. 
 
 These facts sufficiently explain, not only the laments 
 of Pius X., but a large number of social incidents 
 which show the absurdity of the current notion that 
 Italy is still Catholic to the extent of 97 per cent. 
 The general tone of the Italian press, the number of 
 anti-Catholic journals — the bitter and satirical Asino 
 of Rome claims to have 1,000,000 readers, and it has 
 a rival in the Papagallo, besides the more serious 
 daily Azione (Chiasso), Ghisleri's daily Ragione 
 (Rome), a weekly Ragione (Lugano), the Tribuna, 
 the Socialist Avanti and Seco/o, and others — and the 
 spirit of the better Italian literature, are utterly in- 
 consistent with such a belief. Indeed, incidents are 
 constantly occurring in the social and intellectual life 
 of Italy that show how far the enfeeblement of the 
 papacy has really proceeded. I have mentioned a 
 number of these, but there is one — the holding of the 
 International Freethought Congress at Rome in 1904 
 — that will repay a closer examination. 
 
 The Annual Register for 1904 rightly observes 
 that "the most noteworthy features of the year in the 
 case of Italy were the beginning of a decided 
 rapprochement between the State and Church, and 
 birth of an heir to the House of Savoy." It is well 
 known that the accession of Pius X. to the papal 
 throne gave some hope that peace would at length be 
 concluded between the Quirinal and the Vatican, and 
 his election was followed by many interchanges of 
 courtesy that seemed to foreshadow an agreement. 
 That such a rapprochement would be very welcome 
 to the Italian Government, in view of the spread of 
 Socialism, needs no proof ; and Pius X. was known to
 
 ITALY 61 
 
 lay little stress on the temporal power. In these 
 circumstances the Vatican heard of the proposed 
 congress, and issued a vehement protest against the 
 holding of it at Rome. Yet the Government did not 
 merely ignore the Pope's protest ; it offered the Italian 
 Freethinkers the Collegio Romano for their meetings, 
 it granted a reduction of 60 per cent, in railway 
 fares all over Italy, and other remarkable privileges 
 to any who should attend the congress, and it 
 was only prevented by the king's urgent request 
 from sending the Minister of Public Instruction to 
 open the congress! As it was, the Syndic (Mayor) 
 of Rome sent his Assessore to address these heated 
 rebels against the papacy, and assure them that Rome 
 was (to quote his words) "a fitting arena for the noble 
 struggle of the human intellect in which they were 
 engaged," and that the issues of the congress were 
 "among the most important that can be conceived." 
 He gave facilities for a triumphant procession of 
 the 8000 congressists, with bands and banners, to the 
 breach in the Porta Pia wall on the very anniversary 
 of the fall of the papal power, and threw open every 
 national monument to the congressists. 
 
 As this congress was essentially anti-Catholic, and 
 had for its chief aim the deliberation of measures for 
 the disestablishment and destruction of the Church in 
 all the Latin countries, the significance of the official 
 attitude cannot be ignored. It means that the con- 
 gress represented a very strong and widespread feeling 
 in the country, and so must be received as hospitably, 
 to say the least, as the largest Catholic pilgrimage to 
 Rome. 1 And a glance at the preliminary proceedings 
 
 1 English people (whose journals generally made no mention of 
 this extraordinary event) may appreciate it by trying to imagine 
 their Government lending the Imperial Institute for the holding of 
 a Freethought Congress, and the London County Council deputing
 
 62 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 of the congress suffices to show that the Government 
 were right in their appreciation. Some 8000 dele- 
 gates attended — 4000 Italians, 2000 Spaniards, 1000 
 French, and 1000 German, Belgian, Austrian, etc. — and 
 400 Italian societies (pedagogical, industrial, political, 
 etc.), and 160 Masonic lodges sent telegrams or letters 
 of adhesion to the congress. But the most striking 
 fact was that 95 Italian municipalities (municipi) 
 — including Aquila, Benevento, Bologna, Cosenza, 
 Livorno, Mantua, Milano, Pavia, Pisa, Padua, Orvieto, 
 Rimini, Spoleto, Urbino, Terni, etc. — sent official 
 representatives, or official letters of adhesion, to this 
 emphatic and triumphant demonstration against the 
 Vatican. It would be difficult to imagine a more 
 instructive indication of the extent of the "away from 
 Rome" movement in Italy. In a hundred municipal 
 councils of northern and central Italy the anti-Catholics 
 have so secure a majority that they can officially 
 support a proceeding which was more bitter to the 
 Vatican than anything else in Roman life for many a 
 year. 
 
 If further proof be desired of the defection of the 
 middle class and the artisans of Italy, with a high 
 proportion of their wives and children, it will be found 
 in the writings of the Catholics themselves. I have 
 not the abundant literature of this kind to select from 
 that I had in dealing with France, but it will be suffi- 
 cient to quote an important work, recently published, 
 by Dr Murri, one of the chief Catholic protagonists. 
 Murri's " Battaglie d'oggi" is weighty, and has been 
 issued by the Societa Italiana Cattolica. It candidly 
 acknowledges throughout that the situation is such as 
 
 its chairman to attend. The character of the congress was such 
 that the Pope closed the Vatican for a week, and afterwards ordered 
 an expiatory service in all the churches of Rome — to Rome's intense 
 amusement.
 
 ITALY 63 
 
 I have described it. "The educated classes here," 
 he says, "are hostile to us : that is a fact of which it 
 would be mischievous to fail to see the gravity. It is 
 a notorious fact of modern times " (i. 83). The rise 
 of the middle class has, he says, culminated in "a 
 movement of intense hostility to the Church and the 
 Faith," and this spirit is found "in the university 
 professor no less than in the humble reader of the 
 Tribuna, in some village of the central Apennines " 
 (p. 84). It will be noted that where the foreigner 
 speaks of " indifference " this Catholic leader sees 
 "intense hostility"; and that the "clase colte" in 
 whom he finds it quite predominant, range from the 
 scientist to the literate peasant. The chief reason for 
 this wide dissidence is, he admits, "the difference in 
 level (dislevello) between the clerical culture and that 
 of even the moderately educated classes of Italy" 
 (ii. p. 9). The whole literature and drama of Italy are 
 "pagan," he says. There is no Christian literature at 
 all — "only books fit for children" — and it "would be 
 ridiculous to speak of Christian art." I may add that, 
 since Murri's work was published, the one great writer 
 the Catholics had, Fogazzaro, has been put on the 
 Index for telling the curia some plain truths. The 
 Catholics need and desire a university : Murri quietly 
 disdains the ecclesiastical colleges at Rome. But 
 State and nation are hostile to the idea, and the pro- 
 gressive Catholics are too few and poor to found one. 1 
 This is Catholic Italy, as seen in our own day 
 by one of the most strenuous and devoted leaders of 
 the faithful. It entirely agrees with and confirms the 
 estimate I have formed on the many indications I 
 have given. All these indications imply that, in the 
 words of this Catholic leader, the literate Italians are 
 
 1 Murri himself, a priest of great authority, and secretary to an 
 important cardinal, has since been suspended ; so has Minocchi.
 
 64 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 overwhelmingly opposed to Romanism. As one half 
 of the population over the age of six (that is to say, 
 about 14,000,000) are now literate, the reader may 
 draw his own conclusion. For my purpose modesty 
 is desirable, and I assess the loss to the Vatican in 
 the last fifty years at 6,000,000. Italian life and 
 literature are unintelligible unless we grant this. 1 
 
 Nor must it be imagined that a momentary ad- 
 vantage has been taken of clerical somnolence. Not 
 only is the ecclesiastical organisation still vast, power- 
 ful and wealthy, but it has made devoted efforts during 
 the last ten years to arrest the spread of the revolt. 
 A corporation that includes 258 archbishops and 
 bishops, 68,844 priests, 48,043 monks and nuns, and 
 12,129 sacristans (besides the workers in dependent 
 industries, professions, etc.), with a safe revenue (half 
 from glebe lands) of 32,000,000 lire, is a formidable 
 force. This army, moreover, has met Socialist ac- 
 tivity with a remarkable development of social and 
 philanthropic work amongst the peasantry. In spite 
 of all its efforts the leakage increases year by year. 
 Its leaders indeed help the work of their opponents 
 by their ill-advised pronouncements. Leo XIII., who 
 for a time patronised the " Christian Democrats," came 
 in the end (January 1901) to pen a most mischievous 
 
 1 As my estimate implies the essential anticlericalism of the 
 Socialists, Radicals and Republicans, I have sought confirmation 
 of it from the most cultivated and distinguished of the Italian 
 Socialists, Enrico Ferri. He assures me that the Socialists (who 
 " number much more than 500,000 " — my estimate) are " irre- 
 concilable adversaries of the Church," and that this applies also 
 to "the Radicals and Republicans." The suffrage being extremely 
 limited in Italy, he reminds me, the huge collective vote of these 
 three groups expresses only a fraction of their strength amongst 
 the people. And to these we must add the Freemasons, the Free- 
 thinkers, the unorganised indifferentists, and the great bulk of the 
 middle class.
 
 ITALY 65 
 
 declaration on social work. Pius X. addressed the 
 workers from the start in the language of Gregory 
 XVI. and Pius IX. He may gain the Quirinal, as 
 his predecessor gained the Kaiser ; but he has lost 
 the artisans of Italy. 
 
 The present Pope's denunciation of the moral 
 condition of Italy is another cause of dissatisfaction 
 and contempt. The morality of Italy has signally 
 improved during these decades of defection from 
 Romanism, and is highest in the non-Catholic pro- 
 vinces. For the whole country the number of con- 
 victions has sunk from 458,262 in 1899 to 428,634 in 
 1903 ; and the diminution is greatest in the north. 
 For the whole country, again, the proportion of 
 illegitimate births has fallen from 7*35 per cent, in 
 1 88 1 to 6"02 per cent, in 1904. The Roman province 
 is one of the worst in this regard, having a percentage 
 of 20'3 : the northern provinces are the best. There 
 is still an extraordinary laxity amongst the Catholic 
 population, from the prelate to the peasant. I found 
 a curiously obtuse moral sense amongst the peasantry 
 of a solidly Catholic district in the south, where I had 
 the advantage of observing them through the eyes of 
 residents (friendly to them) who have known them 
 for years. On the other hand a writer, not hostile to 
 Catholicism, in The Church Quarterly (October 1902), 
 tells that he heard an Italian prelate lamenting that 
 a certain distinguished cardinal had not received the 
 tiara at the last conclave. When the writer pro- 
 tested to the Italian that the cardinal was a man 
 of "conspicuous immorality" the prelate impatiently 
 exclaimed: "You Anglicans seem to think there 
 is no virtue but chastity." I myself heard it 
 familiarly stated, as a matter of common knowledge, 
 by officials at Rome that the cardinal in question 
 (whom I easily recognise) kept a mistress at a
 
 66 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 villa not many miles from the Vatican to which he 
 aspired. 
 
 Thus the Roman Catholic Church has suffered in 
 Italy the loss of at least a fifth of its adherents, and 
 those the more alert and thoughtful part of the nation. 
 King and Okey conclude their impartial inquiry on 
 the point of religion by saying that "probably the 
 great majority of the peasants should still be counted 
 Catholics." That will, doubtless, be the verdict of 
 every neutral observer : it is, in effect, the verdict of 
 militant Catholic priests like Murri. But the peasants 
 also secede rapidly. In twenty years, in an ever- 
 increasing population, the clerical army has shrunk 
 from 76,560 to 68,844, and in the north at least the 
 priests lament that their chapels are half empty. 
 "Decay" is writ large over its whole action and 
 organisation. There is only one possible way in 
 which the Italian Church can arrest the decay in some 
 measure. Its fulminations have touched so lightly 
 the mind of Italy for forty years that they have 
 lost even the interest of melodrama. Its social and 
 philanthropic work has failed to compete with the glow- 
 ing phrases of the Socialist orators. It must enter 
 into a political alliance with the Ouirinal. As in 
 Germany, rulers and statesmen will welcome its co- 
 operation in the checking of Socialism and Radical- 
 ism by spiritual menaces to the peasant — if the Vatican 
 is sagacious enough to offer the alliance before its 
 power over the peasant is too seriously undermined. 
 Individualist sceptics could, no doubt, be induced to 
 suspend their objections to clericalism (as in Spain) 
 and unite with the Church against a common enemy. 
 There may be a concentration which will break up 
 some of the older groups. 
 
 In estimating the possible issue for the Church of 
 this alliance, it must be borne in mind that in Italy
 
 ITALY 67 
 
 moderate Socialism is not a mere artisan movement. 
 It has leaders and adherents amongst the most 
 cultured writers and most learned professors in the 
 country. It is not many years since we were startled 
 to hear that D'Annunzio himself had publicly associ- 
 ated with them. It has long counted amongst its 
 disciples such men of science and letters as Lombroso, 
 De Amicis, Ferri, Ferrero, Graf, Guerrini, Ghisleri, 
 Pascoli, Chiaruggi, Batelli, Pantaleoni. This means 
 a large following amongst the cultured. The struggle 
 will not be merely one of peasants and artisans 
 against the middle and upper class. Further, the 
 Church is, as I write, blindly eviscerating itself of 
 its own cultured elements. Murri is suspended, 
 Minocchi excommunicated, Fogazzaro on the Index. 
 The "modernists" defy the Vatican with their famous 
 Programina, and merely change the titles of their pro- 
 hibited magazines. The Italian Church will soon be 
 a body of 20,000,000 illiterates and children, controlled 
 by an army of 200,000 clerics and dependent laymen. 
 But the light breaks even on the mind of the peasants, 
 and, when they awake, they will join the great 
 rebellion.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LATIN WORLD— SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 
 
 THE serious inquirer into the fortunes of the 
 Church of Rome in divers countries invari- 
 ably approaches each section of his subject 
 with a fresh optimism. He has probably set out in 
 his investigation under the influence of that belief 
 in its constant progress which is pressed on him from 
 every side. The moment he begins to reflect, how- 
 ever, events so clamant as the recent revolution in 
 France bring over his mind the first shade of sceptic- 
 ism, and he soon finds that the French Church is 
 but the crumbling ruin of the fabric on which the 
 philosophers of the eighteenth century led the first 
 assault. But he is assured that the failure is purely 
 local, and that beyond the Alps Catholicism still sees 
 a whole nation bow in awe before the presentation of 
 its solemn mysteries. He passes to Italy : and again 
 he meets the Voltairean scoffer, the intellectual critic, 
 and the democratic rebel. He finds Italy spurning 
 the rule of the Vatican in ominous proportion to its 
 mental development, and few but the dense, sensual 
 peasants of the southern provinces really submissive 
 to the papal commands. Then Roman prelates tell 
 him that the real home of Catholicism, the land from 
 which the Gospel will again set out on its triumphal 
 march, is in the Iberian peninsula and South America ; 
 and he takes up the thread of his inquiry with a 
 stronger prepossession than ever in favour of Rome. 
 
 Deferring to the next chapter the inquiry into the 
 condition of Romanism in Spanish America, we have 
 
 68
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 69 
 
 now to investigate its fortunes in Spain and Portugal. 
 It need hardly be pointed out that the position is in 
 many respects exceptional. A recent German writer 
 has insisted that the Iberian peninsula is, psychically, 
 "a bit of Africa." One of the most sagacious and 
 philosophic observers of modern Spain and Portugal, 
 he concludes that in the peninsula we have one of the 
 most singular phases of the religious struggle of our 
 time : a semi-Oriental people struggling against modern 
 ideas, not so much out of attachment to the religion 
 they assail, but because they threaten the very basis 
 of its life, its quietism. 1 However, we have a healthy 
 distrust of the too philosophic impressions of German 
 travellers, and no doubt Herr Passarge makes too 
 much of the former presence of the Arab in Spain. 
 The situation is peculiar enough without regarding any 
 theory of racial inheritance — peculiar in geography, in 
 history, and in cultural value. Only in the Catholic 
 south of Italy or America can we find equally dense 
 and general ignorance. Of the Portuguese 78*6 per 
 cent, are unable to read : of the Spanish 68 per cent. 
 And nowhere else in Europe can we find an equal 
 exhaustion from warfare, revolution and persecution. 
 Yet Passarge, like nearly every other writer on 
 Spain and Portugal, bears witness to the advanced 
 decomposition of the Church of Rome in the Peninsula. 
 It is " full of superficial Freethought," he says, from his 
 Protestant point of view. The notion that the Spanish 
 and Portuguese are still solidly Catholic is as mythical 
 as we found the same idea to be in regard to Italy. 
 Vast corporations of clergy and religious are fighting 
 the growth of heresy : ruling powers have their own 
 reasons for permitting the abnormal illiteracy, and 
 encouraging the intolerant bigotry, that check its 
 progress ; yet Spain and Portugal are smouldering with 
 1 "Aus Spanien und Portugal," by L. Passarge.
 
 70 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 rebellion against Rome, and any decade in the first 
 half of the twentieth century the gust may set in that 
 will raise a flame only second in magnitude to that we 
 have witnessed in France, and probably more intense 
 and unsparing. Millions have completely abandoned 
 their allegiance to the Vatican, and millions more are 
 well on the way to abandon it. Of this we shall see 
 abundant proof in the course of the present chapter. 
 Educated Spain is no longer Catholic : illiterate Spain 
 rebels with the first tincture of letters. 
 
 SPAIN 
 
 The superficial traveller who appraises the religious 
 life of Spain by the processions and ceremonies he has 
 witnessed at Seville usually has little difficulty in 
 securing the assent of his reader. Indeed, it may be 
 confessed at once that a peculiar discretion is needed 
 in reading accounts of Spanish life. Of two friends 
 of mine who know Spain well, one, an American, 
 who has lived there for more than a decade, affirms 
 that the country is ■ still purely medieval in regard 
 to religion ; the other, a highly cultivated Spaniard, 
 avers that only 25 per cent, of his countrymen go to 
 church, and that the greater part even of these have 
 no real religious belief. Of two writers on Spain 
 that I consult, one, an English traveller, suggests 
 that 95 per cent, of the Spaniards are sincere 
 Roman Catholics : the other, a devout and cultivated 
 Spanish Catholic, says, ''there is more indifference and 
 practical atheism in Spain than in any other country 
 in Europe!" And our encyclopaedias and other 
 works of reference, with their usual irresponsibility 
 on this point, assign 17,500,000 out of the 18,000,000 
 of Spain to the rule of the Vatican. 
 
 The course of this chapter will amply show that the
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 71 
 
 more optimistic writers have either had their experi- 
 ence restricted to some exceptional outlying district 
 — as in the case of my American friend — or have only 
 glanced at the surface of Spain's life — as in the case 
 of the English traveller (to whom I return later). 
 But in order to approach the examination with a fitting- 
 sense of proportion we must glance at the history of 
 religion in Spain since the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. If the traveller in Spain were equipped with 
 this knowledge, he would be less disposed to build 
 on isolated occurrences and superficial ceremonies ; 
 but he is very rarely acquainted with that remarkable 
 story. 
 
 To a point the story is the same as in the case of 
 France and Italy. French scepticism found an easy, 
 if restricted, ground in Spain. Educated Spaniards 
 saw their impoverished country fastened on by a 
 parasitic tribe of nearly 140,000 priests, nuns and 
 sacristans (to 10,000,000 people), and welcomed the 
 Voltairean estimate of their worth. But the clergy 
 were content to fence off these few reading folk from 
 the masses, and knew that the vast illiterate body of 
 the people were ignorant of the meaning, and dis- 
 trusted the very sound, of such words as reform and 
 progress. The French invasion smoothed the way 
 for more French literature, and the easy rule — or 
 virtual rule — of Godoy, who was " bitterly opposed 
 by the ecclesiastics and the mob " (says Major Hume), 
 encouraged the spread of culture and facilitated that 
 of heresy. The devastation wrought by Napoleon's 
 troops in the Peninsula, and the seething hatred of 
 everything French that it evoked, naturally aided 
 the cause of the clergy. But by the time of 
 the fall of Napoleon Liberalism was fully born 
 in Spain, and prepared to enter, as in the other 
 Latin countries, into the long war with clericalism
 
 72 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 and absolutism. From that time onward there has 
 been a powerful body of Radical heretics in the 
 country. 
 
 But the Spanish Liberals had an even more difficult 
 task than those of Italy. They had to deal with the 
 most brutal and unscrupulous of the restored rulers 
 after 1814 ; they had one of the richest and most 
 powerful clerical corporations in Europe to combat ; 
 and they had about them a people so dark in mind, 
 and so steeped in medieval feeling, that it could 
 welcome a tyrant with the cry : " Down with liberty! 
 Hurrah for chains ! " The first Spanish Cortes (of 
 recent times) was set up in 18 10. The lawyers and 
 literary men who abounded in it were very largely 
 imbued with French ideas, and, though they swore 
 to tolerate no faith but Catholicism in the land, they 
 abolished the Inquisition, curtailed the power of the 
 clergy, and framed a constitution. But the national 
 hatred of France was rising year by year, the monks 
 and clergy were working at fever-heat, the revolu- 
 tionary wave was ebbing all over Europe, and, in 
 the general reaction, Ferdinand returned to Spain. 
 How he duped the Liberals, and tore up the con- 
 stitution he had promised to maintain, is common 
 matter of history. Briefly, the " white terror " 
 assumed a complexion in Spain that shocked even 
 Louis XVIII. and Metternich. With swift and 
 savage treachery, with the enthusiastic support of 
 the monks and clergy, he turned on all who be- 
 trayed the slightest leaning to Liberalism. The 
 Inquisition was restored, and a great network of 
 additional spies was spread over the country. 
 The prominent Liberals were at once flung into 
 prison, or barbarously executed, or driven from 
 the land ; and then began a minute and merciless 
 inquisition into men's opinions. The state of things
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 73 
 
 at Madrid was akin to that at Paris in 1793. "A 
 premium was put upon information, and a secret police 
 penetrated into every household in order to discover 
 the secrets of consciences and to purge Spain of every 
 Liberal element. Neither age, sex, virtue nor 
 poverty afforded protection against these terrible 
 commissions : wealth alone sometimes saved one from 
 death." 1 Great numbers of men of culture and 
 character were executed ; their wives and daughters, 
 delicate Spanish ladies, were sent to herd with the 
 criminals in the galleys for not denouncing their 
 husbands or fathers. Over the provinces a " Society 
 of the Exterminating Angel," having relations with 
 all the leading bishops and all the monasteries, carried 
 the terror in its most ruthless form. The death 
 penalty was passed against any Spaniard who should 
 dare even to mention the constitution ; the bare 
 possession of an English Liberal newspaper was 
 punished with ten years' imprisonment in the deadly 
 jails of Spain. Yet — it is well to remember this when 
 one is tempted to speak of the innate indolence of 
 the Spaniard — Liberalism triumphed after six years 
 of this appalling repression, and again in 1822 ; and 
 it needed the intervention of a large French army 
 to restore Ferdinand to power. In spite of French 
 counsels of moderation he at once recommenced 
 the terror. " Modern civilisation has seen no such 
 instance of brutal, blind ferocity as that which followed 
 the arrival of Fernando in Madrid. ... It was 
 sufficient for a person to have belonged to the militia, 
 or even to be related to a known Liberal, for the 
 most inhuman tortures to be inflicted upon him by 
 the unrestrained populace. . . . Not even the most 
 bloodthirsty wretches of the French Reign of Terror 
 equalled the President of the Military Commission at 
 1 G. Hubbard, " Histoire contemporaine de l'Espagne."
 
 74 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Madrid." 1 Hubbard puts it that "under the ministry 
 of Victor Saez, the king's confessor, the hangman 
 seemed to be the most active instrument of power." 
 "The Cambridge History" (vol. x.) observes that 
 "the reaction was more violent, blind and cruel than 
 in 1 8 14." And the revival of Liberal ideas in Europe 
 in 1830 led to fresh brutality, so that the repressive 
 period lasted until the death of Ferdinand in 1833. 
 
 A glance at this fearful chapter in the history of 
 modern Spain is essential for a proper understanding 
 of the religious situation to-day — indeed, of the whole 
 predicament of Spain. From 18 14 to 1833 many 
 thousands of the more cultivated and energetic 
 Spaniards were executed or banished, and what is 
 euphemistically called its "quietism" was brutally 
 impressed on the Spanish character. Culture was 
 proscribed, and the civilisation of the land was put 
 back half-a-century. Only two journals were published 
 at Madrid, and they merely reflected the temper of 
 the despot. Colleges and universities were closed ; 
 and the great schools of bullfighting appeared in 
 their stead. To have passed through twenty years 
 of such a rule as Ferdinand's is a sufficient explana- 
 tion of the comparative weakness of the anti- Roman 
 movement in Spain to-day ; nor — the reader will 
 learn with surprise — is the reign of brutal repression 
 yet over in the country. But I will touch briefly 
 the later story of anticlericalism in Spain before I 
 enlarge on the present situation. 
 
 The Carlist disruption was the second factor in the 
 exhaustion of the nation, but it indirectly brought 
 relief to Liberalism and helped to spread anticlerical 
 
 1 " Modern Spain," p. 256, by Major Hume, who will not be 
 suspected of bias against the clergy. He is well within the mark 
 when he observes that the monks and clergy were "responsible 
 for much of this atrocity."
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 75 
 
 ideas amongst the people. By one of those tragic 
 errors that marked Rome's conduct in the Latin 
 countries throughout the nineteenth century the 
 clergy sided with Don Carlos, the late king's brother, 
 who promised to continue the methods of Ferdinand 
 if the crown were secured for him. The Liberals 
 therefore found themselves in the novel position of 
 supporting the legitimate sovereign against a usurper 
 and a rebellious clergy. Greatly as the queen's party 
 disliked them, the withdrawal of the nobles and the 
 stricter Conservatives to Don Carlos prepared the 
 way for a Liberal majority in the Cortes and the 
 passing of anticlerical measures. Even the mass 
 of the people were now turning against the monks 
 and learning to spell the word progress. The Jesuits 
 and the monks were suppressed, the press was 
 liberated, and the anticlerical propaganda proceeded 
 briskly. 
 
 From 1833 until 1873 we have a series of heated 
 and revolutionary conflicts between the Liberal and 
 Conservative elements, with alternating victory, but 
 the anticlerical cause steadily gains. The revolu- 
 tionary wave of 1838 washed over the Pyrenees to 
 some extent, and again the Conservatives made a 
 drastic clearance of heretics, political and religious. 
 The Liberals returned to power in 1854, framed a 
 new constitution, and, after granting compensation, 
 sold the Church lands. This provoked a reaction and 
 counter-revolution in 1856; but the Liberals returned 
 in 1858, and were driven out again in 1866, when a 
 fresh persecution was set afoot. Decrees were passed, 
 says Major Hume, "such as would have shamed 
 Ferdinand VII." and the most shameless tyranny 
 was rampant once more. Yet within two years 
 the various progressive bodies united, and effected a 
 successful revolution. For a time they tried a new
 
 76 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 dynasty in Amadeo of Savoy, but his foreign ways 
 displeased, and in 1873 the Cortes proclaimed a 
 republic by 258 votes to 32. It was wrecked by the 
 army, and Alfonso XII. was placed on the throne. 
 For some years the godson of the Pope kept the 
 Liberals in check, though he made only slight con- 
 cessions to the reactionaries, but from 1880 onward 
 Liberals and Conservatives have alternated in power ; 
 though not so much by the will of the electorate as 
 by mutual agreement to divide the spoils of politics. 
 
 It will be seen that this brief sketch of the history 
 of anticlericalism in Spain disposes one to examine 
 the present position of the Church with greater dis- 
 cretion. For nearly a hundred years there has been 
 a powerful body of cultivated Freethinkers and Free- 
 masons in Spain. They have attained to power in 
 the Cortes time after time, though the consciousness 
 that the vast majority of the nation, totally illiterate 
 and fanatically Catholic, were ready at any moment 
 to be fired by priestly oratory set limits to their 
 anticlerical legislation. In spite of the fearful per- 
 secutions that were directed against them during more 
 than a quarter of a century, nearly 10,000 Spaniards 
 described themselves as " Freethinkers " at the census 
 of 1877, and it was well known that these were only 
 the bolder members of a very much more numerous 
 body. An impartial German authority, Wilkomm, 
 declared that indifferentism was general in Spain in 
 the early eighties, and that religious bigotry was 
 known only in the remoter provinces. No one, 
 indeed, disputes that the Church, with its opposition 
 to progress and education, its Inquisition and its 
 sanction, if not encouragement, of the most brutal 
 persecution of its critics, had, a quarter of a century 
 ago, lost the allegiance of more than half the culti 
 vated men of Spain.
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 77 
 
 Curiously enough, the only serious difference of 
 opinion is in regard to the fortunes of the Church in 
 the last twenty years, when it has suffered such heavy 
 losses in France and Italy. Mr Houghton (article 
 " Spain " in the recent supplementary edition of the 
 Ency. Brit.) affirms that Wilkomm's estimate of the 
 religious condition of Spain in 1886 is by no means 
 applicable to the Spain of to-day. He fancies that 
 under the moderate rule of Alfonso XII. and under 
 the Regency the Church has recovered most of the 
 ground she lost between 1868 and 1877. But the 
 number of professed Freethinkers was much higher 
 at the census of 1887 than it had been in 1877, 
 and Mr Houghton himself adds that they " were 
 known to be much more numerous [than the figures 
 suggest], especially in the middle and lower classes." 
 In point of fact the number of seceders has grown 
 enormously in the last three decades, and to-day 
 serious Spanish Catholics are appalled at the situation. 
 
 Let me first of all point out one or two features of 
 Spanish life that account for the comparative reticence 
 of seceders from the Church, and add difficulty to our 
 inquiry. The first of these is that the age of bloody 
 persecution is not yet over in Spain. That is a 
 serious statement to make when authorities like Major 
 Hume declare that " the day of religious persecution 
 and tyrannical priestcraft is past for ever, and Catholic 
 Spain is as free as Protestant England" ("Modern 
 Spain," p. xi.). Now, even in Madrid, the Protestants 
 are less free than Catholics were in London more 
 than a century ago. They are not allowed to ad- 
 vertise their services, or to make any official appear- 
 ance in public. As late as 1894 the opening of the 
 Protestant chapel of Madrid caused an alarming out- 
 break, and had to be postponed for months. But 
 this treatment of English residents is nothing to the
 
 78 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 treatment accorded to native rebels. " Spanish 
 codes," says Mr Houghton, "still contain many severe 
 penalties, including fines, correctional prison and 
 penal servitude, for delicts against the State religion, 
 as writers and journalists frequently discover when they 
 give offence to the ecclesiastical authorities" (Ency. Brit. : 
 " Spain " ). That Mr Houghton is right I have found 
 ample proof. I have been informed by a friend who 
 lived for many years at Santa Cruz, and was perfectly 
 familiar with the people, that not many years ago a 
 young Spanish journalist of that town was put into 
 prison, without trial, for anticlerical observations. He 
 was personally known to my friend, who declares that 
 he was transferred to a Spanish fortress, where the 
 horrible conditions set up consumption, and he was at 
 length discharged — without a shadow of legal process 
 — to die a few weeks later. Except in regard to the 
 death, the story was confirmed to me in every detail 
 by a well-informed Spanish journalist. In outlying 
 parts of Spain no form of trial is even affected in such 
 cases. A word from the bishop to the civil governor 
 is enough. 
 
 But offences of this kind are now usually hidden 
 under a false charge, and that, no doubt, accounts 
 for Major Hume's impression. A case of the most 
 flagrant and horrible character occurred at Barcelona 
 so late as 1896. An isolated Anarchist outrage in 
 1895 had led to the torture of many suspects, and, 
 on the confessions wrung from these in the delirium 
 of the most exquisite pain that could be devised, a 
 number of innocent men were executed. This led 
 to fresh outrages in 1894 and 1896. After the latter, 
 military law was proclaimed, and some three or four 
 hundred men of all shades of political opinion (except 
 Conservative) were driven to the terrible fortress of 
 Montjuich. There were few violent Anarchists among
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 79 
 
 them. They were mostly Republicans, Socialists, 
 Freethinkers and Freemasons ; but all ordinary 
 judicial forms were suspended, and the clergy and 
 governing class took occasion to punish all who 
 were obnoxious to them. With one exception — 
 and he was a Carlist, and brother of an Anarchist 
 — they were all antic lericals. The Director of 
 the Polytechnic Academy, Professor Tarrida del 
 Marmol (professor at the School of Arts and Crafts, 
 cousin of the Marquis of Mont-Roig), was amongst 
 the number, though he escaped, through influence, 
 after six weeks in the horrible jail. His sole offence 
 was anticlerical propaganda. Of the others many 
 were submitted to tortures that seem not to have 
 occurred even in the medieval imagination. Cords 
 were tied on their genital organs, and, under the 
 control of Spanish officers, they were subjected to a 
 pain as intense as it was repulsive. Some were fed 
 for several days on salt fish, and refused a drop of 
 water. They were scourged until their bodies ran all 
 over with blood. They were prevented from sleeping 
 or resting for several days and nights by the whips of 
 the soldiers and jailers. They were flung into the 
 sea, time after time, and only rescued at the point of 
 death. And the torture only ceased when they would 
 sign a paper declaring that some obnoxious anticlerical 
 or political heretic was "an Anarchist." Europe was, 
 of course, informed that they were all "Anarchists." 1 
 
 1 See the full account in Prof. Tarrida del Marmol's " Inquisiteurs 
 Modernes." It may help the reader to understand modern Spain if 
 I say that Anarchists are very numerous in the country, but these 
 must not be confounded with the thrower of bombs. Their aim is 
 the peaceful propaganda of the political and economic ideal of 
 Prince Krapotkin and Professor Reclus. However, only a fraction 
 of the Barcelona " Anarchists " belonged even to this school. Nearly 
 all of them abhorred outrage. 
 
 More recently still (1906-1907) a case has occurred at Madrid
 
 80 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 So much for the "freedom" of modern Spain. It 
 is a country where you do best to respect the clergy 
 externally, whatever you may think in your own mind. 
 But the times are changing, and there is already 
 a wider network of anticlerical societies spread over 
 Spain than in any other country. 
 
 The second feature I would point out is that in 
 Spain the religious issue is much obscured by political 
 complications. Lower depths of political Liberalism 
 have revealed themselves — Socialism, Republicanism, 
 Anarchy, etc. — and this has led to a tendency of 
 the historic anticlerical Liberal party to co-operate 
 with the moderate Conservatives, and to compromise 
 on religious questions. I have drawn no conclusion 
 — as I did in the case of France — from the frequency 
 with which the Liberals are "returned to power." It 
 is notorious that in Spain there is ''no sincerity or 
 reality in the pretended antagonism of the political 
 parties," as Major Hume puts it. Assuredly there is 
 an antagonism of principles in regard to the Church, 
 but the elections are shamelessly controlled by the 
 party in power, and changes of government are due 
 to a genial understanding between them that if either 
 party is kept out of office too long it will give 
 trouble. Both parties now face a rising body of more 
 advanced thought and a serious menace to their 
 system, so that the political divisions, once so clearly 
 
 itself. A cultivated and high-minded Spaniard, F. Ferrer Guardia, 
 was arrested in connection with the attempt on the lives of the king 
 and queen. The Madrid magistrate wanted to dismiss the charge 
 as frivolous, but the procurator fiscal intervened, and for twelve 
 months pressed for sentence of death (by garroting) against Ferrer, 
 who remained in jail. Ferrer's real offence was that he had spent 
 his life and fortune in erecting secular schools in Spain, as the 
 procurator not obscurely hinted. He is a man of culture and of 
 great humanity, and is as notoriously opposed to violence as 
 Tolstoy.
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 81 
 
 religious, now throw less light on the subject of our 
 inquiry. 
 
 The cultivated middle class remains Rationalistic, 
 but it may conceal or ignore the clerical issue when 
 it has more material interests to defend against the 
 anticlerical Socialists and Republicans. This circum- 
 stance is of vital importance in seeking expressions 
 of dissent from Rome in modern Spain. Just as we 
 saw that the Liberal bourgeois of France were led by 
 proceedings of the Communists in 1871 to moderate 
 their anticlericalism and coquet with the Church, so 
 in Spain to-day the rise of a deep Radicalism, with 
 its menace to their economic interests, imposes some 
 reticence on the Liberals. Their consciousness of 
 the corruption of their political machinery, which the 
 Extremists fiercely assail, increases this tendency ; 
 and as the Church of Rome is inveterately opposed 
 to these new democratic movements, and they to her, 
 we must expect a certain amount of compromise on 
 religious issues. 
 
 Yet these facts only enhance the significance of the 
 many indications one finds of the condition of Spain. 
 As in the case of Italy, statistics of churchgoing 
 and Easter communions are not available. Nor does 
 the strength of Protestantism help us much. In the 
 Latin countries it makes little and laborious progress. 
 
 The German pastor at Madrid estimates the total 
 number of Protestants in Spain at 12,000, and these 
 are mostly foreigners. Professor Unamuno is en- 
 deavouring to lead native religion into a form akin 
 to Lutheranism, but he has few followers in this 
 respect. However the whole literature of the subject 
 testifies that the men of Spain have for the most 
 abandoned the Church, and that to-day their wives 
 and families often accompany them. After a careful 
 search amongst writers on Spain, in Spanish, French,
 
 82 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 German and English, I do not find one of any weight 
 to support the statement that Mr Houghton makes in 
 the supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. One 
 popular English writer, Mr Bart Kennedy (" Tramp 
 in Spain"), does indeed strongly confirm it; but as 
 Mr Kennedy acknowledges — nay, boasts — that he set 
 out on his short tour through Spain with no other 
 equipment than a revolver, a passport and a complete 
 ignorance of the language, most people will not 
 wonder that he came to the singular conclusion that 
 the Spanish peasants are the happiest in the world, 
 and their religion and clergy are amongst the chief 
 sources of their happiness. A more serious English 
 writer, Mr R. Thirlmere (" Letters from Catalonia," 
 1905), might be adduced as a qualified supporter. 
 But as throughout his work, especially in the valuable 
 special chapter on this point, Mr Thirlmere quotes the 
 Spaniards themselves as uniformly saying that "the 
 Jesuits are contentedly moving towards their own ruin 
 and towards the ruin of the whole Roman Church " 
 (p. 292), that " recent events have made the Spaniard, 
 if anything, more of a Materialist " (p. 294), that "the 
 doom of the Church has already been spoken in this 
 land" (p. 296), and that "the Church knows she is 
 doomed in Spain" (p. 437 — and this, he says, is 
 repeated by " nearly all he meets "), he turns out to be 
 a strong supporter of my own conclusion. He seems 
 indisposed to welcome it, yet apparently could find 
 none to tell him otherwise. When he states, as his 
 own estimate, that Spain is "a land where, to woman 
 at least, Christ still lives," and that the Church gets 
 money mainly through the women, whose husbands 
 "curse their fervour," I need not dissent. The men 
 of Spain are predominantly anti-Catholic or indifferent. 
 Other writers are explicit enough. " The bigotry 
 one reads of in the Spanish wars of independence,"
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 83 
 
 says Passarge, "has given place to a sort of religious 
 indifference, if not, as is the case in Catalonia, which is 
 quite full of modern ideas, to a superficial Freethought" 
 (" Aus Spanien und Portugal," 1905, p. 3). In the chief 
 church of Barcelona he found very few men, and those 
 poor and aged. Sarrasi ("L'Espagne d'aujourd'hui") 
 gives the same estimate. In the rural districts, he 
 says, the priest generally acts as mayor, and is the 
 only literate person in the place, so that the men are 
 dependent on him, but "in the large towns the power 
 of the clergy has greatly diminished." The artisan 
 and the professional man generally "are now free 
 from their earlier prejudice " (p. 82). In Andalusia, 
 the lotusland of the superficial traveller, the poor 
 impatiently declare Catholicism "the religion of the 
 rich," and are " beginning to dislike the clergy." The 
 most serious American writer I find says : 
 
 "Though an earnest advocate of religious toleration, Castelar 
 never neglects the observance of his Church, and shows deep 
 religious feeling in his writings. In this it is to be greatly regretted 
 that his followers are few [yet he was the Conservative leader]. In 
 Spain, at the present day, there is a marked absence of real religion. 
 The enlightened classes have emancipated themselves from the 
 priests, and at the same time from their belief in the essential truths 
 of Christianity; while the peasantry seem to combine irreligion 
 with superstition. Spaniards never will become Christians after 
 the American or English model; and it may be doubted if they 
 will ever go back again as a nation to anything like the form of 
 Christianity they have repudiated and outgrown." 1 
 
 When we turn to native writers we find complete 
 confirmation of these observations of foreigners. A 
 few years ago L. Morote published a series of inter- 
 views he had had with the statesmen and writers of 
 his country ("El Pulso di Espana," 1904). Their 
 general disdain of the Church is very marked, and 
 
 1 " Spain in the Nineteenth Century " (1898), p. 389, by Elizabeth 
 Wormeley.
 
 84 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 even the Catholic leader, Nocedal, exclaims to him : 
 " We have abandoned the moral and spiritual interests 
 of the world — those of Catholicism." All the others 
 leave religion out of account in the quest for uplifting 
 agencies, and look to education, political reform, etc. 
 
 Equally convincing, in a very different way, is the 
 recent work of Ramon de Torre-Isunza (" La Verdad a 
 S. M.E1 Rey," 1902). This fervent and philosophic 
 Catholic writer turns his work, which he addresses 
 to the king, into a profound lament on the decay of 
 religion in his "dying country." He is far from 
 anticlericalism, and equally far from fanaticism ; some 
 remarkable combination of the Church and modern 
 culture is, he thinks, to save Spain. But he says 
 repeatedly : " Our country is marked by more indif- 
 ference and practical atheism than any other in 
 Europe. Religion has power only over a very few 
 consciences amongst us. Catholicism exercises no 
 real influence over the manners of the people" (p. 
 165). What Catholics there are, he says, are mostly 
 "bad Catholics," and "our religiousness is reduced 
 to a pharisaical formalism, so much the more immoral 
 as it is hypocritical " (p. 168). 
 
 Another native writer, Gotor de Burbaguena, says • 
 "The clergy are rushing, as if impelled by some 
 external force, to their own destruction" (" Nuestras 
 Costumbres," 1900, p. 19). Meeting the impressions 
 of travellers like Mr Kennedy, he exclaims: 
 
 " At first sight it might be thought that we are Catholics. . . . 
 What a deception ! What an empty affectation of sentiments we 
 no longer entertain ! What a hypocritical submission to a practice 
 that we despise in the depths of our soul" (p. 265). 
 
 He points out, as all do, that on weekdays "the 
 only people at church are women, and those generally 
 of advanced age" (p. 266), and that men generally go
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 85 
 
 to church only when their wives are importunate, even 
 on Sundays. 
 
 These citations are typical of the passages one finds 
 on this subject in the various classes of Spanish litera- 
 ture. They show that the educated men of Spain are 
 in the same condition as the educated men of Italy, 
 and that the workers, in proportion as they receive 
 education, follow their example. All that I have said 
 of the literature of Italy applies entirely to the litera- 
 ture of Spain. It reflects the feeling of those who 
 read. I pick up at random, in a store of cheap Spanish 
 books, one that has on its paper cover a long list of 
 the books chiefly circulated by Sempere y Ca., the 
 Tauchnitz of Spain. Of ninety works on the list — 
 novels, drama, history, philosophy, etc. — sixty are 
 translations from the most prominent anti-Christian 
 writers in Europe. The religion of most of the others 
 is unknown to me, but I recognise ten anticlerical 
 Spaniards and one Catholic. I run my eyes over the 
 shelves in the store: Perez Gald6s, Blasco Ibaiiez, 
 Renan, Zola, Voltaire, Strauss, Haeckel, Draper, 
 Spencer, Darwin, Ibsen, Heine, R^clus, Tolstoy — it 
 is a complete gallery of heretics. Perez Gald6s 
 dominates Spain, as DAnnunzio does Italy, or Zola 
 did France; and he is an ardent anticlerical and 
 Republican. In 1900 he produced a play, Electra, 
 at the Teatro Espaiiol at Madrid. It has no great 
 dramatic merit, but it is a spirited and uncompromising 
 attack on Catholicism. It invited Spain to turn away 
 from the priesthood, and look for salvation to science 
 and naturalism. At the end of the first act, and 
 especially at the close, it was greeted with frantic 
 applause. It aroused so much enthusiasm in Madrid 
 and the provinces that it has been widely credited 
 with a great share in securing at the next election the 
 return of the Liberals with a strong anticlerical pro-
 
 86 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 gramme. At Barcelona, not long afterwards, a drama 
 (Pa/erm'dad) was presented that concentrated in its 
 few acts the fiercest and darkest charges that have 
 ever been made against the Jesuits. It was enthusiasti- 
 cally cheered ; and, at a call for the author, a Catholic 
 priest (Segismondo Pey-Ordeix) walked on the stage 
 in clerical dress. At Madrid a bench of magistrates 
 compelled a rich convent to give up a young lady 
 (Sen. Ubao), whom a Jesuit confessor had secretly 
 conducted there. 
 
 But we can attain to greater precision in determining 
 the losses of the Church in Spain. In the first place 
 we have the powerful political bodies that are distinctly 
 anticlerical. The character of the Liberals may be 
 gathered from the words of a resolution that was 
 passed at a Catholic congress, and forwarded to the 
 Archbishop of Toledo. It pledged the Catholics 
 never to buy or read the Liberal journals, specifying 
 "El Impartial, Liberal, Heraldo de Madrid, Pais, y 
 otros de eso genero." The Republicans, Socialists, 
 and Anarchists, who share between them the bulk of 
 the artisans and a large number of the peasants, are 
 even more emphatically anti- Roman. Then there are 
 the Freemasons. Their strength to-day I have not 
 been able to ascertain, but I find a Catholic statement 
 of their strength twenty years ago, when the power 
 of the Church was greater. In 1883 they had 399 
 lodges in Spain, including 29 at Cadiz, 25 at Madrid, 
 20 at Murcia, 16 at Seville and 14 at Valencia! 1 We 
 may conjecture how numerous they are to-day. 
 
 1 " La Massonerfa Espana," by T. M. Tirado y Rojas (1892). Of 
 Masonic heterodoxy on the Continent it is not* needful to speak. 
 In regard to Liberalism I may add that in 1886 a priest wrote a 
 pamphlet entitled El Liberalismo es pecado ( " Liberalism is a sin"). 
 Another priest wrote a criticism of this, and he was promptly put 
 on the Index and referred to his bishop by the Vatican for correction.
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 87 
 
 We may indeed describe the whole popular move- 
 ment in Spain to-day as emphatically anticlerical. A 
 remarkable illustration of this occurred in the autumn 
 of 1902, when a Rationalist- Republican journal made 
 an effort to draw the attention of the Spanish workers 
 to a Freethought congress that was to be held at 
 Geneva. The journal (Las Domi?iicales) was able, 
 when the time came, to give a list of more than 
 1000 Spanish societies that sent formal support and 
 funds to this violently anti-Catholic congress. A 
 very large proportion were Republican, Socialist or 
 Anarchist (in the philosophic sense) societies, but the 
 details of the long list are curiously indicative of the 
 real feeling of Spanish workers. Industrial, peda- 
 gogical and co-operative societies figure in it. Several 
 associations of workers in the remote Canaries tele- 
 graphed their adhesion. Many women's societies are 
 included. Indeed, one of the Spanish Freethought 
 journals, La Conciencia Libera (of Malaga), is edited 
 by a woman, Sefiora Sarraga, and has a large circula- 
 tion amongst women. In the Madrid Freethinking 
 paper Las Dominicales, one reads weekly of secular 
 marriages and baptisms, and other indications that the 
 women and children of Spain are abandoning the 
 Church. Secular schools are spreading all over Spain, 
 educating the children of the Freethinkers and Republi- 
 cans without religion. The Escuela Moderna at 
 Barcelona has 130 pupils, and recently gave a festival 
 to 1 700 pupils of affiliated schools. There are thirteen 
 others in Barcelona, ten in Madrid, and some in most 
 of the large towns and in many villages. 1 
 
 1 These schools are far superior, as a rule, to the government 
 schools. The Escuela Moderna provides them with a series of 
 thirty-one text-books, many by distinguished writers. Dr Odon de 
 Buen, Perez Gald6s, and other writers are directly interested in 
 them. A few sentences from a statement by Senor Lozano of
 
 88 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 From all these indications it will be seen that 
 the conventional idea of Spain must be abandoned. 
 The situation rapidly approaches that of Italy, 
 and creeps on toward that of France. Much 
 nearer the truth seems to be the estimate given 
 me by a Spanish writer who has paid especial 
 attention to the subject. He affirms that of the 
 adult males of Spain only from 25 to 30 per 
 cent, go to church, and that even the majority of 
 these go merely to escape importunacy or for some 
 other external consideration. We need not press 
 the latter point ; and the former seems to be in 
 accord with the other authorities I have quoted. 
 It means that of the 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 
 adult males in the country only about 1,000,000 are 
 
 Madrid will show how little the average traveller knows of 
 Spain : 
 
 " Twenty-five years ago scarcely anybody in Spain dared venture 
 to speak against the Church. The publication of Las Dominicale^ 
 [his journal] was regarded as a national scandal. Excommunica- 
 tions, prosecutions, fines, threats of murder, the actual assassination 
 of one of its principal writers — nothing was spared. To-day, instead 
 of attacking us, the Church has to defend itself. More than a 
 hundred Republican journals are decidedly Freethought in character, 
 and the immense majority, if not all, of the Republican societies, 
 of which there are thousands, are Rationalistic. All the societies of 
 Republican, Socialistic, Anarchist and Co-operative character are 
 Freethought societies. For example, at Sabadell, a large industrial 
 city, the whole of the societies and institutions have often appointed 
 me as their delegate at International Freethought Congresses. There 
 are small villages buried away in the mountains, like Prado del Rey 
 (Cadiz) where the majority of the interments are civil interments. 
 In San Vicente de Alcantara (Badajos) the mass of the people are 
 Freethinkers. In districts like Penalsordo (Badajos), where I had 
 no idea that even a single Freethinker existed, secular marriages 
 are celebrated, at which the people attend en masse, while the 
 strains of the Marseillaise lend music and sentiment to the cere- 
 mony." Republicanism is very powerful also. At the last general 
 election it returned three members for Madrid, including Perez 
 Gald6s.
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 89 
 
 Roman Catholics, and these are for the most part 
 illiterate. 1 
 
 When we take further into account the movement 
 amongst the women and the transfer of children, we 
 must assess the Church's loss in Spain at 3,000,000 
 or 4,000,000. The Church's loss means, we must 
 remember, almost the full strength of Liberalism, 
 Freemasonry, Republicanism, Socialism, Anarchy, 
 Freethought, native Protestantism, Spiritualism and 
 the secular schools of the country, besides a mass of 
 unorganised indifferentism. I do not see how it is 
 possible to estimate this collective body at less than a 
 fifth of the population ; my Spanish informants insist 
 that it is much more. And it must be remembered 
 that this body of seceders accounts for the greater 
 part of the literate portion of the population — which 
 is only 6,000,000 out of 18,500,000. In the illiterate 
 mass of 12,000,000 (with a minority of the literates) 
 the Vatican may take what pride it will ; but they will 
 be literate by-and-by. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the increase of 
 clerical activity in Spain of late years has other than 
 Spanish causes. It is a very poor fallacy to see in it 
 
 1 This includes, of course, 50,000 priests, monks and sacristans, 
 and the large number of workers dependent on Church life. The 
 Missionary Review of the World (April 1902) estimates the full 
 clerical corporation at 154, 517. There are, besides, 91,226 beggars 
 in Spain, who are all parasites of the Church. 
 
 Mr Isaacson, in his " Rome in many Lands," gives several valuable 
 quotations in support of the conclusion I have reached, but he 
 omits to give dates, and I cannot verify them. He refers to an 
 article in The Church Times that describes infidelity as quite general 
 in Spain. He further quotes El Correo Espanol, a Catholic paper, 
 as saying that only 1,500,000 of the men and 3,500,000 of the women 
 of Spain are now Roman Catholics. He seems to overlook the 
 children, however, when he adds that the remaining 13,000,000 are 
 indifferent to religion. In any case this Catholic estimate assigns 
 to the Church double the loss that I do.
 
 90 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 a reinvigoration of Catholic life in the country. From 
 the early eighties, when the French Liberals first 
 began to put pressure on their Jesuits and other 
 religious, there has been a series of monastic migrations 
 across the Pyrenees. The loss of Cuba and the 
 Philippines threw a fresh flood of clerics and monks 
 upon the mother country. There were in the Philip- 
 pines 1500 secular and regular clergy, and it was 
 calculated that the Church drew 113,000,000 pesetas 
 annually from the islands. All this absorbent body 
 has now been added to the struggling clerical corpora- 
 tion in Spain. The Concordat of 1854 was especially 
 modified in their favour, and they have begun to 
 acquire property as they did in France. To these are 
 now added thousands of fresh conventual immigrants 
 from France, since the suppression of convents there, 
 so that there are now more than 80,000 priests, monks 
 and nuns working or teaching amongst the population. 
 This comparative increase of late years — though the 
 number is little more than half what it was a century 
 ago — merely means that the Church has failed in other 
 parts of the world, and they are concentrating upon 
 Spain. 
 
 There are signs that the men of Spain will pass 
 before long from indifferentism to hostility. In July 
 1906 Lopez Dominguez, an anticlerical, became 
 Premier, and announced a programme that included 
 freedom of worship, the secularisation of education, 
 the recognition of the civil marriage of Catholics and 
 the regulation of the right of (conventual) association. 
 He was met by so fierce a storm (almost entirely raised 
 by the women and the clergy, says the Annual 
 Register) that he was forced to resign. But with the 
 growth of education and, possibly, the emergence of 
 the young king from the narrow clerical world in 
 which he has been reared, it will become less possible
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 91 
 
 for the bishops (several of whom were prosecuted even 
 in 1906) to describe the Premier of the country as 
 " Diocletian " in their pastorals, and to meet his 
 constitutional procedure with intrigue at the palace 
 and riot in the country. The work of educating Spain 
 is proceeding, though very slowly. Education was 
 declared compulsory in 1857. By 1877 it was calcu- 
 lated that about 4,000,000 (out of 16,500,000) could 
 read and write: in 1887 the number was about 
 5,000,000 ; and to-day it is believed — all Spanish 
 returns are untrustworthy — to be about 6,000,000 (in 
 18,500,000). The support of the schools is laid almost 
 entirely on the local authorities, and they generally 
 refuse to provide or maintain them. Only about 
 ,£1,000,000 sterling has been spent on education in 
 three years by Government and municipalities. There 
 are now 24,000 schools in the country, with 1,600,000 
 pupils, and, though the teachers are wretchedly paid 
 and the instruction is generally ridiculously poor, the 
 light is slowly breaking over Spain. 
 
 It is ominous for the Church that anticlericalism 
 spreads everywhere in the path of education, but she 
 has postponed reform until it is too late. Decade by 
 decade she has fought the application of the education 
 law of 1857, and she obstructs it to-day. But if there 
 is one point on which serious reformers of all schools 
 now unite in Spain, as one clear means of lifting their 
 unfortunate country out of the situation that gives so 
 sombre a shade to their writings, it is "Ensenanza" 
 — primary education, especially. It will be given in 
 spite of the Church, and that will be fatal to her. 1 A 
 spirit akin to that of France in 1900 will arise in the 
 
 1 I do not, of course, forget that nearly a third of the nuns of 
 Spain are engaged in teaching. What Spain needs is not instruction 
 of the type given in those schools, but of the type given in the rest 
 of Furope.
 
 92 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 country. Catalonia already chafes at the 2300 con- 
 ventual establishments it somehow supports ; Barce- 
 lona murmurs angrily under its burden or 165 spacious 
 homes of idleness, some of which cost hundreds of 
 thousands of pounds. The nation at large will 
 come to read, in the stirring pages of Perez Gald6s 
 (" Episodios Nacionales "), how for a quarter of a 
 century the clergy aided the brutal repression of every 
 effort to bring Spain into line with the general advance 
 of Europe. It will open wide eyes to the fact that 
 they have tolerated clerical practices, such as the sale 
 of indulgences, that the rest of Europe thought to 
 have been abandoned by Rome three centuries ago. 
 In that inevitable awakening of the Spanish people it 
 will fare ill with the Church of Rome. 1 
 
 1 Note on the Sale of Indulgences. — I called attention to 
 this religious practice in modern Spain in an article in The Con- 
 temporary Review. I there explained that for seventy-five eentimos 
 the Spaniard buys, at the book-store or of a priest, a bula (a paper 
 signed and sealed by the Archbishop of Toledo) granting a plenary 
 indulgence to himself (after confession), or one offering him a 
 plenary indulgence for a dead relative ; or for fifty eentimos (5d.), one 
 granting him permission to eat meat on nearly all the fast days of 
 the year. I need hardly observe that the Church does not profess 
 to " sell " them. You give her an " alms " (for herself, as the bula 
 declares, not for the poor), and she gives you the indulgence. Every 
 year a special decree is received by the archbishop from the Vatican 
 authorising this monstrous practice, fresh bulas are printed and 
 issued, and a troop of medieval heralds announces the fact on the 
 streets of Madrid. But there is a fourth and more infamous bula — 
 the "thieves' bula." This egregious document, which costs one 
 pes. fifteen eentimos (is.), assures the buyer that if he has any ill- 
 gotten property in his possession, of which he does not know the 
 name and address of the owner, he may retain it and consider it 
 his own, in consideration of his "alms" of a shilling to the clergy. 
 One bula covers twelve shillings' worth of property, and any number 
 of bulas may be "taken out" up to fifty. If the value of the stolen 
 property exceeds 7 35 pesetas (about ^30), "application must be made 
 to us for a fitting solution of the case," says the archbishop's bula 
 gravely. It is difficult to conceive a more cynical document written
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 93 
 
 PORTUGAL 
 
 The condition of religion is so notoriously similar 
 in Spain and Portugal, and the population of the 
 latter is so much smaller than that of the former, 
 that it is unnecessary to make a minute inquiry into 
 the remainder of the Peninsula. I am aware that a 
 great deal of hostility exists between the two countries, 
 and they dislike the habit of bracketing them together. 
 But there is so close a parallel in their histories and 
 their cultural conditions that the situation of the 
 Church is the same in both countries. 
 
 Portugal, it will be remembered, was the first 
 kingdom to expel the Jesuits in the eighteenth 
 century. The work of the Marquis de Pombal was, 
 however, undone during the reign of Maria I., and 
 the defection from Rome began, as in Spain and 
 Italy, with the infiltration of the ideas of the French 
 philosophers. Towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century "the educated classes were brought up in 
 the doctrines of the Encyclopaedists," says Morse 
 Stephens (Portugal). But the spread of French 
 culture was limited, not only by the general condition 
 of dense ignorance, but by the early hostility of 
 Portugal to Napoleonic France. The Freemasons 
 did indeed welcome Junot's troops, but the nation 
 at large soon joined with England in a fierce 
 opposition to everything French. The king had fled 
 to Brazil — where his son was grand master of the 
 Freemasons — in 1807, and a few years after Napoleon's 
 
 in religious language. A full account of these bulas, with facsimiles 
 and translations, is given in "Romish Indulgences of To-day" by 
 " Fulano " (an English minister living in Spain, I believe), and I have 
 taken care to secure copies of the bulas and verify the facts. The strain 
 that these facts put on the apologetic powers of the English clergy may 
 be seen in Father Sydney Smith's " Are Indulgences sold in Spain ? "
 
 94 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 fate, the Liberals obtained power, forced the regency 
 to summon the Cortes, abolished the Inquisition, and 
 framed a constitution on modern lines. This con- 
 stitution was endorsed by John VI., on his return, 
 and the Liberals generally held their own in the 
 struggle with the clericals until John's death in 1826. 
 His son preferred to remain Emperor of Brazil, and 
 left the throne of Portugal to his daughter, with Dom 
 Miguel as Regent. 
 
 At this juncture the clergy and reactionaries made 
 a bargain with the usurper something similar to the 
 unlucky alliance of the Spanish clergy with Don 
 Carlos. Dom Miguel secured the throne with little 
 trouble, as he swore to respect the Liberal constitu- 
 tion. " That he took the oath as a political necessity 
 and with the secret reserve of his legitimate rights is 
 practically certain," says "The Cambridge History" 
 (vol. x. p. 321). " His subsequent actions showed that 
 he did not regard his oath as binding on his conscience ; 
 his Jesuit training would make it easy for him to rest 
 content with the absolution of the Church for a breach 
 of faith committed on behalf of the good cause." 
 Here again the misguided clergy allied themselves 
 with brutality and deception, and heaped up the 
 fearful account they would have to face when the 
 inevitable hour of general enlightenment should come. 
 A reign of terror only surpassed by that at Madrid 
 set in. "Death to Liberals and Freemasons" was 
 the first principle of the authorities and the clergy 
 from 1828 to 1832. A large number of the more 
 progressive Portuguese (some historians say 17,000) 
 were executed, as many more were deported to Africa, 
 and some 30,000 were consigned to the jails of 
 Portugal. Under the stress of this sanguinary and 
 treacherous persecution the Radicals of all schools 
 united, Don Pedro was invited to cross over from
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 95 
 
 Brazil, and the crown was, in 1834, restored to his 
 daughter. 
 
 The restoration was a fresh triumph for Liberalism 
 and a heavy blow for the Church. Tithes were 
 abolished, monastic property was confiscated, and 
 for a time all the monasteries and convents in Portugal 
 were closed. But it is needless to pursue the story 
 throughout the long series of revolutions and counter- 
 revolutions. The anticlerical party has maintained 
 its position, and the educated Portuguese are to-day 
 no more Roman Catholic than the educated Spaniards. 
 Several of the quotations I have given (as, from 
 Passarge's " Aus Spanien und Portugal ") apply ex- 
 plicitly both to Portugal and Spain. Guyot (" Le bilan 
 de l'Eglise ") even holds that Portugal is " more eman- 
 cipated than Spain," and the distinguished Lisbon 
 journalist and pacificist, Magalhaes Lima, makes the 
 same statement. But the mass of the people are 
 even more illiterate than the Spaniards, and there is 
 less effort being made to educate them. In 1878 the 
 illiterates were 82 per cent, of the population: to-day 
 the proportion has only been reduced to 78*6 per 
 cent. In 1900 there were only 240,000 pupils in the 
 elementary schools of Portugal, though education has 
 been declared compulsory since 1844. 
 
 On the other hand there are 93,979 parish priests 
 to the population of 5,423,132 — a parish to every 
 fifty people ! With this enormous and wealthy cor- 
 poration working for the Church, and with the mass 
 of the people at a lower cultural level than any other 
 nation in Europe (except Russia, perhaps), we cannot 
 expect more than a general secession of the educated 
 class, and a proportionate growth of anticlericalism 
 amongst the more insurgent political bodies. In 
 proportion to the population, Rome has lost heavily 
 in Portugal, as in the rest of the Latin world. But
 
 96 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 as the total number of literate and adult males is 
 not more than 500,000, the number of seceders 
 will not greatly swell the total. Enough to say that 
 the Church has lost more than 50 per cent, of the 
 Portuguese who can read, besides large numbers of 
 workers, and that the revolt grows with the spread 
 of education. 1 
 
 1 One positive indication has come under my notice. Chance 
 put in my way an official Masonic document giving the number of 
 lodges in Portugal and Portuguese Africa in 1905. The Spanish 
 work I quoted above ("La Massoneria en Espana") declared that 
 there were only two Masonic lodges in Portugal in 1883. This 
 official document gives the number of lodges in 1905 as 105 ! And 
 the Portuguese Freemasons are especially pledged to anticlericalism. 
 
 Another indication is found in the strength of Republicanism, 
 which seems to be curiously underrated outside Portugal. Not 
 only have the Portuguese Republicans five journals in Lisbon alone 
 (the Vanguardia Mundo, Paiz, Voz Publico, and Lucta), and several 
 in the provinces, but they have a very considerable following 
 amongst leaders of culture. The directorate of the movement 
 consists of Professor Machado, Senor D'Almeida (ex-deputy), Senor 
 Costa (a distinguished lawyer), Senor Gomes (doctor of law and 
 well-known sociologist), and Senor C. D'Almeida (an influential 
 physician). The party includes savants like T. Braga, J. P. 
 Sampaio, P. Zelles, D. Luite, etc., and poets like G. Junquiero 
 and G. Leal, and many professors, authors, etc. The idea that 
 it consists of obscure groups of uneducated workers is ludicrous. 
 In Spain the same party includes men like Perez Gald6s, Spain's 
 greatest writer, and Senor Salmeron (ex-rector of university). 
 
 Add the Freethinkers, who are very strong, the Socialists, the 
 Anarchists, and the unorganised seceders, and it will be seen how 
 much the Church has lost in Portugal.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LATIN WORLD— SPANISH AMERICA 
 
 A SIMILAR but more interesting study con- 
 fronts us when we turn to consider the teeming 
 millions of Spanish America. The Catholic 
 historian of earlier days, seeking some earthly indica- 
 tion of the plan of Providence in allowing half of 
 Europe to secede from the Church, never failed to 
 direct his readers' attention to Central and South 
 America. There a new Catholic nation had arisen 
 to compensate the Church for her losses in the Old 
 World. From the prairies of North America to the 
 Strait of Magellan the devout Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese had overrun the land, and peopled it with loyal 
 followers of the papacy. Nor did the new provinces 
 seem to be threatened by the rise of a sturdy spirit 
 of independence and cultivation in the farther north. 
 The chain of the Andes might have been drawn 
 across the frontier of Mexico for all the influence that 
 early " Americanism " seemed to have on the slumber- 
 ing populations to the south. The characteristics of 
 their motherlands were preserved with a fidelity that 
 has few parallels in the history of colonisation. Great 
 illiteracy, gross superstition and despotic clerical rule 
 seemed to be their unchanging features. 
 
 The population of Spanish America to-day is about 
 65,000,000. Of these the Catholic writer claims some 
 60,000,000, after making a vague allowance for 
 obviously unconverted natives, Jews, Protestants, 
 Positivists, declared Rationalists, etc. It may be 
 granted at once that more than one-fourth of the 
 g 97
 
 98 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 whole Catholic population of the world is in Spanish 
 America. But what a population it is ! One-third of 
 the 60,000,000 are aborigines or negroes, who very 
 largely elude every test of civilisation. They rise 
 gradually from a state of complete wildness, in which 
 even the most ardent apologist would shrink from 
 recognising Catholicism, to a state of incomplete 
 civilisation in which Catholic doctrines mingle light- 
 heartedly with pagan beliefs and practices. A third 
 more are half-castes, with, to a very great extent, a 
 half-caste civilisation. Less than one-third are whites, 
 and these whites, apart from certain classes of 
 foreigners, are at a lower cultural level than Spain 
 and Portugal. Of the 65,000,000 about 53,000,000 
 are densely ignorant and illiterate. And of the re- 
 maining 12,000,000 (whites and half-breeds) the 
 majority of the men, we shall see, are either indifferent 
 to, or intensely hostile to, the Catholic Church. 
 
 It may be a matter of indifference to the Church, 
 from its point of view, whether its followers are 
 literate or illiterate, civilised or uncivilised. To the 
 social observer, and especially to those who would 
 forecast the future, it is a point of vital importance. 
 He will be quite prepared to find that these unthink- 
 ing masses, absolutely cut off from the thought of the 
 modern world, totally ignorant of the movements that 
 are taking place in religious life, have not stirred 
 very far from their traditions. Their fidelity is the 
 mere quiescence of an inert mass, not a discriminating 
 choice to remain Catholic. The serious problem for 
 the social observer is to discover the attitude towards 
 Catholicism of the educated one-fifth of their teeming 
 population. And the moment he approaches this 
 problem he discovers what he has discovered in Italy 
 and Spain. Of the cultivated minority the Church 
 of Rome has lost a good 50 per cent, in the course
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 99 
 
 of the last century ; and her losses increase with each 
 fresh extension of education. It is not too much to 
 say that she had lost 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 inhabitants 
 of the chief countries of Spanish America. 
 
 This will be amply proved by a detailed inquiry 
 into the religious position in each of the larger states, 
 but a few general observations of an historical nature 
 will be useful to the reader. Broadly speaking, the 
 development in Spanish-America has kept pace with 
 that of the other Latin countries. Liberalism was 
 born there, of French (and partly North-American) 
 ideas, at the end of the eighteenth century. The 
 state of the monasteries, the selfishness of the clergy 
 and the medieval nature of the Spanish religion, pro- 
 vided the usual rich soil for it. The small educated 
 class was soon widely infected with it. Throughout 
 the century it has faced storms of clerical opposition 
 that have driven its roots deeper into the soil. The 
 extension of the middle class gave it greater ex- 
 tension ; and the recent spread of education has, as 
 ever, carried the feeling of rebellion in its wake. 
 Voltaireanism, Freemasonry and Positivism have 
 attained large proportions ; and now Socialism 
 and popular Freethought are making fresh ravages 
 amongst the people. 
 
 Let me recall, in a few words, the beginning of the 
 trouble in Spanish America. To show how peculiarly 
 prepared the vast territory was for an anticlerical 
 movement at the close of the eighteenth century I 
 will quote a paragraph from our standard history : 
 
 " The complaint occurs throughout that the clergy are recruited 
 from two sources : some are the outcasts of Spanish parishes and 
 monasteries : others are Creoles, either idle and dissolute men 
 driven by disgrace or want to take orders, or else men put into 
 religion by their parents with a view to getting a doctrina, or Indian 
 parish, and making a fortune out of the Indians. The rule of
 
 100 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 celibacy was generally evaded ; religious duties were hurried 
 through, and the instruction of the Indians was reduced to an 
 absurdity ; amidst general immorality in the towns, the regulars set 
 the worst example, making their monasteries places of licence and 
 pleasure." * 
 
 To the thoughtful minds that were chafing under 
 these conditions there came the stimulating news of 
 Washington's fights and of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence ; and a few years later the report crept 
 stealthily from province to province that Europe 
 was aflame with revolution, and the Church destroyed 
 in France. At once the Church redoubled the pre- 
 cautions it had long taken to exclude all ideas of 
 progress. 
 
 "It had," says an American student, "prohibited the teaching 
 of the arts and sciences, restricted education to the Latin grammar 
 and the catechism ; and limited the public libraries to the writings 
 of the Fathers and to works on civil and ecclesiastical jurisprudence. 
 It had even prohibited the study of modern geography and astronomy, 
 and forbade the reading of books of travel. It discouraged the 
 study of the higher mathematics, and condemned all philosophical 
 inquiry and speculation as heresy. It had even placed under the 
 ban such innocent fiction as ' Gil Bias ' and ' Robinson Crusoe ' ; and 
 there had never been a book, or a magazine, or a newspaper in the 
 whole country that was not conformed to the strictest rule of the 
 Roman Index." 2 
 
 The ecclesiastical censor now became more vigilant 
 than ever. Printing presses were refused even to 
 towns of 50,000 inhabitants, and imprisonment was 
 freely inflicted on those who sought to disseminate the 
 new ideas. At length the news came that Napoleon 
 had destroyed the Spanish monarchy, and that the 
 King of Portugal had fled to Brazil ; and the Liberals 
 1 " Cambridge History," vol. x. p. 252. It is somewhat curious to 
 reflect that the great work planned by Lord Acton has proved a 
 veritable mine for the critics of Catholicism. 
 
 2 "The Columbian and Venezuelan Republics," by W. L. Scraggs, 
 p. 128. The above passage is written with reference to the whole 
 of Spanish America in the eighteenth century.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 101 
 
 gathered everywhere under the banner of revolution. 
 By the year 1810 the War of Independence was raging 
 from Mexico to Chile. How in the course of fourteen 
 years the revolution conquered throughout America, 
 and the various republics were set up, is a matter of 
 general history. For my purpose I have only to note 
 that the clergy generally opposed the revolution — a 
 few Creole priests aiding the rebels here and there — 
 and, when the work was complete, found themselves 
 facing a powerful anticlerical party in each of the new 
 republics. The Spaniards were finally driven out 
 in 1823, and, when the French Bourbons proposed to 
 assist them, President Monroe laid down his famous 
 doctrine of non-interference from Europe. Portugal 
 recognised the independent empire of Brazil in 
 1825. 
 
 The story of the Hispano- American States has 
 been, notoriously, one of internal conflict and revolu- 
 tion throughout the nineteenth century. This struggle 
 has been one of clerical and anticlerical, as well as of 
 opposed political ideals and conflicting ambitions. 
 Episodically the clerical Conservative party has 
 triumphed so far as to have recourse to drastic and 
 sanguinary repression. In view of the enormous 
 proportion of illiterate followers of the clergy, the 
 wonder is that their opponents have ever held power 
 at all. Yet in most of the states they have alternated 
 regularly in power with the Conservatives, and have 
 — as we shall see — permanently disestablished the 
 Church, and carried other measures that the clergy 
 bitterly opposed, in more than one republic. The 
 century has witnessed the triumphant spread of their 
 ideas amongst the small cultivated class, and the 
 power of the clergy has weakened decade by decade. 
 This will be apparent enough if we take a brief glance 
 at each republic in turn.
 
 102 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 MEXICO 
 
 Mexico, with a population of some 14,000,000 (the 
 official returns are incomplete), of whom less than 
 3,000,000 are whites, and some 12,000,000 are com- 
 pletely illiterate, must remain for some time a 
 "Catholic country." Its faith is the faith of light- 
 hearted children, and is generously interwoven with 
 ancient beliefs and practices that are often wholly re- 
 pugnant to Catholic ideals. Your Mexican will go to 
 mass of a Sunday ; and, as he goes, he will throw a 
 kiss to the god of his fathers in the blue sky above. 
 So recently as 1901 the Archbishop of Mexico took 
 courage to suppress the verbenas, or native celebra- 
 tions of Holy Week, which began with religious 
 ceremonies and ended in wild debauch : a relic of 
 Aztec days that the Church had winked at for three 
 centuries. There are to-day "Christian" tribes of 
 Indians who will not allow the priests to assist at 
 some of their rites. A people that, in its pre-Christian 
 days, was familiar with oral confession and communion, 
 monks and nuns, and Easter rejoicings, would feel 
 little breach of religious continuity, save for the 
 abandonment of bloody sacrifice, in adopting Catholi- 
 cism, when such proceedings as the verbenas were 
 permitted. Mexico is very Catholic, " but very far 
 from orthodox," says Prince Roland Bonaparte, in his 
 monumental work on the republic. 
 
 Yet Mexico is no exception to the rule, throughout 
 the Latin world, that the educated class is generally 
 lost to the Church. The present position of the 
 Church in the country bears ample witness to this 
 fact. It is entirely separated from the State, and all 
 religions are equally tolerated. Indeed, "the con- 
 stitution as now established," says Mr Tylor, "re-
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 103 
 
 presents the complete overthrow of medievalism." 
 The clergy cannot become deputies or senators, and 
 even those characteristic outgrowths of a Catholic 
 soil, monasteries and convents (which flourished even 
 in ancient Mexico), have long been suppressed. It is 
 true that a few still have a precarious existence in 
 certain districts, but that the law is no idle form was 
 shown in 1901. A clandestine convent in Mexico 
 city was denounced to the police, and, though the 
 nuns were of a rigid and devout order, the place 
 was closed and the nuns humanely dispersed. In 
 the following year a priest was summoned before 
 a magistrate and severly admonished for wearing a 
 clerical garb in the street. Other laws enact that 
 no ecclesiastical body can acquire landed property 
 in Mexico (their property was nationalised in 1859); 
 that the cemeteries, hospitals and registers of births 
 and deaths must be in the charge of laymen ; that no 
 civil functionaries need attend religious ceremonies, 
 and so on. 1 
 
 This remarkably advanced condition of legislation 
 in Mexico, and the complete powerlessness of the 
 Church in face of it, tells plainly enough the hetero- 
 doxy of educated Mexico. It is a Roman Catholic 
 country only in the sense that its vast population 
 of illiterates still observe Catholic forms. And if we 
 glance at its history we understand the position. It 
 is a series of Freethinking and anticlerical leaders 
 that have, in spite of clerical opposition, lifted Mexico 
 
 1 A Mexican lawyer, F. P. Garcia, has issued a work (" Codigo de 
 la Reforma") that gives the long list of anticlerical laws passed in 
 Mexico since 1855. All these laws are still in force, and applied 
 when necessary. They are known as the ''Reform Laws." The 
 writer, who seems to be a Catholic, speaks of them as the "Del- 
 uge." Prince Roland Bonaparte ("La Mexique au debut de XXme. 
 siecle ") hints that many Liberals may, one of these days, press for the 
 re-establishment of the Church solely to obtain a firmer control of it.
 
 104 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 into the promising position it holds to-day. Lying so 
 close to the British colonies, Mexico was bound to be 
 one of the first Hispano- American provinces to feel a 
 stir of modern life. The initial revolutions ( 1 808- 1821) 
 were largely a creole revolt against Spanish rule, and 
 Creole priests often figured in them. They succeeded in 
 ousting the representatives of Spain, but "plunged the 
 country back into barbarism" ("Cambridge History") 
 by their unloosing of the bonds that held the uncivil- 
 ised masses in check, and there were many years of 
 Anarchy. In the later fifties the Liberals obtained a 
 decisive power, under the lead of the native lawyer 
 Juarez, and framed a constitution. The Church was 
 disestablished, all conventual institutions were sup- 
 pressed, and, with some compensation, the ecclesi- 
 astical property was sold for the national service. 
 Juarez was emphatically anti-Catholic. " I should like 
 Protestants to take root in Mexico," he said to Justus 
 Sierra, "and to win over the Indians; they want a 
 religion that would oblige them to read, and not waste 
 their savings in candles for the saints." 1 
 
 His drastic legislation did not tend to moderate 
 the unceasing war of the Colorados and Blancos. 
 For a time the latter returned to power, with the help 
 of French troops, and set the Austrian Archduke Maxi- 
 milian on the throne of Mexico. Within four years 
 the Colorados swept him from the throne, and restored 
 the republic under Juarez, who remained in power 
 until his death in 1872. His successor, Lerdo, is de- 
 scribed ("Mexico: its Social Evolution") as "ironi- 
 cally foreign to all belief, though he had a religion of 
 the greatness of the country." Once more, and for the 
 last time, the clerical party set up their war of women 
 and peasants ; but a third great Liberal, Porfirio Diaz, 
 came to power in 1877, and his party has proved too 
 1 " Mexico : its Social Evolution " (an official work), vol. ii. p. 423.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 105 
 
 strong to be shaken by clerical opposition for three 
 decades. The anticlerical measures of Juarez and 
 Lerdo were confirmed, and have become a settled part 
 of the constitution of Mexico. Porfirio Diaz assumed 
 the presidency of the republic for the seventh time 
 in 1904. 
 
 These historical outlines sufficiently reveal the 
 condition of thought in Mexico without any minute 
 investigation of churchgoing or other religious customs. 
 In no other Latin country except France has the 
 anticlerical party passed so many of its ideal measures, 
 and in no country have those measures been so long 
 and so firmly established. Mexico's constitution is 
 a flagrant and standing defiance of the Syllabus and 
 the papal doctrines. Clearly, of the 2,000,000 literate 
 Mexicans the great majority are lost to the rule of 
 Rome, and the loss of power and political prestige 
 is the most serious that its hierarchy has sustained in 
 the nineteenth century. We have again to make the 
 distinction that everywhere does so little honour, 
 and offers so poor an outlook to, the Vatican. It is 
 entitled to claim only the vast illiterate body of half- 
 breeds and natives, of very unorthodox religious 
 practice, together with most of the educated women 
 and a small minority of the educated men. It has lost 
 its hold on the mature mind of Mexico. And now 
 that the liberals are earnestly prosecuting the difficult 
 work of education the outlook is dark for the Church. 
 There is little in Mexican Catholicism to withstand the 
 shock to which the popular mind will be exposed when 
 the literature of the modern world is opened to it. 
 Already there are 871,000 children in its schools 
 (718,715 of whom are in government or municipal 
 secular schools), and the number increases. But with 
 a population that is pure Indian to the extent of 38 
 per cent., and of mixed blood to a further extent of
 
 106 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 43 per cent., the work of education is difficult. As it 
 proceeds, the rebellion spreads amongst the half- 
 breeds and natives. Indeed the fine old race that the 
 Spaniards so seriously arrested in its development has 
 given more than one brilliant statesman and writer 
 to Mexico. They have now a system of elementary 
 education that is free, obligatory and secular ; to the 
 12,000 government schools there are only 346 Church 
 schools. Rome will not count many more years on 
 its 12,000,000 illiterate (and largely semi-civilised) 
 followers. 1 
 
 BRAZIL 
 
 The largest and most important of the southern 
 republics, the United States of Brazil, presents features 
 to the inquirer into religious conditions that closely 
 resemble those of Mexico. Its population of more 
 than 17,000,000 consists to the extent of nearly two- 
 thirds of illiterate and uncivilised or half-civilised 
 masses — Indians (800,000), negroes (2,250,000), half- 
 castes (1 1,500,000), etc., on whom the Catholic religion 
 was forcibly imposed long ago, and who have not the 
 mental vitality to count as serious adherents. Yet, 
 with this inert mass of 14,000,000 illiterate followers 
 at their command, the clergy have to live under a con- 
 stitution that they bitterly resent in many of its chief 
 features. The Church has been disestablished for 
 
 1 Protestantism makes some progress in Mexico, and is en- 
 couraged by many officials. At the census of 1895 there were 
 42,259 Protestants and 70,000 of no religion. But these figures 
 must be taken like those of Spain. I read in some Spanish- 
 American journal an account of the taking of such a census amongst 
 the illiterate. It was explained to them that the alternatives to 
 "Catholic" were "Jew" and "Protestant." They very quickly 
 replied that, though they "did not like the priests." or "set little 
 store by religion," they must be put in the first category.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 107 
 
 more than twenty years, civil marriage is recognised 
 and common, and Protestantism and Positivism thrive 
 in full security. 1 
 
 The situation can only be interpreted in the same 
 way as the similar situation in Mexico. The brain of 
 the republic is not Roman Catholic. The stronger 
 and more cultivated elements of the white population 
 have very largely withdrawn their allegiance to the 
 Vatican, and gone over to the Freemasons, the Free- 
 thinkers, the Positivists, the Protestants or the 
 Spiritualists. The Church's following consists, to the 
 extent of 90 per cent, of the native Indians (many 
 tribes of whom are quite uncivilised and have only 
 the thinnest veneer of Catholicism), the mestizos, the 
 negroes (who were imported for the slave-market until 
 1853) and the mulattoes. 
 
 I have stated that the Portuguese royal family 
 passed to Brazil (then a Portuguese colony) in 1807, 
 and that in 1822 Brazil declared itself independent, 
 and named the king's son (a Liberal prince) its first 
 emperor. Liberalism and Freemasonry had, there- 
 fore, a favourable soil in Brazil, and, though the 
 milder circumstances gave them a less anticlerical 
 tone than was usual, they made considerable progress. 
 Dawson observes that in the seventies "the lower 
 ranks of the priesthood were uneducated, and real 
 interest in religion had largely been confined to 
 women and the lower classes " (" The South American 
 Republic," p. 484). At the election of 1881 there 
 were sixty-eight Liberals returned against fifty-four 
 Conservatives. The situation was peculiar from the 
 
 1 The reader must remember that, according to the Catholic 
 Church, civil marriage is invalid in all Catholic countries where the 
 decree of the Council of Trent is promulgated ; and it is always a 
 mortal sin for a Roman Catholic. The institution of civil marriage 
 is, therefore, a most important indication.
 
 108 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 extent to which the cultivated seceders from Rome 
 embraced Positivism. Nowhere in the world have 
 the followers of Auguste Comte obtained the power 
 that they exercised in Brazil at that time. There was 
 a Positivist centre in the Camera, with a strong 
 following in the country, 1 and measures that the clergy 
 strongly opposed were successfully carried. In 1888, 
 when deputies complained that they could not take the 
 oath, the Camera declared it to be non-obligatory 
 for any who described themselves as non-Catholic. 
 Rodrigues explains that the vogue of Positivism was 
 due to the mathematical and scientific schools that 
 arose in the new regard for culture, and that were 
 largely captivated by the ideals of Comte. The first 
 Positivist society was founded in Brazil in 1876 ; by 
 
 1 88 1 they had twenty members in the Camera, and in 
 
 1882 these were increased to forty-five. 
 
 The revolution of 1889, when the emperor was 
 peacefully deposed (largely on account of the clerical 
 intrigues of his daughter), and the United States of 
 Brazil set up, was very largely due to their influence. 
 Dawson attributes the spread of Republican ideas in 
 the army, which determined the change of government, 
 to the writings of the Positivist Professor Benjamin 
 Constant. At all events the new constitution, no less 
 than the dismissal of the Catholic ruler, shows the 
 conspicuous preponderance of anticlerical elements. 
 The Church was disestablished, liberty of all cults 
 assured, civil marriage instituted, and the claims of 
 the clergy almost entirely ignored. Besides illiterates, 
 mendicants and soldiers in actual service, all monks 
 were excluded from the exercise of the suffrage, on 
 account of their vow of obedience to a superior. 
 
 The persistence of such measures to our own time, 
 distasteful as they are to the hierarchy, is ample proof 
 1 See " Religioes Acatholicas no Brazil," by J. C. Rodrigues (1904).
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 109 
 
 that the majority of the electors — the literate males 
 over twenty — remain outside the Church ; and they 
 are reinforced by some 150,000 Protestants (there are 
 70,000 Germans in Brazil) and 50,000 Maronites 
 (Syrian Catholics). The mass of the people remain 
 Roman Catholic, in their peculiar way, but in the 
 seaport towns, which are mainly white, the Church 
 has lost effective control. So long as it can resist the 
 education of the natives, and the Liberals are so little 
 in earnest about it, the Church will retain its power 
 over the illiterate and grossly ignorant 14,000,000, 
 with a small minority of the educated. Brazil has the 
 unhappy distinction of being illiterate to the extent 
 of 84 per cent, of its population, yet only 2 per cent, 
 of its population attends school (as against 10 per 
 cent, in the Argentine Republic). The difficulties of 
 schooling in so wide a territory, with so high a pro- 
 portion of uncivilised Indians and negroes, are very 
 great ; but the work proceeds slowly, and anticlerical 
 propaganda follows in its wake. Travellers find the 
 same indifference to religion and hostility to the clergy 
 as amongst the illiterate peasants of Spain. The 
 better Indians and half-castes are beginning to realise 
 how the clergy have refused education, and hindered 
 their development. The negroes are learning that, 
 through the supineness of the priests, they remained 
 slaves longer in Brazil than in any other country 
 (until 1 871). For our purpose it is enough to find 
 the anti-Catholic element so strongly entrenched in 
 the voting class. Rome has lost power and educated 
 followers to the same extent as in Mexico. 1 
 
 1 Mr Isaacson writes in his "Rome in many Lands": "Of the 
 one-fifth [?] who are educated only the smallest proportion adhere 
 to any form of religion whatever. Statesmen, lawyers, physicians, 
 army and navy officials have almost to a man rejected the historic 
 Christ, and have turned to infidelity and Positivism. In one city
 
 110 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 
 
 Third in the magnitude of its population amongst 
 the Spanish-American states, the Argentine Repub- 
 lic presents a more interesting problem, from our 
 point of view, from the smallness of the indigenous 
 elements within its frontiers. Of its 5,500,000 people 
 only some 30,000 are Indians; though this feature is 
 somewhat balanced by the presence of 500,000 Italian 
 and 200,000 Spanish immigrants, generally of the 
 poor and illiterate class. The standard of literacy 
 is one of the highest amongst the southern states, and 
 the work of education is being prosecuted with great 
 energy and wisdom. Of its population over the age 
 of six some 50 per cent, can read. There are several 
 universities, and an ample provision of secondary 
 colleges and educative institutions. Primary educa- 
 tion receives now the closest attention, and there are 
 540,000 pupils — or 45 per cent, of the total number of 
 children of school age — enrolled in its elementary 
 schools. 
 
 The result of this spread of education furnishes a 
 remarkable confirmation of the ominous law we seem 
 compelled to formulate ; that Rome's rule in the Latin 
 world is over the illiterate, and largely ceases when 
 they become literate. It is true that the Church is 
 established by law ; though all other cults are free, 
 civil marriage has been instituted since 1888, and 
 education is secular as well as free and compulsory. 
 But the Argentine Republic probably surpasses any 
 
 with a population of 35,000 after careful investigation less than 200 
 could be found in full communion with the Roman Church" 
 (p. 160). He quotes the Catholic Bishop of San Paulo, saying in 
 an official paper : " Brazil has no longer any faith. Religion is 
 a most extinct here."
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 111 
 
 of the other Spanish- American lands in the amount of 
 active hostility to Catholicism in it. 
 
 Buenos Aires, the capital, with a population of 
 over 1,000,000, is an intense centre of heresy of one 
 kind or another. The Freethinkers have a journal 
 (El Progreso), and a " Biblioteca de la Federacion 
 Anticlerical Intransigente del Libre Pensamiento," 
 whose booklets circulate by the thousand. In 1906 
 the Radical heretics of all camps (Freethinkers, 
 Spiritualists, Positivists, etc.) held a congress at 
 Buenos Aires that threw some light on the power of 
 the anti-papal forces in South America. Its meetings 
 in the Teatro Argentino were crowded with delegates 
 from all the republics, and were supported by men 
 like Vice-Admiral Howard, Senor Soto and Senor 
 Alvarez (of the Council of War), and Senor Lugones 
 (Inspector of the National Schools). The President 
 of Guatemula telegraphed to them an assurance of the 
 " ardent enthusiasm " with which he and the Liberals 
 of Guatemala hailed the congress ; and a message of 
 warm support came also from the President of Uruguay. 
 It was notable, too, that the women of South America 
 took an active part in the holding of the congress. 
 The " Women's Committee," of which the list is found 
 in El Progreso, included fifty members, many of them 
 being amongst the foremost women writers of South 
 America ; and they were much in evidence at the 
 congress. Twelve South American journals also 
 supported this very explicitly anti-papal demonstration. 
 
 Freemasonry in the Argentine Republic is not only 
 very powerful, but plainly acknowledges its hostility 
 to the Church. According to an official list that I 
 have been able to see, there are ninety-one Masonic 
 lodges in the republic (many of them with a large 
 membership). The whole of these have been re- 
 presented at the Freethinking anti-papal congresses.
 
 112 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 In addition, the Church in the Argentine is now facing 
 the menace of a rising Socialist movement, that makes 
 much progress amongst the working men and women. 
 In 1902, when a projected divorce law was in the 
 Chamber, the meetings of the Catholic women in op- 
 position to it were answered by meetings of Socialist 
 women, and the Bill narrowly escaped passing into 
 law (by two votes). It was a test question, and re- 
 vealed the complete division of forces in regard to 
 religion. 
 
 When we reflect further that there are in the 
 Argentine Republic only 1019 churches (according to 
 the latest enumeration I can find — 1895) we realise 
 the enormous losses of the Church. This means one 
 Catholic church to about 5000 people ! As there 
 are only some 30,000 Indians in the republic, and 
 about 1,000,000 Spaniards and Italians, the figure 
 shows a remarkable decay of Catholicism. Incident- 
 ally, it throws some light on census declarations of 
 religious belief. At the date (1895) when the number 
 of Catholic churches was returned as 1019, and the 
 number of the white population as 4,044,911, the 
 census results gave the number of Roman Catholics 
 as 3,921,136 (with 32,000 Protestants and Jews)! 
 Such figures are ludicrous. As was stated in an 
 Argentine journal at the time, the natives merely 
 mean that they are neither Protestants nor Jews. 
 The educated citizens are divided as is usual, and in 
 this case the anticlericals have a larger following than 
 elsewhere. among the workers and the women. An 
 English merchant who has spent many years in the 
 Argentine tells me that the men have overwhelmingly 
 abandoned the Roman Catholic faith.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 113 
 
 COLOMBIA 
 
 Colombia, with a population of 4,250,000, is one of 
 the states in which the indigenous element includes 
 some hundreds of thousands of uncivilised Indians. 
 Its history shows a long and bitter struggle between 
 clericals and anticlericals, in which the latter have 
 frequently had the advantage. The republic was 
 formed by the great Liberal Bolivar in 1822, after 
 a three years' war of independence, and the familiar 
 struggle dragged on for many decades. By 1862 the 
 Liberals became powerful enough to disestablish the 
 Church, confiscate monastic property, disfranchise 
 the clergy, and set up secular schools. The strength 
 of the seceders from Rome may be estimated from 
 the fact that they maintained these features of the 
 constitution for twenty-two years. The most violent 
 efforts were made by the clergy to overthrow their 
 opponents. Parents were excommunicated who sent 
 their children to the government schools, and in 1876 
 the clericals even ventured upon an unsuccessful 
 revolution. It was not until 1885 that the clergy 
 were readmitted to the franchise. 
 
 Liberalism maintains its strong position amongst 
 the educated, but the elementary instruction is poorly 
 provided, and secondary schools are very largely 
 controlled by the religious bodies. The Church of 
 Rome is the established religion of the country — 
 though other religions are freely permitted — and rules 
 the great mass of people. One of the chief American 
 writers on Colombia, Mr L. Scraggs, describes the 
 capital of Colombia (Bogota) as the most conspicuous 
 in America for the number of, and attendance at, its 
 religious ceremonies. But he adds that "there is 
 more drinking and general dissipation amongst the 
 
 H
 
 114 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 lower classes on that day than on any other." 1 The 
 situation is, in a word, that the Church still controls 
 the sensual and illiterate masses, but is held in check 
 by a powerful body of seceders amongst the educated. 
 But even the Catholicism of the mass of the people 
 must be to a very great extent only nominal, as in 
 the Argentine. The population includes 200,000 
 uncivilised and 100,000 semi-civilised Indians, and 
 even when we set these entirely aside, the number of 
 churches and chapels (1026 in 1894) only amounts to 
 one for every 3700 people ! 
 
 A Catholic Colombian lawyer, J. P. Restrepo, 
 issued in 1881 a large work on the legal grievances 
 of his co-religionists. In a preliminary letter the 
 Bishop of Antiquoia complains bitterly of " the cult of 
 matter set up by the social institutions of the age," 
 the "moral and intellectual prostration," and "the 
 struggle against the Church that now comes from the 
 powerful of the age." The author himself describes 
 the situation as one of "permanent persecution of the 
 Church " (" La Iglesia y el Estado en Colombia," p. vi.). 
 The anticlerical forces have certainly not diminished 
 since 1881, as Aubert shows in his " Nouvelles 
 Ameriques" (1901). 
 
 URUGUAY 
 
 Uruguay is another republic where active hostility 
 to Rome is conspicuous and successful. Its population 
 is little over 1,000,000, and is largely made up of 
 immigrant Italians, Spaniards and Brazilians, but it 
 has one of the largest and most industrious anti-papal 
 bodies in America. Founded at Monte Video in 
 1900, the Associacion de Propaganda Liberal (in the 
 1 " The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics,' p. 98.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 115 
 
 strictest anti- Roman sense) had 1500 militant members 
 in 1903, and fifty-four branches in various parts of 
 Uruguay. It issues a weekly [El Libre Pensamiento), 
 with a circulation of several thousands, and monthly 
 brochures of which it had sold 350,000 copies in a 
 few years at the end of 1906. 
 
 In Uruguay, indeed, the colorados (Liberals) have 
 been in power almost continuously for more than 
 thirty years. The constant outbreaks of hostilities 
 are generally attempts by the blancos to recover by the 
 weapons of the illiterate peasants what they are not 
 strong enough to secure at the polls. Of the voters 
 the Liberals have the support of 40 per cent, and 
 their opponents 35 per cent. 1 The rest are either 
 foreigners or indifferentists. The anticlericals thus 
 predominate in the towns (the educated centres) and 
 the clericals in the country, and war is constantly 
 threatened. The blancos rebelled in 1897, when they 
 were appeased by being allowed more representatives 
 in Parliament, and in 1903, when they drew up an 
 army of 5000 men against the dominant clericals. 2 
 At present, Martin says, the blancos are waiting for 
 further funds from Europe — an interesting sidelight 
 on the situation — to renew the struggle. Clearly, the 
 Church has lost the allegiance of the greater part of 
 the educated Uruguayans. I have already mentioned 
 that the president sent a telegram of adhesion to the 
 Freethought Congress at Buenos Aires in 1906. 
 
 GUATEMALA 
 
 Guatemala, with a population of 1,842,144, is Indian 
 to the extent of 60 per cent, and half-caste for the 
 
 1 Martin's "Through Five Republics" (1905). 
 
 2 " Los Pueblos Hispano-Amcricanos," R. Beltran Rozpide (1907).
 
 116 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 greater part of the remainder. I have already 
 observed that there are keen rebels against the 
 Church amongst these Indians and half-castes, when 
 they are educated, but their cultural condition in 
 Guatemala is very low. The illiterates are 90 per 
 cent, of the population, and only 2 per cent, are found 
 in elementary schools. Amongst the small cultivated 
 population the Church has lost very heavily. No 
 religious communities are allowed in the country, and 
 all cults are free. President Cabrera was one of those 
 who supported the anti-papal congress at Buenos 
 Aires in 1906. There are only 12,000 whites in 
 Guatemala ; but, on the other hand, great numbers 
 of the Indians are below the level of all serious 
 religion. 
 
 ECUADOR 
 
 In Ecuador, whose population of 1,250,000 (re- 
 putedly) is usually counted Catholic, there are some 
 200,000 Indians without a tincture of civilisation or 
 Christianity, 500,000 with a tincture, and 450,000 
 mestizos with a larger tincture. There are only about 
 100,000 whites. The people are illiterate to the ex- 
 tent of more than 90 per cent., and the school popula- 
 tion is very low. Ecuador was the only republic to 
 condole with the Pope in 1870. But with education 
 the rebellion grows. Civil marriage, the bane of the 
 clergy, is instituted, and "the circumstances," says 
 Rozpide, " have changed to such an extent that the 
 Ecuadoreans now, in spite of the violent and natural 
 opposition of the clergy, can have civil marriage 
 before the officials both in the towns and the rural 
 parishes" (p. 192). The educated men are pre- 
 dominantly anticlerical. Half the natives have no
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 117 
 
 Christian creed, and the remainder, it is said, worship 
 the dragon as freely as the archangel on their altar- 
 pieces. 1 
 
 The anticlerical Veintimilla led a revolt in 1876, 
 and became president in 1877. Many anticlerical 
 measures were passed, but he showed symptoms of 
 dictatorial ambition, and was beaten in 1883 by an 
 amalgamation of Catholics and constitutional Liberals. 
 The parties have alternated in power (and in military 
 opposition) since that time, but education has been 
 laicised, tithes abolished, the Church brought under 
 the control of the State, and the founding of new 
 religious communities and immigration of foreign 
 monks forbidden. The latter measures were passed 
 in 1904, and reflect the present situation. More 
 recently the president has urged a scheme for again 
 disestablishing the Church. 
 
 CUBA 
 
 Cuba is, from the nature of the case, one of the 
 least Roman Catholic of the Spanish-American 
 countries. The nearness of the political struggle with 
 Spain to our own time has kept alive the opposition 
 to Spanish religion. There is, says an American 
 writer, "an almost universal indifference to religion 
 apparent everywhere in Cuba." 2 One finds towns 
 of from 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants with only one 
 chapel, the writer says, and the priests explain that 
 the Cubans are indifferent to religion and will not 
 build chapels. As far back as 1883 there were 166 
 Masonic lodges in Cuba, 3 and they counted for much 
 
 1 Stanford's Geography, " South America " : an admirable authority 
 on native religion in South America. 
 
 2 Missionary Review of the World (April 1902). 
 
 3 "La Massoneda en Espana," by Tirado y Rojas (1893).
 
 118 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 in the rebellion. The brutal methods of the Catholic 
 Spaniards to suppress the rebellion did not improve 
 the condition of the Church ; nor does the free inter- 
 course with the United States to-day. Catholicism 
 has lost its hold on the better class (though this is 
 sadly decimated by the protracted war), and has only 
 a feeble control, with its scanty chapels and clergy, 
 over the 1,878,951 people — 64 per cent, of whom, 
 however, are illiterate. 
 
 PERU 
 
 The population of Peru (4,609,999 — in theory) 
 consists to the extent of 57 per cent, of native Indians, 
 who are described as nearly all Christians, but little 
 civilised ; though Carpenter describes some 350,000 
 Indians, at least, as entirely non-Christian and un- 
 civilised. The half-castes form a further 23 per cent, 
 of the population. The cultural level is very low, and 
 even to-day only 2*86 per cent, of its population 
 attends its schools, such as they are. The statistics 
 of vice (of illegitimate births and drink) are amongst 
 the worst in America, and the country generally is 
 very retrograde. It is now the only republic that 
 has not granted liberty of cults, though a certain 
 liberty exists in practice. The Liberals are not so 
 powerful in Peru, though of late years they have won 
 some measures (such as the recognition of the civil 
 marriage of non-Catholics). Dawson (" South Ameri- 
 can Republics," ii. 132) says that they do not find 
 clericalism so onerous as in the other republics, and 
 so create less trouble. Of late years, however, more 
 Radical parties, more definitely anticlerical, are growing 
 in power, and the prestige of the Church is more seri- 
 ously threatened. The Liberals unite with moderate
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 119 
 
 Conservatives against them, and there is not the clear 
 clerical issue that one finds in other states. However, 
 the history of Peru shows much the same alternation 
 of power and continued strength of the anticlerical 
 party amongst the educated population as in the 
 rest of South America. Mr Isaacson observes that 
 the educated Peruvians are generally "sceptics and 
 materialists." 
 
 CHILE 
 
 In Chile the Liberal party has greater traditions of 
 success than in Peru. From the time of the national 
 assembly that terminated the War of Independence in 
 1822 there have been bitter and equal contests between 
 the clericals and anticlericals. 1 A coalition of Liberals 
 (whom Carpenter describes as more numerous to-day 
 than the Conservatives) and Conservatives ruled from 
 1 86 1 to 1874, and the anticlericals merged into the 
 more radical Liberal Democratic party. In 1881 
 the anticlericals were powerful enough to institute 
 civil marriage and registration, the secularisation of 
 cemeteries and freedom of religion. Domingo Santa 
 Maria held office for five years in face of a fierce 
 clerical opposition and was succeeded by another 
 Liberal, Balmaceda. In the civil war that Balmaceda's 
 conduct provoked in 1890 it must be borne in mind 
 that the clericals had the support of the dissentient 
 Liberals. A Liberal president was again elected in 
 1 90 1, but the actual president is Catholic. 
 
 However, the political struggle in Chile is not so 
 
 much one of clericals and anticlericals, as of Radicals 
 
 and moderates, and merely reveals the usual strong 
 
 body of seceders from Rome amongst the educated. 
 
 1 See M. R. Wright's "Republic of Chile,"
 
 120 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 The Church rules the vast bulk of the illiterates, and 
 only 37 per cent, of the population (3,205,992) attend 
 school. Some 50,000 of the natives are classed as 
 bravos, or un-Christian and uncivilised. 
 
 VENEZUELA 
 
 Venezuela is one of the three states that were 
 wrested from Spain by the great Liberal Bolivar in 
 the early wars, and has had a powerful anticlerical 
 party from the start. There has been the usual con- 
 flict, with the usual alternation of success. Guzman 
 Blanco, another strong anticlerical, ruled from 1870 
 to 1889 (personally, or through subordinates), and has 
 left his impression on the legislature. The whites are 
 divided to-day in the customary way, but the popula- 
 tion (2,600,000) is largely made up of Indians (only 
 partly civilised), half-castes, negroes, and mulattoes, 
 and is generally illiterate. 
 
 BOLIVIA 
 
 Bolivia also has a high proportion of Indians 
 (920,000), half-castes (486,000) and negroes, in its pop- 
 ulation of 2,250,000. Culture is at the lowest level, 
 only 2 per cent, of the inhabitants attending school. 
 Yves Guyot unkindly remarks that "its public 
 libraries contain only a few Jesuitical works : the rest 
 have been stolen." Church and State were separated 
 in 1862, and convents suppressed; and an armed 
 revolt excited by the clergy was crushed by the 
 Liberals. The ignorant mass of the people may be 
 described as more or less Catholic, but whole tribes 
 of the Indians are devoid of religion, and heresy is 
 very advanced amongst the educated minority. Even
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 121 
 
 on the census papers some 24,000 described them- 
 selves as non-Catholic. There is at least the usual 
 majority of seceders amongst the educated adult 
 males. 
 
 HONDURAS 
 
 The population of Honduras (587,500) consists 
 mainly of aborigines and half-castes, in every degree 
 of uncultivation. The small educated white minority 
 has the same historic anticlerical party as the other 
 republics. All religions are free, and the Church 
 receives no support from the State. Education is 
 secular, as well as free and obligatory, but the school 
 population is only 7 per cent, of the whole. 
 
 SALVADOR 
 
 The population of Salvador (a little over 1,000,000) 
 includes only about 100,000 whites (or 20,000 pure 
 whites), with 250,000 Indians. The rest are mestizos 
 (half-caste). But the educated minority have a strong 
 anticlerical element. Monasteries are suppressed, 
 civil marriage is instituted, and education is in the 
 hands of lay teachers. Culture is very low, however, 
 and the masses are nominally Catholic. 
 
 SANTO DOMINGO AND HAITI 
 
 The population of Santo Domingo (500,000) and of 
 Haiti (1,425,000) are almost entirely black or mulatto. 
 About 700 schools suffice for the two republics. The 
 people are described as "nominally Catholic," but the 
 blacks are addicted to the darkest and grossest
 
 122 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 practices of their native religion. There are only a 
 few hundred Europeans, and the cultural level is of 
 the lowest. 
 
 NICARAGUA 
 
 Nicaragua has a population of 500,000, at the same 
 very low cultural level. There are only 323 schools. 
 The mass of the people are Indians, negroes and 
 half-castes. Indeed, the Europeans only number 
 about 1200. In the circumstances, a school popula- 
 tion of 17,000 is promising. But many tribes 
 (amounting to 40,000) are quite uncivilised, and the 
 vast majority are grossly ignorant. 
 
 PARAGUAY 
 
 Paraguay (635,571 — mostly Indians and mestizos) 
 has not only nearly 100,000 uncivilised Indians, but 
 its half-caste population has largely lapsed from 
 Catholicism since the departure of the Jesuits. There 
 are a few hundred whites, and the country has been 
 reduced to a very low level by its appalling wars. 
 About 400 schools, of a kind, are attempting to 
 diminish the general ignorance. A large proportion 
 of the population has never been Christian, or has 
 ceased to be ; and there is the usual Liberal element. 
 
 PANAMA 
 
 Much the same may be said of the new republic 
 of Panama. Its population of 400,000 is made up 
 of Indians, half-castes and negroes (40,000), at all 
 levels of uncultivation. They are nominally Roman 
 Catholic. The whites are very few in number.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 123 
 
 COSTA RICA 
 
 Costa Rica, with its 386 primary schools to 
 330,000 people, is in a slightly better position. Some 
 4000 of its Indians are bravos, and there is a fair 
 proportion of negroes and half-castes. But the white 
 population is large. The Catholic Church is estab- 
 lished, and has the adhesion of the vast majority, but 
 other cults are free, and the small educated minority 
 shows the usual division. 
 
 THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 The Philippine Islands may be associated with 
 the South American races as the last fragment of 
 the Spanish Catholic world. Missionaries describe 
 the islands as predominantly Roman Catholic in the 
 northern half (seven tribes), pagan in the centre 
 (2,500,000) and Mohammedan in the southern half 
 (seven tribes). The educated Spaniards in the colony 
 are divided into priests and monks and Freemasons. 
 " The first thing we send to the Philippines are monks, 
 who are insatiable," said the Catholic statesman 
 Castelar. Then come military men and officials, 
 who generally joined the 180 Masonic lodges of the 
 islands (with 25,000 initiates). The Church is said 
 to have derived 11 3,000,000 pesetas a year from the 
 colony : the State only 66,000,000. Educated Filipinos 
 naturally rebelled against this kind of religion, and, 
 save for a mass of uneducated natives, who follow 
 whatever religion is imposed on them until it is 
 displaced by another, the islands are lost to Catholicism. 
 The total population is unknown, and may be any- 
 thing between 6,000,000 and 12,000,000, of whom
 
 124 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 are nominally 
 
 Catholic. 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 To sum up the facts in regard to the religious 
 condition of the Spanish-American world is no light 
 task. Even from the better-ordered republics like 
 Mexico the official returns are confessedly very im- 
 perfect, especially in regard to religion, literacy and 
 extent of population. Taking an average of the 
 estimates given, we may assign to these races a total 
 population of about 65,000,000. Of these at least 
 53,000,000 are quite illiterate and densely ignorant, 
 passing in large numbers below the vague line of what 
 we call civilisation. One would not grudge the 
 Vatican the allegiance of these 53,000,000 en bloc, but 
 certain reserves must obviously be made. Several 
 millions are quite uncivilised, and cannot be included 
 in any serious religious statistics. Further, we saw 
 that in many of these states there is not a church to 
 4000 people, and, in such scattered rural populations, 
 this means that the greater part can only be called 
 Catholic in a somewhat ludicrous sense. With these 
 reserves, and recollecting the indifference we have 
 found among the urban natives in many parts, we 
 may assign some 48,000,000 of this wholly illiterate, 
 childlike and imperfectly civilised mass to the Vatican. 
 And that is more than one-fourth of its entire 
 following ! 
 
 On the best figures available, and taking the 
 average where they differ, I find that 81 or 82 
 per cent, of the whole Spanish- American popula- 
 tion is illiterate. This leaves about 12,000,000 or 
 13,000,000 literates, including the very large per- 
 centage of foreign merchants, etc. In the peculiar 
 circumstances of the Spanish-American world about 
 8,000,000 of these will be adult males, and the
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 125 
 
 serious question for the social observer is, how far 
 the Church of Rome has retained the allegiance of 
 these, as (Germans, etc., apart) they are nearly all 
 of Catholic origin. We saw that (as Carpenter 
 observes in his " South America") the voting strength 
 is predominantly anticlerical. In most states the 
 clergy can only obtain power by summoning to arms 
 the ignorant and pugnacious natives. They are to 
 a great extent repressed by anticlerical legislation of 
 long standing. I do not see how this can be under- 
 stood if less than 5,000,000 of the adult and literate 
 males have ceased to be Catholic. When we further 
 take into account the secessions among the literate 
 women (so conspicuous in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentine, 
 etc.), the growing anticlericalism amongst the illiterate 
 workers and half-breeds, the rise of democratic anti- 
 clerical bodies, and the immense loss of natives since 
 the fall of Spain and the impoverishment of the clergy, 
 it must be said that the Church has lost some 8,000,000 
 followers in the Spanish- American world in the course 
 of the nineteenth century, and is losing more rapidly 
 than ever in the twentieth. And of the 50,000,000 
 whom we may with some show of decency assign 
 to it, 90 per cent, are illiterate, and are amongst 
 the most ignorant peoples of the civilised world. 
 
 SUMMARY FOR THE LATIN WORLD 
 
 A few words will suffice to summarise the con- 
 clusions to which we are impelled by this mass 
 of indications concerning the religious condition 
 of the Latin world. It must be recollected, how- 
 ever, that strict formulae correspond very ill to the 
 fluidity of real mental life. One cannot draw a 
 rigid line between the faithful and the rebels to any
 
 126 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 creed, and this is especially difficult in the Latin 
 nations. Religion being so largely a matter of com- 
 pliance with external forms, we seem at first to have 
 an excellent test in the observance of these forms 
 (such as attendance at mass on Sundays), but such 
 observance is found to have innumerable degrees, 
 in spite of the drastic Catholic law, and is often 
 associated with other unmistakable signs of a decay 
 of faith. I have been content to strike off those 
 descendants of Catholic parents whom it is clearly 
 impossible to regard any longer as members of the 
 Roman Church, from their defiance of its gravest 
 precepts, their active hostility to its interests or their 
 complete indifference to its fate at critical moments. 
 I leave tens of millions in the category of " Catholic" 
 who would certainly fail to respond to any serious test. 
 With this admonition I venture to tabulate the results 
 of my inquiry for the Latin world : 
 
 Country 
 
 Population 
 
 Number of 
 Catholics 
 
 Number of 
 Seceders 
 
 France . 
 
 Italy 
 
 Spain and Portugal 
 
 Spanish America . 
 
 39,250,000 
 32,500,000 
 24,000,00c 
 65,000,000 
 
 5,500,000 
 26,000,000 
 20,000,000 
 50,000,000 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 6,000,000 
 4,500,000 
 8,000,000 
 
 
 160,750,000 
 
 101,500,000 
 
 43,500,000 J 
 
 1 Note that this does not mean 43,500,000 non-Catholics. I 
 leave out of account here the many millions lost to the Church in 
 France before 1870, and the uncivilised millions of South America, 
 besides immigrant Protestants, etc. It has not been possible to 
 determine the proportion of the loss in Italy, Spain and America 
 since i860, but the 18,000,000 loss indicated belongs overwhelm- 
 ingly to the last half century. In each case native seceders put the 
 figures higher than I do.
 
 SPANISH AMERICA 127 
 
 In the light of the preceding study there can be 
 little doubt that before long the Church of Rome will 
 have lost half its strength in the "Catholic countries" 
 (taken collectively). But the numerical statement, 
 formidable as it seems, is not the worst indication 
 of the Church's loss. For all impartial observers the 
 relative percentage of literates amongst the faithful 
 and the seceders is a more appalling circumstance. 
 In each country, and each part of each country, 
 the secessions are in strict proportion to the spread 
 of education, as I have fully shown. The number 
 of seceders includes only a very small percentage of 
 children : the number of the faithful is largely built up 
 of them. The seceders are literate to the extent of 
 90 per cent., and include the great majority of the 
 educated men in the whole Latin world. The faithful 
 are illiterate to the extent of 85 per cent. ; grossly 
 ignorant to the extent of 70 per cent. ; imperfectly 
 civilised to the extent of at least 20 per cent.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD— GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 THERE is a touch of pathos in the consolation 
 that Latin Catholic writers have found amid 
 the desolation that has fallen upon their 
 Church. From Paris to Rome, from Madrid to Buenos 
 Aires, the comforting assurance circulates that the 
 Church has regained, across the Reformation frontier, 
 all that she has lost in Catholic lands. Even so 
 sagacious an observer as Ferdinand Brunetiere de- 
 clared to his coreligionists, after a visit to the United 
 States, that the increase of Catholicism in that country 
 was " the characteristic phenomenon of the end of 
 the nineteenth century " ; while England is regarded 
 as substantially won for the Vatican. Is not the 
 conclusion forced on one ? There were not more than 
 100,000 Catholics in the United States or in England 
 a century ago. To-day, they say, there are 1,500,000 
 in England and 10,000,000 in the United States. 
 Statistics do not lie. 
 
 Statistics do not lie, but those who use them have 
 been known to convey wholly inaccurate impressions 
 with them, and here is assuredly one of the most 
 flagrant cases of such procedure. The English- 
 speaking nations being amongst the most literate in 
 the world, any large gain of allegiance in them would 
 certainly restore the social balance in favour of the 
 Vatican. The complete liberty and the pacific conduct 
 of controversy that distinguish them would make such 
 a gain yet more honouring and agreeable. But the 
 truth is that, throughout the English-speaking world, 
 
 128
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 129 
 
 the losses of Rome are precisely of that magnitude 
 that French Catholics ascribe to its gains, while the 
 real gains are insignificant. Apart from France, the 
 Roman Catholic Church has lost more heavily in the 
 English-speaking world than it has done in the Latin 
 world. 
 
 The central fact of the situation, when we survey- 
 it impartially from the social point of view, is the 
 dispersal of the Irish throughout the Anglo-Saxon 
 communities. This fully accounts for the apparent 
 increase of Catholicism in England, America and 
 Australia. The millions that have appeared in these 
 lands owning an allegiance to the Vatican owe their 
 existence to no subtle magic, but to a process that is 
 very familiar to the social student — migration. If 
 1,000,000 Irish Catholics have immigrated into England 
 in the course of the nineteenth century, it can hardly 
 be deemed preternatural that the Catholics of England 
 to-day number 1,250,000; the remarkable thing is 
 that, with the normal growth of population, they do 
 not number 2,000,000 or more. So in regard to the 
 United States and Australia, the other chief destina- 
 tions of the Irish emigrants. The fact is that in 1801 
 the population of Ireland numbered nearly 5,500,000. 
 As the population of England has quadrupled since 
 that date, we assume the same, at least — since the 
 present deliberate restriction of the English birth-rate 
 does not extend to Ireland — for the people of the sister 
 isle. But the actual population of Ireland is 4,458,775. 
 Where are the missing 1 8,000,000 ? They are the body 
 of the Roman Catholics of the United States and 
 England to-day. Add to them a constant inpour- 
 ing of French, Italian and German Catholics : the 
 descendants of the Catholics of 1800: and the con- 
 verts that have been won from the other Churches. 
 The question for the social observer then becomes,
 
 130 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 not "Where have the Catholics come from?" but 
 " Wherever have they gone to ? " 
 
 This must be the leading idea of any serious study 
 of Catholicism in the English-speaking world. It is 
 usually overlooked by the Catholic writer, but my 
 aim is less partial and more scientific. But I may 
 briefly dismiss Ireland itself from our study before I 
 proceed. 
 
 Of the 4,500,000 inhabitants of Ireland, 3,310,328 
 are described as Roman Catholics. This is the 
 population of Roman Catholic descent, and certainly 
 very few of these would care to be described as having 
 left the Church. Let us put them all to the Catholic 
 total ; but let us understand on what condition we 
 do it. In 1900 the number of Catholic marriages in 
 Ireland was 14,795 > tne number of non-Catholic 
 marriages was 6535. That is by no means the pro- 
 portion demanded by the above figures. But the real 
 situation in Ireland cannot be expressed in figures. I 
 have no wish to reflect on my father's country, but it 
 is surely notorious that, largely literate as Ireland is, 
 it is one of the most uncultivated and ignorant among 
 the literate peoples. The elementary education given 
 is of the narrowest type, and it leads to no further 
 cultivation at all for the vast mass. Poor, light of 
 spirit, little interested in ideas, having the most meagre 
 literature in the world in proportion to their literacy, 
 geographically isolated from more progressive peoples, 
 despotically ruled by a very numerous and generally 
 ignorant clergy, the beliefs of the Irish Catholics are 
 not very important from the standpoint of this essay. 
 What is notable is that amongst the more alert classes 
 rebellion is steadily growing. Mr McCarthy (" Priests 
 and People in Ireland," p. 577) divides the Catholic 
 population into ten parts. The cultivated tenth go to 
 church, but it is "doubtful if any of them really and
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 131 
 
 fully believe in what the priests call the Faith." No 
 one who has mixed much among them, or read their 
 literature, will doubt this, with a little modification. 
 The circulation of Mr McCarthy's own works — one 
 of which ran to a tenth edition in two years — justifies 
 it. Two further tenths, Mr McCarthy says, fume 
 against the clergy, but are generally orthodox. The 
 remaining seven-tenths are quite orthodox, but 
 culturally negligible. Mr McCarthy holds that they 
 are "going, morally and intellectually, from bad to 
 worse." 
 
 However, few of them leave the Church, and it 
 is entitled to claim 3,000,000 followers, at least, in 
 Ireland, on the terms I have indicated. It is more 
 interesting to follow the millions who have quitted 
 their native home, and entered the more stimulating 
 atmosphere of foreign lands. At home they had 
 priests of genial temper and strong political sympathy, 
 and they were, as a rule, ignorant of any serious alter- 
 native to Catholicism. We shall see what happens 
 when they pass from their hothouse of faith into the 
 normal air of modern life. 
 
 Some day, perhaps, a historian will take up the 
 graceful pen of Gibbon, and write the full story 
 of the remarkable spiritual power that succeeded to 
 the empire of the Romans. Not the least interest- 
 ing chapter of his work will be that which deals with 
 the fortunes of the Church in Britain during the 
 nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Possibly he will 
 compare the episode with Julian's brilliant effort to 
 extend the frontier of the empire once more at the 
 very time when it was crumbling into decay. He 
 will at least tell of superb generalship, of exalted 
 legions, of an incipient triumph, and of a joyous 
 illumination of the Eternal City ; and then of disaster 
 and failure, of the dearth of generals and of dispirited
 
 132 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 legions, of the last grim concentration in face of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Little more than ten years ago, as one of a group 
 of priests, I listened to Bishop Paterson gravely ex- 
 pressing a hope that the conversion of England would 
 not come too suddenly, or we priests would be over- 
 whelmed in the flood of converts. The familiar phrase 
 is heard less than it used to be in Roman clerical 
 circles ; nay, it is even being blamed as one of the 
 causes of the admitted disaster. About the very time 
 when I was listening, with incipient scepticism, to the 
 naive hopes of the Bishop of Emmaus, Lord Braye 
 was writing that no progress could be made until that 
 phrase was laid aside and the expectation of a speedy 
 and large change in English feeling was abandoned. 
 The clergy now know that they are fighting a stern 
 fight to preserve, not to extend, their domain in 
 England. They can count to-day barely more than 
 one half the number they should have, if they had 
 merely held their own, without making a single con- 
 vert. The Church of Rome has lost more heavily in 
 Great Britain than in any other country except France ; 
 and in no other case is it so easy to establish and 
 determine its loss with such entire certainty. 
 
 The chief purpose of this essay is to estimate the 
 losses that the Church has suffered during the last 
 half century, and in the case of England the leakage 
 has occurred almost entirely during that period. But 
 it is advisable to glance at the earlier half century, as 
 we have done in other cases, in order to understand 
 the situation of fifty years ago. 
 
 The estimates of the Catholic population of Great 
 Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 vary between 50,000 and 100,000, and the Catholic 
 writer accepts one or other version according to the 
 task he has in hand. Through the dark years of the
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 133 
 
 lamentable prosecution to which they were subjected 
 many thousands of Catholics bravely endured their 
 hardships, and remained loyal to their faith. Lanca- 
 shire had a large native Catholic population that clung 
 with northern stubbornness to its beliefs, and sheltered 
 the outlawed priests, who ministered furtively to them. 
 London, too, contained a good sprinkling of Catholics. 
 The long-continued coercion was wearing them down 
 — the Catholic historians admit that they diminished 
 in number in the course of the eighteenth century 
 — but they were more numerous than is generally 
 believed. An official return that was made to the 
 House of Lords in 1780 put the number at 69,376, 
 and that figure may be taken as a minimal expression 
 of their strength. It was not yet safe for many to 
 avow their belief openly. 
 
 In 1 79 1 the Act of Toleration was passed, and their 
 heaviest burdens were removed. Catholic writers 
 usually treat the point with some looseness and in- 
 accuracy, because they are always bent on maintaining 
 the fiction of a great native growth of Catholicism in 
 the nineteenth century. One would be glad to think 
 that a mere return of our fathers to humane feeling 
 dictated the measure, but the truth is, of course, that 
 the outbreak of the French Revolution gave a new 
 direction to their ideas. In 1789 the stream of 
 refugees set in from France. Catholicism was so 
 essentially one with French royalism that the sym- 
 pathy of the nation could make no distinction. In its 
 growing hatred of the anti-papal Republicans across 
 the Channel, its new perception of the charm of 
 French character and its warm feeling of hospitality 
 to the refugees, England lost half its bitterness against 
 the Church, and the surviving Catholics moved more 
 freely. The culmination of the Revolution in 1792 
 drove out a further army of Catholic nobles and clergy,
 
 134 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 and the cause of the Church gained proportionately 
 in England. Abbot Gasquet says that 8000 French 
 priests fled to England in 1792, and that collections 
 were made for them in every (Protestant) parish 
 church in the country. The effect of all this on the 
 fortunes of English Catholicism may be imagined. 
 Milner's biographer (intent, as usual, on magnifying 
 the subsequent native growth) says there may have 
 been 70,000 Catholics in England in 1803. There 
 must have been more than 100,000. The French 
 clergy were not idle during their ten years' stay in 
 England — many remained until 18 14 — and there had 
 been 70,000 Catholics in 1780. Moreover, the emi- 
 grations from Ireland increase notably after the 
 troubles of 1798. 
 
 Let us say that the century opened with 100,000 
 Catholics in this country and a quicker vitality amongst 
 the older faithful. By 18 14, Gasquet says, there were 
 49,800 Catholics in London alone, with thirty-one 
 priests and eleven chapels. An official Roman docu- 
 ment puts the number at 200,000 in 1826, but this 
 seems to be optimistic. If we accepted all the figures 
 quoted so lightly by Abbot Gasquet it would be 
 singularly disastrous for his cause. He says, for 
 instance, that Bishop Griffiths estimated the Catholic 
 population of London in 1829 at 146,000 (in a popula- 
 tion of 1,500,000). As we shall see that they do 
 not reach that number to-day (in a population of 
 6,000,000, and after eighty years of strenuous pro- 
 selytism) the inference would be appalling. How- 
 ever, Catholicism made slow and stately progress 
 during the thirties under its four vicars apostolic 
 (increased to eight in 1840), and its quiet and rather 
 Gallican intellectual leaders (such as Lingard). 
 Catholic emancipation was won in 1829, and by 1840 
 there were 463 chapels in England and Wales.
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 135 
 
 Then there set in the famous movement from 
 the Anglican Church to the Roman that gave rise 
 to all the inflated hopes of the following decades. 
 The conversion of Newman in 1845 gave the Church 
 the finest advertisement it has ever had in England. 
 Catholics were dazed with their sudden fortune. In 
 1850 we find a list to 200 converted Anglican clergy- 
 men ; before the end of the century Cardinal Vaughan 
 extended the list to 556 (though that is less than 
 the number of French priests who had left the 
 Church in jive years), and added 256 lawyers (the 
 next most susceptible group, it appears) and physi- 
 cians and "about a hundred admirals, generals and 
 field officers " — mainly the latter, one presumes. 
 To complete the ornamental part of their gains dur- 
 ing the sixty years I must add (from Mr Gordon 
 Gorman's " Converts to Rome ") 32 baronets and 417 
 members of the nobility. In the train of this gilded 
 band went a large number of ordinary men and 
 women. What the total gain to the Church was it is 
 impossible to estimate. I have not the least wish to 
 restrict the figures, as — if the reader will pardon the 
 paradox for the moment — the larger the list is the 
 heavier will prove to be the net loss of the Church. 
 Mr Gordon Gorman has laboriously compiled a 
 directory of converts. He describes them, somewhat 
 airily, as numbering "nearly 10,000 per annum" so 
 late as 1900, when the stream had begun to trickle 
 rather pathetically ; but, though he ranges over the 
 records of sixty years, he gives the names of only 
 about 4000. 
 
 But it will prove unnecessary to estimate the number 
 of converts from the English Church if we turn back 
 and consider the fortunes of Romanism from another 
 point of view. Prestige the Church won, and wealth 
 and culture, from this remarkable accession of fine and
 
 136 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 sensitive men and women, but its great increase in 
 numbers has come from a very different quarter, and 
 one that is too often overlooked. Up to this point 
 I have almost entirely followed Catholic writers such 
 as Abbot Gasquet ("Short History of the Camolic 
 Church in England and Wales "), Mr Percy Fitzgerald 
 (" Fifty Years of Catholic Life ") and W. T. Murphy 
 (" The Position of the Catholic Church in England and 
 Wales "). Now, when I reach the real turning-point in 
 their Church's fortunes — the Irish invasion — they 
 wholly fail me, or say next to nothing about it. To 
 mention it might detract from the legendary air of 
 their story, I suppose. It is no wonder that Irish Cath- 
 olics like Mr Davitt {Freeman, June 1902) scornfully 
 retort that of the 1,750,000 (?) Roman Catholics in 
 Great Britain only 100,000 are English. Even less 
 partial observers like Mr H. G. Wells seem to have 
 missed this element of the situation when, on the 
 ground of the apparent increase of Catholicism, they 
 predict a great triumph for it in the twentieth century. 
 The moment we take account of the Irish immigration 
 the situation of the Roman Church in England entirely 
 changes. Until 1851 the returns of emigration were 
 not properly analysed, but there was a continual exodus 
 from the end of the eighteenth century. The popula- 
 tion of England nearly doubled between 1801 and 
 1 84 1 : the population of Ireland rose only by 50 per 
 cent. In the next ten years it fell from 8,175,124 
 to 6,552,385, instead of rising to 10,000,000. The 
 terrible famine of 1847 scattered its home-loving 
 people over the English-speaking world. More than 
 2,000,000 emigrated in three years, and millions have 
 since followed in the familiar paths. In those days of 
 sluggish sailing ships and extreme poverty a very 
 large proportion of the emigrants could do no more 
 than reach Liverpool and spread slowly over the
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 137 
 
 north of England, where tens of thousands of their 
 countrymen already lived. It appears from the official 
 figures that only 780,000 Irish entered the United 
 States between 1840 and 1850, so that a very large 
 proportion of the emigrants must have come to 
 Britain — many, no doubt, to leave for America when 
 they had earned a little money. At once Catholicism 
 received an immense accession of numbers in the 
 north, and many of the more enterprising and less 
 distressed emigrants pushed on to London. At the 
 census of 1881 it was found that there were then 
 living in England 781,119 persons who had been born 
 in Ireland ; and, as most of these had come over more 
 than thirty years before, a fresh generation of Irish- 
 born Catholics, very frequently the outcome of mixed 
 marriages, had appeared. The net increase must be 
 put at 90 per cent, at least ; in other words, there 
 were at least 1,500,000 Irish immigrants and their 
 descendants living in England. 1 
 
 Now the distress had fallen more severely upon 
 Catholic Ireland than upon the north, but we will 
 allow the ordinary proportion at that time — about one- 
 fifth — for Protestant emigrants. The result is that, 
 on the most moderate reading of the official statistics, 
 
 1 It may be useful to trace the growth of the one of these families 
 which is best known to me. In the late forties my paternal grand- 
 father settled in Macclesfield with his wife and three children. Two 
 of the children married — both married Englishwomen — and had 
 fifteen children. In 1881 the five immigrants of the forties were 
 represented by sixteen living individuals ; they are now represented 
 by more than thirty living members — in spite of the fact that a 
 third of the children in the first and second generation remained 
 unmarried, and that the proportion of children in the third 
 generation is only three per family. I know scores of these 
 immigrant Irish families that have become even more extensive. 
 The percentage of mixed marriages is very high, and at each such 
 marriage there is a rigid stipulation that all the children shall be 
 Catholics.
 
 138 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 by 1 88 1 the Catholic Church in England had received 
 the addition of 1,250,000 ardent believers from the 
 sister isle ; and this point the Catholic historian usually 
 overlooks ! 
 
 Indeed, Catholic arithmetic is the most deadly of 
 boomerangs. I noticed that Abbot Gasquet assigns 
 146,000 Catholics to London in 1829. As the popu- 
 lation of the city has increased fourfold since then, 
 and there has been an enormous immigration of Irish, 
 Italian, French and German Catholics, and a most 
 intense proselytic activity, what should they number 
 to-day? They do number about 120,000. Another 
 Catholic writer (Month, July 1885) computes that 
 there were 800,000 Catholics in England in 184 1. As 
 the population of England has more than doubled 
 since 1841, these should now be 1,700,000 ; and to them 
 we should add (to date) 2,000,000 Catholics of Irish 
 descent, and some 300,000 French, Italian and German 
 Catholics. This would give an actual Catholic popu- 
 lation of 4,000,000, without counting the " 10,000 
 per annum" converts! In point of fact, the Catholic 
 population is about 1,200,000. Mr Murphy quotes 
 with apparent approval this comment of the Census 
 Report on Education on the religious census of 185 1 
 (in which the Catholic authorities supplied the number 
 of "worshippers as 395,303): "The total number of 
 persons of this faith cannot be less than one million, 
 and probably exceeds that number." If that is true 
 — as it certainly is — their population to-day should 
 exceed 3,000,000, instead of falling below 1,250,000. 
 Finally, Father Werner ("Orbis TerrarumCatholicus") 
 gave the Catholic population in 1888 as 1,359,831 ; 
 which is much more than it numbers to-day, though 
 far less than it ought to have been even twenty years 
 ago. 
 
 Let us do their arithmetic more soberly for them :
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 139 
 
 only remembering, that the Catholic population tends 
 to increase more rapidly than the non-Catholic, partly 
 because it lies mainly among the improvident poor, 
 partly because the Catholic Church forbids under 
 mortal sin any deliberate restriction of offspring, 
 and partly because it claims all the children when one 
 parentis a Protestant. In 1841 the Catholic popula- 
 tion must have been, by normal growth and immigra- 
 tion, at least 300,000 ; to-day it should be at least 
 700,000. To these must be added a half century of 
 conversions, or a fairly full stream from 1841 to 1908. 
 I do not think we could put these and their descend- 
 ants at less than 200,000. Catholics further claim — 
 I think rightly — 300,000 French, Italian, Spanish, 
 German and Polish immigrants, or their descendants. 
 Thus we get a total of 1,200,000. Then there are 
 the Irish Catholic immigrants, who number at least 
 1,000,000. When we remember that most of them 
 were here before i860 (later emigrants going mostly 
 to America or Australia), and bear in mind their rate 
 and manner of increase, we must count them to-day 
 as numbering about 2,000,000. We saw that they 
 numbered 1,250,000 twenty-eight years ago. This 
 gives a total of 3,200,000. And since the Catholics 
 of England and Wales actually number not more than 
 1,200,000 (as we shall see), we find a loss of tivo mil- 
 lions, instead of the remarkable growth that some 
 writers affect to discover. 
 
 In this conclusion I am fortunate to have the sup- 
 port of more than one Catholic writer. The work of 
 Mr Murphy to which I have referred was a prize 
 essay on the position of Catholicism, issued in 1892 
 by the Catholic " Fifteen Club." The preface, by Lord 
 Braye, is painful reading. He says : " We preach 
 the truth of God, undivided, undefiled, there is none to 
 listen : any or every religion constructed by man, and
 
 140 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 avowing itself only human, boasting of fallibility — 
 that is to say, untruth — any and every such is accepted 
 by the English people. Debt has fallen like a blight 
 on our impoverished means of evangelising this land." 
 
 The whole preface is a lament and an appeal to 
 Catholics to descend from foolish dreams to hard 
 realities. Mr Percy Fitzgerald seems to take as his 
 estimate of the actual Catholic population the figure 
 given by Baumgarten — 1,381,000 for England and 
 Wales. A pamphlet published at Angers (La de- 
 cadence Catholique, by "Patriote" — issued in English 
 by Mr Kensit) quotes Father Mitchell, of Westington, 
 as saying from the pulpit that his Church has lost 
 1,000,000 souls in forty years; and a writer in the 
 Month as saying : "A few years ago we reckoned up 
 1,362,000 Catholics: that was about 1,000,000 less 
 than we expected." 
 
 It is, indeed, easy to show that the Catholic popula- 
 tion of England and Wales has fallen below 1,250,000. 
 First let us consider the Catholic population of the 
 Metropolis, where the proselytising agencies — the 
 leisured communities of Jesuits, Oratorians, etc., the 
 finer churches, the social pressure, the employment of 
 the press, etc. — have exerted their utmost influence 
 for half-a-century. Few people are aware how subtle 
 and devoted the campaign has been : few are aware 
 how extraordinarily slight the result is, and how small a 
 proportion of London's population is Roman Catholic. 
 Probably in no other part of the world has the policy 
 of bluff been more successful. Yet in this case the 
 most positive figures are available, and there can be 
 no question about the conclusion. Speaking, some 
 years ago, from a recollection of clerical days, I said 
 that 1 when Bishop Vaughan became Archbishop of 
 
 1 See my " Twelve Years in a Monastery," ch. xiii., and my 
 article in The National Review (August 1901).
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 141 
 
 Westminster, he, in a flush of confidence, took a census 
 of his diocese (which includes the greater part of 
 London, Essex, Middlesex and Hertfordshire). The 
 result was not made public : it showed that of 200,000 
 nominal Roman Catholics in the diocese, at least 
 one-third never went to church. My recollection of 
 clerical gossip is confirmed in Mr Fitzgerald's book 
 (p- 336)' He says that on some of the census returns 
 the total was 200,000; in others it was only 156,000. 
 The difference is the difference between nominal and 
 real Catholics, faithful and obvious seceders. Mr 
 Fitzgerald is ingenuous enough to dwell on the diffi- 
 culties of taking the census, and to describe the clergy 
 as exploring the courts and alleys to ask if people were 
 Catholics. The kind of Catholic who has to be 
 sought in his home, and asked if he is willing to call 
 himself a Catholic, is a strange adherent of a Church 
 that binds him under pain of eternal damnation to 
 attend mass every Sunday. But the clergy were not 
 so foolish. I happened to be giving clerical assistance 
 to a priest in an east-end London parish on the Sun- 
 day when he filled up his census paper. " How many 
 Catholics have you?" was the first question. He 
 replied : 6000. There were known to be about that 
 number of Irish-Catholic descendants in the district. 
 " How many go to church ? " We made careful 
 observation, and found that less than 1000 (and these 
 were mostly children) complied with that characteristic 
 test of Catholic belief. To the further question, how 
 many youths attended mass, he replied, almost cyni- 
 cally, about 5 per cent. In this one parish alone 
 more than 4000 were lost to the Church. And this, 
 broadly, is the condition of East London, on either 
 bank of the river, from the Tower to Tilbury. A 
 zealous priest I know started a mission at Bow 
 Common. In the first three streets he explored he
 
 142 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 secured 120 children of lapsed parents. He dare not 
 search farther. At Barking there were 200 children 
 in the schools, and not 50 adults (instead of 800) at 
 mass. 
 
 Mr Charles Booth (" Life and Labour in London," 
 last volume) has been singularly indulgent in this 
 part of his work. He finds the poor Irish " with few 
 exceptions Catholic, and generally attached to their 
 religion." The student will find a more informed 
 account of them in Father Morris's " Catholic England 
 in Modern Times" (p. 79). The descendants of 
 half-a-million Irish Catholics are rotting, morally and 
 spiritually, in the slums of our cities. While those 
 fine churches have been built which Lord Braye 
 regards with marked aversion, while the silken nets 
 have been plied without ceasing among the more 
 comfortable classes, they have been neglected to an 
 appalling extent. Mr Booth, of course, lacked the 
 technical knowledge to deal adequately with this side 
 of London's life. He observes, of a large section of 
 the middle class, that they may ''fairly be regarded 
 as good Catholics, though they habitually neglect the 
 Sunday mass and the Easter duty " (both binding 
 under a strict assurance of eternal damnation) ; and 
 he does not improve his statement when he adds that 
 they " probably fast habitually." Very few Catholics 
 in England fast at all — it is not urged on them ; and 
 if he means abstinence from meat, which is urged, the 
 neglect of this would be a less serious matter than the 
 neglect of mass. 
 
 The Sunday mass is the test of Catholic belief in 
 Great Britain, and, as far as London is concerned, we 
 can apply it with rare precision. The famous census 
 of churchgoers taken by The Daily News in 1903 
 gives the number of Catholics who attend mass in 
 London on the average Sunday. The full total of
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 143 
 
 morning attendances was 96,281. As only very young 
 children (the strict obligation begins at the age of 
 seven, but children of four or five commonly attend) 
 and those who are absolutely prevented by employ- 
 ment (domestic servants must demand permission) or 
 substantial illness are excused, we must take this 
 figure to represent 80 per cent, of the real Catholic 
 population of the Metropolis. If it be claimed that 
 there are many "bad Catholics" who yet cannot be 
 regarded as seceders, we may point out, in recompense, 
 that the number includes many "twicers" (com- 
 municants) and very many non-Catholics (at the more 
 ornate services). There are certainly not more than 
 120,000 Catholics among London's 6,250,000/ 
 
 In the Metropolis, therefore, where the proselytic 
 activity has been greatest, the Catholics number less 
 than one in fifty of the population. I know parts of 
 England where they do not number one in a thousand 
 (Buckingham, for instance) ; but in Lancashire and 
 West Yorkshire the proportion is far higher, and 
 we must apply different tests for the whole country. 
 The first of these standards of measurement — one 
 that is pressed on us by the Catholic — is the number 
 and increase of the clergy. There are 3534 priests 
 in England and Wales {Catholic Directory, 1908). 
 
 1 Mr Mudie Smith gives the number of evening attendances as 
 well as morning, and then deducts 38 per cent, as "twicers." In 
 a Catholic church each evening attendant is a "twicer" (or else a 
 Protestant) ; and a certain number who attend the high (or sung) 
 mass have already attended, to communicate, at an earlier mass. 
 Also, there is always a higher proportion of strangers at Catholic 
 ceremonies than at non-Catholic. I may add that of the 96,000 
 only 25,000 were men. The women numbered 42,000 and the 
 children 29,000. In the evening only 7000 men attended Catholic 
 chapels, and a large proportion of these would be non-Catholic ! 
 The census was spread over many months, and may safely be taken 
 to represent the average Sunday.
 
 144 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 As there were only 493 in 1837 this figure is regarded 
 with much complacency. When we recall the Irish 
 invasion the increase has a more natural aspect, but 
 there is a great deal more to be said. Some 150 of 
 these clergy are invalided or " retired " ; I know of one 
 who assists Atheist organisations out of his clerical 
 pension. More than 1000 of them are monks, and 
 the bulk of these do little or no parochial work. A 
 glance at the Catholic Directory is instructive in 
 this respect. The large list of London priests in- 
 cludes, one finds, 20 priests at the Cathedral, 20 
 Jesuits at Farm Street and 28 at Roehampton and 
 Wimbledon, 17 Salesians at Battersea, 14 Oblates at 
 Bayswater, 13 Oratorians at Bayswater, 13 Passionists 
 at Highgate, 11 Dominicans at Haverstock Hill, 11 
 Franciscans at Forest Gate, and so on. The great 
 majority of these do no parochial work, or share a 
 small amount between them. In the country the 
 non-parochial clergy are still more numerous. The 
 Jesuits have nearly 100 in their colleges, the 
 Benedictines nearly 100 in their abbeys, and there 
 are the "sleeping communities " that have been exiled 
 from France. Possibly 2300 priests are fully en- 
 gaged in parochial work in England. If we allow the 
 high average of 500 souls to each priest, this will give 
 less than 1,200,000. 
 
 The number of Catholic chapels (including "stations" 
 where mass is not always said on Sundays) in England 
 and Wales is 1736 — about one-tenth those of the 
 Methodists. On the face of the matter, this helps us 
 little, as the congregations vary from a score to several 
 thousands. I have often said the Sunday mass to 
 congregations of less than a dozen. At Buckingham 
 (population 3000) the only outsider who attended was 
 my gardener, who propitiated my rivals by stealthily 
 attending their service as well. But the figure is very
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 145 
 
 instructive in one sense. There are 165 Catholic 
 chapels in London, and the number of Catholics we 
 have found to be rather less than 120,000. That is 
 a ratio of 720 per chapel (including infants, etc.). Now, 
 it seems to be an extremely generous proceeding to 
 apply that ratio of a crowded city to the whole of 
 England and Wales, since the busy churches of 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire are balanced by the tiny 
 rural missions. But let us do it. It yields a Catholic 
 population of 1,215,200. We may take that as a 
 maximum for England and Wales. 
 
 We get precisely the same result from the marriage- 
 rate. In the years 1856- 1865 the ratio of Catholic 
 marriages to the 1000 was 46 (Mulhall's Dictionary 
 of Statistics). It has sunk slowly and gradually to 
 41 per 1000, the figure which the Registrar General 
 gives for the last five years (Annual Return — the 
 same figure is given in The Statemaris Year Book 
 for 1897). That would mean that the Catholics are 
 a fraction over a twenty-fifth of the population, or 
 1,300,000 in number. But a large deduction must be 
 made for mixed marriages, which are common. No 
 Catholic ever marries except in a Catholic church — 
 there is the customary threat of eternal damnation for 
 doing otherwise — and so the Protestant partner must 
 go there. This slightly reduces the percentage, and 
 again gives 1,200,000 as the maximum Catholic 
 population. Marriage in a Catholic church is, in 
 practice, the safest and most generous test of all. 
 
 Finally, there is the test of school attendance. It 
 is well known how sternly the priests denounce parents 
 who send their children to non-Catholic schools. The 
 practice is very limited indeed. On the other hand 
 non-Catholic children are eagerly welcomed at Catholic 
 schools, and in many places attend them freely. One 
 must take also into account the fact that lapsed parents
 
 146 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 very commonly send their children to the Catholic 
 school ; while the number of Catholic children in 
 private schools is relatively small. These circum- 
 stances make the problem somewhat complex, but a 
 broad inference from the figures is possible. In the 
 ideal parish the priest multiplies his school children 
 by five to form an estimate of his total congregation. 
 Now the number of children attending Catholic ele- 
 mentary schools in England and Wales is consider- 
 ably less than 300,000. l This would give less than 
 1,500,000 Catholics on the ideal ratio; but I know 
 many Catholic parishes where the school children 
 even outnumber the worshippers over the age of 
 fourteen instead of forming only one-fifth of the whole 
 congregation. For this and the other important 
 reasons I have given we must make very large 
 deductions. If we grant the school children are one- 
 fourth of the whole, we get once more the figure of 
 1,200,000. 
 
 Here, then, we have five completely independent 
 lines of research that bring us to an identical conclu- 
 sion. In no reasonable sense whatever can more than 
 1,200,000 of the people of England and Wales be 
 claimed as Roman Catholics. They number less 
 than a twenty-fifth of the population. But there are 
 3,200,000 baptised Catholics, or children of such, in 
 the country, at the very least, and we have thus to 
 credit the English Roman Church with a loss of 
 2,000,000 followers. It has gained amongst the 
 wealthy, the titled, and those who needed no moral 
 
 1 1 base the figure on the official statement in the Accounts and 
 Papers for 1904 that in that year grants in aid were given to 931 
 Catholic schools, at which the average attendance was 238,287. 
 The remaining 131 Catholic schools, with no aid, would hardly 
 carry the total beyond 250,000, or not much beyond. Multiplied 
 simply by five, this would mean only 1,250,000 people, without 
 deductions.
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 147 
 
 regeneration, to a considerable extent. It has lost 
 the very poor, who are absolutely dependent on a 
 priest, to an appalling extent. And to-day the 
 number of deliberate seceders amongst the Catholic 
 middle-class and alert workers increases enormously. 
 They are found in thousands in all parts of the country. 
 Even the clergy, in spite of the great struggle that 
 follows secession, and the almost invariable calumny 
 and bitterness that punish it, abandon the Church 
 in a remarkable proportion. Of the priests of the 
 Franciscan order, to which I once belonged, about 12 
 per cent, seceded during my acquaintance with them. 
 At one time or other the names of about fifty ex- 
 priests (in England) of recent years have come under 
 my notice, 1 but the ex-priest is quick to disappear in 
 the crowd, and my list is almost a chance collection 
 of names. 
 
 The repression of the modernist movement is giving 
 grave anxiety to the educated Catholics of England, 
 as of other lands, and the process of disintegration 
 must go on more rapidly. As I write, an able young 
 priest, professor of philosophy (Mr Cecil Burns), 
 writes me that he has seceded. Catholic scholars 
 find themselves confronted with the drastic enforce- 
 ment of a scheme of theology that cannot count one 
 adherent now amongst the world's leading figures in 
 philosophy, science, history or letters. No one takes 
 the place of the dead Mivarts and Actons and 
 Brunetieres, liberal as they were. The Catholic 
 Encyclopedia they are issuing betrays, in its inter- 
 national list of contributors, their dire poverty in 
 respect of culture. Where, in the Catholic England 
 of to-day, are the successors of Wiseman, New- 
 man, Pugin, Digby, Ward, Hope-Scott, T. Arnold, 
 
 1 See chapter xi. of "Twelve Years in a Monastery" (2nd ed.) 
 and my article in The National Review (April 1902).
 
 148 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Coventry Patmore, Aubrey de Vere, Mivart and 
 Lord Acton ? Even such scholars and writers as 
 they claim seem generally to reserve the explicit pro- 
 fession of their faith till, like Mivart and Acton, they 
 are beyond the reach of the hierarchy, and of Pius X.'s 
 modern inquisition. Divided in opinions, oppressed 
 by a papacy they cannot respect, yet must represent 
 as having a vaguely supernatural assistance, cut off 
 from the higher culture of the world by a mountain 
 chain of obsolete traditions, their position cannot be 
 permanent. And behind them is the army of middle- 
 class men and women who are guided by them ; while 
 the workers are, as elsewhere, being swept into the 
 rapids of political democracy and social movements. 
 
 The situation in Scotland is so similar to that in 
 England, and the total number of Roman Catholics 
 is so small, that it may be dismissed in a few pages. 
 The early story shows the same quickening into fresh 
 life of the lingering Catholic elements by French and 
 Irish refugees. By 1837 there were seventy-four 
 priests and seventy chapels in Scotland, with a popu- 
 lation of about 30,000. After 1847, Glasgow became 
 one of the familiar destinations of the boats full of 
 poor emigrants from Belfast and Dublin, and they 
 made their way, south and north, to the mining or 
 manufacturing centres. Conversions have been 
 comparatively few from the Scottish Churches. This 
 immigrant Irish body constitutes the bulk of the small 
 Roman Catholic population of Scotland to-day. 
 
 It is usually computed at 400,000. What the real 
 number of Irish immigrants and their descendants is 
 I cannot discover, but the similarity of the conditions 
 to England, and the greater scarcity of priests, incline 
 one to believe that the loss is at least proportionately 
 as great. In one respect, indeed, the situation is
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 149 
 
 worse. Painful as the fact is to one who sympathises 
 with that afflicted race, it is undeniable that the poor 
 Irish workers abnormally swell the criminal statistics 
 of Scotland. 1 This points undeniably to the state of 
 things amongst them — great drunkenness and in- 
 difference to all religious or moral culture — that Father 
 Morris assigns to them in English cities. We shall 
 find it the same in America. Those are they whom, 
 above all, the social student would care to see some 
 Church uplift. It is those above all who have been 
 allowed to lapse from the Catholic Church, while 
 clerical energies were spent in adding a few additional 
 dogmas to the creeds of refined Protestants. 
 
 I need only observe that the claim of 400,000 Roman 
 Catholics is excessive. There are 550 priests in the 
 land, many of them shut up in monasteries like Fort 
 Augustus. If we allow the high average of 500 souls 
 to each priest who is fully occupied in parochial work, 
 we get a total of less than 250,000. The number of 
 churches, chapels and stations is 385, and very many 
 of these are tiny structures that admit only a handful 
 of worshippers. If we were to assign them the London 
 average of 700 souls each — a much too generous 
 allowance for the whole of Scotland — the total would 
 still be less than 270,000. Finally, there are 68,993 
 pupils in the Catholic elementary schools of Scotland. 
 If we simply multiplied these by five we should get a 
 maximum of 345,000. I have already explained that 
 we must by no means multiply them by five, and with 
 
 1 Another point should be mentioned. The superiority of Ireland 
 to Scotland in respect of illegitimate births has often been pointed 
 out. As the superiority holds of no other Catholic country, it 
 would need careful study. I merely wish to draw attention to the 
 fact, discovered and notified by the civic authorities ot Glasgow, 
 that there has long been a practice of sending girls from Ireland to 
 Scotland to cover the expected birth.
 
 150 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the deductions I indicated the number fairly agrees 
 with the other conclusions. 
 
 There are about 250,000 Roman Catholics in 
 Scotland. That is 150,000 less than the authorities 
 claim, and, on the basis of immigration, it betrays a 
 loss of at least 250,000.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD— THE BRITISH COLONIES 
 
 FIFTEEN years ago the English Catholic 
 Directory claimed that the Church had 
 10,500,000 adherents within the frontiers of 
 the British Empire. That is a slender enough pro- 
 portion of the whole population of the empire, but 
 it frequently impresses the unreflecting as a startling 
 indication of growth in the course of a single century, 
 and gives rise to fantastic speculations in regard to 
 the future. Is the empire being Romanised? Is the 
 power of the papacy destined to spread yet farther 
 over what is bound to be an outstanding domain in 
 the civilisation of the future? Is the loss of so many 
 millions in the Latin World, under the spell of their 
 first admission to the culture of the age, to be com- 
 pensated by the return of older nations, with a longer 
 and deeper literacy, to the allegiance of the Vatican ? 
 These questions are being asked on every side, 
 and too often the answer has its sole inspiration in the 
 impressive claim of 10,500,000 adherents. It is our 
 task in this chapter to see if the Catholicism of the 
 empire at large be more solid and promising than 
 that we find in the United Kingdom. The 10,500,000 
 ought to be 12,000,000 to-day. I may say at once 
 that we shall find the actual Catholic population of the 
 empire to be considerably less than 10,000,000, and 
 that the whole apparent growth is due either to 
 movements of population or to extension of the 
 Imperial frontier. The extension of British rule over 
 existing populations (in Canada, Malta, Mauritius, 
 J5 1
 
 152 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Trinidad, etc.) accounts for 2,500,000 out of the 
 5,000,000 Catholics of the empire outside the United 
 Kingdom. Of the remainder 1,500,000 are claimed 
 as converts in India and Ceylon — a change of little 
 cultural, and no political, importance — and the 
 fifth million is mainly accounted for by the Irish 
 dispersal. 
 
 It is thus at once apparent that the cry of a 
 Romanising of the empire is a very hollow one indeed. 
 Proselytic action there has been in abundance, but 
 we shall find that, as in the case of Great Britain, its 
 slight results do not nearly cover the immense losses 
 that the Church of Rome has suffered amongst all 
 the literate populations that enter into the British 
 Empire. Apart from the converts that are claimed 
 in illiterate India — a significant exception — a con- 
 siderable net loss is discovered at once. We may 
 begin with Canada, where the Catholics are most 
 numerous, and proceed to verify this throughout the 
 empire. 
 
 Canada 
 
 When the British flag was first unfurled on the 
 heights of Quebec, almost the entire population of 
 Canada was Roman Catholic. To the 65,000 French 
 Catholics who gazed darkly on that symbol of Protes- 
 tantism one has to add only a few thousand migrants 
 from below the lakes, scattered, almost churchless, 
 amidst the ardent supporters of Rome. The land 
 was overwhelmingly and fanatically Catholic. To- 
 day it is Protestant to the extent of 54 per cent, 
 and Catholic to the extent of only 41 per cent. The 
 circumstance might be deemed sufficient to warn 
 the Catholic statistician to pay more heed to move- 
 ments of population, but even in the case of Canada
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 153 
 
 we find him descanting on the remarkable growth, 
 because the original 60,000 Catholics have now become 
 2,000,000. Let us glance briefly at the making of 
 Canada. There were two distinct Catholic settle- 
 ments in Canada at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. Lower Canada was the land of the French 
 colonists, who absorbed most of the invaders from the 
 south. But in 1803 an interesting body of immigrants 
 from the Old World planted a fresh Catholic com- 
 munity in Upper Canada. This was a strong con- 
 tingent of Catholic Highlanders from Scotland, who 
 fled from the persecution and poverty of their native 
 home, and, after a temporary settlement in the North 
 American Colony, formed the nucleus of the later 
 Catholic population of Ontario. When we add to 
 these two elements the immigrant Irish Catholics, 
 who found their way to Canada from the beginning 
 of the century, and came in thousands each year after 
 the famine of 1847 — as well as the Irish Catholics who 
 later crossed the United States frontier in great 
 numbers — we have all the constituents of the Catholic 
 population of Canada. Its growth, and the increase 
 of its clergy and missions, present some striking 
 figures, when these are torn from the text of its 
 history, as is usually done. But when one glances 
 at the analysis of nationality, and the records of 
 immigration, the miracle loses its halo, and we find 
 the customary story of loss and failure. 
 
 The only element of mystery one can discover in 
 the story of Canada is the multiplication of the original 
 French Catholic inhabitants. At the time of the 
 conquest by General Wolfe (1760) they are said to 
 have numbered 65,000; by the year 1871 they had 
 increased to 1,082,940 ; yet, according to the census 
 report (1901), the whole immigration from France 
 during the nineteenth century only amounted to
 
 154 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 7944 individuals. Probably the figure 65,000 belongs 
 to an earlier census (1703), but even in 1791 the 
 population of Lower Canada was only 130,000, after 
 the migrations of French from the revolted British 
 colony. However that may be accounted for, the 
 figure of the year 1871 is correct, and we may make 
 it the first basis of our study of Canada. Persistently 
 as they have maintained their different nationality, 
 and restless as they have been under the more or 
 less alien rule of the British, the French-Canadians 
 have the respect of their brothers in the Dominion. 
 But their admirers will hardly claim for them an 
 advanced culture, or, until it was officially enforced, a 
 high degree of literacy. As in the case of Ireland, 
 moreover, they have had the political sympathy of 
 their clergy. The result has been a closer aggrega- 
 tion of priests and people, a united aversion to the 
 literature that was weakening the faith in other 
 Catholic lands, and a warm feeling that the priests 
 were with them in what they regarded as a demo- 
 cratic resistance to despotic power. These different 
 cultural and political conditions have given entirely 
 different characters to France and to French Canada, 
 and kept the latter predominantly faithful to the 
 Vatican, while the former has so signally abandoned 
 it. As, therefore, 1,649,371 of the actual inhabitants of 
 Canada are of French nationality {Census, p. 284), its 
 large Catholic population is not difficult to understand. 
 When we add that, according to the same official 
 return, 988,721 of the inhabitants of Canada are of 
 Irish extraction, we not only account at once for the 
 high percentage of Romanists in the Dominion, but 
 we begin to catch a glimpse of leakage. The nominal 
 Roman Catholic population is 2,229,600. This falls 
 short by 400,000 of the combined French and Irish 
 inhabitants, and only a small proportion of it could be
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 155 
 
 accounted for by admitting a one-fifth percentage of 
 Irish Protestants amongst the immigrants. But we 
 have still other elements of the population to take into 
 account : 2,000,000 of the inhabitants (1901) are of 
 English and Scottish extraction. Here, of course, we 
 have the great strength of the Protestant Churches, 
 which now far outnumber the Roman Catholic in the 
 Dominion, but a fair percentage — at least 100,000 — 
 (especially of those from the United States, which is 
 not accounted a separate nationality) must be assigned 
 to Rome. Of the Germans, 310,501 in number, more 
 than a third must be assumed to be Catholic ; and of 
 the other nationalities, calculating according to the 
 actual percentage of Catholics in each country, about 
 50,000 must be Catholic. The total number of in- 
 habitants of Catholic extraction is thus found, on a 
 moderate estimate, to be 2,700,000. This shows at 
 once a clear and unmistakable loss of 470,000. No 
 ingenuity of arithmetic can evade this conclusion. 
 The Canadian Church has lost at least 470,000 in the 
 course of the nineteenth century, and mostly in the 
 second half of the century. If it claims to have made 
 many converts, the loss figure must be proportionately 
 increased. Without counting one convert its due 
 population is 470,000 short. 
 
 Further, I have so far assumed the accuracy of 
 the official returns of religious profession, but we have 
 learned in the course of our inquiry to distrust these 
 inflated census statistics. We saw how utterly worth- 
 less they were in the case of Spain and Italy. 1 In the 
 
 1 A further illustration may be useful, as I am now dealing with a 
 large French population. As I write, I meet an educated French- 
 man who was baptised in his infancy, but has not entered a church 
 for more years than he can remember, and has lost all religious 
 belief. He insists, however, that he is a Catholic (because he was 
 baptised), and would describe himself as such in any formulary.
 
 156 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 case of Canada we have further reason for distrusting 
 them. The census takers there are directed, not 
 merely to ascertain what Church a man or woman 
 "belongs to," but what Church "he or she favours." 
 No doubt, that is the common practice, but it is ex- 
 plicitly enjoined in Canada. Further, the Canadian 
 Catholic Directory for 1903, commenting on the 
 census returns of 1901, says that "the official diocesan 
 statistics make a somewhat larger total." It would 
 be strange if they did not. Official diocesan statistics 
 are notoriously optimistic. They are not based on 
 any real test of belief, such as attendance at mass 
 or Easter communion, but on the priest's estimate 
 of the number of Catholics (faithful or unfaithful) in 
 his parish. Yet these diocesan statistics only claim 
 19,200 more than the government return! In other 
 words, the highest figure that the clerical authorities 
 see fit to offer us betrays a loss of nearly 500,000. 
 However the Canadian Catholic Directory goes 
 on to make an observation that at once arouses 
 distrust of its statement of strength. " In view of 
 these statistics," it says, "the percentage of Catholics 
 in the legislative bodies of the Dominion is noticeably 
 small." In point of fact, of the eighty-one members 
 of the Senate only twenty-six (or 32 per cent.) are 
 Catholics: of the 213 members of the House of 
 Commons only sixty (or 28 per cent.) are Catholics : 
 while the Church claims to number more than 40 
 per cent, of the population amongst its followers, and 
 certainly there are distinct and serious Catholic issues 
 to be fought for in Canada. The proportion of 
 Catholic members of the more popular body, with 
 its wide electoral basis, is very instructive. 
 
 I have been unable to discover anything like a 
 strict inquiry into the practical tests of Catholic belief 
 (churchgoing, etc.) in Canadian literature, but a
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 157 
 
 cursory examination of the statistics given at various 
 periods fully confirms the fact of a very considerable 
 leakage. The French district had from the start of 
 British rule a large and organised clergy, which has 
 grown with the population. It has, further, been 
 less disturbed than the others by immigration, and the 
 immigrants have (according to the nationality returns 
 in the census report) been more Catholic in origin 
 than the immigrants to any other province. Of 
 Quebec's 1,648,898 inhabitants no less than 1,322,885 
 are of French extraction and 114,842 Irish. Yet 
 even here the nominal Catholic population does not 
 reach these figures ; the real Catholic population is 
 much below them. And there are, in addition, many 
 thousand German, Italian and other Catholics. 
 
 Ontario is peculiarly instructive in this regard. Mr 
 T. O'Hagan (" Canadian Essays ") exults in the pro- 
 gress of his Church in Ontario, with the usual hint at 
 miracle. He tells us there were 25,000 Catholics in 
 it when it first became a diocese (1826), though they 
 had only seven priests to minister to them. Obviously 
 the leakage set in on a large scale in those distant 
 days, and when the rush of Irish immigrants began 
 in 1848 the leakage would be even greater. It is 
 enough for Mr O'Hagan, however, to consider that 
 those 25,000 have now increased to 400,000. His 
 claim is modest compared with that of the Catholic 
 Directory — 460,000 — but even the census returns 
 only yield the figure of 390,000 who "favour" the 
 Catholic Church. As there seem to be little more 
 than 400 active priests (as distinct from non-parochial 
 monks) in the province, the figure 390,000 is difficult 
 to accept ; it would mean the impossible proportion 
 of nearly 1000 souls per priest. But the most extra- 
 ordinary result is discovered when one glances at 
 the nationality of the inhabitants of Ontario. Of its
 
 158 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 2,182,947 inhabitants no less than 783,000 are of 
 French and Irish extraction, and 128,000 more are of 
 other Catholic extraction ! Even if we allow its 
 Catholic population to be 390,000, the Church is 
 found to have lost nearly 400,000 in Ontario alone. 
 It is significant enough that this enormous loss occurs 
 in the most forward and cultivated part of the 
 Dominion. 
 
 New Brunswick, one of the next strongest Catholic 
 provinces, has a total population of 331,120. Of 
 these 125,698 are described in the census report as 
 Roman Catholics. On turning to the analysis of 
 nationalities I find no less than 163,000 are of French 
 or Irish extraction, and some 10,000 more of Catholic 
 origin. Here again is a very serious leakage. 
 
 Manitoba shows a lesser, but still a considerable, 
 lapse. Of its 250,000 inhabitants only 35,000 are 
 returned as Roman Catholic to-day. On the other 
 hand, the census returns show that about 77,000 of 
 them must be of Catholic origin. 
 
 No doubt, these leakages were largely occasioned 
 by the dearth of priests and chapels in the early 
 days of immigration, but there is ample evidence that 
 it still goes on to a very great extent, and is now 
 due more considerably to deliberate secessions. The 
 clergy have not only not recovered the hundreds of 
 thousands who fell away in the days of disorganisa- 
 tion, but they have to record heavy losses in some 
 of their modern dioceses. This is curiously seen in 
 a comparison of La Canada Eccldsiastique for 1890 
 and the Canadian Catholic Directory for 1903. The 
 Montreal diocese reports 450,000 faithful in 1890 
 and only 415,000 in 1903. The figures for St 
 Hyacinth sink from 118,000 to 115,000: London 
 (Ontario) from 60,000 to 58,000 : St Albert from 
 20,000 to 18,000: Charlottetown from 55,000 to
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 159 
 
 53,000. According to the Catholic directories there 
 were about 164 churches and chapels in Canada in 
 1890, and about 174 in 1900. This is about the 
 same number that we find in England and Wales for 
 a Catholic population of 1,200,000. We found that 
 the proportion of Catholics per church in London 
 (England) is about 700 ; in the best colonies of 
 Australia it is less than 300 ; in the United States it 
 is less than 900. The Canadian claim of 2,229,600 
 Catholics would mean a proportion of 1280 per church, 
 which, I think, few non-Catholics will care to allow. 
 The same point becomes apparent when we regard 
 the number of priests. The Statesman s Year Book 
 gives the number as 1500, but I calculate from 
 the Directory that it is rather 2500, besides 580 
 "regulars," a third of whom may be classed with the 
 11 seculars " for our purpose. When we add these 
 to the total, and deduct "invalids" and "retired," 
 we have about 2500 active priests. The claim of 
 2,250,000 Catholics would assign an average of nearly 
 900 to each priest. As the average is only about 500 
 souls per active priest in Great Britain, and much less 
 than that in Ireland (a closer parallel to Canada), the 
 reader may judge whether it is possible to allow 900 
 per priest in Canada. The average for the Protestant 
 minister in Canada is about 600. 
 
 But I have already observed that the census returns 
 do not pretend to give 2,250,000 as " belonging " to 
 the Roman Church. The enumerators are expressly 
 told that the qualification covers all who " belong or 
 adhere to, or favour" that denomination. The re- 
 turns are, therefore, no more trustworthy than else- 
 where. In view of the proportion of priests and 
 chapels the Catholics must number less than 2,000,000, 
 and that means a loss (on the emigration and other 
 figures I have given) of at least 700,000 souls.
 
 160 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Newfoundland is not included in the preceding 
 estimates. It has a total population of 217,000, of 
 whom 75,989 are described as Roman Catholic. The 
 figure is too small to merit special study, and we may 
 let it stand. Mr Bodley remarks, however, in his 
 "Catholic Democracy of America," p. 4, that "the 
 Roman Catholic Church claims half of the population 
 of Newfoundland, and they are to a man of Irish 
 extraction." The body is, therefore, entirely the 
 outcome of movements of population. It is worth 
 noting, too, that while the Church claimed "half 
 the population " twenty years ago, it is content to 
 claim one-third to-day. 
 
 Australia 
 
 When we follow the stream of emigration across 
 the Pacific to the new continent of the far south-west 
 we discover an even greater loss, and more precise 
 means of determining it. That the Australian Church 
 is only a fragment of the broken population of Ireland 
 is a matter of common knowledge. Its story is the 
 story of waves of emigrants washing over the vast 
 territory and quickening it with civilised life : of a 
 band of devoted priests working for the reincorporation 
 of the scattered workers in the fabric of the Roman 
 Church : of a success that meets the eye in every large 
 Australian town to-day : but also of a failure that is 
 suspected by many, and fully appreciated by very few. 
 
 The making of Australia is one of the romances of 
 the nineteenth century that have changed, and will 
 further change, the face of the earth. When the 
 century opened it was known in England as a vast 
 wilderness at the antipodes to which it was convenient 
 to despatch the less desirable elements of the popula-
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 161 
 
 tion. From 1 788 to 1 839 it was the great natural jail to 
 whichour worst convicts were transported. "Criminal" 
 is a relative term, and it must not be imagined that 
 those early elements of the Australian people were 
 wholly disreputable. They included a large number 
 of rebels from Ireland, and amongst these were two 
 Catholic priests who were implicated in the rebellion 
 of '98. English rule refused Catholic chaplains to the 
 convicts, but these two priests defiantly ministered to 
 their co-religionists, and were in time joined by other 
 furtive ministers of the faith. They were officially 
 recognised in 18 19, and the formation of the new 
 Church began. 
 
 At that time the white population numbered about 
 30,000, three-fourths of whom were convicts. By 
 1830 there were 6000 Catholics at Sydney, and 12,000 
 in the whole of New South Wales ; but as there was 
 only one priest at Sydney the leakage must have 
 already begun on a very large scale. 1 Four years 
 later it was officially reported that there were 20,000 
 Catholics in the country (or a third of the entire white 
 population), who were mainly emancipated Irish 
 prisoners. Convicts were still arriving at the rate of 
 5000 or 6000 a year, and Bishop Ullathorne declared 
 that at least 1000 of these were Catholics. But there 
 were still only four priests in the continent, and the 
 losses were very heavy. In Van Diemen's Land there 
 was one priest to 4000 Catholics. An official census 
 of 1836 returns the Catholics as 21,898, with six 
 priests and chapels, and a weekly attendance at these 
 chapels of only 2850 — a loss of 17,000 already. From 
 1836 to 1 84 1 a further 7000 Catholic convicts were 
 landed, and at the latter date about 9000 were attend- 
 ing mass — one-third of them doing so under prison 
 
 1 These and most of my historical details are taken from Cardinal 
 Moran's " History of the Catholic Church in Australia."
 
 162 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 discipline. Melbourne had then a population of 
 10,000. A report sent to Rome claimed that 4000 of 
 these were Catholics ; but the resident priest only- 
 claimed 1000, and said that about 700 attended church. 
 It was the typical situation. Sydney had a population 
 of 40,000. The report to the Vatican says that 
 14,000 of these " profess the Catholic faith " ; the local 
 clergy report that 2550 attend the Sunday mass. 
 These tens of thousands of seceders, it must be re- 
 membered, have multiplied fourfold since those days. 
 
 In 1 85 1 the discovery of gold was announced, and 
 the fresh rushes of population completely disorganised 
 the overworked Church. One cannot help reflecting, 
 as one reads of this recurring disorder and leakage 
 throughout the history of the nineteenth century, how 
 the famous polity of the Roman Church utterly failed 
 to meet the emergencies, and lost millions of followers 
 from pure lack of organisation. There were tens of 
 thousands of superfluous clergy in Catholic countries, 
 and thousands were being sent on "missions"; yet 
 we shall see at the end of this section that the Vatican 
 has lost about 17,000,000 civilised followers from its 
 failure in international control. By i860 Tasmania had 
 30,000 convicts and 30,000 free inhabitants, and only 
 three priests ; and this was a fairly general condition. 
 In 1870 Bishop Spalding reports the return to the 
 fold of 250 seceders ; but he also reports that there 
 are only 4000 Easter communions at Sydney, where 
 the Catholic population is 10,000. New South Wales 
 had then a nominal Catholic population of 100,000 ; 
 South Australia about 30,000 (to thirty priests) ; 
 Queensland about 30,000. Of these known Catholics 
 (or people of Catholic origin) the vast majority never 
 went to church, even where they could. 
 
 The organisation of the Church proceeded with the 
 organisation of civil and national life. At the time of
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 163 
 
 the centenary of 1888 the Australasian Catholic 
 Directory reported that they had 544 priests, 862 
 chapels (including temporary stations) and 594,460 
 followers. In the meantime, of course (since 1848), 
 the Irish had been pouring into the colony far more 
 abundantly than ever. The population had risen 
 to close on 3,000,000. Cardinal Moran puts the 
 number of Catholics at 700,000 : the Directory at 
 600,000. Either figure would be moderate in view of 
 the enormous Irish percentage in the population ; but 
 both figures claim an exorbitant proportion of faithful 
 to priests. We may, however, pass at once to the 
 census results of 1891 and 1901, which throw con- 
 siderable light on the situation. 
 
 At the census of 1891 some 712,415 of the popu- 
 lation (then 3,013,790) were described as Roman 
 Catholics. Quoting from the Australasian Hand- 
 book for 1893, from which I take the figures, I find 
 that 286,917 of these belonged to New South Wales. 
 Of these, it goes on to say, 109,374 attended church. 
 I believe this figure does not include children under 
 fourteen, who form about a third of a population, and 
 we must allow for illness and enforced absence. But 
 with the most liberal allowance the real Catholic popu- 
 lation of New South Wales is about 100,000 short of 
 the number given in the census returns. Victoria has 
 a census return of 248,590 Catholics, and its 551 
 churches have an average attendance of 124,699. 
 With less than half the number of churches it has a 
 larger accommodation. Adding the children and en- 
 forced absentees we get a Catholic population 40,000 
 short of the census return. West Australia reports 
 11,159 Catholics, but only 3025 attend mass in its 
 twenty-five chapels (with sixteen priests). Tasmania 
 has 25,805 Catholics, but only 15,000 attend mass. 
 The figures are not available for the other provinces.
 
 164 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 We turn to the census of 1901, and find that the 
 Catholics have nominally increased to 856,052. But 
 a closer analysis shows that the leakage is on the 
 increase. New South Wales has now 347,286 nominal 
 Catholics, but only 100,000 are said {Australasian 
 Handbook, 1908) to attend mass on Sundays. Add 
 the children under fourteen (50,000) and the enforced 
 absentees (about 15,000), and we get a real Catholic 
 population of 165,000 — or 180,000 less than the census 
 return. As the Catholics of New South Wales form 
 two-fifths of the whole Australian Catholic body this 
 result is not flattering. But Victoria redeems it, to 
 a great extent, with a church attendance of 141,000 
 to a Catholic population of 263,71c. 1 
 
 The other figures are not available. If we assume 
 for them a position midway between Victoria (which 
 has exceptional church accommodation) and New 
 South Wales, we find that 250,000 of the nominal 
 Catholics of Australia, who could do so, do not comply 
 with the Church's drastic obligation to attend mass on 
 Sundays. One may allow that a certain number of 
 these are what is called "bad Catholics" — steadfast in 
 belief, but of the peculiar complexion that can incur 
 (and believe it incurs) eternal damnation once a week 
 rather than spend a half hour in church. The reader 
 will probably put the mass down as seceders. And 
 these are seceders of the present generation only. 
 
 On these official statistics we may form some esti- 
 mate of the losses that the Church has suffered in 
 Australia. By 1841 there were about 40,000 Catholics 
 in the country, of whom about 28,000 had drifted. The 
 discovery of gold and the inrush of Irish emigrants 
 overtaxed the resources of the clergy before they 
 could recover any of the lost ground, and the situation 
 
 1 The Handbook only says in the case of New South Wales that 
 the church attendance does not include children under fourteen.
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 1G5 
 
 in 1870 was as bad as ever. There were then more 
 than 200,000 Catholics in the country, and more than 
 half of these were beyond control. Few of these can 
 have been recovered, as, in spite of the enormous 
 immigration, the nominal Catholic population was 
 only 712,000 in 1891. The real Catholic population 
 was, we saw, about 200,000 short of this. A heavy 
 Irish immigration continued, since we find that at the 
 census of 1901 there were 181,000 in the Common- 
 wealth who had been born in Ireland. Yet the 
 nominal Catholic population only increased to 856,000, 
 and the practising Catholics again fell short of this 
 by between 250,000 and 300,000. Between this 
 enormous number of recent seceders and the descend- 
 ants of the earlier drift the loss must amount to not 
 less than 500,000 ; and the real Catholic population is 
 not more than 600,000. 
 
 A word may be added in confirmation of the latter 
 figure. Victoria, the most faithful colony, claims a 
 Catholic population of 263,710. As its total number 
 of priests, active and inactive, is only 242, this would 
 demand an average of more than 1000 per priest. 
 The school test is, however, the best in the case of 
 Victoria. As the church accommodation is particularly 
 ample I infer that schools have, as is usual, been built 
 in proportion. In Victoria, moreover, the system of 
 purely secular education is adopted in the official 
 elementary schools, and Catholics are bitterly opposed 
 to it. Yet I find, from The Statesman s Year Book 
 that there are only about 24,000 pupils in the Catholic 
 elementary schools of Victoria. Even if we multiply 
 this by the full number of five, it only yields a real 
 Catholic population of 120,000, instead of 263,000. 
 New South Wales has 41,286 pupils in its elementary 
 schools, which would yield, at the most, a population 
 of 206,000 instead of the official 340,000. It is clear
 
 166 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 that we must take off 250,000 from the nominal 
 Catholic strength in Australia ; and these, with earlier 
 seceders and their descendants, make up my figure of 
 500,000 lapsed. 
 • <•••••• 
 
 New Zealand reported at the census of 1901 some 
 109,822 Roman Catholics in a total population of 
 888,000. The colony has been built up more rapidly 
 than Australia, but the Church has grown more slowly, 
 and the leakage throughout has been considerable. 
 There were no Catholics in New Zealand until 1828, 
 when an Irish trader settled there. Eight years later 
 the Australian clergy were induced to work amongst 
 the Maoris (there was already Protestant missionaries 
 amongst them), and they claimed a harvest of 4000 
 native conversions in five years. By the middle of 
 the fifties they had the allegiance of about 25,000 
 Maoris, but the troubles of the sixties utterly ruined 
 their work, and the natives fell away. Cardinal 
 Moran says that in 1871 a priest found one Catholic 
 Maori where there had been 5000 in 1846. 
 
 In the meantime the European population was 
 slowly increasing. By 1851 it reached 26,707, of 
 whom 3472 were Roman Catholics. In 1883 the total 
 population was 515,000. What proportion of these 
 ought to have been Roman Catholic may be gathered 
 from the fact that, in that year, 10 per cent, of the 
 population were returned as "born in Ireland." Yet 
 by 1 89 1 the nominal Catholic population was only 
 85,856, and the real number much smaller. The 
 Australasian Handbook tells that only 30,500 at- 
 tended the Catholic churches at that time. Since 
 then there has been a continued immigration from 
 Ireland, and the Catholic body does not seem to have 
 proportionately increased. At the census of 1901 it 
 was found that 43,524 New Zealanders had been
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 167 
 
 born in Ireland. I have not, however, the figures of 
 church attendance for 1901, or the exact proportion 
 of Irish in the islands. On the basis of the figures 
 of 1 89 1, we may say that 30,000 or 40,000 must be 
 struck off the official total, and the destruction of the 
 Maori missions will at least double the loss. 
 
 INDIA, SOUTH AFRICA, ETC. 
 
 The remaining Catholic population of the British 
 Empire consists to an overwhelming extent of illiter- 
 ates. India and Ceylon have the greater part of 
 them, and the cultural value of these compensatory 
 gains to the skrinking Church need not be enlarged 
 upon. When the large number of converts that are 
 claimed in India and Ceylon is examined, it must be 
 borne in mind that Catholic missionaries have been 
 at work there since the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century. The labours of St Francis Xavier 
 and the early Jesuits greatly extended the work of the 
 earlier Portuguese missionaries, and the eighteenth- 
 century Jesuits promoted it in their peculiar way. It 
 may be remembered that their policy of decking 
 Christianity with a liberal ornamentation of native 
 ideas and customs brought a strong condemnation 
 upon them from the Vatican, but they paid little heed 
 to it. Under French influence the work was further 
 advanced, and a very large body of Catholic mission- 
 aries have been active in India throughout the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Large as the number of converts is, we have the 
 usual inflated statements to reject. An article over 
 the signature of Cardinal Vaughan in the last edition 
 of the Encyclopedia Britannica gives the number of 
 Roman Catholics in India and Ceylon as 2,005,925.
 
 168 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 The generosity of works of reference in allowing 
 Catholics to write on their own affairs has its dis- 
 advantages. According to the census report for 
 1 90 1 the religious census for India showed that there 
 were 1,202,169 Roman Catholics in the country, and 
 287,419 in Ceylon. 
 
 In her "Things as they are" (1903), Miss 
 Carmichael, a Protestant missionary, makes some 
 very serious statements about the larger communities 
 of converts that are claimed in India. " Spiritual 
 things are not considered anything by most of them," 
 she says ; and on the claim that the doors are wide 
 open for conversions in certain districts she observes 
 that "we never find that they are so very wide open 
 when it is known we bring nothing tangible with us " 
 (p. 286). Her statement reminded me of an English 
 Jesuit missionary whom I heard deliver an eloquent 
 appeal for funds from a London pulpit. In the 
 clerical smoke-room afterwards he enforced his point 
 by observing frankly that conversions were largely 
 a matter of material aid. In view of the conflict- 
 ing statements on these matters I turn to our most 
 recent and authoritative work on India — The Imperial 
 Gazetteer (1907). It says of the 105,000 native 
 Catholics of Bombay that they are mostly "descend- 
 ants of converts made by the Portuguese several 
 centuries ago, who at the present day are ignorant 
 and unprogressive." Of the large advances made in 
 recent decades it says : "The secret of many of the 
 conversions is to be sought more in the relations 
 which the missionary bodies have been able to 
 establish with the famine waifs in their orphanages 
 than in any general movement in the adult members 
 of non-Christian communities towards accepting the 
 revelation of the Gospel." Finally, in regard to adult 
 conversions, it quotes the words of Mr Francis :
 
 THE BRITISH COLONIES 169 
 
 "The remarkable growth in the number of native 
 Christians largely proceeds from the natural and 
 laudable discontent with their lot which possesses the 
 lower classes of the Hindus." 1 If we assign 1,500,000 
 converts to the Church in India and Ceylon, they will 
 weigh rather heavily in the illiterate side of its scale. 
 
 Mauritius adds a further 117,102 to the adherents 
 of the Vatican. These are mainly French descendants 
 of a very low degree of culture. At the government 
 examinations of 190 1 only 3650 children were presented 
 from the sixty-five Catholic schools. There are 
 something less than double that number on the rolls, 
 and they attend very badly. Malta furnishes 183,115 
 Italian Catholics of the illiterate character that we 
 have seen in the south of Italy. There are 18,000 
 children on the rolls. Gibraltar contains nearly 
 20,000, generally of Italian descent. Grenada, Santa 
 Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago contain 166,642 Roman 
 Catholics. Cyprus, the Falkland Islands and the 
 Bermudas add about 2000 more. It would be use- 
 less to enter into a close analysis of these 423,000 
 descendants of French, Italian and Spanish settlers, 
 half-breeds, etc. They may be added en bloc to the 
 Catholic total, and put in the same cultural category 
 with the South Americans. 
 
 South Africa brings us back to a more advanced 
 section of the empire, but its Catholic population is 
 so small that we need not stay to examine it closely. 
 Cape Colony has 37,069 Catholics ; Natal 10,419 ; 
 the Orange River Colony 3286 (a decrease since the 
 last census); the Transvaal 16,491; Basutoland 
 5701 ; the Gold Coast 4850 ; and Sierra Leone 
 794 — a total of about 78,000. We may take this 
 slight census result without further inquiry. The 
 article in the Encyclopedia Britannica by Cardinal 
 
 1 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. i. pp. 444 and 445.
 
 170 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Vaughan, claims that there are 463,824 Catholics in 
 Africa. The figure seems to be as trustworthy as 
 the figure he gives for India and Ceylon, but we will 
 consider the rest of Africa under the head of foreign 
 missions. 
 . 
 
 It will be convenient for the reader, no doubt, if 
 I tabulate the results for the British Empire. For 
 the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia I give 
 the reduced figures I have already vindicated. For the 
 other places I give the unaltered census results. The 
 total loss for the former countries I have shown to be 
 about 3,500,000 without claiming any diminution in 
 Ireland. 
 
 Roman Catholics in the British Empire 
 
 Part of Empire 
 
 England and Wales . 
 Scotland .... 
 Ireland .... 
 Canada and Newfoundland . 
 Australia and New Zealand . 
 India and Ceylon 
 Mauritius and the Seychelles 
 Malta and Gibraltar . 
 West Indies 
 South and West Africa 
 
 Number of 
 Catholics 
 
 1,200,000 
 250,000 
 
 3,308,663 
 
 2,075,000 
 670,000 
 
 1,489,588 
 
 133,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 166,642 
 
 78,000 
 
 9,570,000 
 
 The total population of the British Empire is 
 392,846,835-
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD— THE UNITED STATES 
 
 SOME years ago Mr Bodley wrote a charming 
 essay on " The Catholic Democracy of 
 America " that may have given a chill of 
 apprehension to the minds of his Protestant readers. 
 Impressed at once with the rise of the great republic, 
 and the wonderful growth of Catholicism within its 
 frontiers, he passed, naturally enough, into a prophetic 
 mood. From 1 800 to 1 890 the population of the United 
 States had increased from 4,500,000 to 62,000,000. 
 Mr Gladstone had surmised that by the end of the 
 twentieth century it would reach the imposing figure 
 of 600,000,000. Mr Bodley was content to predict a 
 population of 400,000,000. From 1800 to 1890 the 
 Roman Catholics in the States had grown from a 
 struggling and scattered flock of about 100,000 to an 
 organised nation of (Mr Bodley said) 10,000,000, with 
 a vast army of clergy and the richest ecclesiastical 
 structures in the country. It seemed that by the end 
 of the twentieth century they would number 70,000,000, 
 and, with a corresponding progress in England, 
 Canada and Australia, English-speaking Catholics 
 would predominate over the Latin world, capture the 
 papacy, Anglicise or Americanise the Church. . . . 
 
 We need not pursue the fascinating prophecy. I 
 do not think Mr Bodley would repeat it to-day. But 
 it was typical enough of the dreams of twenty years 
 ago, and amongst Roman Catholics (outside the 
 States) it still affords hours of consolation. Calcula- 
 tions of the future population of the States are already 
 171
 
 172 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 more moderate. Agricultural experts estimate that 
 long before the middle of the century it will take 
 every acre of soil in the States to feed its own popula- 
 tion. The tide of emigration has turned, and the native 
 birth-rate diminishes. Only rash prophets to-day 
 would attempt to forecast the future. And the future 
 of American Catholicism is even more precarious. 
 Even Catholic writers now realise that every 1,000,000 
 added to it beyond its native growth — which is slow 
 — means 1,000,000 transferred from some other 
 branch of the Roman Church. The 10,000,000 or 
 so Catholics of the United States do not represent a 
 miraculous addition to the Vatican's following. They 
 come from Ireland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, 
 France, Canada and Mexico. Indeed, it will be 
 apparent in the course of this chapter that they are 
 but the salvage from one of the most appalling wrecks 
 that Catholicism has suffered during the fatal nine- 
 teenth century. They do not represent one half 'of the 
 descendants of Catholic immigrants into the United 
 States. For this I will quote a dozen Catholic 
 authorities ; and I will establish it by a more patient 
 examination of statistics than has yet been made. 
 
 We have seen so often how little of the temper of 
 the sociologist is admitted in considering indications 
 of Catholic growth that we are quite prepared to miss 
 it in the case of America. At the same time, it is 
 remarkable how serious writers (like Mr Bodley or 
 M. Brunetiere) can have forgotten for a moment the 
 real character of the American Catholic Church. Its 
 clergy list to-day is a mass of Irish, German, French, 
 Italian and Polish names. Its story is, on the face of 
 the matter, the story of a colossal and religiously fatal 
 scattering of emigrants over a vast wilderness, and 
 then the slow, laborious, and to a very great extent 
 unsuccessful, reordering of them into a Church.
 
 THE UNITED STATES 173 
 
 There were at the Declaration of Independence 
 three patches of Catholicism on the broad territory 
 that now makes up the United States. The French 
 freely overflowed the northern frontier from Canada : 
 the Spaniards peopled the whole of the southern 
 and eastern border as far as California: and there 
 was an English settlement in Maryland on the 
 eastern coast. The English colony was founded by 
 Lord Baltimore, a convert to Catholicism, in 1634. 
 Fleeing from the persecution of the English govern- 
 ment, and met by the almost equally harsh rule of the 
 colonists, a group of about 200 families, with one 
 priest, obtained a concession on the coast, and founded 
 the Land of Mary. The actual States of Florida, 
 New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California, with 
 their large Catholic population, were, of course, not 
 in the Union at that time. The only colony in which 
 Roman Catholics met with any toleration at all was 
 the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. They were at 
 once dreaded and despised, and were nearly every- 
 where repressed with a cruelty only less than that 
 of the mother country. A few English, Irish and 
 German Catholics penetrated to the Protestant 
 centres, but not many can have survived the re- 
 pressive measures. In 1700 there were only seven 
 Catholic families in New York ; in 1757 they numbered 
 about 10,000 in Maryland and 3000 in Pennsylvania. 
 A few priests, under the direction of the English 
 Vicar Apostolic, tried to keep their faith alive. The 
 French priests in Louisiana and the Spaniards in the 
 south claim to have converted about 100,000 Indians, 
 but their work fell to pieces, and of the 250,000 
 Indians of to-day Sadlier's Catholic Directory only 
 claims 58,000 (and barely that number are officially 
 described as civilised). The French were driven out 
 by the Indians and the English. It is assuredly im-
 
 174 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 pressive to throw on the screen this humble picture 
 of American Catholicism in the eighteenth century, 
 and then replace it at once with the imposing picture of 
 its present power and extent. But the social student 
 prefers to proceed more slowly, and finds more charm 
 in watching the process of its growth. 
 
 At the time of the Declaration of Independence 
 (1776) the Catholics numbered about 30,000, and had 
 twenty-six priests. Then the sun broke at last on 
 their fortunes, and the story of advance began. Small 
 as their number was, they were able to count in the 
 struggle, and they sided with Washington. When it 
 was over, most of the states abolished or greatly 
 modified their anti-Catholic measures, and the people 
 laid aside their bitterness. The alliance with France 
 against England gave them further encouragement, 
 and after 1790 numbers of the French fugitives went 
 to the States. By the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century they numbered at least 100,000, and German 
 and Irish Catholics were arriving as fast as England's 
 command of the sea allowed. 
 
 I may observe that, not only must there have been 
 a considerable leakage already — there were only fifty 
 priests to the 100,000 known Catholics — but the germs 
 of what is now known as Americanism can be dis- 
 cerned easily enough. Carroll, the Prefect Apostolic 
 (after the secession from England), was made bishop 
 in 1790. Both he and other early bishops (such as 
 Spalding and England) give remarkable pictures of 
 the vitality and independence of their clergy. French, 
 German and Irish priests and flocks anathematised 
 each other freely (as they do to-day), while the 
 Americans looked on with cold disdain, and gave 
 no recruits to the clergy. Carroll's reports to Rome, 
 which are quite as " American " as any sent to-day, 
 paint a dismal picture ; and the biographies of England
 
 THE UNITED STATES 175 
 
 and Spalding give the same impression. The work 
 of organisation in that vast territory was gigantic ; 
 and it was grievously hampered by racial quarrels, 
 financial scandals and constant waves of immigrants. 
 There was heroic stuff in those early American 
 bishops and many of their clergy. 
 
 By 1820 the Catholics numbered about 300,000. 
 They had increased tenfold in half-a-century, but the 
 loss must have been considerable. It is calculated 
 (no returns were made until 1821) that 250,000 
 immigrants, chiefly from Catholic quarters, had arrived 
 between 1790 and 1820. The long war had restricted 
 the stream until 18 15, but after that date, and with 
 the invention of the steamship, it ran freely. By 
 1830 the Catholics had increased to 500,000 in a 
 total population of 13,000,000. But by this date we 
 find means of checking the loose calculations that are 
 offered us, and of estimating the loss. In 1836 Bishop 
 England of Charlestown (a diocese embracing the two 
 Carolinas and Georgia) attended a congress of the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Faith at Lyons, 
 and felt bound to rebuke the inflated statements that 
 were already being made about the American Church. 
 He was asked to draw up an official report, and this 
 interesting document may be read to-day in his 
 collected works. 1 
 
 He deprecates the " very delusive fancies " that are 
 already entertained in Europe in regard to the Church 
 in America ; and says that instead of gain there has 
 been a very serious loss. " I have no doubt in my 
 mind," he says, "that within 50 years millions have 
 been lost to the Church." Half-a-century ago (1786) 
 the population of the States was less than 4,000,000 ; 
 now it is 14,000,000. There must have been (count- 
 
 1 Vol. iii. p. 226. The memorandum was written, with great care, 
 at Rome by this most zealous prelate.
 
 176 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 ing the inclusion of Louisiana and Florida) an 
 accession from without of 8,000,000, and at least half 
 of these were Catholics. As the Catholic population 
 in 1836 is only 1,200,000, he estimates the loss, up to 
 1836, at 3,750,000 ! In his own diocese he had reason 
 to believe there were 50,000 people of Catholic origin. 
 Of these only 10,000 were faithful ; and he considers 
 his diocese to be typical. The loss is due, he says, as 
 much to the faults of the clergy and to the energy of the 
 Protestants as to the scarcity of priests and churches. 
 This very interesting and authoritative document 
 is naturally distasteful to later Catholic writers, and 
 some of them (like Mr T. O'Gorman) hint that 
 Bishop England — one of the greatest prelates in the 
 story of their Church — had no foundation whatever 
 for his statements. 1 One may be quite sure that 
 Bishop England penned those statements, written for 
 the supreme council of the Society of the Propaga- 
 tion of the Faith, with the gravest sense of responsi- 
 bility, but there were few exact returns in those days, 
 and we must slightly curtail his estimate of the net 
 loss. Dr Carroll Wright ("Outlines of Practical 
 Sociology ") gives the population of the States as 
 3,924,314 in 1790, and 17,000,000 in 1840. From 
 1820 to 1840 about 742,000 immigrants arrived, and 
 it is calculated that only 250,000 came in the preceding 
 years. But there is clearly something wrong with 
 this calculation. The four million Americans of 1790 
 cannot have grown to more than ten millions, by 
 natural increase, in fifty years. As the population 
 was certainly 17,000,000 in 1840, one must admit an 
 outside accession of 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 — or on the 
 most generous possible estimate of natural increase, 
 
 1 The references are to Mr O'Gorman's " History of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in the United States," in Schaffs Church History 
 Series.
 
 THE UNITED STATES 177 
 
 5,000,000. It is therefore ridiculous for Mr O'Gorman 
 to reckon the total immigration between 1789 and 
 1835 as only 514,159; that would involve a fourfold 
 increase of the population, by births, in fifty years! 
 Now, of the 5,000,000 immigrants, two-thirds at 
 least (to judge from the first ten years' returns) were 
 Catholics. Add to these the inhabitants of Louisiana 
 and Florida, and 300,000 native Catholics. There 
 should have been at least 4,000,000 Catholics in 
 the States (probably 5,000,000) in 1840. In point of 
 fact, the Catholic estimate for 1845 is 1,071,800. Mr 
 Bodley says they were "nearly a million" in 1840. 
 But as there were only 707 priests and 675 chapels in 
 the States in 1845 even these estimates must be very 
 optimistic. The loss must have far exceeded 3,000,000 
 by 1840. When Mr O'Gorman tells us that there 
 were 150,000 Catholics in New York State in 1826, 
 and only ten priests, we should not be surprised at this. 
 
 But we have reached the period of heavy immigra- 
 tion, and may treat the whole question of leakage on 
 a broader scale. From 18 15 onwards the Church 
 expanded incessantly. It had 1,600,000 followers 
 in 1850; 2,789,000 in i860; 4,600,000 in 1870 ; 
 6,300,000 in 1880; 8,000,000 in 1890; and it claims 
 10,000,000 to-day. On these figures the wildest 
 speculations have been expended, and I may quote a 
 few of these before entering on a sober analysis. 
 
 Bishop England has had many supporters amongst 
 American Catholics in his depressing estimate, while 
 others have differed from them to the extent of 
 10,000,000, or even more. Speaking in Paris in 
 1892, Archbishop Ireland said that his Church had 
 probably lost 1,000,000 or 1,250,000 followers 
 through insufficiency of priests, but had found com- 
 pensation in "a stream of conversions." 1 Mr 
 1 " La situation du Catholicisme aux Etats Unies." 
 
 M
 
 178 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 O'Gorman will not even admit the 1,000,000. By a 
 curious process of arithmetic that I need not examine 
 he concludes that the Catholics of the States ought 
 to number 12,000,000, and he calmly pushes aside 
 census results and Catholic directories, and says he 
 believes they do. He is, however, generous enough 
 to give us some very different Catholic opinions. In 
 1852 an Irish priest, Father Mullen, said that there 
 were 2,000,000 Irish apostates in the States in 1850. 
 Mr J. O'Kane Murray, "Popular History of the 
 Catholic Church,'* said that by 1870 there were 
 24,000,000 people of Irish extraction in the United 
 States — a preposterous assertion. The " Lucerne 
 Memorial," addressed to the Pope in 1891 by Mr 
 Cahensly and other Catholics, submitted that there 
 were 26,000,000 descendants of Catholic emigrants in 
 the States, and of these 16,000,000 had apostatised. 
 
 Canon Delassus, an ardent French priest, gives 
 some further opinions in his " Americanisme." He 
 says that when M. Brunetiere returned to tell Paris 
 of the remarkable progress of the American Church 
 {Revue des Deux Mondes, November 1898), the Ve'rite', 
 Quebec, retorted that, according to Catholic authori- 
 ties, there had been a loss of 15,000,000 to 17,000,000. 
 He also quotes a Roman prelate saying to a cor- 
 respondent of the New York Freemans Journal 
 (3rd December 1898), that if one takes account of the 
 eighty years of emigration one finds that "the number 
 of Catholics in the United States ought to be double 
 what it is to-day." The Freeman claimed that there 
 were 40,000,000 people of Catholic extraction in the 
 States, and that 20,000,000 of these had gone over to 
 Protestantism. 1 
 
 These unpleasant estimates came to the surface 
 
 1 These quotations will be found in Delassus's book, 
 "L'Americanisme," pp. 354-356.
 
 THE UNITED STATES 179 
 
 in the shock of "modernists," or Americanists, as 
 they say in France, and ultramontanes. Others arise 
 out of the German- Irish embroilment amongst the 
 American Catholics. Father Walburg, pastor of St 
 Augustine's Church at Cincinnati, wrote, in 1889, a 
 brochure with the title, The Question of Nationality 
 in its Relation to the Catholic Church in the Unitea 
 States. He is not over-indulgent to his own country- 
 men since he says that of the 5,000,000 German 
 Catholic emigrants and their descendants only 
 1,500,000 have remained faithful (p. 26). But he 
 finds an even greater apostasy among the Irish. In 
 brief, he calculates — on data supplied by General 
 Von Stein wehr — that there should be 18,000,000 Irish 
 Catholics, 5,000,000 German Catholics, and 2,000,000 
 French, Italian, Polish, etc., in the States in 1889. 
 As the Catholic Directory only claims 8,157,678, he 
 concludes that the loss, without counting native 
 Catholics or converts, is 17,000,000. He claims that 
 the details he gives in regard to his own town, 
 Cincinnati, fully confirms this. 
 
 Lastly, I will notice the estimate of an Irish priest 
 who made a missionary tour in 1901. Father 
 Shinnors and some fellow Oblates were borrowed by 
 the American Church for " revival services," and on 
 his return he described his experiences in The Irish 
 Ecclesiastical Record (February, May and July 1902). 
 He found that deserters "could be counted by the 
 million." On the basis of emigration from Ireland he 
 calculated that there should now be 10,000,000 Irish 
 Catholics in the States, or — adding Germans, etc. — a 
 total Catholic population of 20,000,000. He found it 
 less than 10,000,000. American prelates begged him 
 to arrest the tide of emigration from Ireland. " For 
 your people," one of them said to him, "America is 
 the road to hell." They were always the first of the
 
 180 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 emigrants to be " Americanised " — a strange comment, 
 from an honest Irish priest, on the famed faith of the 
 Irish. He says that at the Catholic Congress at 
 Chicago (in connection with the Parliament of 
 Religions), in 1893, one of the speakers, Miss Elder, 
 put the loss at 20,000,000. This loss, moreover, he 
 says, is not merely a reminiscence of the days when 
 a too slender clergy failed to incorporate the masses 
 of emigrants. He found ample priests in every 
 diocese in 1901, yet an appalling leakage going on 
 everywhere. 
 
 Here, then, we have sincere Roman Catholics 
 estimating the loss of their Church in the United 
 States at 10,000,000, 15,000,000, 17,000,000, and even 
 20,000,000, in the course of the nineteenth century. 
 It is a rare and curious spectacle, especially when 
 our chief difficulty, up to the present, has been to get 
 behind the assurances of integrity, if not progress, that 
 Catholic officials usually urge on us. But the very 
 divergence of the estimates warns us to proceed with 
 caution, and we discover the bases of calculation to be 
 delicate and elusive. 
 
 The problem is, in fact, a difficult one : it is the 
 problem of determining the various national elements 
 in the population of the United States, before which 
 many a sociologist has quailed. I have made a 
 patient analysis of the official data, and availed 
 myself of all previous work on the subject, and find it 
 possible to reach a fairly precise solution. 
 
 In the first place let us try to determine what the 
 Catholic population ought to be, and then what it 
 really is. For the first study we need to consider the 
 native growth of Catholicism and the proportion of 
 Catholics among the emigrants. On the former point 
 there is not room for great divergence. Taking 1820 
 — the date when returns of emigration begin — as our
 
 THE UNITED STATES 181 
 
 starting-point, we find that the Catholic population is 
 given by Mr Bodley — and this is the highest estimate 
 — as 300,000. Now, the Americans, especially urban 
 Americans (which includes most of the Catholics) 
 breed slowly. Father Shinnors points out that the 
 census returns for Massachusetts in 1880 showed 
 71*28 per cent, of the native women to be childless; 
 and that the returns for New York showed that 75 
 per cent, of the native women had a trifle over one 
 child each. The birth-rate has notoriously diminished 
 of late years. American social writers are inexhaust- 
 ible on the subject. Let us assume, however, that 
 there is less deliberate restriction among Catholic 
 American mothers, as I should expect. The 300,000 
 of 1820 cannot have grown to more than 1,000,000 in 
 1900, or, at the outside, a fraction over. 
 
 Now let us turn to the seemingly formidable problem 
 of estimating the descendants of Catholic emigrants 
 since 1820. There is not in the census returns an 
 analysis of " origins," as in the case of Canada, but 
 two or three sets of figures are given that help us to 
 reach a very confident conclusion. 
 
 In the first place we may allow for the utmost 
 possible growth of the Americans of 1820. The 
 inhabitants of the States then numbered 9,600,000. 
 I propose to leave the negroes and Indians out of ac- 
 count, and we will make the Church an allowance for 
 them in the end. There were in 1820 some 7,860,797 
 whites in the States. There are to-day — or were in 
 igoo — 67,000,000 whites, excluding the Colonies. 
 By normal growth the 8,000,000 of 1820 cannot 
 to-day, in view of the facts I noticed, number more 
 than 23,000,000. Where the stock has been renewed 
 by mixed marriages the increment must go to the 
 account of emigration. There are, therefore, about 
 44,000,000 descendants of emigrants, since 1820, in
 
 182 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the population of 1901. What proportion of these 
 emigrants were Roman Catholics ? 
 
 The total number of emigrants between 1820 and 
 1900 is stated in the report of the Twelfth Census to 
 be 19,115,221, and the nationalities of them are given. 
 In the following table I give the figures for each 
 nationality, the percentage of Catholics in each 
 national group, and the approximate number of 
 Catholics in each group on the basis of that per- 
 centage. In the bulk of cases there can be no dispute 
 about the percentage in the countries the emigrants 
 come from. In other cases I have adopted more moder- 
 ate figures, and the note will explain my procedure. 1 
 
 Immigrants into the United States, 1820-1900 
 
 
 Number of 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Number of 
 
 Origin 
 
 Immigrants 
 
 of Catholics 
 
 Catholics 
 
 Germany . 
 
 5,009,280 
 
 36 
 
 
 1,800,000 
 
 Ireland 
 
 3.871,253 
 
 80 
 
 
 3,100,000 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 3,024,282 
 
 5 
 
 
 150,000 
 
 Canada and New- 
 
 
 
 
 
 foundland 
 
 i,o49>939 
 
 40 
 
 
 420,000 
 
 Norway, Sweden and 
 
 
 
 
 
 Denmark 
 
 1,619,000 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 Austria and Hungary . 
 
 1,027,195 
 
 7i 
 
 
 730,000 
 
 Italy .... 
 
 1,040,457 
 
 100 
 
 
 1,040,457 
 
 Russia-Poland . 
 
 926,902 
 
 j Russia, 
 (Poland, 
 
 75/ 
 
 450,000 
 
 France 
 
 400,000 
 
 100 
 
 
 400,000 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 200,000 
 
 4 1 
 
 
 82,000 
 
 Holland . 
 
 130,000 
 
 35 
 
 
 45,000 
 
 Other Countries . 
 
 816,913 
 
 5° 
 
 
 408,000 
 
 
 19,115,221 
 
 
 8,625,457 
 
 1 Note. — The Russians and Poles are, as a later table will show, 
 fairly equal, but the returns do not separate them. The last un- 
 classified group contains 500,000 Chinese, but it is predominantly 
 made up of Mexicans, South Americans, Spaniards, Belgians, etc.
 
 THE UNITED STATES 183 
 
 Thus of the actual immigrants into the States 
 about 46 per cent, were Roman Catholics. I must 
 add, however, that since 1885 no register has been 
 kept of emigrants from Canada and Mexico. As 
 there were living in the States in 1900 some 395,000 
 persons who had been born in French Canada, and 
 103,000 who had been born in Mexico, this means 
 a considerable accession. However, these are 
 balanced by emigrant Protestant Canadians, and 
 our figure of 46 per cent, holds good. On that basis, 
 of the 44,000,000 descendants of emigrants (and 
 living emigrants) more than 20,000,000 should be 
 Roman Catholics. 
 
 But the proportion of emigrants from different 
 nations has varied considerably during the nineteenth 
 century. As those who came first have multiplied 
 most, we must see if our results are altered by taking 
 this into account. The rate of multiplication is not 
 the same for emigrants as for a normal population. 
 The vast majority are near the verge of manhood, 
 or are quite mature. The census returns show this 
 to be the case to-day ; and it was more likely to be 
 
 Italians and French are practically all of Catholic extraction. For 
 Ireland Mr Bodley claims seven-eighths as Catholic, and Father 
 Walburg nine-tenths. If the reader cares to follow either, it will 
 increase the net Catholic loss. The figure for Germany is from Dr 
 Juraschek's authoritative "Die Staaten Europas." Father Walburg 
 agrees. The Austro-Hungarian, Swiss and Dutch figures are from 
 Juraschek. Scandinavians are practically all Protestants. The only 
 difficulty is in regard to Great Britain. Most of the emigrants left 
 after 1840, when inhabitants of Catholic parentage began to form a 
 good percentage. To avoid controversy I take a low figure. If 
 the reader insists on a higher one, it will only add to the ultimate 
 Catholic loss. But there is no divergence possible that would 
 seriously modify the result. The number of immigrants from 
 France, Switzerland and Holland is, to a small extent, inferential, 
 and is based on the table in Dr Carroll D. Wright's "Sociology" 
 and the following tables.
 
 184 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
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 THE UNITED STATES 185 
 
 the case in the hard early days of emigration. In 
 fact, in order to convert the 19,000,000 emigrants 
 into the 44,000,000 who undoubtedly represent them 
 to-day, I find that one must multiply those who came 
 between 1820 and 1830 by five ; those of 1830- 1850 
 by four ; those of 1850- 1870 by three : those of 1870- 
 1890 by two : and add the 3,500,000 of 1890 to 
 1900. The table on page 184 shows the number of 
 emigrants, of each chief nationality, arriving in the 
 States during these five periods. In the last column 
 of the table I give the result of the multiplication 
 for each table. 
 
 In this way we account satisfactorily for the actual 
 population of the United States. Its white population 
 in 1820 (7,866,797) may, at the outside, be presumed 
 to have trebled in eighty years, and the rest of the 
 67,000,000 whites of to-day are emigrants and their 
 descendants since that date. We see that many of 
 the guesses at the Catholic leakage (even on the part 
 of Catholics) start from quite erroneous data. There 
 are not 20,000,000 Irish in the States, as Father 
 Walburg says, or 24,000,000 as Mr O'Kane Murray 
 says, nor are there 15,000,000 Germans. The figures 
 I give are official, and, whatever ratio of multiplication 
 one takes, the proportion will remain the same. 
 
 The next question is, What proportion of these 
 ought to be included in the American Catholic Church 
 to-day ? To estimate this I take the last column of 
 the preceding table, and analyse it on the basis ot 
 percentage of Catholics in each nationality that I 
 have previously explained : 
 
 [Table
 
 186 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Number of Catholic Immigrants and 
 Descendants 
 
 
 Total Immi- 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Number 
 
 Nationality 
 
 grants and 
 
 of 
 
 of 
 
 
 Descendants 
 
 Catholics 
 
 Catholics 
 
 Germany . 
 
 12,446,986 
 
 36 
 
 4,481,000 
 
 Ireland 
 
 10,830,596 
 
 80 
 
 8,664,477 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 7,570,840 
 
 5 
 
 378,542 
 
 Canada 
 
 2,417,615 
 
 40 
 
 967,044 
 
 Norway and Sweden . 
 
 2,326,314 
 
 
 
 Austria-Hungary 
 
 1,469,483 
 
 7i 
 
 1,043.330 
 
 Italy .... 
 
 1,459.444 
 
 100 
 
 1,459.444 
 
 Russia-Poland 1 . 
 
 1,260,928 
 
 H) 
 
 497,000 
 
 France 
 
 1,151,100 
 
 100 
 
 1,151,100 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 45°.443 
 
 41 
 
 186,000 
 
 Holland . 
 
 276,500 
 
 35 
 
 94,500 
 
 Denmark . 
 
 365.596 
 
 
 
 Others 
 
 2,472,168 
 
 5° 
 
 1,286,084 
 
 
 44,502,013 
 
 
 20,158,521 
 
 When we thus analyse the nationalities according 
 to the date of emigration, we reach substantially the 
 same conclusion as before. Roman Catholics form 
 more than 45 per cent, of the accessions to the 
 population of the United States since 1820. More 
 than 20,000,000 should have been added to the 
 Roman Church in that country (apart from the 
 Philippines) between 1820 and 1900. Two further 
 tables will show that this conclusion is thoroughly 
 sound. The first table shows the number of foreign- 
 
 1 Note. — The Russians and Poles are fairly equal in number, as 
 the next table will show. But, as there are only 13,000 members 
 of the Russian Church in the States, the proportion of Roman 
 Catholics is probably much higher than I claim. The unclassified 
 2,472,168 is largely made up of Mexicans, Spanish Americans, 
 Belgians, Spaniards and other Catholics.
 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 187 
 
 born whites in the States in 1900, with the percentage 
 of Catholics ; the second shows the number of whites 
 with both parents foreign, and the percentage of 
 Catholics. The figures which I analyse are taken 
 from the census report : 
 
 Number of Foreign-born Whites in the 
 United States in 1900 
 
 
 Total 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Number of 
 
 Nationality 
 
 Number 
 
 of Catholics 
 
 Catholics 
 
 Ireland 
 
 1,615,419 
 
 80 
 
 1,292,334 
 
 Germany . 
 
 
 2,663,418 
 
 36 
 
 958,827 
 
 Italy . 
 
 
 484,027 
 
 100 
 
 484,027 
 
 French Canada 
 
 
 395,066 
 
 100 
 
 395>° 66 
 
 Austria 
 
 
 275.907 
 
 86 
 
 372,000 
 
 Bohemia . 
 
 
 156,891 
 
 
 
 France . , 
 
 
 104,197 
 
 100 
 
 104,197 
 
 Holland . 
 
 
 104,931 
 
 35 
 
 37.ooo 
 
 Hungary . 
 
 
 i45»7M 
 
 56 
 
 81,500 
 
 Mexico . 
 
 
 103,393 
 
 100 
 
 103,393 
 
 Poland 
 
 
 3 8 3>4Q7 
 
 75 
 
 287,556 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 
 115.593 
 
 41 
 
 47,000 
 
 English Canada 
 
 
 784,741 
 
 25 
 
 196,185 
 
 Denmark . 
 
 
 153.805 
 
 
 
 England 
 
 
 
 840,513 
 
 5 
 
 42,000 
 
 Scotland 
 
 
 
 233.5 2 4 
 
 8-4 
 
 20,000 
 
 Russia 
 
 
 
 423,726 
 
 4 
 
 16,950 
 
 Norway 
 
 
 
 336,388 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 Sweden 
 
 
 
 572,014 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 Wales 
 
 
 
 93.586 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 China 
 
 
 
 8i,534 
 
 
 
 Unclassified 
 
 
 273.442 
 
 5° 
 
 140,000 
 
 
 10,341,276 
 
 
 4.578,035
 
 188 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Number of Inhabitants of the United States 
 in i9oo with both parents foreign-born 
 
 Nationality 
 
 Total 
 
 Number 
 
 Percentage 
 of Catholics 
 
 Number of 
 Catholics 
 
 Germany . 
 
 6,234,220 
 
 36 
 
 2,244,318 
 
 Ireland 
 
 3,991.417 
 
 80 
 
 3> I 93,»34 
 
 French Canada . 
 
 635,5io 
 
 100 
 
 635, 5 IQ 
 
 Italy .... 
 
 705,891 
 
 100 
 
 705,891 
 
 France 
 
 170,839 
 
 100 
 
 170,839 
 
 Poland 
 
 668,323 
 
 75 
 
 5 OI > 2 43 
 
 Austria and Bohemia . 
 
 732,504 
 
 86 
 
 629,982 
 
 England 
 
 1,360,345 
 
 5 
 
 68,000 
 
 Scotland . 
 
 419,397 
 
 8.4 
 
 34,95° 
 
 English Canada . 
 
 680,686 
 
 2 5 
 
 170,171 
 
 Hungary . 
 
 210,188 
 
 56 
 
 120,000 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 187,500 
 
 41 
 
 76,000 
 
 Scandinavia and Wales 
 
 1,850,524 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 Unclassified (or mixed) 
 
 
 
 
 parentage 
 
 1,335,414 
 
 50 
 
 667,707 
 
 
 19,851,880 
 
 
 9, 2 44,509 
 
 I need not trouble the reader with any further sums 
 in arithmetic. I will only observe that of those with 
 mixed foreign parentage 200,000 have one Irish 
 parent, and that, of a further 5,000,000 with one 
 foreign and one native born parent, 976,765 are 
 Irish. When we recollect that the Church always 
 claims all the children of a mixed marriage we 
 should admit a further large accession from mixed 
 marriages. But I prefer to remain on solid ground, 
 and will offer no estimate. It is clear that something 
 over 20,000,000 Catholics should have been added to 
 the American Church between 1820 and 1900. As 
 the emigrants before that date were very largely 
 Irish, French and French Canadians ; as there 
 were some 300,000 Catholics in 1820, and as the 
 incorporation of Louisiana and the southern and
 
 THE UNITED STATES 189 
 
 western states brought some 100,000 more, there 
 should be to-day a Catholic population of at least 
 3,000,000, apart from these 20,000,000 emigrants and 
 their descendants. We saw that Bishop England 
 put the loss at 3,750,000 in 1836, when the Catholic 
 emigrants, since 1820, did not number 500,000. 
 The Roman Catholic Church ought to-day to num- 
 ber at least 23,000,000, without counting a single 
 convert. 
 
 The next point is to determine its actual extent. 
 I will not labour the point, since it claims, in round 
 numbers, only 10,000,000 followers, but a few observa- 
 tions are necessary. It must be remembered that, in 
 the case of the United States census, we have only the 
 ecclesiastical returns of the Catholic population. It 
 cannot be pretended for a moment that these have 
 the same value as we should attribute to impartial 
 enumerators. We saw in the last chapter how the 
 ecclesiastical estimate for India exceeded even the 
 census returns by 40 per cent, and some such excess 
 is always found ; although the census return itself 
 is rarely acceptable. Whatever conclusion we reach 
 on those figures, therefore, will be optimistic. 
 
 For the census of 1890 the information was, the 
 official analyst, Mr Carroll, says {Report of Statistics 
 of Churches), supplied by the respective denomina- 
 tions. Up to that year the Catholic authorities had 
 been allowed to send in a bare statement of what 
 they regarded as the number of their followers. Such 
 returns are worthless, as the priest is apt to include 
 in them the most pronounced seceders, merely calling 
 them "bad Catholics." For the census of 1890 the 
 Catholic authorities were "induced," Mr Carroll says, 
 to return rather the number of their communicants. 
 They reported them as 6,231,417. It is very rarely 
 noted that, even if this is the correct number of
 
 190 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Easter communions in the United States, as we 
 suppose, it is not the number of individual com- 
 municants, but much in excess of this. The period 
 for making the "Easter duty" is extended over 
 several weeks, and large numbers of Catholics com- 
 municate several times during the period. We shall 
 be safe in taking the round number, at the most, of 
 6,000,000. This means the entire faithful population 
 over the age of nine, since no one is excused from 
 this grave duty, the sick communicating in their 
 own homes. The proportion of the American com- 
 munity under the age of ten is about one-fourth. If 
 we add these we have the maximum figure of 
 8,000,000 Catholics in the United States in 1890. 
 There were then 8777 churches, 9157 priests. 
 Dropping a proportion of monks from the latter 
 figure, we get an average of nearly 1000 Catholics 
 per priest and per church — an abnormal ratio, 50 
 per cent, higher than that of London. We must 
 regard the figure of 8,000,000 in 1890 as very opti- 
 mistic. The total seating capacity of the churches 
 was only 3,365,754. I may add that Sadlier's 
 Catholic Directory put the Catholic population in 
 1891 at 8,227,039. Hoffman's Catholic Directory 
 gave the Catholic population in 1895 as 9,077,865, 
 the number of priests as 10,053, of whom 2507 were 
 monastic, and the number of chapels as 9309, with a 
 few small stations. Here again we have a claim for 
 an average of nearly 1000 souls per active priest and 
 per church, that we must regard with great diffidence. 
 The analysis of the returns for 1901 are not to 
 hand as I write, but I learn from an American source 
 that the total of Catholic communicants was 8,447,801. 
 This figfure includes Greek and other Catholics not 
 owing allegiance to the Vatican, besides a number 
 who have communicated twice, or more frequently,
 
 THE UNITED STATES 191 
 
 during the Easter period. It will be quite safe to 
 take the round number of 8,000,000 as the total 
 of individual Roman Catholic communicants. An 
 increase of 2,000,000 in one decade is impressive — 
 until we glance at our emigration table. We then 
 find that 1,958,000 Catholic emigrants entered the 
 United States between 1890 and 1900; and to these 
 we must add a large number of unregistered immigrants 
 across the frontier from Canada and Mexico. Much 
 more than 2,000,000, most probably (if we estimate 
 the Canadian and Spanish Catholics by preceding 
 tables and the analysis of parentage) 2,250,000, 
 Catholics were added to the population by emigration 
 during the last decade of the nineteenth century. 
 As the native Catholic population should have in- 
 creased by 900,000 from births alone during that 
 decade, we get, instead of increase, an actual loss 
 on the decade of considerably more than 1,000,000 
 souls ! Further, 8,000,000 communicants means 
 about 10,000,000 for the entire Catholic body in 1900, 
 as the children under nine are much less than a 
 fourth of the population in the States. Yet even 
 this figure cannot be accepted with confidence. 
 There are not more than 10,000 active priests, and 
 this would mean a ratio of 1000 souls per priest. It 
 is about 500 in England. We cannot very well test 
 the population in America by the number of school 
 children, as, although the American schools, which 
 admit only Bible-reading without comment, and are 
 in many states purely secular, are violently assailed 
 by the Catholics, a number of their children must 
 attend them. Still, in view of the violent hostility 
 to the State schools and the intense desire to build 
 separate ones, the figures are instructive. Father 
 Shinnors says that there are 1,000,000 children in 
 Catholic schools and institutions, of all kinds, in the
 
 192 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 States. Hoffman's Directory gave the number, on 
 exact returns, in 1895 as 918,207 (in the elementary 
 schools, 775,070). We may accept the round number 
 of 1,000,000 for 1900. Multiplied by five, the very 
 highest possible ratio, it gives a Catholic population 
 of 5,000,000. It is preposterous to ask us to believe 
 that more than half the Catholic children of the 
 United States attend the "godless schools" of the 
 secular authorities. 
 
 On these figures it is quite clear that the faithful 
 Catholics of the United States do not number more 
 than 9,000,000. They probably come to much less, 
 but we may grant the round number. And we have 
 already seen that the Catholic population ought to 
 be, by natural increase and emigration, at least 
 23,000,000. If I have erred, I have erred throughout 
 on the side of moderation. We may therefore con- 
 fidently regard the Roman Church's loss in the United 
 States during the last century as something more 
 than 14,000,000. To speak of a loss of 20,000,000, 
 as some Catholic writers do, is to use uncertain and 
 conjectural data. To speak of a loss of 1,000,000, as 
 Archbishop Ireland does, is simply ludicrous. And, 
 whatever number of converts may be claimed by the 
 American Catholic Church, a corresponding number 
 must be added to the loss. The actual population 
 is 9,000,000 : it ought to be 23,000,000, without a 
 single convert. 
 
 This figure, the reader must bear in mind, has been 
 reached by the employment of statistics provided by 
 the Federal Government, analysed by the ordinary 
 percentage of denominations in each country. I will 
 be content to suggest a few lines of inquiry by which 
 a careful American student might add 2,000,000 or 
 even 3,000,000 to the loss ; but I have not the 
 material to pursue the analysis. Of the 7,500,000
 
 THE UNITED STATES 193 
 
 immigrants (and their descendants) from Great Britain 
 I have only claimed 5 per cent, as Catholics. It is 
 probable, however, that a large proportion of them 
 were Irish who had settled for a time in England or 
 Scotland. Again, of the 1,250,000 Russians and Poles 
 I have only claimed 39 per cent. But the Russian 
 and Greek Churches are so poorly represented in the 
 States that it is probable a much higher proportion 
 were Catholics. Mixed marriages would yield a still 
 higher figure. There were 5,000,000 with one foreign- 
 born and one native-born parent in 1900, and nearly 
 half the former were Catholics. This should have in- 
 creased the Catholic body, on the Church's rule that 
 all children must be baptised. Probably if these lines 
 of inquiry could be carried out in America, the 
 14,000,000 loss would rise to 16,000,000 or 17,000,000. 
 This enormous leakage, we saw, is not a matter of 
 past history, but goes on very heavily still. A million, 
 at least, were lost in the last decade of the nineteenth 
 century. With a church accommodation for less than 
 4,000,000 people, and school accommodation for less 
 than 1,000,000 children, it is likely to continue. And 
 as long as the papacy maintains its quixotic hostility 
 to modern culture the leakage amongst educated 
 Americans is likely to increase. 
 
 Lastly, a word ought to be said on the cultural 
 condition of Catholicism in the United States. It is 
 notorious that they are, as a body, burdened with a 
 very high percentage of poor and illiterate. Mr M. 
 M'Carthy ("Education in Ireland," p. 21) observes 
 that of 448 universities and colleges in the United 
 States only 61 are Roman Catholic ; of 52,794 young 
 men passing through a collegiate course only 5052 
 are Catholic; and of 3762 graduated students only 
 166 are Catholic. These things are of deep signific- 
 ance to the social student. The Church is largely
 
 194 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 recruited from the illiterate emigrants who flock into 
 the country. Of the 3,250,000 illiterate whites, over 
 the age of ten, at the last census, 1,250,000 were 
 foreign-born. Nor is the moral tone of the Catholic 
 body at all satisfactory. For several decades the 
 proportion of Irish Catholics in the saloon trade in 
 the States has been a grave scandal to the Church, 
 and the percentage of Irish in the jails and work- 
 houses is a very long way out of all proportion to their 
 numbers. Any forecast of the future of the Roman 
 Catholic body in the United States must take these 
 things into account. 
 
 SUMMARY FOR THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD 
 
 Contrary to a widespread conviction, there has 
 been no progress made by the Roman Church during 
 the nineteenth century in anynormally educated portion 
 of the English-speaking world. In illiterate islands 
 like Mauritius and the West Indies, Catholicism, as 
 is usual in such conditions, has grown in proportion 
 to the population. In India and Ceylon, and parts 
 of the British Empire in Africa, it has made positive 
 advances ; but these must be regarded as gains of 
 the foreign-mission order, which must be placed on an 
 entirely different footing from gains in a fully civilised 
 community. In the latter the Church of Rome again 
 shows a large net loss everywhere. The extra- 
 ordinary dispersal of the Irish people has strangely 
 misled social and religious writers, and the enormous 
 emigrations from Catholic Germany, Austria, Italy 
 and Poland to the New World are rarely appraised. 
 The conversions that have been made in the English- 
 speaking world redeem only a small fraction of the
 
 THE UNITED STATES 195 
 
 heavy losses. Those losses are moderately expressed 
 in the following table : — 
 
 Great Britain, ... 2,250,000 
 
 Canada, .... 700,000 
 
 Australasia .... 550,000 
 
 The United States . . . 14,000,000 
 
 Total . 17,500,000 
 
 Note {Second Edition). — Summaries of the religious census for 1906 
 in the United States have been cabled as this second edition goes to 
 press, and it is claimed that they are not consistent with the author's 
 figures. The briefest analysis, however, suffices to show that they do 
 not affect, but confirm, my conclusions. 
 
 The Roman Catholic total is returned as 12,079,142, and, as this is 
 contrasted with a return of 6,241,708 at the last religious census (1890), a 
 claim is made for an increase of nearly 100 per cent. The simple fact 
 seems to be generally overlooked that the figure for 1890 is the total of 
 communicants only, while the figure for 1906 includes children down to 
 the age of a few days, or all baptised persons. The number of such 
 baptised members in 1890 was about eight millions, so that the increase 
 (on the figures given in the census) is 50, and not 100, per cent. This is 
 merely the ratio of increase of the population of the United States 
 between 1890 and 1906 (62 millions to about 93 millions), and is less 
 than the increase of the Baptists and Lutherans. As the Catholic birth- 
 rate is far higher than the Protestant (being largely made up of poor 
 Italians, Germans, and Poles), the increase is below what it should be. 
 
 But the loss of the American Roman Church becomes still clearer 
 when we reflect that the total of 12 millions actually includes the most 
 flagrant seceders from the body. The figure was furnished by Archbishop 
 Glennon to the civic authorities, and has no official value whatever. It 
 professedly gives the number of those who were once baptised, whether 
 they have since left the Church or no. It does not, therefore, affect my 
 conclusions in the least. In the official directions of the United States 
 Census Bureau "communicants" does not mean those who do actually 
 communicate, but all who "would be permitted to communicate." The 
 result is a farcical confusion of actual and seceded members. As the 
 official immigration returns for the last fifteen years show an enormous 
 preponderance of Catholic immigrants, and a great decrease of Protestant 
 immigrants, it is plain that the latest results are in full harmony with my 
 conclusions. Of about 5 million immigrants between 1890 and 1906, at 
 least 3^ millions were Roman Catholics.
 
 CHAFFER IX 
 
 THE GERMANIC WORLD— THE GERMAN EMPIRE 
 
 IT is one of the most singular paradoxes of 
 modern history that, while the Church of Rome 
 is so visibly failing in the Latin world, it seems 
 to be making progress, or at least holding its ground, 
 among the Germanic peoples. We have heard the 
 cries of distress that are wrung from devoted Catholics 
 in France, Italy and Spain ; and we have seen that the 
 better-informed Catholics speak gravely in regard to 
 their losses in the English-speaking world. This note 
 is rarely heard in Catholic Germany. Since the 
 great consolidation of the Germanic States in 1871 
 Catholics have found themselves forming more than 
 one-third of one of the most powerful Protestant 
 countries of the world, holding a political position 
 of exceptional influence, and apparently gaining in 
 number upon their opponents. In Austria- Hungary 
 they still command seven-eighths of the population ; 
 in Switzerland they approach one-half; in Holland 
 they number more than one-third. 
 
 Here, at first sight, we have some restoration of the 
 balance in favour of the Vatican. When it speaks 
 of the millions it has won on its foreign missions the 
 social student is little moved. The cultural value of 
 such gains affords little compensation for the terrible 
 losses in France, Italy and the United States. But 
 the Germanic nations are in the first line of culture, 
 and merely to hold its ground amongst them is an 
 important achievement for the Roman Church, and 
 one of great significance in any forecast of its future. 
 
 196
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 197 
 
 It might plausibly be argued that the Latin peoples 
 are caught in a temporary rebellion under the disturb- 
 ing influence of their sudden admission to the garish 
 world of modern culture, and that any inference we 
 may draw from their defection must be modified by 
 the discovery of Catholic fidelity in lands where the 
 population has long enjoyed a high degree of literacy. 
 
 The problem of the Church of Rome in the 
 Germanic world has, therefore, features of great 
 interest and must be carefully investigated. It may 
 be stated at once that the Church is not holding its 
 ground in that part of Europe, though its losses there 
 are lighter than those we have recorded in previous 
 sections. Further, it may be noted at once that the 
 superficial expression of Roman power in the Germanic 
 world will be greatly modified on careful analysis. 
 One-third of the Catholic population of the German 
 Empire is not German at all ; and the great majority 
 of its Catholic inhabitants lie below a very modest 
 line of cultivation. Annexation of territory and mi- 
 gration will seriously alter the superficial complexion 
 of the statistics. The varying rate of increase of 
 Catholic and Protestant populations will bring a fresh 
 element of importance into the analysis, and it will 
 have to be considered whether this variation, which 
 at present enormously favours the Catholic, is likely 
 to continue. Finally, we shall have to apply our usual 
 severer tests to the census statistics that are so lightly 
 accepted and that we have found almost everywhere 
 to be utterly unreliable. 
 
 When the situation of Catholicism is examined in 
 these lights it will be found to be, even in the German 
 Empire, very different from what it is usually sup- 
 posed to be. An English priest wrote recently : 
 
 "A glance at the various fortunes of Catholics on
 
 198 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the Continent should be enough to dispel any suspicion 
 of exaggeration in the words we have just quoted. 
 French Catholics neglected the Press (?) and French 
 Catholics have been swept off their feet by the rising 
 tide of Secularism. It is absurd to imagine that the 
 present government in France has to deal with a 
 majority or even a well-organised and substantial min- 
 ority of practical Catholics. The bulk of the people 
 simply do not care about religion. . . . The Catholics 
 of Germany, on the other hand, are a very consider- 
 able power in the country. They are thoroughly well 
 organised, they have their religion at heart, and they 
 bring it to bear upon the world about them. In spite 
 of severe persecution and overwhelming difficulties 
 they have drilled themselves into an invincible army." l 
 
 The contrast between the fortunes of the Vatican 
 in France and in Germany is very just, but the writer 
 somewhat exaggerates the power and solidity of 
 German Catholicism. Its numerical strength is easily 
 understood when one glances at the history of the 
 empire, and its remarkable political position is due 
 more to the peculiar political conditions of Germany 
 than to its absolute strength, and is already seriously 
 threatened. In Austria the Catholic position has 
 even less solidity. We shall find, in fact, that the 
 Germanic branches of the Church of Rome are affected, 
 like all the others, by the process of decay. 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 
 
 If there be one national group that will dominate, 
 or peculiarly affect, the policy of the Church of 
 Rome in the day of its coming reform, it will assuredly 
 
 1 Month, March 1908, p. 230.
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 199 
 
 be the group of German prelates and their followers. 
 We saw that the Latin countries have forfeited their 
 right to predominance. The Tsung-li-Yamen of 
 Italian cardinals that still surrounds the Pope cannot 
 much longer retain its privileged position, in view of the 
 rapid secession of the educated Italians. Spain and 
 France are themselves too shaken in their loyalty to 
 hope to succeed Italy. The whole English-speaking 
 world contains only about 18,000,000 Roman Catholics, 
 and they are weakened by decay in every branch. 
 But the German Empire reports a Catholic population 
 of 22,000,000, with a fairly steady increase and a 
 powerful organisation. If Austria-Hungary break 
 up in the course of the next decade or two, and 
 some millions of Austrians are added to the German 
 Catholic Church, it will become the moral centre of 
 Roman Catholicism and have a significant influence 
 on its policy. 
 
 Before, however, we indulge in forecasts of this 
 nature, it is essential to understand very clearly the 
 position of the Roman Church in the German Empire. 
 There is so little rigour and exactness in the customary 
 discussion of this topic that one is not surprised to 
 find writers claiming that the Teutonic world is well 
 on its way to Canossa, while the Latin world is 
 passing into a tardy attitude of protest. There is 
 as little ground for such a cry as there was for the 
 claim that the Anglo-Saxon world was returning to 
 its old religion. The Catholic population of the 
 English-speaking world does not include 1,000,000 
 Anglo-Saxons in the whole 18,000,000. They 
 are nearly all of Irish, German or French descent. 
 We shall not indeed find so large an alien element 
 in the Teutonic Church, though the dispersal of the 
 Poles will offer some analogy to the dispersal of 
 the Irish, but in this case we must remember that
 
 200 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 numbers of the Germanic states either never accepted 
 the teaching of the Reformers or were at once won 
 back by the Jesuits. 
 
 German Catholicism is almost entirely a matter 
 of geography, history and, more recently, economic 
 pressure. Take a series of maps of the part of 
 Europe over which the German Empire now spreads. 
 At the middle of the seventeenth century, when 
 the fierce crusades and fiercer wars initiated by the 
 Reformers and the Jesuits had somewhat relaxed, we 
 find the territory occupied by a motley patchwork of 
 small states, free cities, bishoprics, etc., with the 
 common motto, " Cujus regio, illius religio " — "you 
 must think as your rulers think, or the majority think, 
 about religion in each community." Gradually a re- 
 solute little state in the north-east blurs the complex 
 frontiers, and Austria, in its alarm, blurs them from 
 the south, and Napoleon contemptuously rubs them 
 out from the west, and the Council of Vienna further 
 alters them. But the blue patches of Catholicism 
 and the pink patches of Protestantism remain, how- 
 ever the political frontiers change. Ambitious Prussia 
 spreads steadily to east and west and south, taking 
 in the blue and the pink impartially ; but they remain 
 blue and pink. If you take a map of the German 
 Empire to-day, and colour it according to the religious 
 census, you will almost have a map of the territory as 
 it was divided 300 years ago. The only difference 
 is that the removal of feudal restrictions on the 
 movements of the workers has led to a flow of 
 the industrial population which has altered the shade 
 of many of the districts. Germany is largely Catholic 
 because it has taken in a large slice of Catholic 
 Poland, a large slice of the Holy Roman Empire, 
 a slice of Catholic France and a large number of 
 the ecclesiastical principalities that were secularised
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 201 
 
 by Napoleon. It is predominantly Protestant because 
 the larger states in it — Brandenburg, Prussia, Saxony, 
 Schleswig, Holstein, Hesse, etc. — were converted by 
 the Reformers, and were strong enough, or sufficiently 
 remote from Vienna and near to Sweden, to retain 
 their faith. And the building of all these elements 
 into the structure of the empire has, incidentally, 
 drawn together their religious forces into a powerful 
 and well-organised Church. 
 
 Little more than 600 years ago the Prussians were 
 an obscure and despised tribe of pagans by the shore 
 of the Baltic. They were converted by the swords 
 of the Teutonic knights, and made into a duchy for 
 the Grand Master. In 1525 the Grand Master found 
 it convenient to turn Protestant, and the Prussians 
 had to submit to another change of faith. In 161 8 
 the duchy was added to Brandenburg, which was 
 already Protestant, and the work of expansion began. 
 The Holy Roman Emperor (Leopold) allowed it to 
 set up a kingship in 1701, and Frederick the Great 
 added Polish (or West) Prussia to the kingdom, and 
 thus brought a large Catholic element into it. " Let 
 every man go to heaven his own way," the sceptical 
 ruler decreed, and friction was avoided. How further 
 large slices of Poland were annexed, and Napoleon 
 came at length to tear up the map of Germany, and 
 make a fresh one, does not concern us. It will be 
 enough for us to start with Prussia after the Council 
 of Vienna in 18 15, and trace the fortune of the 
 Catholics within its frontiers since that date. 
 
 The powers who rearranged the map of Europe 
 after the fall of Napoleon granted the King of Prussia 
 a large share of Eastern Poland (Posen), half of 
 Saxony, Pomerania, Westphalia and a long stretch 
 of territory on the Rhine (the Rhine Province). In 
 almost every case the annexed territory added very
 
 202 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 considerably to the Catholic population. The Poles 
 were overwhelmingly Catholic ; the Rhinelanders had 
 lived under the shadow of the great archbishop-princes 
 of Mayence, Treves and Cologne for ages, and their 
 whole district had been known as " the street of 
 priests." In 1740 the Catholic population of Prussia 
 was 166,000: in 18 16 it was nearly 4,000,000 (to 
 6,250,000 million Protestants). At one stroke of the 
 pen, without a single citizen changing his religion, the 
 Catholic population rose to 39 per cent, of the whole. 
 Here we have at once the explanation of the later 
 sectarian percentage and the germ of conflict. We 
 have also an excellent means of testing the question 
 of Catholic growth, and we shall find that there has 
 been a notable decrease of Catholicism in this territory 
 instead of an increase. But I will first conclude this 
 slight sketch of the formation of the German Church. 
 At first the Prussian government wisely recognised 
 the great change in the religious complexion of the 
 country. The famous historian Niebuhr was appointed 
 ambassador to the Vatican, a concordat was drawn 
 up, and a hierarchy established. The Church made 
 slow progress. The restored monarchs everywhere 
 were eager to foster religion in the mass of the people, 
 as a protection to power and property, and the 
 Romantic period of German literature had sent some 
 notable converts to the Catholic Church — such as 
 Frederick Schlegel, Princess Gallitzin, Count Stolberg, 
 Brentano and others. These and other writers 
 (Dollinger, Goerres, Moehler, etc.) put new life into 
 the small literate proportion of the Catholics, and here 
 and there a fairly wide revival was witnessed. Rome, 
 however, looked with some concern on the growthof the 
 new Church. The Vatican could overlook the apathy, 
 the ignorance, and the looseness of life that remained 
 from the days of sceptical and licentious prelate-
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 203 
 
 princes. The difficulty was that the new Church was 
 not sufficiently Roman, and admitted too much semi- 
 Rationalism. The spirit of Febronius (a powerful 
 Catholic opponent of Roman claims in the preceding 
 century) was very active still. 
 
 This opposition to Ultramontane ideas was very 
 acceptable to the Prussian government, and when the 
 Jesuits and other Ultramontanes began to oppose it 
 with their customary vehemence trouble became in- 
 evitable. It was in the early thirties that the long 
 conflict of the Roman Catholics with the Prussian 
 government broke out. Frederick William III. had, 
 with Prussian military instinct, forced the Lutherans 
 and Calvinists to join in a common " Evangelical 
 Church." He seems to have had some notion of in- 
 ducing the Catholics to join in the course of time. 
 The soldiers in the barracks were ordered to attend a 
 common service periodically, and paternal regulations 
 were imposed as to the religion of the children issuing 
 from mixed marriages. Rome, of course, deeply 
 resented both measures. When, in 1837, an ardent 
 Ultramontane (Droste-Vischering) was somehow 
 promoted to the archbishopric of Cologne, in spite 
 of the vigilance of the bureaucrats, and at once defied 
 the government and flouted its laws, the war began. 
 The archbishop was thrown into prison, and the fiery 
 cross sped throughout Catholic Prussia, from the 
 Rhine to Poland. 
 
 The statesmen of Prussia had made a great blunder 
 (from the religious point of view) in annexing or 
 accepting territory without regard to the religion of 
 the inhabitants. They made a still greater blunder 
 in their attempts to interfere with that religion. The 
 first blunder provided the material for the most power- 
 ful Catholic Church of modern times. The second 
 blunder infused a spirit into that Church which drove
 
 204 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 it closer to Rome, and moved it to create a remarkable 
 organisation and press. Nearly every phase of that 
 prolonged conflict has ended in the retreat of the 
 Protestant rulers and the strengthening of the Catholic 
 minority. 
 
 Early in the forties the government gracefully 
 retired from the conflict, and appointed a Catholic 
 section of the ministry of worship. By that time the 
 Catholics of Prussia numbered nearly 5,500,000, to 
 nearly 9,000,000 Protestants. Their percentage had 
 fallen, but the new spirit and organisation largely 
 arrested the leakage. In 1844 a fresh agitation swept 
 through the whole German Catholic world. The 
 " Holy Coat," the "seamless garment of Christ," was 
 being exhibited at Treves, and vast pilgrimages made 
 their way thither. A Silesian priest, Ronge, and a 
 Polish priest, Czerski, led schismatic protests against 
 the superstition displayed and the Roman encourage- 
 ment of it, and their " German Catholic Church " soon 
 had 60,000 followers. In spite of official encourage- 
 ment, however, its growth was arrested, and the Roman 
 Church still advanced. The revolutionary movement 
 of 1848 gave it the first impetus to the extensive 
 social work with which it was to hold its ground 
 against Socialism in later years. At that time, too, 
 orators like Ketteler and Reichensperger began to 
 inflame it, and it began to hold national congresses. 
 
 During all this time, in spite of the repeated stirrings 
 of the Catholic body, and in spite of the fact that 
 the Catholics were multiplying more rapidly than the 
 Protestants, the Church was really losing ground 
 in Prussia. Its percentage fell from 39 per cent, in 
 18 16 to 37 per cent, in 1849. Taking the provinces 
 where the multiplication of population was greatest, 
 and the number of Catholics largest, we find this 
 remarkable result : in Posen the Catholic percentage
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 205 
 
 fell from 65*23 in 1817 1063*42 in 1843, in Westphalia 
 from 59*43 to 56*09, and in the Rhine Province from 
 76*35 to 75*22. Yet we shall see that in each of 
 these provinces the percentage of Catholic births 
 was far above the Protestant average. 1 
 
 If we take account of the actual fall in percentage, 
 the number of Catholics in each of these provinces, 
 and the ratio of Catholic multiplication, we find that 
 the Church must have lost several hundred thousand 
 followers between 1815 and 1850. I will return to the 
 point presently. 
 
 In 1 86 1 William I. became king, and the reign of 
 Bismarck opened. There is no proof whatever that 
 Bismarck had more than a political concern about the 
 growth of Catholicism, or that he meditated any coer- 
 cive measures at all until the Ultramontanes tried to 
 embroil Germany with Italy over the Pope's temporal 
 power. Catholic rhetoric on the point defeats itself 
 with its reckless allusions to Masonic pressure and 
 other quite superfluous agencies. Indeed, while most 
 Catholic writers attribute the Kulturkampf to the 
 dark machinations of Bismarck, a few have pointed 
 out that it began in Catholic Bavaria, and was initiated 
 by a Catholic minister, with the assent of Catholic 
 colleagues and a Catholic ruler. 
 
 Before it broke out, however, the German Empire 
 was formed, and the Church rounded to its present 
 proportions. The annexation of Hohenzollern (94 
 per cent. Catholic) had slightly raised the Catholic 
 
 1 I take the figures from Father Krose, SJ. {Konfesszons- 
 statistik Deutschlands, 1904), from whom most of my earlier figures 
 are taken. I have compared his work throughout with that of 
 the Protestant Pastor Pieper {Kirchliche Statistik Deutschlands — 
 a rival production), and in regard to the figures after 1870 I have 
 consulted the official publications. Father Krose freely acknowledges 
 a heavy loss from 1816 to 1870, but claims later moderation of it, 
 which, I fear, we shall not be able to allow.
 
 206 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 percentage, but the annexations of 1866 more than 
 restored the balance in favour of the Protestants. The 
 last struggle with Austria for supremacy had ended 
 in the triumph of Prussia ; and Schleswig, Holstein, 
 Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Nassau and Frank- 
 fort were added to the kingdom. These territories 
 added 3,500,000 members to the Evangelical Church 
 and only 500,000 to the Roman Catholic. The south 
 German states — Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg and 
 Saxony — formed an alliance with the northern, and 
 the ground was prepared for the completion of Bis- 
 marck's plan. This was done after the Franco-German 
 War, when the southern states, with Alsace-Lorraine, 
 entered the imperial structure. 
 
 The territorial changes again made a considerable 
 change in the sectarian balance. In 1867 Prussia 
 contained 14,000,000 Protestants and 7,000,000 
 Catholics. In 1871 the German Empire included 
 25,500,000 Protestants and (with Alsace and Lorraine) 
 15,000,000 Catholics. Had the strongly national 
 spirit of the earlier German Catholics prevailed over 
 the Ultramontanes the readjustment would have been 
 made without disturbance, but two things now occurred 
 that inspired the anti-papals on the one hand and the 
 Ultramontanes on the other with a new and somewhat 
 menacing life. The Vatican Council decreed the in- 
 fallibility of the Pope, and the Italian army occupied 
 Rome. Bismarck's pleasant dreams on the slopes of 
 Versailles were rudely interrupted by the movements 
 of the Catholics. Not only was the Italian ruler of 
 the Church constituted a perfect autocrat, and relieved 
 of such check on his action as an oecumenical council 
 provided, but German Catholics were clamouring 
 loudly for the restoration of the Pope's temporal 
 power by — in the long run — German troops. Further 
 — and this was probably of greater weight — it was
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 207 
 
 notorious that Catholics were drawing a parallel 
 between the act of Victor Emmanuel and the act of 
 William I. The "revolution from above," which 
 dragged Poles, Hanoverians and Frenchmen into 
 the German Empire, was not obscurely denounced 
 by the Catholic orators. Discontented Poles and dis- 
 contented Alsatians formed more than a third of the 
 Catholic body, and they fraternised with the Hano- 
 verian and other bitter malcontents of the empire. 
 When they went on to throw all their energy into 
 political organisation, and every pulpit rang with fiery 
 rhetoric during the first elections to the Reichstag, 
 and they returned a formidable body of sixty members 
 (the Centre party), pressing sectarian and papal 
 interests and caring little about Imperial needs, they 
 were promptly dubbed " reichsfeindlich " (enemies of 
 the empire), and a coercive policy was conceived. 
 
 In this way the Catholics drew upon themselves the 
 famous Kulturkampf. Virchow and other progressives 
 had urged it, as a moral campaign against Catholic 
 medievalism, a few years before. It now became a 
 political necessity. The growth of the Poles was a 
 standing problem for German statesmen ; and now 
 that this anti-national element was to be linked with 
 the disaffected provinces in the far west, and by a 
 power that had its centre in a foreign land, some 
 degree of alarm was unavoidable. The German 
 leader of the party, moreover, Windthorst, was a 
 Hanoverian, and stood for a third element of dis- 
 content. 
 
 The desperate struggle that ensued between the 
 German bureaucracy and the Catholic clergy interests 
 me only on the ground that it effectively welded to- 
 gether the very mixed Catholic groups of the empire, 
 and did more than any other cause in creating the 
 German Catholic Church of to-day and attaching it to
 
 208 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the Vatican. As I said, the Kulturkampf really began 
 in Catholic Bavaria. The Jesuits had fought strenu- 
 ously and successfully against the Reformers for 
 Bavaria, and it remained the chief centre of Catholic- 
 ism in the northern part of the German Roman 
 Empire. In the calm that followed the cessation of 
 the religious wars, and under the enervating rule of 
 the pre- Napoleonic Catholic princes and prelates, its 
 religion steadily degenerated, and we shall see that 
 throughout the nineteenth century it has suffered 
 considerable leakage. Its scholars, too, were deeply 
 tinged with the Febronian, anti-papal spirit. When, 
 therefore, the Vatican decree on the infallibility of the 
 Pope was issued, the professors of Munich University 
 protested against it, and the Bavarian minister ol 
 worship forbade the clergy to promulgate it (August 
 1870) without the placetum regium, which all knew 
 would not be granted. At once the Ultramontanes 
 were in arms. The bishops published the Vatican 
 decrees and excommunicated all professors who would 
 not submit to them. Lutz, the Catholic minister of 
 worship, then issued a stringent prohibition of pulpit 
 interference in political matters, and the religious war 
 began. 
 
 But Bavaria now passed into the unity of the 
 German Empire, and the struggle was carried to a 
 larger stage. The Catholics of Prussia had already 
 decided to revive their political group, which had 
 dwindled away in 1866, and had secured a large body 
 of representatives at the Landtag elections in October 
 (1870). When the first elections for the Reichstag 
 (the Imperial, as distinct from the Prussian, Parliament) 
 came on, early in 187 1, the agitation spread over 
 Germany, and the Centre party (sitting, both morally 
 and physically, in the centre of the conflicting parties) 
 made its fateful appearance. Had there been a simple
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 209 
 
 two-party system in Germany, the Centre could 
 merely have used its weight as the Irish party has 
 done at Westminster. But the multiplicity of German 
 parties gave, and gives, an artificial influence to the 
 representatives of a third of the empire. Indeed, they 
 stood, not merely for a religious issue on which they 
 were united, but for all the anti- Prussian elements in 
 the empire. 
 
 In the struggle that followed, Bismarck's "blood 
 and iron " methods proved worse than futile. Whether 
 the blood of martyrs is the seed of converts we need 
 not stop to consider ; but any less drastic form of 
 persecution generally fails. The imprisonment of the 
 clergy is an excellent means of inflaming the laity, 
 because they can vent their indignation with safety. 
 At all events the only issue of this inglorious campaign 
 of Bismarck's was to strengthen the Church. His 
 first move was to suppress the Catholic section of 
 the ministry of worship, and to attempt a further con- 
 trol of the schools. In 1872 the Jesuits were expelled. 
 In 1873 tne famous May Laws were introduced by 
 Falk. One law appointed penalties for all clerics who 
 should make an improper use of ecclesiastical sentences 
 (excommunication, etc.) ; another laid down a pro- 
 cedure to be followed when a man wished to change 
 his creed ; a third set up a special court for clerical 
 offenders ; and a fourth — the worst and most futile of 
 all — enacted that any candidate for clerical office must 
 be a German, educated in a German gymnasium and 
 university, and must pass a government examination. 
 In the following year civil marriage was made obliga- 
 tory by a large majority of the Reichstag. 
 
 It was only a few years since Austrian, Papal and 
 Spanish rulers had treated Liberals with a far more 
 terrible procedure, and indeed a large meeting held 
 at London, with Lord Russell in the chair, sent a
 
 210 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 message of support to the German Liberals. But the 
 rhetoric of the Catholic orators may well be imagined 
 when these laws were enforced, their bishops were 
 imprisoned, and hundreds of their chapels were closed. 
 Bismarck may have wrongly counted on the schismatic 
 Old Catholic party, which the protests of Dollinger 
 and other opponents of infallibility had created. But 
 it never became a powerful body, while the orthodox 
 millions were now organised for the most stubborn of 
 conflicts. A hundred Catholic journals appeared where 
 there had been only six a few years before, and every 
 priest was turned into a fierce politician. Numbers 
 of the clergy entered the Reichstag, and social and 
 political unions, philanthropic agencies, congresses 
 and every device of agitation and organisation were 
 employed. The struggle braced and knit the frame 
 of the German Church as none of its own spiritual 
 tonics could have done. Bismarck was beaten, and 
 the Roman Church of Germany became what it is. 
 The elections of 1874 doubled the Catholic vote, and 
 increased the Centre party to ninety-one. 
 
 It is essential, for the understanding of the Catholic 
 position to-day to note the real causes of the cessation 
 of hostilities. The combat was bound to end in a 
 Catholic victory, but an entirely new element came 
 into the life of Germany that hastened the end. The 
 teaching of Karl Marx and Lasalle was now spreading 
 rapidly among the workers, and the spectre of Social 
 Democracy was beginning to alarm all parties. In 
 1878 there were several attempts on the life of the 
 emperor, and they were loosely attributed to the 
 Socialists. The emperor impulsively observed to 
 Falk that " if he would leave the workers their religion 
 these things would not happen." Falk took the 
 hint, and resigned. In the same year Pius IX. made 
 way for Leo XIII., who was known to be anxious for
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 211 
 
 peace. Bismarck quickly perceived the more serious 
 menace of the new force in the Reichstag. He could 
 not be unaware that the Catholic Church was pledged 
 to an uncompromising war against it, and the situation 
 slowly changed. In 1880 a Bill was introduced giving 
 the crown discretionary power in the application of the 
 laws. The Centre party still further increased in 1881 
 (to ninety -eight), and a fresh Bill enlarged the measure 
 of relief. An envoy was sent to the Vatican, the bishops 
 returned to their sees, and in 1886 the odious restric- 
 tions on the training and activity of the clergy were 
 removed. Its enmity to Social Democracy had turned 
 the reichsfeindliche Church into the most powerful 
 ally of the bureaucracy. 
 
 This brief sketch of the making of the Roman 
 Church in Germany will enable the reader to under- 
 stand its present strength and reject the fallacious 
 explanations that are sometimes given. Growth there 
 has been on a scale that no other branch of the 
 Catholic Church has shown — an increase from the 
 9,091,500 Catholics (in the whole of the actual German 
 territory) of the year 1822 to the 20,000,000 of the 
 year 1900; from the 60 members of the Reichstag in 
 1 87 1 to the 103 members of to-day (more than the 
 Liberals and Socialists together) ; from the 6 Catholic 
 journals of the sixties to the 330 of to-day ; from the 
 apathy of the early nineteenth century to the vast 
 organisation and intense activity of the twentieth 
 century. In view of such an advance it would seem 
 that here we must refrain from speaking of "decay." 
 There seems, rather, to be sober ground for the 
 expectation of a Catholic recovery. 
 
 The second part of our examination will show that 
 the Catholic Church of Germany has really suffered 
 considerable losses. It has made relatively few 
 converts from Protestantism, while very large numbers
 
 212 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 of its own followers have abandoned their allegiance. 
 The impolitic action of its opponents has hardened and 
 strengthened it, but it has by no means held its ground, 
 or made new ground, in the course of the past century. 
 
 I have already mentioned that the Catholic popula- 
 tion tends to multiply more quickly than the non- 
 Catholic. The reasons for this I have earlier indicated, 
 and in the case of Germany we have exact statistics 
 that put it beyond cavil. It will be enough to quote 
 the Jesuit Father Krose (Konfessions-statistik Deut- 
 schlands), and one or two other statistical writers. 
 Father Krose examines the data and conclusions of 
 the official Prussian statistician Von Fircks, and agrees 
 that, while there are 5047 children to every 1000 
 Catholic marriages (on data extending from T876 to 
 1895), there are only 4147 children to the same 
 number of Protestant marriages, and 3845 Jewish. 
 Taking the number of survivals over deaths, he finds 
 that, for every 1,000,000 people, the Protestants have 
 an annual increase of 11,227 and the Catholics 14,102. 
 This means a Catholic excess of 2875 a vear (P er 
 1,000,000 people) on the natural increase. 
 
 Pastor Pieper (Kircklicke Statistik Deutschlands) 
 agrees as to the Catholic excess of 2875 per year 
 per 1,000,000 people. Juraschek ("Die Staaten 
 Europas ") gives concordant figures, and shows that the 
 Protestant birth-rate still diminishes. The official 
 tables in the Statistisches Jahrbuch fiir das Deutsche 
 Reich (1907) show it at a glance. The average in- 
 crease of population for the empire between 1895 and 
 1905 was 13*2 per cent. In Westphalia it was 22^4 
 per cent.; in the Rhine Province 177 ; in Posen 17*5. 
 These are the great Catholic provinces. In almost 
 every state the percentage differs with the religious 
 percentage. A further table of excess of births over 
 deaths show just the same result. In East Prussia
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 
 
 213 
 
 (13 per cent. Catholic) the excess was only 106 per 
 cent. ; in West Prussia (5 1 • 1 9 per cent. Catholic) the ex- 
 cess was 15-9. Another table shows the increase of 
 population between 1871 and 1905. For the whole 
 empire it is 477 ; for Westphalia it is 103*8 ; for the 
 Rhine Province 79'8. 
 
 There is, therefore, no doubt that the Catholic 
 increase by births over the Protestant is 2875 a year 
 per 1,000,000 people. Now there were, in the year 
 1820, 9,000,000 Catholics in the present territory 
 occupied by the German Empire, and there were 
 22,000,000 in 1905. The reader will see that this 
 means an annual Catholic excess beginning at 26,000 
 and rising to 63,000, or a total of about 3,000,000. 
 This should be the proportional gain of the Catholics 
 over the Protestants since 1816. In point of fact they 
 show no such gain. Indeed, the following table will 
 show at a glance that they have absolutely lost ground, 
 for all the imposing growth of their Church : — ' 
 
 Protestants 
 Catholics 
 
 Number in 
 the Year 1822 
 
 16,193,000 
 9,091,500 
 
 Percent, of 
 Population 
 
 639 
 35'42 
 
 Number 
 
 in 
 
 1905 
 
 37,255,785 
 20,707,158 
 
 Percent, of 
 Population 
 
 65-0 
 
 35" 21 
 
 1 This table does not include Alsace-Lorraine, for which the 
 figures are not available at the earlier date. But the Catholics have 
 notoriously not increased as much as the Protestants in Alsace- 
 Lorraine. The figures and percentages for 1822 are from Father 
 Krose. The total population of German territory was then 
 25,668,420. The figures for 1905 are from the Statistisches Jahrbuch. 
 For the making of a fair comparison I have omitted the population 
 of Alsace-Lorraine. The loss in recent decades may be estimated 
 very confidently by a different procedure. According to the results
 
 214 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Nothing could show more clearly that the Catholic 
 Church of Germany has merely covered very con- 
 siderable losses by the accession of millions of alien 
 Catholics. Father Krose admits that the greater fer- 
 tility of the Catholic communities ought to raise the 
 Catholic percentage one unit per decade for the whole 
 empire. It should, therefore, stand at something over 
 forty to-day, even making allowance for a slighter 
 excess in the earlier decades. In point of fact, it is 
 — excluding Alsace-Lorraine — less than it was eighty 
 years ago : even including Alsace-Lorraine it is only 
 36*1 (Statistisches Jahrbucti). When we remember 
 the absolute size of the figures that these percentages 
 represent — a population rising from 25,000,000 to 
 60,000,000 — we see that it means a Catholic loss of 
 several millions in the course of the eighty years. 
 
 Father Krose admits a heavy loss, but is consoled 
 to think that it is slighter since 1871 than it was be- 
 fore. I have explained that the Kulturkampf proved 
 a bracing experience for the Church after that date, 
 and gave it a far more effective organisation, but we 
 must examine more closely whether this statement is 
 correct. I will not detain the reader long in examining 
 the figures before 1871. The figures for Prussia at 
 least are trustworthy and abundant, and they show 
 a notable leakage. From 3,945,677 in the year 18 16 
 (Poles included) the Catholics of Prussia slowly in- 
 creased to 8, 268, 1 69 in 1 87 1 (the Protestants increasing 
 from 6,000,000 to 16,000,000. This, of course, does 
 
 of Von Fircks, which are accepted by Father Krose, the annual 
 increase of the Prussian Catholics should be 14,102 per 1,000,000 
 people. In 1871 they numbered 8,268,169. It will be found that 
 on natural increase, they should number more than 12,100,000 
 in 1900; with the excess of Catholic immigrants over emigrants 
 they should be at least 12,750,000. But the actual number (or 
 sensus number, which we shall greatly reduce) was only 12,500,000, 
 chowing a loss of 500,000 for Prussia alone on the census figures.
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 215 
 
 not indicate mere natural growth, but takes account 
 of the annexations. Father Krose gives the figure of 
 5,934,000 as the Catholic population in 1822 of the 
 whole territory which is now Prussia. Their number, 
 therefore, is less than doubled in fifty years, in spite 
 of the high birth-rate of Posen, Westphalia and the 
 Rhine district. Their percentage has been dropping 
 steadily during the whole period. From 1851 to 
 1857 — Pieper shows — the Protestants increased by 
 72-5 per cent, and the Catholics by only 67*8. And 
 the decrease is most signal in the Catholic provinces. 
 In Posen the percentage fell, between 18 17 and 1858 
 (Krose), from 65*23 to 62*1 1 ; in Westphalia from 59*43 
 to 55*14; in the Rhine Province from 76*35 to 7472. 
 
 Nor must it be imagined that emigration will explain 
 the statistics in favour of the Catholics. I may say, 
 once for all, that the Catholics have profited more 
 than the Protestants by the movement of population. 
 We have no exact figures before 187 1, and must as- 
 sume that the proportion was much the same as after 
 that date. Now, at one point (1883- 1887), we get a 
 precise determination of the religion of the emigrants 
 from Prussia, which we owe to the indefatigable 
 labours of Von Fircks. Of the 223,834 emigrants 
 during those five years 155,167 (or 66*46 per cent.) 
 were Protestants, and 68,667 (or 30*39 per cent.) 
 Catholics. The Protestants lost the greater number, 
 in proportion to their greater strength. On the other 
 hand, immigration also has favoured the Catholics. 
 Of non-German immigrants during 1883-1887 no 
 less than 53 per cent, were Catholics. Father Krose 
 rightly observes : " We must conclude that not only 
 emigration, but also immigration, has tended to alter 
 the sectarian percentage in Prussia in favour of the 
 Catholics" (p. 122). 
 
 Prussia, therefore, shows a large net loss to Catholic-
 
 216 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 ism. We need only glance further at one or two of 
 the larger states before 1871. Bavaria, the next 
 chief centre of Catholicism, had 2,755,000 Catholics 
 and 1,007,000 Protestants in 1822. In 1871 it had 
 3,464,364 Catholics and 1,342,592 Protestants. The 
 Catholic percentage went down from 73 to 70. 
 Wurtemberg had 452,000 Catholics in 1822 and 
 519,913 in 1858: the Protestants increased in the 
 same period from 997,000 to 1,158,324. Baden had 
 730,000 in 1822 and 942,560 in 1871. All these 
 figures tell the same story of leakage in a rapidly 
 increasing population. 
 
 After 1 87 1 the Catholic percentage ought to increase 
 more rapidly than ever. The discrepancy in the birth- 
 rate was more pronounced, and migration notably 
 favoured the Catholics — to say nothing of the great 
 social and political organisation to which I have re- 
 ferred. Now, there is no dispute about the fact that 
 the Catholics continued to lose heavily until 1890. 
 Father Krose gives the Catholic percentage for the 
 empire as sinking from 36*21 in 1871 to 3576 in 
 1890. In the provinces, where the Catholic birth- 
 rate was highest, the decrease was most pronounced. 
 In the Rhine Province the Catholic percentage fell 
 from 73*43 to 69*02 : in Westphalia from 53*47 to 
 50*71. Yet in these provinces the excess of births 
 over deaths (mainly amongst the Catholics) was double 
 the average. In Posen the gain in percentage was 
 slight — not nearly as great as it ought to have been. 
 In some districts there was a considerable rise in the 
 Catholic percentage, but these are precisely the dis- 
 tricts where they are very few in number, and the 
 increase was plainly due to the flocking of Catholic 
 workers to new industrial centres, largely from Bohemia 
 and other Catholic districts. 
 
 Indeed, the whole question of leakage up to 1890
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 217 
 
 may be settled by a few figures from an essay by the 
 famous statistician Von Fircks, 1 for the period from 
 1 87 1 to 1890. The Catholic percentage for the whole 
 of the empire fell from 36*21 to 3576. It ought, as 
 we saw, to have increased by 2 per cent. In Prussia 
 the percentage rose slightly (33*5 to 34*2) on account 
 of industrial movements ; in the great Catholic pro- 
 vinces of Prussia it fell considerably. In Bavaria it 
 fell from 71*2 to 70*8 : in Baden from 64*5 to 62*0: in 
 Wurtemberg from 30*4 to 29*9 : in Alsace-Lorraine 
 from 797 to 76*5. Where there was an increase, 
 it was plainly due to immigration. In Saxony, for 
 instance, which is overwhelmingly Protestant, it was 
 found that 6075 of the foreigners were Catholics ; and 
 there were also 175,000 Catholic workers from other 
 parts of the empire. "We should rather be astonished," 
 says Father Krose, "that the increase was not 
 greater" (p. 123). When we recall that the Catholics 
 should show an annual increase of 2800 per 1,000,000 
 people above the Protestants, and that they numbered 
 from 15,000,000 to 17,000,000 during this period, we 
 see that it means a loss of more than 500,000 for the 
 twenty years. 
 
 Finally, I will take the figures for 1905 from the 
 Statistisches Jahrbuch> and show that the leakage 
 continues. In 1890 the Catholic percentage was 
 3576 for the whole empire ; in 1905 it was 36 - 4. It 
 ought to have risen to about 37 '4. In the Rhine 
 Province and Westphalia the Catholic percentage has 
 gone down still lower, and in Posen it is about station- 
 ary. The gains for Prussia are in Brandenburg and 
 Silesia, and are due to immigration. In Bavaria it 
 falls to 70*6 ; in Baden to 6o*o ; in Wurtemberg it 
 recovers slightly (299 to 30*2). In other words, the 
 slight increase is a mere fraction of what it ought to 
 1 " Bevolkerungslehre," p. 66.
 
 218 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 have been, and is, says Father Krose, "due purely 
 and simply to an increase of Catholic immigrants." 
 The heavy leakage has continued, and the whole 
 Catholic advantage of excessive birth-rate (about 
 600,000) has been lost. The great increase in Italians, 
 Austrians, Belgians and Catholic Dutch and Russians, 
 is the only increase discoverable, beyond a normal 
 multiplication ; while the Catholic multiplication should 
 be quite abnormal. 
 
 As the chief cause of this relative fall in Catholic 
 percentage — or failure to rise, if one prefers to put 
 it so, but a failure that implies the loss of 3,000,000 
 followers in the last eighty years — Catholic writers 
 indicate mixed marriages. It would be more accurate, 
 however, to regard these as an effect, rather than a 
 cause, of decay. We have seen that the law of the 
 Church in regard to mixed marriages is absolute. 
 It will not sanction marriage with a Protestant unless 
 a formal promise is made to the priest that all children 
 of the marriage shall be Catholic. In Germany, 
 whatever promise is made, the Catholic Church has, 
 for many decades, not secured even one half of the 
 issue of mixed marriages. This has been officially 
 determined in Prussia time after time. Early statistics 
 of the year 1864 show that 51 per cent, of such 
 children at that time were Protestant ; and the 
 percentage has steadily increased. In 1885 it was 
 54-4; in 1890 it was 55*0; in 1895 it was 557; and 
 in 1900 it was 56*5. In other states the loss of such 
 children to the Catholic Church is still greater. In 
 Catholic Bavaria the Protestants claim to baptise 
 76*99 per cent, of the issue of mixed marriages ; in 
 Saxony 91*05 per cent. Only in Alsace-Lorraine do 
 the Catholics secure a half of the children. More- 
 over, these figures only relate to children under 
 sixteen, who live with their parents. The school
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 219 
 
 years take off a further proportion of the Catholic 
 children, and others leave later. Pastor Pieper 
 claims that three-fourths of the children of mixed 
 marriages become Protestant : Father Krose says 
 three-fifths. Even if we accept the latter figure — 
 and remember that in any given year there are about 
 1,000,000 such children (under sixteen) in Germany 
 — we have here an enormous leakage from the 
 Church. 
 
 In such circumstances the high and increasing 
 number of mixed marriages betrays a serious failure 
 of Catholic authority. There were in 1905 about 
 485,000 marriages in the empire, and 42,000 of these 
 were mixed. For many years now about one-eighth 
 of the marrying Catholics have chosen Protestant 
 partners, and more than half their children have 
 become Protestants. Amongst the Poles alone have 
 the clergy any influence in checking this disastrous 
 practice. In Berlin, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia 
 and Saxony Catholics more frequently marry Protest- 
 ants than Catholics. In Hamburg in 1901 there were 
 73 Catholic marriages and 480 mixed. In one place 
 Father Krose finds 3 Catholic marriages and 81 
 mixed; in another 13 mixed marriages and not one 
 purely Catholic. In Catholic Bavaria, between 1835 
 and 1900, the proportion of mixed marriages has 
 risen from 2*81 to 9-91 per cent. In Baden the 
 number of Catholic marriages sank from 7306 to 7023 
 between 1868 and 1900; while the percentage of 
 mixed marriages rose from 9*1 to 14*5. Father 
 Krose, from whom I take the figures, admits that it 
 means a loss of hundreds of thousands of children. It 
 really means much more. It plainly intimates that 
 the authority of the Church over a large section of 
 the nominal Catholic body is remarkably enfeebled. 
 
 And this brings us to the last point of our inquiry
 
 220 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 into the condition of Catholicism in Germany. We 
 have seen that, if we take the census figures of the 
 two great denominations to be correct, the Protestant 
 body has gained, and the Catholic body lost, about 
 3,000,000 members since the year 182 1. 1 Our glance 
 at the high proportion of mixed marriages and their 
 outcome strongly confirms this. But we have found 
 the census statistics to be extremely unreliable in 
 every country, and will hardly expect them to be 
 more reliable in the case of Germany, where officials 
 frown on any qualification other than Catholic, 
 Evangelical or Jew. 
 
 Unfortunately, the material for applying the most 
 stringent test of real Catholicism — attendance at 
 mass on Sundays — is entirely lacking. German 
 writers have been most industrious in the collecting 
 and analysis of census figures, but the more proper 
 test seems to have been wholly neglected. We shall 
 see when we come to examine Catholicism in entirely 
 similar circumstances — in German Austria — that the 
 application of this test reduces the Catholic total 
 very materially. I find only one indication of this 
 order in Germany, and it shows a remarkable 
 state of things. This is an indirect indication of 
 churchgoing in Berlin. Catholic writers have, since 
 the last two census reports, commented with warmth 
 on the increase of their faith in Prussia generally, and 
 Berlin in particular. We have already seen that the 
 figures for Prussia really reveal a serious loss, and 
 
 1 It is necessary to note that the " Catholic " total in the census 
 report and books of reference includes Old Catholics and Oriental 
 Catholics. These, however, do not number 100,000, and may be 
 neglected. I have also neglected the figures relating to the formal 
 migrations of adults from one religion to the other. Between 
 1890 and 1900 Protestant pastors reported 46,600 conversions 
 from Catholicism, and 6820 secessions to Catholicism. This 
 expresses only a small fraction of the leakage from Rome.
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 221 
 
 the situation in Berlin, where we may assume es- 
 pecially energy and resources of the Catholic body, 
 is more lamentable for the Church than in any other 
 great city in the world. 
 
 In his " Kettler et l'organisation sociale," the Abbe 
 Kannengieser, an ardent admirer of the German 
 Church, has a few pages on the condition of Catholic- 
 ism at Berlin in 1894. He says that there were, 
 for the 135,000 Catholics of Berlin, only "two 
 churches and ten small chapels " — one place of 
 worship to 11,000 worshippers! At London there 
 are 165 chapels to an even smaller Catholic popula- 
 tion. The result, Kannengieser says (p. 141), is 
 "that Catholicism loses heart at Berlin. Of the 
 54,000 married Catholics 26,000 are married to Pro- 
 testants, and 85 per cent, of the children of these 
 marriages pass to Protestantism. In the schools of 
 Berlin there ought to be 65,000 children more than 
 there are." But this is only a half perception of the 
 truth. Even if we allowed a proportion of 3000 
 Catholics to each chapel — and the proportion is only 
 700 at London — it would follow that 100,000 of the 
 Berlin Catholics have really fallen away. I turn to 
 a recent and authoritative work on Berlin ("Berlin 
 und die Berliner," 1905), which purports to give a 
 complete guide to the institutions of the city. Its 
 list of Catholic chapels includes only eight (and one 
 Greek Catholic), but we may assume that there are 
 four other semi-public chapels, to agree with Kannen- 
 gieser. Now the census of 1905 returned the number 
 of Catholics at Berlin as 223,948. That is one of the 
 great increases in percentage of which the Catholic 
 writer boasts. But how even twelve chapels can 
 accommodate 200,000 worshippers every Sunday 
 morning I leave to the reader's imagination. Con- 
 siderably more than 150,000 must be struck off the
 
 222 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Catholic census total for Berlin alone. It is a most 
 illuminating commentary on German census declara- 
 tions of religious belief. 1 
 
 We must not, of course, seek to apply metropolitan 
 conditions to the rest of Germany, but it is clear that 
 in the larger towns of the Protestant provinces the 
 situation of Catholicism is little better. The fact of 
 Hamburg showing 480 mixed marriages to 73 Catholic 
 is instructive enough, and we saw that there are many 
 similar cases. The Catholic total for these provinces 
 must be shorn of an enormous proportion. In the 
 Catholic provinces the clerical organisation has grown 
 with the population, yet even in these the proportion 
 of priests to population is so low that a large part of 
 the latter must be regarded as purely nominal adherents. 
 In 1895 (the last year for which I have complete 
 figures) there was in the German Empire one secular 
 priest to each 1030 Catholic inhabitants. The figures 
 for the various dioceses, in 1898 show the same strik- 
 ing disproportion. In the Breslau diocese, there were 
 2162 nominal Catholics to one priest: in the Prag 
 diocese, 1883: Posen diocese, 1865: Kulm diocese, 
 1803: Gnesen diocese, 1781 : Olmiitz diocese, 1648. 
 It is true that the Catholic clergy are nearly as 
 numerous as the Protestant, though their followers are 
 little more than half as numerous. But churchgoing 
 is very lax among the Protestants, and their situation 
 is fundamentally different on account of the solemn 
 Catholic command to attend mass. Pastor Pieper 
 says that the church attendance at Evangelical places 
 of worship is 13 or 14 per cent, of the population. 
 However, in the absence of exact figures, I will do 
 
 1 We have already seen the condition of Catholicism at London 
 and Paris. In the three most cultivated cities of Europe, with a 
 total population of 11,000,000 souls, there are not 300,000 Roman 
 Catholics.
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 223 
 
 no more than suggest that the number of clergy and 
 chapels points to a large proportion of merely nominal 
 Catholicism in the census figures. 
 
 o 
 
 A better test of the reliability of the census figures 
 is found in the marriage statistics. I have already 
 pointed out that the percentage of Catholic marriages 
 is one of the safest maximum indications of their 
 strength. It is a grave sin for a Catholic to be 
 married by any other than a Catholic priest : in 
 Catholic lands the marriage is invalid. I need not go 
 back into earlier years, but will take the marriages 
 (from the Statistisches Jahrbuck) for 1905, which are 
 in no wise exceptional. There were 485,906 marriages 
 throughout the empire. Of these 289,353 were 
 Protestant and 147,674 Catholic. If we divide the 
 42,000 mixed marriages equally between them, we 
 find that of the total marriages only 34*5 per cent, 
 were Catholic and 64*3 Protestant. As the Catholic 
 percentage of the population is supposed to be 3 5 '21 
 we have here a clear indication that the census figure 
 is worthless. Nor must we forget that the percentage 
 is only brought up to 34*5 by including 21,000 mixed 
 marriages, which are so disastrous to Catholicism. 
 Deducting these, it sinks to 30*4. I have already 
 pointed out that Catholic marriages in Catholic Baden 
 are now less than they were forty years ago, though 
 the total number of marriages has greatly increased. 
 In Alsace-Lorraine the number has dwindled very 
 appreciably. In Wurtemberg the proportion of 
 Catholic marriages sank from 27*0 per cent, in 1872 
 to 25*3 in 1896. 
 
 Finally, we may apply a test to German Catholicism 
 from the feature which is its most distinctive pride — 
 its political organisation. I have described in what 
 circumstances the Centre party made its appearance 
 in the Reichstag in 1871, and how the multiplicity of
 
 224 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 German parties has given it a factitious influence. 
 For our present purpose I have only to consider the 
 increase in the Catholic vote since 1871. In that 
 y ear — the Catholic organisation being yet immature — 
 the Centre deputies secured 718,248 votes. By 1874 
 the Kulturkampf was at its height, and the Catholic 
 vote rose to 1,438,792. Its fortune in the six elections 
 between 1874 and 1884 is given succinctly in the 
 Statistisches Jahrbuch for 1886: it fell steadily from 
 27*9 per cent, of the total vote to 22*6. In the towns 
 it fell from 137 to 6*6 per cent. I have taken the 
 fio-ures from later Jahrbucher, and worked out the 
 percentages for all of the subsequent elections. They 
 are as follows : — 
 
 Reichstag 
 
 
 
 Catholic 
 
 Election 
 
 Total Vote 
 
 Catholic Vote 
 
 Percentage of 
 
 in Year 
 
 
 
 Total Vote 
 
 1887 
 
 7,540,900 
 
 1,516,200 
 
 20*I 
 
 1890 
 
 7,228,500 
 
 1,342,100 
 
 18-5 
 
 1893 
 
 7,674,000 
 
 1,468,500 
 
 191 
 
 1898 
 
 7,75 2 ,7°° 
 
 1,45s. 100 
 
 187 
 
 1903 
 
 9,495,600 
 
 1,875,300 
 
 197 
 
 1907 
 
 11,262,800 
 
 2,179,800 
 
 193 
 
 It thus turns out that the feature which lends the 
 chief appearance of strength to German Catholicism 
 is really the most remarkable proof of its decay. 
 From the high-water mark of 1874 the Catholic vote 
 has, with slight fluctuations, sunk by 8'6 of its per- 
 centage of the whole. While the total vote has more 
 than doubled, the Catholic vote has not increased by 
 50 per cent. In view of the enormous importance to 
 the Catholic body of maintaining the prestige of the 
 Centre party this result must be regarded as significant 
 in the highest degree. The filling of a vote paper is 
 a very different matter in point of sincerity from filling
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 225 
 
 a census paper. As in Italy, the Socialist party is 
 detaching enormous numbers of workers from the 
 Church. The social Democratic vote rose from 
 349,000 to 3,010,800, while the Catholic vote increased 
 by less than 50 per cent. 1 
 
 With all its millions of followers, its remarkably 
 ample press, and its fine organisation, German 
 Catholicism has to admit heavy losses, like every 
 other branch of the Roman Church. The extent of 
 its losses can be roughly measured by the conclusions 
 we have reached. In the first place, the census 
 figures themselves reveal a loss of about 3,000,000 
 followers since 1821. 2 The enormous Catholic birth- 
 rate should, in the eighty years, have given the 
 Church an advantage of about 3,000,000 over the 
 Protestants. It shows no such advantage, but a 
 general loss ; and its recent slight advance in the 
 Protestant province of Prussia is admittedly due to 
 immigration. 
 
 In the next place, we have found that the census 
 figures give a greatly exaggerated idea of Catholicism, 
 so that its real loss must be very much larger. At the 
 one point where we could apply a reasonable test to the 
 census figure — Berlin — we found it to be exaggerated 
 to the extent of nearly 200 percent. The vast bulk 
 
 1 It is most misleading to judge by the number of deputies. A 
 Socialist deputy in the Reichstag to-day represents 70,000 votes: 
 a Catholic deputy only 21,000. The Abbe Kannengieser explains 
 that the German Catholics are divided and violently embroiled on 
 social questions, and the Socialists are pushing their cause with 
 great energy in Catholic provinces (" Ketteler et l'organisation 
 sociale "). 
 
 2 Rudolf Urba, a Catholic Austrian, says (in his "Oesterreich's 
 Bedranger") that Father Krose admits a loss of 2,000,000; and it 
 will hardly be thought that these Catholic writers are unjust to their 
 own Church. I do not remember seeing the statement in Krose, 
 and give it on Urba's authority. My own figure of 3,000,000 is the 
 result of a minute analysis.
 
 226 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 of the baptised Catholics of Berlin are absolutely lost. 
 We saw reason for thinking that there is a similar 
 state of things in many of the large Protestant cities ; 
 and indeed the proportion of mixed marriages, in face 
 of their disastrous effect on the Catholic body, shows 
 an almost general failure of Catholic authority. 
 
 Finally, the electoral results put this beyond 
 question. The Catholic vote is less than a fifth of 
 the whole (while the Catholic population claims to be 
 more than a third of the whole). On a wide franchise, 
 and in spite of intense political activity, it has fallen 
 from 27 to 19 per cent, in thirty years. Moreover, 
 ministerialists are lately showing a tendency to dis- 
 pense with the support of the Centre party, the 
 Catholic workers are rent into factions by the social 
 issues of the hour, and the earlier solid opposition to 
 Socialism (and utility to the government) is dis- 
 appearing. A corresponding split in the Catholic 
 ranks is found on the question of "modernism." The 
 Vatican has lately (1907) been alarmed at the wide 
 support given to theologians whom it condemned. 
 The loss of the German Church must be admitted 
 to be at least 5,000,000, and the causes of the leak- 
 age are more active than ever in the first decade of 
 the twentieth century. Mixed marriages grow more 
 numerous, churchgoing decays, political loyalty 
 dwindles, and fresh issues, social and dogmatic, further 
 distract and enfeeble the Catholic body.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE GERMANIC WORLD— THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 
 
 WE turn now to the largest branch of the 
 Roman Church that survives in modern 
 times. According to the official returns 
 the Catholics of the Austro- Hungarian Empire num- 
 ber well over 30,000,000 or nearly one-sixth of the 
 entire following of the Vatican. It may be thought 
 that I have given undue prominence to the German 
 Church in assigning to it the first place in the Ger- 
 manic world and suggesting that it may assume a 
 commanding position in the history of Catholicism. 
 In Austria alone the Catholics outnumber those of 
 Germany, and, as I am dealing with political unities, 
 I must add to these the millions of Hungary. But 
 the justice of the procedure will become apparent 
 in the course of the present chapter. How long 
 Austria and Hungary may retain the few imperial 
 links that hold them together to-day we do not 
 know, and even in our time the Austro- Hungarian 
 Church is perilously conflicting in its elements. 
 Moreover, we shall discover that decay is proceeding 
 more rapidly in the case of Austrian than in the case 
 of German Catholicism. In cultural conditions and 
 in the probable effect of any interference with them, 
 Austrian Catholicism must rather be associated with 
 the Latin Churches. 
 
 It is not unnatural that we should find the largest 
 
 branch of the Catholic Church in the shrunken 
 
 territory of the Holy Roman Empire. Into that 
 
 empire Hungary entered on the eve of the Reforma- 
 
 227
 
 228 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 tion, and it was bound to feel very largely the effect 
 of the counter-reformation, and the strong subse- 
 quent alliance with the Papacy. But in deference 
 to Hungarian feeling, and because, indeed, the for- 
 tunes of the Church have varied materially in the 
 two nations, we will devote a separate consideration 
 to each. 
 
 AUSTRIA 
 
 A very brief historical statement will suffice to 
 prepare the reader for an examination of the Austrian 
 Catholic Church. The imperial crown that the Papacy 
 bestowed upon the great Germanic ruler of the ninth 
 century created a link that was to prove of material 
 service to the Vatican at the time of the Reformation. 
 It was from Vienna that the Jesuits proceeded in their 
 brilliant, if unscrupulous, campaign for the recovery 
 of the Germanic peoples and their dependencies. 
 Protestantism did indeed make great inroads even 
 into the southern portion of the Holy Roman Empire, 
 especially in Bohemia and Hungary, with their alien 
 national temperaments. But the bayonets of the 
 Austrian troops came to the aid of Jesuit and Do- 
 minican eloquence, and they were preserved for the 
 Vatican. As the imperial armies pushed from victory 
 to victory in the early stages of the Thirty Years' 
 War, they were followed by clerical and civic 
 officials who saw to the extirpation of the Lutheran 
 heresy. 
 
 Austria was so effectively restored to orthodoxy 
 that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Pro- 
 testantism was almost unknown in it. Bohemia made 
 the more stubborn resistance that one would expect 
 from its alien nationality. Enjoying a high culture
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 229 
 
 — for the age — at the time of the Reformation, it 
 listened intelligently to the new preachers, and joined 
 willingly in the protest against Roman corruption. 
 By what ghastly devices it was induced to return to 
 the fold the reader will easily surmise from our earlier 
 chapters, and from the fact that the population of 
 Bohemia fell from 2,000,000 to 700,000 during the 
 religious wars, and its very promising civilisation was 
 blasted for two centuries. It was not until the end of 
 the nineteenth century, when the emperor passed an 
 Edict of Toleration, that Protestantism raised its head 
 again in Bohemia. In the meantime it had recovered 
 somewhat in Silesia, where the Swedish conqueror, 
 Charles XII., had, in 1707, compelled the Austrians 
 to restore 120 of the 1000 Protestant churches they 
 had seized. 
 
 Hence, when Joseph II. passed his Edict of Tolera- 
 tion in 1 78 1, the Church of Rome had little ground for 
 anxiety. Some alarm was, indeed, caused in Bohemia, 
 where 70,000 presumed Catholics threw off the cloak, 
 and declared themselves Protestant, the moment they 
 were free to do so. But the total number of dissidents 
 was small. What concerned Rome more was the 
 emperor's cavalier treatment of the Vatican and 
 resolute interference with ecclesiastical matters. He 
 suppressed 700 monasteries, and reduced the number 
 of monks from 63,000 to 27,000. In his zeal to 
 emulate the comprehensive activity of Frederick the 
 Great — who scornfully referred to him as "the 
 sacristan " — he altered the character of ecclesiastical 
 ceremonies, dictated the quality of their vestments, 
 and, in fine, brought nearly the whole of Church life 
 under imperial control. " Josephism " has passed into 
 the vocabulary of Catholic Austrian writers, and to it 
 they are glad to ascribe their later losses. The truth 
 is that, for all his blunders, the reforms he made
 
 230 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 probably eased the pressure of the revolutionary 
 movements on the Church. 
 
 The modern phase of the Austrian Church begins 
 when the rulers of Europe sat down to retrace the 
 map after the fall of Napoleon. The Holy Roman 
 Empire had crumbled into hopeless ruin at the touch 
 of Napoleon, and, though Cardinal Consalvi made 
 great efforts to have it restored, the Austrian ruler 
 decided to cling to his new title of " Emperor of 
 Austria." The empire at that time included a large 
 part of northern Italy, the Tirol, Vorarlberg and 
 Salzberg, Dalmatia and Galicia. A large number of 
 Italian and Polish Catholics were thus united with 
 those of Austria, and the Church began to assume 
 very large dimensions. A Polish rising in 1846 gave 
 pretext for the incorporation of the last fragment of 
 the kingdom of Poland. We have already, in the 
 chapter on Italy, seen the character of the Austrian 
 rule after 181 5. The Viennese court and its chief 
 statesman, Metternich, were the centre of the whole 
 European reaction. Liberty was entirely stifled, and 
 progress erased from the Austrian dictionary. The 
 press and literature were subject to a drastic censor- 
 ship, and a special secret police watched for the 
 faintest indication of progressive or heretical temper. 
 Catholicism did indeed deteriorate ; for it was orthodoxy 
 rather than piety, submission rather than character, 
 that was sought. But from 1815 to 1848 the clergy 
 had supreme power in the empire. 
 
 Then came the great uprising of the Liberals and 
 the democracy. Hardly had the news of the Revolu- 
 tion at Paris reached Vienna when the flames of 
 rebellion roared throughout the whole Austrian 
 dominion. Metternich fled, the emperor capitulated 
 to his people, and a large measure of political and 
 religious freedom was granted. Within another year,
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 231 
 
 however, the Austrian troops had trampled under 
 foot the new ambitions of Italians, Slavs, Hungarians 
 and Czechs, and Catholicism was more triumphant 
 than ever. The Vatican had hitherto been jealously 
 excluded from interference with Austrian life, but 
 the fresh revolutionary outbreak led the court to enter 
 into alliance with it. The Concordat of 1855 embodied 
 the usual compact between the temporal and spiritual 
 powers. For the influence accorded to it for the first 
 time in the history of Austria, the Vatican was to 
 stifle education and thunder its censures upon every 
 democratic aspiration. The constitution of 1848 was 
 torn up, the Jesuits and monastic bodies were restored 
 to favour, and the clergy were entrusted with the 
 work of " education " ; yet from that time we may 
 date the decay of the Austrian Church. The revolu- 
 tionary movements of 1848 were not blind outbreaks 
 of igfnorant workers, but the calculated work of the 
 middle class. Under the terror that succeeded their 
 first failure they gathered secret strength, and awaited 
 the next opportunity for striking. As in all similar 
 circumstances, the clergy abused their restored power, 
 and anticlericalism spread with great rapidity in 
 Austria. I need touch very briefly the steps in the 
 downfall of the hierarchy. In 1859 and i860 the 
 Austrians were swept out of Italy, and in the hour 
 of defeat Francis Joseph was compelled to concede 
 many of the Liberal demands. Hungary obtained a 
 separate constitution, a Reichsrath was set up, with 
 popular representation, and the clerical control of 
 education was considerably weakened. In a few years 
 Austria received a fresh humiliation from Prussia, 
 and lost all that remained of her influence in Germany. 
 Again the Liberals pressed, and the power of the 
 clergy was further enfeebled. Hungary secured its 
 autonomy, civil marriage was set up, and education
 
 232 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 improved. The Liberals came to power, and from 
 that time onward Austria has presented the remarkable 
 spectacle of a country in which the Catholics number 
 91 per cent, of the population yet the political life is 
 wholly unfavourable to the clergy. " One of the most 
 striking features of modern Austrian political life," 
 the Colquhouns say, in their admirable work, "has 
 been the growing antagonism to the Roman Catholic 
 Church and the clerical party. It is almost impossible 
 to describe the various phases of this revolt and the 
 forms which it is taking in various parts of the 
 monarchy." l We shall see that native Catholic writers 
 are not less candid. The Concordat was abrogated 
 in 1875, and a reformed Reichsrath limited the power 
 of the clergy, taxed their funds and controlled the 
 number of convents and monasteries. The Vatican 
 and the clergy protested vehemently, but the law was 
 passed — in a country more than 90 per cent. Catholic, 
 and with a wide franchise — by 224 votes to 71 ! 
 
 But political life in Austria has of late years been 
 increasingly complicated with racial problems, and we 
 will turn to the clearer consideration of census figures 
 and the various ways we have learned of checking the 
 insincerity of census declarations. I may dismiss the 
 political test with the observation that, for the last 
 forty years, the clericals have never obtained power 
 except through splits in the Liberal party (Liberals, 
 Radicals and, lately, Socialists) and on a non-religious 
 issue like Antisemitism or Czechism. 
 
 We will take first the census statistics, and glean 
 
 lc 'The Whirlpool of Europe"(i907), p. 244. Mr and Mrs Colquhoun 
 give this verdict on the present strength of Catholicism in Austria : 
 "The growth of German Liberalism has affected the middle and 
 working classes in the towns, but the aristocracy and the agricultural 
 peasants are under priestly influence to a great extent" (p. 247). 
 It is the familiar story — the same situation as in Italy and Spain.
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 233 
 
 what information we may from them. At once we 
 find that, as in the case of Germany, they show a very 
 appreciable leakage. In 1857 the Catholics of Austria 
 numbered 16,634,190, or 92*6 of the total population : 
 in 1900 they were returned as 23,796,814, or 90*99 of 
 the population. In every single province but one in 
 which the Catholics number more than 1,000,000 
 their percentage has fallen — in Lower Austria from 
 98*5 to 92*49; in Steiermark from 99*5 109374; in 
 Bohemia from 96*3 to 96*2 ; in Galicia from 89*6 to 
 88*4. In Moravia alone and Dalmatia (where they 
 are less than 1,000,000) they show a slight increase of 
 percentage. The Protestants have raised their per- 
 centage almost in the same proportion, but their total 
 number is not large. On the face of the matter the 
 Catholics have lost 500,000 in the forty years ; and 
 we shall presently see that the real loss is far greater. 1 
 In the face of this result it is hardly needful to dwell 
 on intermediate statistics. Throughout the period we 
 find Catholic writers who are sensitive of their loss 
 of power. In 1880, Dr Jordan observes, in a minute 
 account of Catholicism at that time : 
 
 " Pseudo-Liberalism, the enemy of religion and the 
 nation, has during its brief domination brought about 
 so general a moral and material deterioration that 
 a restoration is absolutely necessary. . . . If in spite 
 of this [overwhelming majority of Catholics] even the 
 most just claims of the Church have in recent years 
 been repeatedly rejected, and it has been put, not 
 merely on a level with, but actually lower than, other 
 creeds, it is time that Catholics began to move." 2 
 
 1 I borrow the earlier figures from Dr Rudolf Urba's work, 
 " Oesterreich's Bedranger" (p. 369). Urba is a devoted Catholic, 
 yet he adds : "The results in the year 1910 will be even sadder." 
 
 2 "Schematismus der gesammten Katholische Kirche Osterreich- 
 Ungarns."
 
 234 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 His coreligionists have endeavoured to move 
 energetically enough since that date, but every decade 
 has revealed their failure. Twenty years later an- 
 other Catholic champion, Dr Urba, had to write : 
 "Accordine to statistics Austria is Catholic. That 
 does not mean, however, that the Catholic Church 
 has a great influence on public life and the people 
 generally." 
 
 The next point is to determine whether the Catholic 
 percentage ought not to have increased, as in Germany, 
 in virtue of a higher birth-rate amongst the Catholics. 
 Here we have not the exact material for determining 
 the matter that we had in the case of Germany, but 
 we have ample indications that the law of greater 
 Catholic increase holds good. From the official 
 Vorltiufige Ergebnisse of the census for 1900 I take 
 the ratio of increase of the population in the different 
 provinces for the preceding decade. It is i6 - o per 
 cent, in Lower Austria and 3*1 in Upper Austria; 
 yet in the former the Catholics have dropped 6 per 
 cent, in half-a-century, in the latter (where they are 
 less numerous) they have only fallen a fraction per 
 cent. The increase was 11*4 per cent, in Salzberg, 
 where the Catholic percentage has dropped, and the 
 Protestants are a mere handful; 13-5 in the Trieste 
 district — another case of greatly diminished Catholic 
 percentage, and a solidly Catholic district; 12*4 in 
 Silesia; 129 in Bukowina ; ii'8 in Tirol and Vorarl- 
 berg — all cases of lowered Catholic percentage. As 
 the general increase for Austria was only 9 per cent, 
 it is obvious that this abnormal increase in large and 
 solidly Catholic provinces should have raised the 
 Catholic percentage. Instead of rising, it has fallen 
 in them all. On the other hand, the immigration of 
 Protestant Germans has been fairly balanced by the 
 immigration of Catholic Italians; though probably the
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 235 
 
 heavy emigration from Austria in recent years has, 
 on the whole, told against the Catholics. 
 
 We may safely repeat that the census figures show 
 a loss of at least 500,000. But we are quite prepared 
 to look for the real truth behind the census statistics, 
 and we shall find them as fallacious in the case of 
 Austria as in the case of Italy or Spain. The 
 proportion of priests, it is interesting to note, is less 
 than 1 to 1 200 Catholics ; but we have in the case of 
 Austria one or two surer indications. 
 
 In the first place we may glance at the official 
 Statistisches Jahrbuch der S tacit Wien (1905). There 
 are supposed to be about 1,500,000 Roman Catholics 
 and about 50,000 Protestants at Vienna. The Pro- 
 testants have fifteen places of worship, a small enough 
 proportion, but, as we saw, Protestant churchgoing is 
 no test of numbers. On the other hand, we find that 
 the Roman Catholics of Vienna have only 116 places 
 of worship, and only 75 of these have a parochial 
 status. There are, in addition, 213 chapels attached 
 to schools, barracks, cemeteries, etc. ; but the fact 
 that interests us is that the more than 1,000,000 free 
 Catholic civilians of Vienna have only 116 chapels. 
 This means a proportion of at least 10,000 Catholics 
 to every chapel ! I need not insist that this is 
 absolutely impossible. Not 500,000 people (of the 
 free citizens) can possibly attend mass in Vienna 
 every Sunday ; and I am informed by Viennese 
 residents that this is an entirely just conclusion. 
 Vienna is fast becoming a second Paris in regard 
 to religious feeling and observance. Only the in- 
 fluence of the court holds it to a superficial profession 
 of Catholicism in its higher circles, and the middle 
 class and the workers are following the bourgeois and 
 the ouvriers of Paris. 
 
 Now let us turn to one of the largest provinces of
 
 236 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Austria, containing more than a fourth of its whole 
 population, Bohemia. The writer whom I have already 
 quoted, Rudolf Urba, is an ardent Bohemian Catholic, 
 and his work, " Oesterreich's Bedranger," has some 
 instructive and weighty pages on Bohemian Catholic- 
 ism. They number more than 6,000,000 in the census 
 results, and have a much higher degree of literacy 
 than the Catholics of the West. But they are rent in 
 two by the eternal racial quarrel, and Urba's defence 
 of the Czech Catholics against the German Catholics 
 
 O 
 
 reveals a remarkable state of things, and gives us one 
 more illustration of the worth of census declarations. 
 
 "The condition of the Church in Austria," he says 
 (p. 353), " is very distressing. There are, for instance, 
 parts of northern Bohemia where the priest is super- 
 fluous. Not a single man goes to church the whole 
 year round, whether the priest be a Czech or a 
 German." And he quotes " Austriacus " writing in the 
 Catholic Wahrheit : " The number of parishes has 
 gone down. A bishop who wished to raise a well- 
 provided mission into a parish could not secure a 
 candidate for six years. The number of parishes 
 remains small, and most of the priests have a poor 
 position. In the towns the priests are frequently 
 insulted and reviled, especially by students." The 
 details with which he supports these statements afford 
 one of those rare glimpses that we get into the con- 
 dition of the Church in "Catholic countries." In the 
 district of Toplitz and Dux there are 32,000 workers, 
 or a Bohemian Catholic population of 120,000 souls. 
 " In consequence of the complete neglect of those 
 colonies in spiritual matters there has been a frightful 
 demoralisation." I gather that these workers have 
 mainly gone over to the Social Democrats. Urba gives 
 a list of scores of places that have minorities of 
 Bohemian Catholics numbering from 1000 to 10,000.
 
 THE AUSTRO HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 237 
 
 They have no Bohemian priest, and none of them ever 
 go to church. "In all these large communities," he says, 
 " even the children attending the Bohemian schools do 
 not see a priest from one end of the year to the other, 
 and never receive the sacraments " (p. 360). And he 
 assures us that this statement applies to "hundreds 
 of thousands of Bohemian workers. " I ndeed the specific 
 cases he gives show a loss of more than 500,000. 
 
 Once more, therefore, where we can apply a serious 
 test to the census figures of Catholicism we find them 
 to be utterly worthless. In Austria, as in most other 
 countries, a census of churchgoers (the only Catholics 
 worthy of the name, in view of their solemn obligation) 
 would throw a lurid light on the condition of the 
 country. Unfortunately, this is precisely the aspect 
 of Catholicism that is most neglected by its innumer- 
 able critics, and I can only ask the reader to apply 
 the condition we find in Vienna and Bohemia, with a 
 fit sense of proportion, to the whole empire. The 
 situation rapidly approaches that we found in Catholic 
 Italy. The anti-papal bias of the dominant Liberal 
 party reflects the temper of the best-educated class : 
 it is mainly anti-Roman. As to the workers, it is 
 enough to point out that the Austrian Socialists have 
 the largest Parliamentary group in the world, and 
 secured nearly 1,000,000 votes at the 1907 election. 
 We may conclude with Mr and Mrs Colquhoun that 
 "the aristocracy and the peasants" are still Catholic; 
 it reminds us strangely of Bolton King and Okey's 
 verdict on Italy about the same period — that "the 
 women and the peasants " are faithful to the Vatican. 1 
 
 1 I need not point out with what reserve we must accept the 
 orthodoxy of the Austrian aristocracy. It is largely dynastic and 
 political. I remember a conversation I had on the matter with a 
 distinguished member of the Viennese aristocracy. Intellectually 
 he was an Agnostic : politically a Catholic.
 
 238 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 I cannot conclude without a glance at the nature 
 of the Roman Catholic body in Austria, so that 
 the reader may have some guidance in estimating its 
 coming fortunes. That it is not generally of a high 
 moral and intellectual quality is well known. Meyer 
 gives the percentage of illegitimate births in Austria 
 as 426 per 1000. The Vienna Year Book for 1905 
 gives 16,867 illegitimate to 38,849 legitimate births. 1 
 As to literacy, we find that much more than a third 
 of the population (in 1907) can neither read nor write : 
 30 per cent, over the age of six are utterly illiterate. 
 But this is not a full expression of the state of things 
 from our present point of view. Millions of the literate 
 Catholics of Austria are as remote from modern 
 thought as if they lived in the centre of Africa. The 
 Poles and Ruthenes of Galicia, the Italians, Friaulians 
 and Ladinians of Tirol and the coast, the Slovenes of 
 Carinthia and Carniola, and the Roumanians and 
 Serbo-Croats of Dalmatia and Bukowina make up 
 45 per cent, of the Catholicism of Austria, and their 
 cultural condition is well known. If modern education 
 and culture penetrate into the villages of these back- 
 ward peoples, as they are doing in any other countries, 
 we may reasonably expect the same result — a very 
 large withdrawal of allegiance to the Vatican. Nearly 
 3,000,000 of them belong to the retrograde Greek 
 Catholic Church, but as these are in union with Rome 
 I have included them in the figures I have given. 
 
 The dense ignorance of so many millions of the 
 population is enough to account for the slower decay 
 of these parts of the Austrian Church. 
 
 The intense racial and political quarrels that absorb 
 what mental energy they have are another hindrance 
 to progress. Austria is made up of 9,000,000 Germans, 
 
 1 Catholic Austria, Hungary and Portugal are the three worst 
 countries in Europe in this respect.
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 239 
 
 6,000,000 Czechs, 4, 2 50,000 Poles, 3,000,000 Ruthenes, 
 and 3,000,000 Slovenes, Serbo-Croats, Roumanians 
 and Italians, with 1,250,000 Jews. The Jews are the 
 most cultivated and the most wealthy. In the Austrian 
 universities 167 of the students are Jews ; though they 
 are only 4*6 per cent, of the population. There are 
 powerful journals on the staff of which hardly a single 
 Christian can be found. The bitter Antisemitic war 
 which the Catholics wage will, in the long run, bring 
 a heavy punishment. 
 
 In the German-Slav conflict the attitude of the 
 Church is more complicated. Czech Catholics com- 
 plain bitterly that their clerical authorities favour the 
 hated process of Germanisation, and Italian Catholics 
 in the south make the same complaint. The lower 
 clergy, however, being of the people, generally side 
 with the local nationality, and add the strength of a 
 political passion to their hold over the people. Some 
 years ago the Slovenes of Carinthia and Carniola 
 secured power, and restored their cumbrous language 
 and retrograde national character. The Catholic 
 clergy supported them, out of protest against the 
 growing Liberalism of the Germans. Generally 
 speaking, the Catholic clergy support the Pan-Slav 
 movement, and oppose the Pan-German, because 
 Germany stands for Protestantism, Liberalism and 
 Socialism. The political future, into which I cannot 
 venture, will determine their gain or loss by this pro- 
 cedure. It is significant enough, however, that, though 
 the last elections were fought on a basis of manhood 
 suffrage, the clericals lost heavily, while the Socialists 
 and Pan-Germans gained. Out of the 423 members 
 of the Reichsrath after the elections of 1901, only 
 twenty belonged to the Catholic Volkspartei and 
 two to the Czech clerical party. Some of the 
 Catholic leaders were badly beaten in what were
 
 240 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 regarded as their strongholds — as Baron Dipauli 
 was at Botzen. 
 
 The bitterly anti-Catholic German Radicals re- 
 turned twenty-one deputies, and the Socialists eighty- 
 seven (with a total vote of 936,673, or nearly a fifth 
 of the electorate). It may well be doubted if the 
 Church has not made one more of its fatal blunders 
 in falling back upon the more ignorant elements of 
 the population. 
 
 One recent outcome of the struggle — the " Los von 
 Rom " movement seems to have attracted an undue 
 amount of interest, and may be dismissed in a few 
 words. The secessions from Rome to Protestantism 
 in the last ten years are only a moderate increase in 
 a process that has been going on, as in Germany, for 
 many years. In 1897 a great gathering of German 
 students at Vienna University made an impassioned 
 protest against the tyranny of Rome, and a heated 
 agitation set in. Politicians of the Pan-German school 
 fell in with it, and it is even asserted that funds and 
 apostles were supplied from Germany. In many 
 districts, no doubt, the movement assumed a purely 
 religious character. Whole villages solemnly abjured 
 Catholicism, and embraced Protestantism. But the 
 magnitude of the movement seems to have been 
 greatly exaggerated. The Evangelical Consistory 
 Council of Austria officially states that its net gain 
 from Catholicism between 1899 and 1904 was 24,238. 
 Since the latter date the movement has hardly main- 
 tained its strength, and it has been checked by the 
 authorities for the too openly expressed demand for 
 union with Germany that some of its speakers enter- 
 tain. On the other hand, it is untrue that the move- 
 ment has ceased. I find an account of the solemn 
 abjuration of Catholicism by forty-seven university 
 students, in a Lutheran church at Vienna, in 1905 ;
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 241 
 
 and the Viennese Jahrbuck tells that there were in that 
 city alone 1690 secessions from Catholicism in the same 
 year. The "Old Catholics " (who reject the infallibility 
 of the Pope) received many thousands of seceders in 
 addition to those recorded by the Protestant clergy. 
 
 But the whole movement expresses only a small 
 fraction of Rome's real loss in Austria. The serious 
 loss of percentage in the last fifty years, in spite of 
 the slower growth of the Protestant communities and 
 the obvious gains from Greek and Oriental Catholics, 
 shows, even accepting the census figures, a loss that 
 runs to many hundred thousands. But this again 
 is only a fraction of the real loss. We saw that, in 
 the only two instances where more precise tests are 
 available — Vienna and Bohemia — the census figures 
 are seen to be ridiculous. The political situation fully 
 confirms this. Half the electorate return anti-Catholic 
 deputies; the bulk of the remainder are deaf to 
 clerical appeals, and vote only on political issues. 
 Fully 3,000,000 of the literate and adult population 
 have been lost by the Church of Rome in Austria 
 since 1848. 
 
 HUNGARY 
 
 The situation of the Church in Hungary is in many 
 respects similar to that it holds in Austria. Until 
 1867 the intolerant laws of Catholic Austria applied 
 equally to Hungary, but there was an even stronger 
 tradition of Liberalism in the Magyar kingdom, and 
 the granting of a separate constitution gave it ample 
 power. There are to-day 11,774,056 Roman and 
 Greek Catholics in Hungarian territory, out of a total 
 population of 19,250,000. The core of the Catholic 
 body consists of some 5,000,000 Magyars, chiefly of 
 Q
 
 242 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 the peasant class, and with them are associated, in 
 a conflicting and heterogeneous mass, 1,750,000 
 Germans and 5,000,000 Slovaks, Serbo-Croats, 
 Ruthenians, etc., generally of the most ignorant 
 character. And the body is torn by a German-Slav- 
 Magyar conflict that makes it difficult to reach men's 
 real religious convictions. 
 
 I have already mentioned that the Magyar nobles 
 offered the crown of Hungary to Austria on the very 
 eve of the Reformation, and, under Austrian influence, 
 the progress of Protestantism was kept within bounds 
 in the country. Its religious history up to 1848 was 
 bound up with that of Austria, and need not detain us. 
 In 1848, however, a successful revolution was effected 
 in Hungary, and from that date Catholicism decayed 
 amongst cultivated Hungarians. Of the great 
 political movement that is associated with the names 
 of Kossuth, Pulzky, Deak and Andrassy it is not 
 necessary to speak here. Their republic, weakened 
 from the first by its conflicting racial elements, was 
 soon shattered by the Austrian troops, and the rule of 
 Vienna was restored. But they left in the country a 
 tradition of anticlerical Liberalism that is shared by 
 most of the Hungarian middle class to-day. Many 
 laws have been passed in defiance of the clergy, 
 making civil marriage obligatory, enacting that in 
 mixed marriages boys shall be baptised in the religion 
 of the father and girls in that of the mother, and 
 removing the registers into the hands of civilians. 
 
 Down to our own time the Liberals have more than 
 sustained the conflict with the clericals — as we shall 
 see — but the issue has now been gravely complicated 
 by the Slav-Magyar controversy. The Magyars, as 
 the more civilised body, naturally claim precedence 
 over the less advanced Slavs and Roumanians, and 
 the Slavs fiercely resist what they regard as an
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGAR1AN EMPIRE 243 
 
 attempt to obliterate their national character. The 
 priests have taken the side of the more backward 
 nationalities, and this has, for the time, tended to 
 preserve the integrity of the Church in Hungary. 
 The prelates have, it is true, sided openly with 
 the dominant class. Urba complains bitterly that 
 Hungarian bishops have encouraged the " Magyar- 
 isation" of his fellow-Slavs of Hungary, and Yves 
 Guyot says that at the critical elections of 1899 "the 
 higher clergy voted with the Liberals." But the 
 lower clergy were ranged against their Magyar or 
 German prelates. Even bishops, like Archbishop 
 Stadler of Saraojewo in 1900, have been gravely 
 censured by the political authorities for inflammatory 
 political addresses to the Pan-Slavists. 
 
 This chaotic conflict in modern Austria- Hungary 
 has so important an influence on the fortunes of the 
 Church that I cannot ignore it, yet cannot hope, in a 
 small space, to give a clear idea of it. 1 I may say 
 briefly that the clergy at present gain by their par- 
 ticipation in the political struggle. The attitude of 
 the Magyar clergy conciliates the Protestants and 
 Liberals of Hungary proper, who would dread a 
 complete alliance of the Catholic clergy with the Pan- 
 Slav movement. But at the same time the patriotism 
 of the Slav priests secures the devotion of the 
 Slovaks and Serbo-Croats and Ruthenians. The 
 familiar situation in Ireland will give the reader some 
 idea of this. A clergy that vies with the popular 
 patriotic orators in denouncing the "tyranny" of a 
 
 1 The interested reader will find an impartial and valuable account 
 in A. R. and E. Colquhoun's "Whirlpool of Europe." I have 
 collated Urba's " Oesterreich's Bedranger " (a Catholic Czech work) ; 
 Bresnitz von Sydacoffs " Die Wahrheit fiber Ungarn " (anti-Slav and 
 anticlerical) ; Felbermann's " Hungary and its People " (of Magyar 
 bias), and Boulier's " Les Tcheques " (of Czech inspiration) and 
 others.
 
 244 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 ruling caste, of alien nationality, does more to 
 strengthen its position than a clergy that acts on the 
 principle of its kingdom being not of this world. 
 Even neutral writers like the Colquhouns are sensible 
 of this. They say, for instance, that the Slovaks (a 
 Slav people in Hungary, numbering about 2,000,000), 
 "a simple people, in a primitive state of develop- 
 ment," are "chiefly exploited by the clerical party 
 to form a counterpoise to the growing Liberalism 
 of Hungary." 1 The other Hungarian elements in 
 the Pan-Slav movement are not spoken of with any 
 greater respect by those who know them. Felbermann 
 describes the Ruthenians as "but slightly touched by 
 the waves of civilisation " and the Wallachians (a non- 
 Slav people that enter largely into the Catholic total) 
 as "very ignorant, cunning and superstitious." The 
 Serbo-Croats are at the same level of development. 
 
 These are the elements that make up more than 40 
 per cent, out of the Catholic population of Hungary. 
 Nearly 40 per cent, of the remainder are Magyar 
 peasants, whose cultural condition is not very much 
 higher. In a Magyar work of the year 1890, Dr 
 Bela's " Statisztikai Tanulmanyok a Magyar Pro- 
 testantizmusr61," I find a close analysis of the religions 
 of Hungary that makes this clear. It shows that the 
 Roman Catholics are 44*29 per cent. Magyar, 15*95 
 per cent. German, 1579 per cent. Slovak and 18*44 
 per cent. Serbo-Croat. The Greek Catholics are 
 mainly Wallachian (or Roumanian) and Ruthene. 
 As the lower races outgrow the Magyars and 
 Germans, the proportion is much worse to-day. On 
 the other hand, the Calvinists (who form two-thirds 
 of the Hungarian Protestants) are Magyar to the 
 
 1 "The Whirlpool of Europe," p. 285. Felbermann speaks of 
 the Slovaks as "stupid and cowardly," and "almost as ignorant as 
 their ancestors were when Arpad conquered Hungary."
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 245 
 
 extent of 94 per cent. We must not, therefore, look 
 for any great decrease in the number of the Hungarian 
 Catholics. Political prestige they have assuredly lost, 
 but so long as the Church retains its hold on the 
 prolific population of the least educated provinces, and 
 encourages the anti-Magyar sentiment that inflames 
 them, its percentage must remain high. Dr Bartha 
 Bela (in the work I have quoted) and Dr Juraschek 
 ("Die Staaten Europas") give the Roman Catholic 
 percentage as 47*8 in 1857 (a point I have verified) 
 and 50 • 1 in 1880. The increase is greater than 
 the Catholic birth-rate demands, but it is due en- 
 tirely to accessions from the retrograde Greek and 
 Oriental Catholic bodies. These prolific communities 
 fell considerably in percentage, while the slower- 
 breeding Protestants and Unitarians maintained their 
 level. 
 
 Since 1880 the Roman Catholic percentage has 
 advanced at a very much slower rate. In 1890 it 
 stood at 50*84 : in 1900 at 51*5. When we learn that 
 since 1857 the Oriental Catholics have gone down 
 about 5 per cent., we see at once the source of the 
 slight Catholic gain, and we can gather that it hides 
 a very serious loss. The decay of the Greek and 
 Oriental Catholics, who have the highest birth-rate in 
 the kingdom (the Roumanians, Servians, and Ruthen- 
 ians), means obviously that hundreds of thousands 
 of them have made the easy transition to the Roman 
 Church. People of these races do not emigrate much 
 and never become Protestants or Freethinkers. They 
 have made a considerable addition to the Roman 
 body. Now the Roman birth-rate is quite enough 
 to explain its slight increase in percentage without 
 this addition, and we are forced to conclude that 
 the accession of hundreds of thousands of ignorant 
 Wallachians, Servians and Ruthenians has merely
 
 246 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 concealed the loss of hundreds of thousands of Magyar 
 and German Catholics of a higher type. 
 
 A glance at the political world entirely confirms 
 this. The Liberals of Hungary observed, in the 
 early nineties, that the Catholic clergy were making 
 strenuous efforts to secure all the children that were 
 born of mixed marriages, as the law of the Church 
 directs. But the Liberals had passed a law twenty 
 years before to the effect that, in such families, the 
 boys must follow the religion of the father and the 
 girls that of the mother. A conflict was soon raging, 
 and the priests appealed forcibly to their followers to 
 oust the Liberals and have the law of the Church 
 respected. The fight was dragged on to our own 
 time, but the only issue of it has been the remarkable 
 success of the most explicitly anticlerical group, the 
 Kossuthists. In the elections of 1899 (after civil 
 marriage had been made obligatory) the Kossuthist 
 deputies rose from 47 to 74. In 1901 a split in the 
 Liberal camp occurred, but the Kossuthists rose still 
 further. In 1905 their group of delegates rose to 163 
 (and there were other anticlerical groups), while the 
 Catholic peoples party could secure only 23 seats! 
 Finally, in 1906, the Liberals and Kossuthists united, 
 and at a fresh election the Kossuthists won 250 seats 
 in 400. The main issue of their party is, of course, 
 separation from Austria ; but they are professedly 
 anti- Roman, and their extraordinary success suffi- 
 ciently reflects the religious temper of the educated 
 Magyars. 
 
 The Church has, indeed, only a majority of illiterates 
 who are still nearly 50 per cent, of the population of 
 Hungary. Amongst the Magyars the work of educa- 
 tion is proceeding rapidly and effectively, and it has 
 its usual effect upon Catholicism. But the Croats 
 and other Catholic groups are illiterate to the extent
 
 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 247 
 
 of nearly 70 per cent. In such an environment the 
 encouragement of the Pan-Slav movement by the 
 Catholic priests is enough to maintain the supremacy 
 of Rome. Whether it be true that the Vatican 
 deliberately encourages the movement in the hope 
 that, in the event of a disruption of Austria- Hungary, 
 the Slav peoples will come together in one empire 
 or republic, over which Rome will have a unique 
 influence, one cannot say. Certainly some of its 
 prelates entertain that dream. But even if Austria- 
 Hungary break up, Russia and Germany will never 
 allow the construction of such a kingdom. And when 
 the frenzy of racial passions has subsided, and the 
 light of modern culture breaks upon the calmer mind 
 of the Slavs, we shall see the customary rebellion 
 
 against Catholicism. 

 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GERMANIC WORLD— SWITZERLAND 
 
 THE small Catholic population of Switzerland 
 does not of itself require very lengthy con- 
 sideration, but the singular history and 
 political features of the country invest it with a 
 peculiar interest. It is the only country in Europe 
 where monarchic pressure has not influenced the 
 religious profession of the people from the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century, and to-day it is the theatre 
 of our most advanced democratic experiments. These 
 circumstances will seem to many to give especial 
 value to the fortunes of Roman Catholicism in 
 Switzerland ; and when they learn, as they constantly 
 do, that the Church has throughout maintained its 
 ground, and is to-day making considerable progress, 
 amongst the free and sturdy Swiss, they are inclined 
 to see in the fact a peculiar and unsuspected aptitude 
 of Catholicism to thrive in an entirely democratic 
 atmosphere. 
 
 I may so far anticipate my conclusion as to say 
 that this estimate of the Swiss Church is wrong in 
 many important respects. In the earlier part of the 
 nineteenth century — and the situation was worse in 
 earlier centuries — the tenor of Swiss life was rather 
 aristocratic than democratic. By the middle of the 
 century the power was diffused among a much larger 
 body of the citizens, and the change was disastrous 
 for Catholicism. In later decades, when even more 
 advanced political forms have been adopted, the 
 Church has suffered more severely than ever, and its 
 
 248
 
 SWITZERLAND 249 
 
 authority is now gradually shrinking to the less 
 educated communities of the Swiss Federation. It 
 has to admit enormous numerical losses and a political 
 defeat that can only bear one construction in so 
 democratic a nation. 
 
 The Swiss are predominantly Germanic, but the 
 fact of more than one-third of the population being 
 Roman Catholic does not point to any serious recovery 
 of ground since the Reformation. In that great 
 medieval disruption seven of the cantons remained 
 faithful to the Vatican. It is said (" Historian's 
 History of the World") that "the corruption of the 
 clergy at the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 seems to have been more general and barefaced than 
 in the other countries of Europe." One hesitates to 
 accept this estimate of the Swiss historian, because 
 one finds the historian of nearly every other nation 
 laying claim to the same distinction. However, that 
 may be, Zwingli found an audience no less responsive, 
 when he began to denounce the sale of indulgences 
 in 15 18, than Luther did among the northern 
 Germans. The great cantons of Zurich and Berne, 
 and many smaller ones, became wholly Protestant. 
 But the reformers somewhat marred the success of 
 their work by taking pronounced sides on political 
 questions, and seven of the cantons — Schwyz, Uri, 
 Unterwalden, Zug, Lucerne, Friburg and Solothurn 
 — were preserved for Catholicism. The Jesuits were 
 quickly summoned to Lucerne, the centre (then and 
 now) of Catholic influence, and the religious war 
 proceeded briskly. One word will suffice, however, 
 to show how the Catholics have fared since Zwinofli's 
 time. Reinforced by half of Appenzell and St Gall, 
 they counted seventeen votes out of twenty-nine in the 
 Swiss Diet, and they practically retained the ascend- 
 ancy until 1847 (though it was much weakened after
 
 250 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 17 1 2). Since 1848 their federal influence has sunk 
 lower and lower, and in the National Rat, elected on 
 a basis of manhood suffrage, they now secure only 
 some 20 representatives out of 160. 
 
 Until the end of the eighteenth century the balance 
 of numbers and power was preserved by drastic 
 coercion in both the Catholic and the Protestant 
 cantons. Then the flood of French feeling burst 
 over Switzerland, and the new era of restless change 
 began. I need only note that the Napoleonic treat- 
 ment of the country vitally enfeebled its Conservative 
 and aristocratic features, and, although the cantons 
 settled down again to a somewhat sluggish life until 
 1830, the germs of Radicalism were pushing vigorously 
 in its soil. From that date — the second inflow of 
 revolutionary feeling from France — the modern 
 struggle of Roman and anti- Roman began. Each 
 canton took its own measures in regard to religion 
 — of the new cantons for instance, Valais stringently 
 excluded Protestantism, and Vaud as severely re- 
 pressed Catholicism ; but the spread of literature was 
 enfeebling the old barriers, and the new Radicalism 
 was engendering a feeling of great hostility to Rome. 
 
 In 1834 seven of the cantons decided to appro- 
 priate all conventual premises, and convert them into 
 "useful" institutions. When Aargau gave effect to 
 the resolution in 1841, the Catholics began to arm 
 and organise against the rising menace to their faith. 
 The Jesuits were brought back to Lucerne, Friburg 
 and Valais, and the whole country was soon seething 
 with excitement over the question of their expulsion. 
 Time after time troops of Radical " free lances " made 
 armed descents upon the Ultramontane stronghold, 
 Lucerne, but they were repulsed, and the Catholics 
 drew closer together throughout the Federation. 
 The Radicals now secured a majority in the federal
 
 SWITZERLAND 251 
 
 council, and after stormy discussions decided that 
 the Jesuits must leave the country. Once more in 
 the history of Europe the followers of St Ignatius 
 became the centre of a passionate struggle. Rightly 
 enough — as I think — the Catholics concluded that the 
 new force in the country was fundamentally hostile 
 to their creed and interests, and the sombre prepara- 
 tions for civil war darkened the hills and valleys 
 of Switzerland. The seven Catholic cantons united 
 in a Sonderbund (Special Federation), and defied the 
 federal authority. They had more than the moral 
 support of Austria, as well as a fervent papal benedic- 
 tion, but their brave troops were quickly scattered by 
 the brilliant federal leader, and the Jesuits had to be 
 abandoned. 
 
 From that date, 1848, the Radicals — far more anti- 
 clerical than the earlier middle-class Liberals — have 
 maintained an overwhelming strength in Switzerland. 
 It has been their constant aim to change the decentra- 
 lised federalism of the country into a strong centralised 
 government. Knowing that their power was now 
 hopelessly restricted to certain cantons of a more 
 backward character (as I will show), the Catholics 
 stoutly resisted the Radical constitution of 1848. They 
 have had the support of Swiss Conservatives, who 
 resent the centralising tendency, and even of some 
 non-German Radicals, who see in it a process of 
 Germanisation ; but the country (while repeatedly 
 rejecting, by its Referendum, political and economic 
 proposals of the Radicals) has maintained the anticleri- 
 cals in overwhelming strength and contemptuously 
 overridden the Catholics. In the Stande Rat (a 
 federal council to which two deputies are sent from 
 each canton) the Catholics have, of course, been able 
 to keep a powerful minority, though its proportion is 
 less than their supposed percentage in the country.
 
 252 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 But in the National Rat, the great popular house to 
 which one deputy is returned, by general election, for 
 every 20,000 citizens, the Radicals have maintained 
 a majority far exceeding the joint bodies of Liberals, 
 Conservatives and Catholics. While in the Bundes 
 Rat, the supreme federal executive, composed of seven 
 members elected by the national assembly, only one 
 Catholic and one Protestant Conservative have found 
 a place since it was set up in 1848 ! 
 
 In face of this political impotence of the Catholics 
 under one of the most democratic constitutions of the 
 world the reader will turn with some interest to the 
 analysis of their census figures. According to the 
 latest enumeration (1900) they number no less than 
 1.397.664 in a total population of 3,315,443, or 416 
 per cent, of the whole. It seems hardly necessary to 
 prove that here the census figures have no more than 
 their usual worth, but we have to try to ascertain the 
 real situation that lies behind them. It is to be noted, 
 in the first place, that, as in Germany, even the census 
 figures betray a considerable leakage. The exact dis- 
 proportion of Catholic and non-Catholic birth-rate 
 is not discoverable, and I will only assume that the 
 Catholic peasants of the forest cantons, and of Lucerne, 
 Friburg, Valais and Ticino are obedient to their 
 Church's command to lay no restriction on the birth- 
 rate, while the Radical workers have not the same 
 scruple. Hence, in a country that is more than one- 
 half Protestant we should find much the same rise in 
 the Catholic percentage as we found reason to expect 
 in Germany. 
 
 As in the case of Germany, we look in vain for such 
 an increase. Again a fervent Catholic writer comes 
 to my support, and I will take the earlier figures from 
 his pages. In his " Die Katholische Kirche in der 
 Schweiz" (1902), Dr A. Biichi, who has no illusions
 
 SWITZERLAND 253 
 
 in regard to the fortunes of his Church, observes that 
 "from 1850 to 1888 the Catholic percentage remained 
 stationary, but it has increased by 1 per cent, in the 
 last twelve years." In 1850 (the same figures are 
 found in Juraschek) the Catholics formed 40*6 and 
 the Protestants 59*3 per cent, of the whole. I find 
 that in 1870 the Catholics still formed exactly 40*6 
 per cent, though the Protestants had fallen to 58*2. 
 In 1880 the Catholics were 40*8, and at the census 
 of 1888 were 40*57 per cent, of the whole. In the 
 forty years they had lost the whole advantage of their 
 higher birth-rate, and all the advantage that a large 
 Catholic immigration should have given them. The 
 latter advantage alone was considerable. Of the 
 230,000 foreigners resident in Switzerland in 1888 
 some 150,000 were (calculating in the way we did in 
 regard to American immigrants) Roman Catholics. 
 
 By the end of the century the number of resident 
 foreigners rose to 392,896 — more than a tenth of the 
 population of Switzerland — and here we have the 
 explanation of the small increase of the Catholic per- 
 centage. Biichi observes that his coreligionists have 
 grown most in the frontier cantons, and adds : " The 
 reason is obvious enough — because they receive most 
 immigrants from exclusively Catholic lands." Juras- 
 chek also assigns the increase to "the extraordinarily 
 large immigration from neighbouring Catholic lands." 
 The problem of the immigrant is a very serious one 
 in Switzerland, and it greatly affects our question, 
 since at least two-thirds of them are Roman Catholic. 
 Instead of being surprised that the Catholic percentage 
 rises o # 9 in half-a-century, we see at once that it be- 
 trays a serious loss. The birth-rate alone should have 
 raised it at least 2 per cent. Immigration (bringing 
 at least 280,000 Catholics to 120,000 Protestants) 
 should have raised it a further 5 per cent. There
 
 254 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 has evidently been a loss of at least 200,000 on the 
 census figures alone. And as the Old Catholics (now 
 numbering about 40,000) are wrongly included in the 
 Catholic total, they must be transferred to the state- 
 ment of its loss. Their whole existence is a protest 
 against Vaticanism. 
 
 A glance at the summary headings of the census 
 results will make the matter more secure. In the 
 oldest Catholic provinces the percentage has sunk as 
 follows in the last half century : — Lucerne, 98*8 to 916, 
 Uri, 99-9 to 96*4, Schwyz, 99*6 to 96 6, Obwalden and 
 Nidwalden, 99*9 to 98*3, Zug, 99^3 to 93'3, Solothurn, 
 88*4 to 68'8, Friburg, 87*9 to 853, Ticino, 100 to 947, 
 Valais, 994 to 97"8, Inner Appenzell, 99*6 to 939. 
 In other words, throughout Catholic Switzerland there 
 has been a continuous and remarkable leakage. This 
 fall is compensated by a rise in percentage in the 
 Protestant and mixed cantons — Glarus, Geneva, Bale, 
 Vaud and Berne. It is only this enormous immigra- 
 tion of French, Austrian and Italian Catholics, across 
 the respective frontiers, that has concealed the great 
 leakage. 
 
 So far I have proceeded on the census figures, but 
 the reader will hardly need reminding that they merit 
 little confidence. The political fortunes of Catholicism 
 show this clearly enough. Dr Biichi draws the at- 
 tention of his coreligionists to their real position, in 
 a brief and painful confession. He reminds them that, 
 while they are supposed to number nearly half the 
 population, they have only 34 representatives in 147 
 (23 per cent.) in the National Rat, 15 in 44 (34 per 
 cent.) in the Stande Rat, and 1 in 7 in the Bundes 
 Rat. Of 335 Swiss journals the Roman Catholics 
 have only 49 (or 15 per cent.), and of 54 political 
 dailies he complains that they control only 9. " It 
 is clear," he says, "that the Catholics are much be-
 
 SWITZERLAND 255 
 
 hind, and they should endeavour to improve their 
 position in Parliament and Press." He quite admits 
 that a proportion of the nominal Catholics are Liberals, 
 but does not seem to see, or care to confess, that the 
 proportion is very large, and fully explains their 
 abnormal situation. I will borrow from his pages 
 one incident that will suffice to show this. Ticino, the 
 Italian canton which was annexed at the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, is described as almost ex- 
 clusively Catholic. But throughout the seventies and 
 eighties the Radicals showed great power in the canton, 
 and waged incessant war on the Catholic Conservatives. 
 In 1890 the clericals tampered with the electoral 
 system, in order to retain their waning influence, and 
 there was a sanguinary conflict. Proportional repre- 
 sentation was then introduced, and it has had the 
 effect of sending them alternately to power. As the 
 Radicals are pronouncedly anticlerical, and the priests 
 sternly denounce their party, we see what this means 
 as to the religious feelings of the inhabitants of Ticino. 
 Yet in the census of 1900 the Canton was returned as 
 having 135,177 Roman Catholics out of a total popu- 
 lation of 138,000! 
 
 The reader who has any lingering regard for census 
 declarations will do well to consider this closely. 
 Ticino is, in fact, a bit of Lombardy, and its sturdy 
 workers have all the Radicalism of the Milanese. Its 
 chief town, Lugano, is a notorious centre of Italian 
 Socialism and Freethought. At the disputed local 
 election of 1890, when the Radicals returned 35 
 deputies to jj clericals, the total Radical vote was 
 only 600 less than the Catholic (12,166 to 12,783). 
 We must not indeed imagine that the peasantry and 
 the women are divided in anything like the same 
 proportion, but the clean division of the educated 
 adult males is significant.
 
 256 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Nor may we assume that the nominal Catholics are 
 everywhere so really divided into faithful and seceders 
 as they are in Ticino. In the French canton of 
 Valais, no doubt, we find Catholicism of the French 
 type, but in the German cantons there is more fidelity. 
 How far that is due to their greater illiteracy I will 
 forbear to inquire, but it is a fact that the Catholic 
 cantons lag far behind the Protestant in regard to 
 education. Let so neutral an authority as The States- 
 man's Year Book, 1908, attest the fact for us. "In the 
 north-eastern cantons," it says, " where the inhabitants 
 are mostly Protestant, the proportion of the school- 
 attending children to the whole population is 1 to 5 ; 
 in the half- Protestant and half-Catholic cantons it is 1 
 to 7 ; and in the entirely Roman Catholic cantons it 
 is 1 to 9." The law of compulsory education is not 
 enforced where the cantonal authorities are Catholic. 
 Over these large masses of ignorant peasants the 
 clergy retain considerable control. 
 
 Yet the slow growth of education is, as everywhere, 
 enfeebling the authority of the clergy. The hierarchy 
 and the Vatican have long imposed on their followers, 
 as a sacred duty, political hostility to Liberals, 
 Radicals and Socialists, but the result of recent 
 elections, in spite of the usual division of the progres- 
 sive forces, and an alliance of Conservative Protestants 
 with the Catholics, shows a remarkable impotence. 
 At the general election of 1899 the cantons returned 
 to the National Assembly 86 Radicals, 9 Socialists, 
 19 Liberals (Whigs) and only 33 Catholic and other 
 Conservatives. In 1902 a number of the expelled 
 French monks removed to Switzerland, and were 
 summarily ordered to quit by the National Assembly. 
 In spite of the intense Catholic indignation, the 
 elections of that year returned 97 Radicals, 25 Liberals, 
 9 Socialists and only 35 Clericals and Conservatives.
 
 SWITZERLAND 257 
 
 A further opportunity was then afforded to the 
 Catholics on account of the increasing split among the 
 progressives. The Radicals and Socialists quarrelled, 
 mainly on the military question. In the elections of 
 1905 the Socialists lost seven seats (though their two 
 deputies represented 70,000 votes), but the Catholics 
 failed to profit by the quarrel. 
 
 The electors to the Swiss National Rat are nearly 
 one-fourth (23 -5 per cent.) of the entire population. 
 Setting aside the women, children and foreigners, 
 they represent the substantial body of the nation. It 
 must not therefore be imagined that there are large 
 numbers of unenfranchised Catholic men who would 
 alter the Catholic representation if they had the vote. 
 In no country but France are there so few without a 
 vote. The plain fact is that only a fifth of the men 
 of Switzerland vote Catholic, though the Catholic 
 Church makes pressing appeals for better representa- 
 tion in the Rat. It is surely plain that, as in Ticino — 
 as in Italy and Spain — a very large proportion of the 
 nominal Catholics are really defaulters. The number 
 I cannot pretend to determine, but we may at least 
 double the loss that the census figures themselves 
 betrayed, and put the Church's loss in Switzerland 
 in the last half century at 400,000. If the Church pre- 
 fers to regard half of these as merely " bad Catholics," 
 the spectacle of her entire political impotence will 
 remain a sufficient indication of profound decay to 
 the social observer.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GERMANIC WORLD— BELGIUM 
 
 IN the course 01 this essay the reader will have 
 observed that the fortunes of Catholicism in 
 recent times have been largely determined by 
 a great law of modern political development. The 
 nineteenth century opened with the rise of a political 
 party, the Liberals, that was destined to begin the 
 undoing of Rome. Through its rise the countries 
 that had escaped the Reformation of the sixteenth 
 century were now washed by a fresh wave of human- 
 ism, and the protest against Rome that followed was, 
 in the spirit of the time, bound to have a political 
 character. Power passed largely from autocratic 
 princes to parliaments ; and the new parliaments 
 represented the educated middle class. In Catholic 
 countries, therefore, the earlier part of the century 
 was conspicuously occupied with a struggle of 
 bourgeois and priests. The uneducated workers looked 
 on with little discernment. The Liberal principles 
 of education and enfranchisement at length brought 
 into political existence a fresh body, far larger than 
 the Liberals and, as was quickly discovered, antag- 
 onistic to it on economic issues. The century ends, 
 therefore, with a struggle of Radicals or Socialists 
 with the middle-class Liberals. And in the division 
 of their forces clericals and Conservatives here and 
 there steal back to power, or even, at times, secure 
 the support of their old enemies for the purpose of 
 controlling the emancipated Caliban. 
 
 In the case of Belgium we have a very clear illus- 
 
 258
 
 BELGIUM 259 
 
 tration of the effect of this political evolution upon the 
 fortunes of the Roman Catholic Church. The clerical 
 writer not infrequently adduces Belgium as a country 
 in which the anticlerical forces have been fairly 
 beaten, and the Catholics have again secured an 
 unshakable domination. The facile reader is led to 
 imagine that there Catholicism has recovered the 
 ground it lost in the troubled days of revolution, and 
 now smiles at every effort to dislodge it. Indeed, as 
 I have everywhere insisted on the significance of the 
 political powerlessness of the clergy, I must surely 
 allow that their remarkable power in modern Belgium 
 is a proportionate testimony in their favour. But I 
 am very far from being prepared to make any such 
 admission. The Belgian Church has suffered the 
 most grievous losses, and its decay has proceeded no 
 less rapidly during the last thirty-seven years, in which 
 it has controlled the majority in the Chambre. The 
 fact will be placed beyond dispute by the very positive 
 indications I will give ; and the paradox is simply 
 explained. 
 
 That Belgium is Catholic at all is a mere matter of 
 political history. At the time of the Reformation the 
 Netherlands were in the hands of Philip of Spain. 
 Belgians and Dutch listened eagerly enough to the 
 appeals of the Reformers, but the merciless procedure 
 of the Spanish Inquisition and the ferocious troops 
 of Alva brought stronger arguments into the theatre. 
 The geographical law of the Reformation held good. 
 The northern provinces successfully rebelled, and 
 Protestant Holland will be dealt with in the next 
 chapter. The southern provinces were retained for 
 Spain, and Protestantism was utterly eradicated. 
 They then reverted to Austria, and, as part of the 
 Holy Roman Empire, were equally guarded from 
 heresy. At the end of the eighteenth century they
 
 260 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 were overrun by the French troops, and the germs 
 of Liberalism were, as usual, planted in the educated 
 class. Through the subsequent struggle I need not 
 follow them. At the resettlement of 1815 Holland 
 and Belgium were united again by the Council of 
 Vienna. 
 
 From 1 81 5 to 1830 the Church prospered, and 
 suffered little from Liberalism. Catholics and Liberals 
 were associated in a common hatred of the Dutch, 
 and their own struggle was deferred until the Dutch 
 rule should be shaken off. The priests naturally 
 resented Protestant control, though it went little 
 beyond building schools and enacting liberty of 
 religion ; and the Catholic body was itself leavened, 
 to some extent, by Liberal Catholic followers of De 
 Lamennais and the French democrats. The Liberals 
 were patriotic enough to chafe under a foreign rule, 
 and there were restrictions on the press and freedom 
 of speech that hindered their advance. In 1830 they 
 joined forces, and drove out the Dutch. The Re- 
 volution has been called a "sacristy revolution," and 
 certainly it was in substance a clerical revolt against 
 Dutch efforts to introduce education (both for priests 
 and laity) and to assure liberty of cults. But its 
 leaders were Deistic or Agnostic Liberals, and no 
 sooner was the kingdom of Belgium set up, under 
 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and a constitution (on 
 English Whig lines) framed, than the struggle of 
 clerical and anticlerical began. 
 
 The ecclesiastical question had been "settled" by 
 releasing the Church from State control, while grant- 
 ing the clergy full State support, the care of the 
 cemeteries, and a number of other privileges. Besides 
 the two State universities, at Ghent and Liege, each 
 party now founded one for itself — the Catholics at 
 Louvain, the Liberals at Brussels. Under the new
 
 BELGIUM 261 
 
 parliamentary system, with a moderate middle-class 
 franchise, the Liberals felt their power, and soon 
 began to chafe. For ten years the shrewd king held 
 the parties together, and there was concern enough 
 about their political and financial stability to overrule 
 other matters. Ministries were mixed and impartial. 
 In the early forties, however, the Catholics became 
 anxious about the rapid spread of Liberalism, and 
 attempted to force a law that there should be no 
 elementary education without religious instruction. 
 The two parties now drew up their political forces in 
 open hostility, and the great electoral battle opened, 
 The king disliked the Liberals, as most kings did. 
 and set up a Catholic ministry in 1845. They at- 
 tempted to meddle now with secondary education, and 
 provoked another fierce Liberal agitation. In 1847 
 the Liberals came to power, and they held office for 
 twenty-seven out of the succeeding thirty-seven years. 
 The true religious condition of Belgium is so very 
 clearly revealed by its political life that I must continue 
 to tell the story in greater detail than I have done in 
 the case of other countries. On census returns 
 Belgium is wholly Catholic. There are only some 
 20,000 Protestants and 4000 Jews within its frontiers. 
 Yves Guyot tells that Protestantism has made remark- 
 able progress of recent years in certain districts. 
 There are now 900 Protestants at Charleroi, where 
 there were formerly not half-a-dozen. There are 500 
 at Junet, he says, and 8000 in the Borinage. How- 
 ever the best authorities put their number at less 
 than 20,000, and that is a negligible quantity in a 
 population of 7,160,547. Our task is rather to set 
 aside the census declarations and employ more sincere 
 tests of conviction. The reader may remember, from 
 our first chapter, how at the census of 1871 only 
 85,000 of the inhabitants of France described them-
 
 262 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 selves as of no religion ; and how five years later 
 the number grew to 7,000,000. There had, of course, 
 been no such extensive change of conviction within 
 five years. We shall see that the Belgian census 
 results are on a level with the French results of 
 1871. 
 
 From 1846 to 1878 the Liberals had almost un- 
 broken power. I must warn the reader at once that 
 that does not imply a very large number of seceders, 
 but merely a preponderance of Liberals among the 
 educated minority. Even when the limit of taxation 
 for the right to vote was lowered in 1848, the electors 
 were only 79,000 in 4,000,000. The vast majority 
 of the people were utterly illiterate and densely 
 ignorant. As late as 1866 the people of East and 
 West Flanders, amongst whose sluggish peasantry 
 the clergy still find their chief support, were illiterate 
 (over the age of seven) to the extent of 50 per cent. 
 Until the end of the century, therefore, the electoral 
 struggle represents a contest of less than a hundredth 
 part of the nation, and may be dismissed briefly. 1 
 
 In their first term of office, from 1847 to 1855, the 
 Liberals pressed the work of education, thereby 
 incurring not only the bitter hostility of the clergy, 
 but a good deal of unpopularity on account of the 
 increase in taxation. They were beaten in 1855, 
 and the clericals, who had used no gentle means to 
 influence votes, sought their revenge. In particular, 
 they attempted to recover control of the charities that 
 had been secularised in 1830, and, after a fiery conflict, 
 a Bill was passed to that effect. Such an issue as 
 this, and the standing issue of the school, show plainly 
 
 1 The full details may be read conveniently in Seignobos's 
 "Histoire politique de l'Europe contemporaine" ; Wilmotte's "La 
 Belgique morale et politique" (1902), and Count Goblet d'Alviella's 
 "La Representation Proportionelle " (1900).
 
 BELGIUM 263 
 
 enough that it was a battle of Catholics and non- 
 Catholics. In fact a third issue was now raised, of 
 a still more significant character. The religious 
 orders were accumulating enormous wealth, and 
 the clergy wanted to have a law passed to secure it 
 against the obvious designs of the Liberals. But the 
 communal elections now ran so strongly in favour of 
 the Liberals that the king was obliged to recognise 
 the feeling of the nation, and recall them to power 
 in 1857. The general election gave them seventy 
 deputies to the clericals' twenty-five. 
 
 The electorate was so entirely with them that they 
 retained office, in defiance of the Church, for thirteen 
 years. But the next phase of the political develop- 
 ment now set in. Young Liberals turned into 
 Radicals, and young Radicals began to listen to 
 Karl Marx. The older Liberals refused to extend the 
 suffrage, and the clergy gladly watched the dissensions 
 in the enemy's camp. Seignobos protests, indeed, 
 that the Belgian Liberals were never more than "a 
 coalition of enemies to Catholicism," and were bound 
 to break up when it came to constructive legislation. 
 At all events there was much cross-voting and abstain- 
 ing at the 1870 election. The Catholics secured 
 seventy-two seats and the Liberals only thirty-five. 
 But the triumph was not great, from our present 
 point of view. The Liberals actually secured 42,058 
 votes, while 35,501 votes gave a majority to the 
 clericals (D'Alviella) ; and many of the latter votes 
 were given by Radicals and discontented Flemish 
 Liberals. 
 
 The Kulturkampf in Germany and the occupation 
 of Rome put fresh political life into the Catholics, but 
 the educated feeling of the country was against them. 
 Their opponents combined again, and greatly reduced 
 their majority in 1874. Their ministers were Catholics
 
 2C4 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 of a Liberal shade, and were discreet, but the clergy 
 flung themselves into politics with all that disdain 
 of lay scruples that their higher ideals seemed to 
 them to justify. "Corruption and intimidation had 
 reached such a pitch at this time in the electorate," 
 says Wilmotte, "that even the clerical ministry felt 
 the need of a vigorous remedy." He quotes a 
 Catholic Senator, Limpens, saying afterwards : 
 
 "Who does not remember the scandalous scenes 
 that were witnessed on election days — voters marched 
 up to the poll in brigades, and compelled to show 
 their votes to a controller before putting them in the 
 urn, and then the revenge taken on those who voted 
 according to their consciences." 
 
 The Liberals and Radicals secured a law ensuring 
 the secrecy of the ballot, and in 1878 they won 
 seventy seats, to their opponents' sixty. Their 
 tenure of office — the last they have had — lasted six 
 years, and brought out afresh the growth of anti- 
 Roman feeling. They passed a law of obligatory and 
 secular education. The clergy responded with stern 
 excommunication of any parents whose children at- 
 tended their schools and teachers who taught in them, 
 and set up sectarian schools in face of them. The 
 issue showed plainly that the anticlericals were not now 
 a mere handful of bourgeois, who were wealthy enough 
 to have a vote. After five years' scattering of ecclesi- 
 astical lightning and building of schools there were 
 still in (1884) 346,000 children in the national schools 
 and 500,000 in the Catholic schools (chiefly among 
 the Flemish peasants). The government appealed 
 to the Vatican to check the violence of the clergy, 
 and withdrew their representative when the Pope 
 refused to act, and suppressed the salaries of 400 
 priests. It is quite futile to represent the struggle 
 as any other than one of Catholic and non-Catholic.
 
 BELGIUM 2G5 
 
 But the old division of the progressives on the 
 franchise question returned, the increased taxation 
 was resented, and at the elections of 1884 the 
 Catholics secured sixty-six seats, and the Liberals 
 only three. Did that mean that Belgium was still 
 Catholic at heart, and only needed to be roused? 
 We glance at the votes, and find — so absurd was 
 the Belgian system — that the three Liberal seats 
 were won with 22,117 votes, while the Catholics 
 won sixty-six seats with 27,930 votes. 
 
 On that feeble turnover, the Catholics entered upon 
 the period of office that they still maintain. They 
 at once subsidised the sectarian schools, ruined the 
 national schools, and made religious instruction part 
 of the curriculum in all. The clergy turned with zeal 
 to social activity among the workers, and every effort 
 was made to keep the hated Liberals out of power. 
 In spite of all this the Liberals quickly won back fifty 
 seats. In the partial elections that followed in 1886, 
 1888 and 1890, only a few hundred voters separated 
 the total number of their supporters. In 1892 the 
 Liberals won thirty-four seats with 52,198 votes; 
 the Catholics secured sixty-eight seats with 58,000 
 votes. The ridiculous and unjust nature of the 
 electoral system was now too patent to be tolerated, 
 and in 1893 tne ^ aw °f manhood suffrage was passed. 
 
 The result of this change is of peculiar interest to 
 our inquiry. It raised the number of electors from 
 130,000 to 1,350,000; and in a country where the 
 political division coincides with that of religion the 
 electoral division should prove informing for our 
 purpose. Hitherto we have seen little more than the 
 division of middle-class opinion. From 1894 onward 
 we get the decision, on issues that are so persistently 
 clerical, of the vast majority of the adult males of 
 Belgium.
 
 266 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Unhappily, any expectation of that kind must be 
 largely disappointed. The second phase of political 
 development had by this time proceeded far, and 
 the lines of cleavage of the contending parties were 
 materially altered. We have seen in so many cases 
 (Spain, etc.) how the rise of a more advanced party 
 has modified the attitude of the Liberals that we 
 are quite prepared to understand it. In Belgium 
 the rapid spread of Socialism has alarmed the middle 
 class to such an extent that they now often vote for 
 the clerical candidate, as the less dangerous of two 
 enemies. M. Wilmotte, a Liberal writer, and a keen 
 opponent of Socialism, insists sadly on this. The 
 Socialists, he declares, now secure one-fifth of the 
 whole of the votes at a general election. If the 
 system of plural voting be abolished, he fears they 
 "may well turn out to the larger half." In the face 
 of this menace to their economic interests the haute 
 boiirgeoisie has dropped its Liberalism, and now "elle 
 vote pour Dieu." These are, it must be remembered, 
 the words of one of the haute bourgeoisie, and they 
 are entirely just. The danger was so clearly per- 
 ceived when manhood suffrage was granted — granted, 
 obviously, to disarm revolution — that its effect was 
 moderated by a complex system of plural voting. 
 The father of a family, the possessor of a certain 
 amount of wealth, or the man who had had secondary 
 education, was granted an additional vote. The 
 1,350,000 electors found themselves possessed of 
 2,066,000 votes. The Conservative vote, in other 
 words, was artificially multiplied ; and in view of 
 the fact that the Belgian nobility and landowners are 
 Catholic, and the haute bourgeoisie now turning to 
 support the Church, the result has to be examined 
 with great discretion. The Catholic vote no longer 
 stands for so many individual Catholics.
 
 BELGIUM 267 
 
 With these reserves in mind we turn with interest 
 to the electoral battles since 1893. In the very next 
 year the Liberals were apparently annihilated. The 
 Catholics secured 104 seats, the Liberals 20 and the 
 Socialists 28. When one regards only the number 
 of deputies — the only figures, unfortunately, that are 
 commonly quoted — it looks as if the broadening of 
 the franchise proved that Belgium was really Catholic. 
 In truth, it showed precisely the reverse. The new 
 electoral system retained all the defects of the old in 
 the distribution of seats, and we must consider only 
 the number of votes. In spite of the plural vote, in 
 spite of the fact that at second ballots the Liberal 
 usually voted for the clerical against the Socialist, 
 the Catholics obtained only 900,000 votes, while the 
 Liberals had 350,000 and the Socialists 450,000. At 
 the partial elections of 1896 and 1898 the Catholics 
 gained further seats, but actually lost votes. They 
 carried the whole of Brussels with 89,000 votes, while 
 40,000 Liberal and 73,000 Radical-Socialist votes 
 went without a seat. To complete the absurdity, the 
 provincial elections were held just after the general 
 election, and the Liberals carried every seat at Brus- 
 sels. In 1898 the same farcical results were seen. 
 In Hainault the Socialists won 20 seats with 220,000 
 votes ; the Catholics 4 seats with 1 24,000 votes ; the 
 Liberals 2 seats with 109,000 votes. In a word, a 
 Liberal deputy in Parliament represented 76,000 
 votes, a Socialist deputy 6,000 and a clerical deputy 
 1 1,000. 
 
 A fiery agitation still went on over the injustice of 
 this electoral system, and the king intervened once 
 more. In spite of the violent opposition of Catholics 
 (who profited so much by the actual system) and 
 Socialists (who demanded adult suffrage and single 
 vote), a law of proportional representation was passed
 
 268 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 in 1899. The Catholic ministry contrived to enfeeble 
 the reform somewhat in their fixing of the quorum and 
 grouping of districts, but it did much toward clearing 
 the expression of popular feeling at elections. The 
 plural vote remained — 350,000 having two votes and 
 250,000 having three votes — with many other limita- 
 tions, but the result was interesting. The Catholic 
 group sank to 86 ; the Liberals and Radicals secured 
 33 seats and the Socialists 32. x The number of votes 
 that each group of deputies represented was, accord- 
 ing to M. Wilmotte : Catholics 995,000, Liberals and 
 Radicals 497,000, and Socialists 467,000 — 964,000 
 anticlerical and 995,000 clerical. In other words, 
 the men of Belgium were found to be seceders from 
 Catholicism to the extent of at least one-half. We 
 must remember that the double and triple vote would 
 give only the slightest increase to the Socialist vote, 
 and would greatly swell the Catholic total. It is quite 
 safe to say that half the men of Belgium, at least, are 
 anticlerical. 
 
 And this proportion has been more than maintained 
 in subsequent elections. I have worked up the re- 
 sults given in the Belgian journals after the elections 
 of 1902, 1904 and 1906, and find that the Catholics have 
 steadily lost ground. In regard to the number of their 
 deputies they seemed to secure a great triumph in 1902, 
 when they won the bulk of the new-created constitu- 
 encies, and raised their party in the Chambre to ninety- 
 six. But — apart from the fact that the number of 
 deputies still did not tally fairly with the number of 
 voters — the "triumph" was short-lived. The Catholics 
 lost three seats in 1904 (and four in the Senate) and four 
 seats in 1906, so that their majority over the rising op- 
 position has been reduced to twelve. But it is the votes 
 
 1 It need hardly be said that I am speaking throughout of the 
 Chambre, not the Senate-
 
 BELGIUM 269 
 
 that especially claim our interest. The Belgian elec- 
 tions are partial, half the Chambre retiring every two 
 years. I therefore add together the total figures for 
 1900 and 1902, and the figures for 1904 and 1906, 
 in order to get the expression of the whole electorate. 
 In the first case the Liberals, Radicals and Socialists 
 secured 974,725 votes, and the Catholics 1,010,034. 
 But the votes cast for the Christian Democrats (fol- 
 lowers of the ex-Abbe Daens, bitterly opposed by the 
 Roman Catholics) numbered more than 50,000, so 
 that the clericals had really a minority of the elector- 
 ate. It was the same in the elections of 1904 and 
 1906. The Liberals, Radicals and Socialists obtained 
 1,090,146 votes, the Catholics 1,125,189. But the 
 Daensists and other independent candidates polled 
 56,000 votes, and again put the Catholic votes in the 
 minority. With all their advantage of birth-rate, 
 triple votes and the support of certain Liberals, the 
 Catholic vote steadily sinks in proportion to the elector- 
 ate. It is impossible to calculate with any accuracy 
 the incidence of the plural vote, but (the whole aristo- 
 cracy, for instance, voting Catholic) it would certainly 
 favour the clericals. We may with complete confi- 
 dence say that more than one-half of the men of 
 Belgium are anticlerical. They vote for the group 
 of parties whose triumph will mean the disestablish- 
 ment of the Church and the secularisation of national 
 life. 
 
 Here we have a check upon the census returns, of 
 which the efficiency can hardly be questioned. No 
 one who has lived amongst the Catholics of Belgium 
 — as I have done for twelve months — can have any 
 illusion as to the religious sentiments of the Liberals 
 and Socialists. A very few of them may return to 
 the Church when death approaches, but the over- 
 whelming majority are irrecoverable seceders from
 
 270 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Catholicism. To support their political authority is 
 regarded as a deadly sin — far more serious than the 
 omission of mass. Yet of the men of the country 
 over the age of twenty-six (only a small minority being 
 unenfranchised, besides the criminal class) more than 
 one-half have passed to these anathematised bodies 
 and quitted the Church. To what extent their families 
 are with them in the rebellion may be gathered from 
 the fact that the organisation of Socialist children in 
 Belgium is twice as large as the same organisation in 
 Socialistic Germany ! The Freethinkers of Belgium 
 also carry their wives and children with them to a 
 great extent. The youth of the country (between six- 
 teen and twenty-six) is notoriously anticlerical in its 
 adolescent way, at least in the towns and the Walloon 
 districts. No one will claim that the women and 
 children are divided in anything like the same propor- 
 tion as the men, but we shall be well within the mark 
 if we say that of the 7,000,000 inhabitants of Belgium 
 to-day some 2,500,000 stand entirely outside the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that in this I am applying 
 a somewhat stringent test and denying the name of 
 Catholic to any but the really devout. I am counting 
 as seceders only those who flout the most solemn 
 appeals of the Church, and who are unlikely even to 
 die in its communion. In 1893 I was sent by mv 
 English ecclesiastical authorities to spend a year in 
 Belgium, chiefly to follow a course of Oriental lan- 
 guages at Louvain University, and I had an excep- 
 tionally good opportunity to study its religious life. 
 As far as the better-educated class is concerned, the 
 Catholics were in a hopelessly small minority. There 
 were four universities in the country. Two of them 
 — at Ghent and Liege — are the old State universities 
 for the north and south of the country. As I explained,
 
 BELGIUM 271 
 
 the Catholics founded a sectarian university at Louvain 
 (or Leuven) in Catholic Flanders, and the Liberals 
 established a thoroughly "Liberal" university at 
 Brussels. But the universities of Ghent and Liege 
 are hardly less Liberal, and Catholic families in good 
 circumstances are strictly enjoined to send their young 
 men to Louvain. In the year that I spent there 
 some 1500 to 1600 attended its courses. This was a 
 little more than a fourth of all the university students 
 of the country, and the proportion reflects faithfully 
 enough the proportion of normal Catholics in the 
 middle class. But even here it was quite evident that 
 at least one-third were merely nominal Catholics, and 
 the Church had no real authority over them. A 
 Louvain priest, who knew them well, told me that 
 about a third of them did not go to mass on Sundays, 
 and it needed no close observation to discover that 
 the clerical officers of the university had to give them 
 a loose rein in order to retain even this nominal 
 fidelity. 1 
 
 Of the peasantry and the working-class I naturally 
 saw little, but the little was astonishing. In the 
 Flemish provinces the overwhelming majority of the 
 peasants — though the minority is larger than it is 
 sometimes represented to be — are still Catholic. The 
 Flemings are of a more bovine character than the 
 French-speaking Walloons. They are still largely 
 illiterate, and, even when literate, read little. The 
 superstitions of six centuries ago linger amongst them 
 to a remarkable extent. In the Flemish towns, 
 however, Liberalism has quite its customary propor- 
 
 1 There were not residential colleges (except for the clergy), as 
 at Oxford or Cambridge. The 1500 lay students (of law, medicine, 
 engineering, brewing, etc.) lodged as they pleased in the town. The 
 reader will, if he cares, find a fuller account of my experiences in 
 Belgium in my "Twelve Years in a Monastery," ch. vii.
 
 272 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 tion of the middle class, and Socialism is making great 
 progress among the workers. English tourists often 
 form their estimate of the religious life of Belgian 
 towns on the picturesque demonstrations that are held 
 in the streets at certain festivals, in which the whole 
 town seems to be absorbed. I took part in one at 
 Louvain, on the Fete Dieu, when the whole body of 
 students and professors, civic dignitaries and notables, 
 and troops, formed an imposing procession before the 
 Sacrament. None of my Belgian colleagues would 
 have hesitated to admit that at least one-third of the 
 demonstrators could hardly be credited with a belief 
 in the Sacrament. At Hasselt, where a miraculous 
 statue of the Virgin in the charge of my own colleagues 
 evoked stupendous demonstrations of piety every few 
 years, my colleagues freely told me that Liberal 
 tradesmen and civic officials were amongst the most 
 zealous promoters of the pilgrimages — and the most 
 ample profiters by them. 
 
 In the towns we were commonly insulted in terms 
 that, though I knew little Flemish, were expressive 
 enough. Our shaven polls and sandalled feet and 
 quaint brown frocks — I was a monk of the Order of 
 St Francis — rarely failed to provoke ridicule in the 
 towns and an embarrassing adoration in the country ; 
 the gibes of the young and the prostrations of the aged. 
 Brussels I was not allowed to visit, on the ground 
 that my costume would provoke too lively a demon- 
 stration in that Catholic capital. But I had an insight 
 into the life of the Walloon district that told me much 
 more than statistics could do, and fully accords with 
 the political life. 
 
 It is usually said that in Belgium the peasants and 
 the nobles are — as in Austria — Catholics, the pro- 
 fessional and tradesmen Liberals, and the artisans 
 Socialists. My acquaintance — an intimate one — was
 
 BELGIUM 273 
 
 with the Walloon peasantry (with a fair sprinkling of 
 Flemish), and much moderated my idea of their fidelity. 
 During the Easter vacation in 1894 I spent a few 
 weeks in a monastery near Waterloo, and was per- 
 suaded to assist in the sacerdotal work. My con- 
 stituency included a distinguished noble family, whose 
 orthodoxy I have no reason to suspect, and a very 
 large village, together with a good deal of the " free 
 lance " work in which a monk is indulged. I found 
 that, amongst the peasantry, not only indifference, but 
 hostility, to religion was extremely widespread. Their 
 clergy had the greatest difficulty in keeping them to 
 their religious duties, and several hundred (out of, if 
 I remember rightly, less than 2000) would make no 
 Easter communion at all. I found men — not vicious 
 men at all — on the point of death who violently refused 
 to see their parochial clergy, and who were only in- 
 duced with great difficulty to receive the last sacra- 
 ments from me. From my then point of view, and 
 after experience in London, the spectacle was 
 appalling. 
 
 There can be no question whatever that at least a 
 third of Belgium is lost to the Church, and a great 
 deal of the remainder is attached by bonds so frail 
 that the future is certain to see a continuance of the 
 loss. The peasantry are awakening ; it is the plaint 
 of some Liberals — a strange reversal of history — that 
 the Church itself is awakening them, and that, as they 
 awake, they are caught by the glitter of Socialism. 
 Nominal Catholicism will not stand the strain. Al- 
 ready the Socialist party polls the largest vote it has 
 in any country (after Finland), in proportion to the 
 population, and the Freethinkers, under the eloquent 
 Belgian lawyer, M. Furnemont, have a powerful 
 party. The future is very dark for the Church. It 
 holds its tenure of authority only until a working
 
 274 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 agreement is made between the Liberals and the 
 Socialists, or until the latter have maintained their 
 growth for a few more years. Then the Belgian 
 Church will break up, just as the sister Church did 
 in France. 
 
 And finally, one of the chief causes of the undoing 
 of the Belgian Church will be precisely the same as 
 one of the main reasons for its downfall in France. I 
 refer to the monastic bodies. For more than half-a- 
 century they have drawn hostile looks from all classes. 
 It is about fifty years since the anticlericals first began 
 to pay alarming attention to their wealth. The 
 difficulty of assigning any owner to their property — 
 a difficulty that inspires whole chapters of entertaining 
 perplexity in their canonists, and has to be left un- 
 solved — seemed to offer an excellent ground for State 
 appropriation without the shadow of injustice. The 
 Pope (whose decrees I have quoted in the chapter 
 on France) at once instructed the monks to swear 
 on oath that " notwithstanding their solemn vow of 
 poverty they intended from the first to acquire the 
 property in the ordinary way of civil ownership." The 
 audacity baffled their opponents, but the deferring of 
 the account is only adding to its length. Wilmotte 
 observes that the landed property of the monks and 
 nuns of Liege was officially valued at 4,500,000 
 francs in 1866, and is appraised at 18,044,201 francs 
 to-day. Guyot says that there were 779 convents 
 (with 11,968 inmates) in Belgium in 1846, and 2221 
 convents (with 37,684 inmates) in 1900. They have 
 730,000,000 francs' worth of landed property, and 
 their furniture, etc., is valued at 300,000,000; while 
 they hold 1,030,000,000 francs' worth of property 
 through prete-noms. 
 
 Against this monstrous accumulation both workers 
 and capitalists have a rising indignation. They know,
 
 BELGIUM 275 
 
 too, that the bulk of the inmates of the monasteries 
 lead idle and useless lives, and the support of most 
 of them is an imposition on the ignorant peasantry or 
 a futile absorption of unwise foundations. I will only 
 say on this point that, if my close acquaintance with 
 one of the chief monastic bodies in Belgium warrants 
 an opinion, the country will be well rid of them. A 
 few lead useful lives, according to their ideals, and a 
 few lead high-ordered lives ; the bulk of them are 
 coarse, sensual, lazy and scandalously ignorant. 
 
 It cannot be many years before a Combes and a 
 Combist party come to power in Belgium. The 
 country is rapidly ripening for them. It is no longer 
 "a Catholic country" except in the sense that about 
 half its men and the greater part of its women and 
 children are Catholic. But most of them are Catholic 
 only in virtue of the momentum of a long-unquestioned 
 tradition, and the modern challenge of it is ringing 
 through all their towns and echoing in their villages. 
 The movement amongst them sufficiently shows that 
 they will answer as France has answered.
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE GERMANIC WORLD-HOLLAND 
 
 DISTINGUISHED Dutch journalist with 
 whom I one day discussed the plan of the 
 present work observed : "It may be that 
 you will find a loss in some countries, but I assure 
 you that the Roman Catholics are gaining ground in 
 Holland." My friend was a Liberal, and a whole- 
 hearted opponent of the Roman claims. He did but 
 repeat the statement that probably most Dutch writers 
 who had not made a close inquiry into its accuracy 
 would have repeated. But I had met the illusion 
 too often to be influenced by it. I had heard it 
 made by English writers, American writers, and Ger- 
 man writers, about their respective countries ; and I 
 remembered listening to the same plaintive story in 
 the heart of Switzerland. Yet we have seen that in 
 all these countries there has been an immense loss, 
 and that the leakage continues more rapidly than 
 ever. 
 
 The root of the fallacy is simple. These are all 
 predominantly Protestant lands, and any growth of 
 Catholicism in them at once attracts the attention of 
 their neighbours. They do not reflect that Catholic- 
 ism must grow — or else it is rapidly decaying. It has 
 a birth-rate, usually an exceptionally high birth-rate, 
 that should double its numbers in less than two 
 generations. In Catholic lands the growth does not 
 strike the eye, because there are no non-Catholic 
 areas into which the new Catholic colonies must 
 shoot. In Protestant countries the new chapel, or 
 
 276
 
 HOLLAND 277 
 
 the doubled congregation, is at once remarked. The 
 elders tell how there were in their youth only one 
 or two Catholic chapels where there are now four 
 or five ; and few seem to reflect that this is a quite 
 natural increase, and implies no proselytism what- 
 ever. Moreover, the earlier Catholic chapels were 
 usually built on sparse resources, and accommodated 
 only what they must at the time. So, even when 
 Catholicism is advancing only at half the pace it 
 ought to do — is, in other words, losing heavily — they 
 note only that it advances at all, and are disinclined 
 to hear of leakage. 
 
 This fallacy has naturally occurred to the Dutch 
 mind, but we shall see that is as groundless in regard 
 to Holland as we found it in regard to Switzerland. 
 Indeed, as positive figures will show, there is even 
 less ground for it in the case of Holland. But I will 
 first glance very briefly at the causes why there is 
 a Catholic body at all in Protestant Holland. 
 
 In the previous chapter I told how the united 
 Netherlands were in the hands of Philip of Spain at 
 the time of the Reformation, and how the northern 
 provinces avidly embraced the new doctrines. All 
 the ferocity of Alva's troops could not stifle the heroic 
 temper of the Dutch, and the struggle ended in their 
 independence. The southern provinces, including 
 some that were later incorporated into Holland, 
 remained under Spanish and Austrian rule, and 
 were guarded by the Inquisition. The story is re- 
 flected in the religious statistics to-day. Friesland, 
 Groningen and Drenthe, in the extreme north, are 
 overwhelmingly Protestant. The eastern provinces 
 are one-fourth Catholic ; the central provinces one- 
 third ; and the two southern provinces, North Bra- 
 bant and Limburg, which were part of Austrian 
 Belgium, are overwhelmingly Catholic. Dr Kuiper
 
 278 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 explains, in his " Geschiedenis van het Godsdienstig 
 leven van het Nederlandsche Volk " (1903), that the 
 Catholics made no progress in Holland until the 
 French Revolution. The French, as elsewhere, 
 fastened upon the reluctant people the maxim of 
 liberty and equality, and decreed religious freedom, 
 in 1795. They planted in Holland those germs of 
 Liberalism that were later to grow into a formidable 
 enemy of clericalism, but for the moment they gave 
 a stimulus to Catholic expansion. 
 
 We have seen that, on the settling of the Napoleonic 
 chaos, the Protestant rulers returned to Holland, and 
 the Belgian provinces were added to their kingdom. 
 Galling as the rule was to the Catholic Flemings, it 
 gave advantages to the Catholic Dutch. From 
 Limburg and Brabant, especially, they penetrated 
 into the central provinces, and helped to form a sub- 
 stantial minority. We may, in fact, usefully start 
 our inquiry into their fortunes during the nineteenth 
 century from the census of 1829, the year before the 
 secession of the Belgians from Orange rule. We 
 have, luckily, ample figures to test the strength of 
 Catholicism in each decade, and, as in the case of 
 other predominantly Protestant countries that have 
 had a fixed Catholic population from the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century, the question of percentage 
 is important. The usual law of increase in such 
 circumstances holds good ; the Catholics have, par- 
 ticularly in the last few decades, a higher birth-rate 
 than the Protestants, and should have some slight 
 increase of their percentage from decade to decade. 
 
 I may say at once that, instead of increase, we find 
 a notable decrease. In the year 1829 there were in 
 the present Dutch provinces 1,544,887 Protestants 
 and 1,019,109 Roman Catholics; the Protestants 
 formed 591 1 per cent, of the population, and the
 
 HOLLAND 279 
 
 Catholics 38*99. During the following two decades 
 the Protestant percentage slightly increased, and the 
 Catholics slightly fell. After that date the school 
 controversy began to animate the political world. 
 The Liberals had forced a revision of the constitution 
 in 1848, and one of the new measures was the enforce- 
 ment of elementary instruction. Sectarian schools 
 were allowed to be set up side by side with the 
 national schools, and Catholic life was somewhat in- 
 vigorated by the new interest that was thrust upon 
 it. The Liberals were at this period more occupied 
 in fighting the Conservative Protestants (or Anti- 
 revolutionaries, as they are still called), and indeed 
 to some extent they had the support of the Catholics. 
 They promised the Catholics full liberty to exercise 
 and propagate their religion, while the Orthodox 
 party threatened to curtail this. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Catholic percentage fell still 
 more between 1849 and 1869, and the Protestant 
 percentage increased to a corresponding extent. 
 There was obviously a serious leakage from the 
 Catholic to the Protestant Church. The " Old 
 Catholics " had taken some 5000 from them, but 
 these are always (and quite wrongly) counted with 
 the Catholics. They had fallen from 38*99 per cent, 
 of the population in 1829 to 36*68 in 1869. That 
 indicates a loss of about 100,000, or nearly a twelfth 
 of their body, and the seceders must have gone over 
 to Protestantism or Liberalism. From that time 
 onward the Dutch Catholics have had the usual 
 incentives to organise ; the fight over the Vatican 
 decrees with the seceding Old Catholics, the destruc- 
 tion of the Pope's temporal power, and the echoes 
 of the German Kulturkampf, became so many inspir- 
 ing themes in the mouths of their pastors. 
 
 The Catholics of Holland had, moreover, an
 
 280 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 especial stimulus to organisation and activity. Their 
 amiable co-operation with the Liberals came to an 
 end in 1868. It is said that the consciousness of 
 their increased strength dictated this resolution. 
 They had certainly not duly increased in numbers, 
 but no doubt the political experience they had 
 acquired would support their decision ; nor would 
 either they or the Liberals maintain much cordiality 
 after the publication of the Syllabus by Pius IX. 
 Whatever the immediate occasion was, they now 
 sided commonly with the Antirevolutionaries against 
 the Liberals, and began to return their own members 
 (acting in conjunction with the Protestants), and work 
 for the abrogation of the Liberal school law of 1857. 
 In the southern provinces — Brabant was Catholic to 
 the extent of 97 per cent. — they used the local authority 
 virtually to transform the national schools into sec- 
 tarian. 
 
 I need not pursue their figures decade by decade. 
 It is enough to note that, in spite of their political 
 and philanthropic activity, in spite of the fact that 
 the Protestant birth-rate was now appreciably 
 lessening, the Catholic percentage continued to fall 
 steadily. There were at the last census (1899) 
 1,790,161 Catholics in an entire population of 
 5,104,137. Their percentage had fallen from nearly 
 39 in the year 1829 to 36-68 in 1869, and then to 
 35-0 at the end of the century. In a word, their 
 percentage of the population of Holland has fallen 
 by four units in the course of the last seventy years. 
 It is quite true that there are now 104,000 Jews and 
 115,000 professed Freethinkers in Holland. These 
 make up 4 per cent, of the total, or 2 per cent, more 
 than they did in 1829. But the important point is 
 that the Protestant percentage, for all their lower 
 birth-rate, is slightly higher than it was in 1829.
 
 HOLLAND 281 
 
 The loss has been entirely on the Catholic side, and 
 it has been very considerable. To put it more clearly, 
 if the Catholics had maintained their percentage, 
 as the Protestants have done, they should number 
 to-day 1,990,600. As a fact, they fall short of that 
 by more than 200,000. That is the very lowest 
 measure of their loss. In view of their high birth- 
 rate the loss is more probably 300,000. 
 
 Beyond any controversy, then, there has been not 
 growth, but considerable loss, on the part of the 
 Dutch Catholics. They have failed to retain several 
 hundred thousands of their born supporters ; and 
 the leakage is just as great in the last decade of 
 the century as in the preceding decades. The official 
 census figures show this to any who care to analyse 
 them. It is curious how Dutch writers so often fail 
 to notice this. " Conversions to the Catholic Church," 
 says Dr Kuiper in his " Geschiedenis van het 
 Godsdienstig leven " (p. 725), "are rare, and Roman 
 Catholic immigrants from Belgium and the Rhine 
 Provinces of Germany do not greatly increase their 
 number." So Professor De la Saussaye, in that 
 admirable review of Dutch life, " Eene Halve 
 Eeuw": "Catholics of late years have become more 
 prominent in social and political life, though they 
 have not increased in numbers." Neither writer 
 observes that they have really lost a sixth of their 
 supporters in the course of sixty or seventy years. 
 Dr Juraschek, in his " Staaten Europas," notices this 
 loss. 
 
 Thus far the census figures themselves take us, but 
 we have invariably found that the loss revealed by 
 the census percentages is only a fraction of the whole. 
 Probably the best way to check the figures will be, 
 as in the case of Belgium, to examine the results of 
 recent elections. The Catholics have their own
 
 282 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 parliamentary candidates, and, where these fail, 
 support the Protestant Antirevolutionaries. For 
 the last forty years, Liberals have been regarded in 
 the light of the Syllabus, and it has been accounted 
 a sin to support them. Yet in the face of this united 
 Protestant-Catholic opposition the Liberals have held 
 power almost continuously since 1848. It must not, 
 of course, be imagined that there is a clear division 
 between the Protestants and the Liberals. Dutch 
 theology has admitted a great deal of advanced 
 thought, and the ranks of the Liberals include large 
 numbers who will certainly maintain the title of 
 Christian and Protestant. The Antirevolutionaries 
 are the more Conservative body of the Reformed 
 Church. But in the case of the Catholics the division 
 into Progressives and Conservatives is violently 
 repudiated. No doubt, many have voted either 
 Liberal or Socialist at recent elections, but they 
 are either nominal Catholics only, or belong to that 
 fringe of the Catholic body where seceders are most 
 numerous. We may, therefore, look to the political 
 situation with confidence for further enlightenment 
 on the strength of the Roman Church. 
 
 Until the year 1887 the franchise was very re- 
 stricted, and the electoral struggles merely reflect 
 the temper of the middle class. In 1886, for instance, 
 the Liberals secured forty-seven seats, and their united 
 opponents thirty-nine (though the latter had 53,826 
 votes to the former 47,613). In the following year 
 the electorate was nearly trebled, but it was still very 
 narrow, and the Liberals continued to enjoy power. 
 But the inevitable split now took place in the Liberal 
 ranks, and had the familiar consequence. A number 
 of issues, such as the suffrage question and the 
 colonial policy, developed the latent antagonism of 
 Whigs, Liberals and Radicals. Dr Tak, one of the
 
 HOLLAND 283 
 
 ablest members of the Liberal cabinet, introduced a 
 very wide enfranchising measure, and the historic 
 party went to pieces, in the storm that ensued. At 
 the election of 1894 the two Liberal factions still 
 overpowered the clericals. The franchise was now 
 extended, and Catholics and Protestants prepared 
 with great confidence for the election of 1897, when 
 they expected to annihilate the bourgeois Liberal 
 party with the aid of the enfranchised workers. The 
 issue was nominally Free Trade or Protection ; 
 but as the election approached, and the activity and 
 expectations of the clericals attracted attention, it 
 became in the main a struggle of Liberals and 
 clericals. Nearly every literate and self-supporting 
 male now had the vote, and the result was expected 
 with the liveliest interest. 
 
 For us the result contains a good deal of instruction 
 in regard to the strength of Catholicism in Holland. 
 Forming, nominally, more than a third of the nation, 
 and having an overwhelming predominance in two 
 large provinces, it should command a good proportion 
 of the electorate ; and the clergy were particularly 
 active in preparing for the election of 1897. Yet, 
 on the increased poll, and with the friendly co-operation 
 of the Protestants, the Catholics lost three seats. The 
 divided Liberals lost ten seats, but the spoil fell to 
 the Protestants and Socialists ; the Catholic group 
 fell to twenty-two, or little more than one-fifth of the 
 States-General. The number of votes I have not 
 the opportunity of seeing, but I learn from the 
 " Nieuve Tijd " that the Liberals and Socialists 
 polled 170,000 votes, and the combined clericals 
 190,000. As the Protestant and Catholic deputies 
 were equal in number, we may divide the vote. The 
 Catholics thus turn out only about one-fourth of the 
 electorate, and claim to be 35 per cent, of the nation.
 
 284 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 The division of the Liberals became more pro- 
 nounced than ever. The democrats and the Socialists 
 started separate parties, and the election of 1901 
 found the united clericals facing three hostile pro- 
 gressive bodies. The result was that the Liberals 
 were defeated, and the leader of the chief Protestant 
 group, Dr Kuiper, formed a ministry, in which he 
 included several Catholics. The Catholics secured 
 twenty-five seats and the Protestants thirty-one, while 
 their opponents only obtained forty-two. However, 
 according to the figures in the " Nieuve Tijd," the 
 clericals had secured less votes than ever, and the 
 anticlericals more than ever. The Catholic and 
 Protestant vote was only 180,557. The Liberal and 
 Socialist 180,959. Nor was the fictitious advantage 
 of the clericals maintained at the next (and last) 
 election. They had again attempted to tamper with 
 education, and the Liberal forces partly united, and 
 threw them out of power. I have not the voting 
 strength of the various parties, but the Liberals again 
 secured forty-five seats and the Socialists seven ; 
 while the Protestants lost sixteen, and the Catholics 
 remained as they were. 
 
 The political test, therefore, shows that the Catholic 
 number about one-fourth of the electorate. It is 
 difficult to imagine that they really number 35 per 
 cent, of the population in such circumstances, but 
 no more precise tests are available. We must be 
 content to grant them 1,790,161 nominal adherents 
 in Holland, and take their serious drop in percentage 
 since 1829 to mean a clear loss of 300,000.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 IN the course of the last section I had occasion 
 to point out an aspect of the Vatican's losses 
 that is too often overlooked. If Ireland had 
 prospered, the Vatican would have to-day a nation of 
 18,000,000 followers (besides the Protestants) within 
 its confines, instead of the 3,000,000 distressed and 
 resourceless adherents that it actually has. When 
 we turn to Poland, we find the Ireland of the East. 
 If Poland had prospered — if Poland had but retained 
 the territory it held as late as 1770, and enjoyed a 
 moderate prosperity — it would form to-day a Roman 
 Catholic nation of about 50,000,000 souls, besides 
 heretics and schismatics. By the evil fortune that 
 has fallen on those two passionately Catholic races, 
 the Church of Rome has, in little more than a century, 
 lost fully 40,000,000 devoted followers. 
 
 This is not the place to enter into transcendental 
 inquiries into that evil fortune. I will only recall a 
 Catholic apologetic work of the end of the eighteenth 
 century that one reads with something like amusement 
 to-day. A Spanish priest, Father Balmez, wrote a 
 learned and really able work to prove that Catholicism 
 promoted civilisation, while Protestantism retarded 
 and menaced it. He wrote in an hour when the 
 great Catholic nations still held the field — when 
 Spain still seemed to prosper, and France dominated 
 one half of Europe and Austria the other ; when 
 England alone of the Protestant peoples offered them 
 serious rivalry. What a change has come over the 
 285
 
 286 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 fortunes of the race since that time ! The Holy 
 Roman Empire is dead, and shrunken Austria is 
 threatened with dissolution. The papal monarchy- 
 is dead, and Italy is half lost to the Church. France 
 is no longer a Catholic country. Spain is stripped of 
 the last tatters of her empire, and her whole literature 
 is steeped in melancholy. Portugal is bankrupt. 
 Poland is trodden under the heel of the Muscovite. 
 The Protestant peoples overspread the globe. What 
 an answer to the proud Catholic argument of Bal- 
 mez, which was once so much treasured ! But I must 
 leave this kind of procedure to the Protestant contro- 
 versialist, and return to sociological considerations. 
 
 In order to appreciate the position of the Church 
 of Rome in Russia we must understand well what 
 Poland was in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, and what, with good fortune, she might 
 have been to-day. The Reformation had at first 
 made great progress in Poland. The cultural prestige 
 of Bohemia attracted large numbers of Polish youths 
 in the fifteenth century, and Hussite preachers returned 
 with them and worked with great success. The 
 usual theme, of the corruption of the Catholic clergy, 
 did not lack illustration in Poland. Lutherans and 
 Calvinists came in turn. By the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the greater part of the Poles had 
 rejected Catholicism. The nobles especially embraced 
 the new doctrines, with the feeling that the change of 
 faith accentuated their self-assertion in opposition 
 to the monarchy. The feudal system was still in 
 vigour, and the nobles not only jealously preserved 
 their power, but controlled the submissive serfs as 
 they willed. Before long, however, the somnolent 
 clergy awoke, and called in the brilliant agents of the 
 counter-reformation, the Jesuits. It was not difficult 
 for the followers of St Ignatius to convince the nobles
 
 RUSSIA 287 
 
 that the doctrines of the Reformers were dangerously 
 democratic, and they brought the serfs back to the 
 Roman obedience. 
 
 The pitiful story of that long and effective persecu- 
 tion of heretics and schismatics does not concern us 
 here. 1 It is enough to note that it lasted well into 
 the second half of the eighteenth century. By that 
 time the glory had entirely departed from the land of 
 Sobieski, but it was still a large and overwhelmingly 
 Catholic country. Its chief Catholic historian, Father 
 Theiner (" Die neuesten Zustande der Katholischen 
 Kirche in Polen und Russland," 1841), says that in 
 1768 "the Poles were a strong and wholly Catholic 
 nation of nearly 21 million souls." I must confess 
 to a serious difficulty in reconciling the confused 
 statements of Father Theiner and his followers. He 
 speaks at one moment of 12,000,000 Greek Uniates, 
 and at another moment of "between 13 and 14 
 million adherents of the State Church " (Roman 
 Catholic) ; while his modern successor, Father Les- 
 cceur (" L'Eglise Catholique et le Gouvernement 
 Russe," 1903) says that there were 12,000,000 Latin 
 and Greek Catholics, 4,000,000 Greek Schismatics, 
 and 2,000,000 Jews and Mohammedans. From all 
 the conflicting statements it seems safe to conclude 
 that there were about 14,000,000 Latin and Greek 
 Catholics (all subject to Rome) and about 5,000,000 
 Greek Orthodox (subject to the Russian Church) and 
 Protestants. If this nation had held together, the 
 Vatican would, as I said, have a powerful body of 
 more than 40,000,000 Slav followers to-day. From 
 the wreck of this promising Church it has not saved 
 20,000,000. 
 
 1 See, especially, Krause's " Die Reformation und Gegen-Reforma- 
 tion in Poland" (1901), Heard's "Russian Church and Russian 
 Dissent" (1887) and Neale's " History of the Eastern Church."
 
 •288 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 How the catastrophe came about I have already 
 explained in part, and will now briefly outline the 
 story. Poland had fallen into senile decrepitude 
 under the guidance of the Jesuits (whom it finally 
 expelled), and two powerful and not very scrupulous 
 neighbours held consultations with regard to the 
 "sick man." Frederick of Prussia expressed concern 
 about the harsh treatment of the Protestants in 
 Lithuania, and Catherine II. of Russia intervened 
 on behalf of the Greek schismatics. Nothing would 
 arrest the bigotry and intolerance of the Catholic 
 clergy, whom the government was not strong enough 
 to check, and Poland was coolly dismembered. In 
 three successive partitions Russia, Prussia and Austria 
 took away nearly the whole of its provinces. The 
 Napoleonic interlude altered the map for a time, but 
 the Council of Vienna in 1815 substantially confirmed 
 the partitions. It left standing only a tiny republic 
 at Cracow, that presently fell into the jaws of Austria ; 
 and a shrunken kingdom under Russian suzerainty, 
 which was afterwards fully incorporated in the Tsar's 
 dominions. How the Poles fared in Prussia and Austria 
 we have seen. They have lost heavily in Prussia, 
 but add to-day between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 to 
 the Catholic population of the German Empire. In 
 Austria their creed was sheltered, and the Latin and 
 Greek Catholics of earlier Poland now have some 
 6,000,000 descendants in Galicia. It remains to 
 consider the fate of the remainder under Russian rule. 
 We may first inquire into the fortunes of the Greek 
 Uniates, who formed a very large part of the Polish 
 population at the time of the first partition. The 
 eastern provinces had been wrested from Russia in 
 the days of Poland's glory, and were mainly peopled 
 with communities that followed the Greek rite. Most 
 of them acknowledged the authority of Rome, and
 
 RUSSIA 289 
 
 were known on that account as the Greek (some- 
 times, Ruthenian) Uniates. They were originally part 
 of the Russian Church, but in 1595 the Jesuits, failing 
 to bring Russia into union with Rome, fell back upon 
 these Polish provinces, and had the satisfaction of 
 securing the " conversion " of the whole hierarchy with 
 1 1,000,000 followers. It seems that the Greek prelates 
 had in view certain material and very secular advan- 
 tages, which were held out to them, and, as the 
 promises were not fulfilled, they and millions of 
 their followers fell back to Greek Orthodoxy as easily 
 as they had left it. When Sobieski was forced to cede 
 the Ukraine to Russia in 1685, and their clergy passed 
 under the obedience of Moscow, this would take place 
 more than ever. 
 
 However, Father Theiner claims that there were 
 12,000,000 Uniates in Poland, Lithuania, White 
 Russia and Galicia in the year 1 77 1, with 17,000 
 priests and 251 monasteries. For this he quotes 
 the authority of one of their chief prelates, Bishop 
 Wolodkowicz. The fate of these Uniates is one 
 of the most tragic experiences that the Vatican has 
 had since the Reformation. In a word, only about 
 50,000 of them remain in union with the Church of 
 Rome to-day, apart from those in Galicia. If we are to 
 follow Father Theiner, and regard them as numbering 
 12,000,000 in 177 1, they must number fully 40,000,000 
 now ; and all but an insignificant remnant in Poland, 
 and the Greek Uniates of Galicia, have passed into 
 the Russian Orthodox Church. Father Theiner 
 says that eight millions of them were captured by the 
 Russian Church between 1773 and 1796. Certainly 
 the official Catholic reports, which he gives, describe 
 them as numbering only 3,500,000 about the year 
 1820, and on these he bases his statement of the 
 appalling loss to the Vatican. Nearly 10,000 churches
 
 290 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 and 145 monasteries are included in the loss. The 
 details he gives of the tactics pursued by Catherine II. 
 from the moment of the first partition of Poland 
 make this credible enough. In one year (1795) the 
 Catholic Archbishop of Mohilew reported the se- 
 cession of more than 1,000,000 Ruthenes. Father 
 Theiner is, of course, unwilling to admit that the 
 Russian procedure was merely an imitation of the 
 procedure hitherto employed by the Poles in the 
 interest of Rome ; but he is frank enough to admit 
 that the cupidity of the Uniate prelates and monks, 
 and the folly of the Roman authorities in forcing the 
 Latin rite in the churches, greatly aided the Russian 
 efforts. 
 
 However, we will not linger over Father Theiner's 
 arithmetical puzzles, as this vast loss to the Vatican 
 does not quite fall within the period of our inquiry. 
 We have to see rather how the remnant of the Uniates 
 and the Roman Catholics fared under Russian rule 
 after the Council of Vienna. 
 
 The story of the Uniates is quickly told. Paul I. 
 suspended the policy of Catherine, and gave back 
 to them their hierarchy and large numbers of their 
 churches. Alexander I. retained this kindlier treat- 
 ment, and they throve in peace until his death in 1825. 
 At that time they had, according to the diocesan 
 reports, 1985 priests, 666 monks, 1476 churches and 
 1,427,579 adult parishioners. But with the accession 
 of Nicholas I. the Catherinian policy returned, and 
 the process of complete Russification went on. For 
 all Father Theiner's rhetoric, it seems to have been 
 innocent enough down to 1834, as the diocesan reports 
 in that year give them 2006 priests and 1,505,281 
 adult parishioners. Five years later the whole of these 
 Uniates in Russia, with their bishops and clergy and 
 monks, solemnly discarded the Roman allegiance and
 
 RUSSIA 291 
 
 joined the Russian Church. It was the most formid- 
 able corporate lapse from Romanism since the Refor- 
 mation. As the diocesan figures do not include 
 children under ten, the total number of seceders 
 must have been about 2,000,000, and they must 
 number quite 4,000,000 to-day. There remained 
 still a diocese of 250,000 Uniates in Poland, but the 
 drama was almost completed when 200,000 of these 
 seceded from Rome in 1877 and 1878. 
 
 " That is all right, as regards the Uniates ; now for 
 the Latins," said Nicholas I. cheerfully to Benkendorf 
 when the transfer was accomplished. We are con- 
 cerned with the results, not the manner of their 
 procedure. It was humane indeed compared with 
 the devices by which papal authorities were even then 
 attempting to stamp out heresy in Italy and Spain ; 
 and it compares favourably enough with the tactics 
 employed by the Poles themselves when they had 
 power. 1 It commonly consisted in transferring churches 
 to the Russian minority on the ground that they were 
 Orthodox in origin, offering indirect bribes to seceders, 
 and exiling troublesome priests to Siberia. Sometimes 
 a group of the dull-witted Catholic peasantry would 
 be gathered together, and asked to pray for the Tsar. 
 As they prayed, lighted candles were put in their 
 hands ; and when they had finished they were as- 
 tonished to find themselves enrolled in the Orthodox 
 Church, on the ground that they had in their prayers 
 used candles that had been blessed by the Orthodox 
 clergy. The Polish insurrections of 1830 and i860 
 afforded a pretext for greater severity, and large 
 numbers were transferred from Rome to Moscow. 
 In the Wilna district alone 140 churches were confis- 
 
 1 See A. F. Heard's "Russian Church and Russian Dissent" 
 (1887); A. D. Kyriakos's " Geschichte des Orientalischen Kirchen" 
 (1902), and Boissard's "Eglise de Russie."
 
 292 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cated in one year, and 4412 Catholics, in a group of 
 parishes containing 18,000, were " converted." During 
 the seventies, after the declaration of papal infallibility, 
 thousands of conversions were reported every year. 
 
 What the total loss was amongst the Latin Catholics, 
 in addition to the millions of Greek seceders, it is not 
 easy to determine, on account of the confusion of 
 Latins and Uniates in the earlier statistics. Some idea 
 may be obtained in this way. The official diocesan 
 statistics (in Theiner) give the adult Latin Catholics 
 — "capaces sacramentorum " — in Russia in 1804 as 
 1,635,490. That means a total Catholic population 
 — apart from Poland — of more than 2,000,000. In 
 1834 the adult population was 2,604,047 : the total 
 Catholic population would be about 3,250,000. At 
 this rate of increase the total should be at the end 
 of the nineteenth century more than 7,000,000. But 
 the actual number of Roman Catholics in Russia, 
 without Poland, at the last census was only 4-,3sS,yyy. 
 This shows a clear loss of 3,000,000 Latin Catholics 
 on the census statistics for Russia proper. 
 
 The number of Catholics in Poland at the last 
 census was 6,987,467. Unfortunately, I cannot find 
 a figure for the earlier part of the century with which 
 to compare this. The earliest exact enumeration is 
 for the year 1870, when the Roman Catholics formed 
 76*1 per cent, of the population and the Greek 
 Catholics 3*9. The latter have, as we saw, nearly 
 disappeared and the Latin Catholics have fallen to 
 74'3 P er cent - °f the population. As the number of 
 Orthodox Greeks in Poland has, in the same period, 
 risen from 34,000 to 663,000, it is not difficult to 
 infer what has happened. Father Lescceur, indeed, 
 describes the Russians as robbing the Latin churches 
 little less successfully than the Greek, and Neale 
 gives positive figures of thousands of Catholic seces-
 
 RUSSIA 293 
 
 sions in single years. But in the absence of exact 
 figures for the early decades we must refrain from 
 claiming more than the few hundred thousand seces- 
 sions that Theiner and Lescceur and Neale seem to 
 indicate. With the loss of 3,000,000 Uniates and 
 3,000,000 Latins in Russia proper since 1834, we get 
 a safe total leakage of at least 6,500,000. When one 
 reads of the great Polish Church of 1 77 1, with its 
 14,000,000 or 15,000,000 followers and more than 
 20,000 priests, and then reads that the Catholic 
 Church to-day has only 1 1,000,000 followers in Russia 
 one feels that this is much too modest a statement. 1 
 European Russia has trebled its population since 
 the year 1800; and whereas the increase of the 
 Russian population has averaged 74 per cent, in the 
 last fifty years, the increase has reached 117 per cent, 
 in Poland. One can infer what the Polish Church of 
 1 77 1 ought to number to-day. Yet the whole Catholic 
 population, Latin and Greek, of the provinces that 
 then were Poland, does not to-day amount to 
 20,000,000 (including Posen, Gnesen, and Galicia). 
 
 SUMMARY FOR THE GERMANIC AND SLAVONIC WORLD 
 
 The third part of our inquiry reveals the operation 
 of the same laws as the two preceding sections. 
 There is no country in Europe in which Roman 
 
 1 The figure for Russia is variously given. The figures I quote 
 for Russia proper and Poland are from Dr Juraschek. Add 560 
 Roman Catholics for Finland, and the total is found to be 11,326,804. 
 The Armenian schismatics are often wrongly added to the list. 
 Emigration from Poland does not greatly affect the figures, and 
 when they emigrate, the Poles, like the Irish, freely abandon the 
 Church. In the United States there is a Polish Independent 
 Catholic Church (hostile to Rome) with 80,000 members and twenty- 
 four priests.
 
 294 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Catholicism is making progress ; in every country it 
 has to admit, by the mouth of its own representa- 
 tives, very serious losses ; and in almost every part 
 of Europe the loss is proportionate to the literacy 
 and mental activity of the population. The Catholic 
 world in the west of Europe is in one important 
 respect analogous to the English-speaking Catholic 
 world. A devotedly Catholic nation has almost 
 disappeared from the map. This catastrophe is very 
 rarely noticed in itself, but the moment the scattered 
 fragments reappear in a different nationality the 
 hollow cry of progress is raised. The impartial 
 sociological inquirer cannot fail to see that the ap- 
 parent progress really reveals a disaster more serious 
 to the Vatican than the fate of Ireland. Amongst 
 the really Germanic peoples Catholicism has steadily 
 decayed all through the century. Its numerical 
 strength in western Europe is only maintained at a 
 moderate level by the prolific growth of backward and 
 illiterate races, that have been so largely absorbed 
 into the German, Russian and Austro- Hungarian 
 empires. 
 
 In tabulating the results I will add the small out- 
 standing Catholic populations that are found in the 
 Balkan and other small principalities, and in other 
 countries where they are too slight in numbers to 
 merit close analysis. For Norway, Sweden and 
 Denmark we may accept the official figures (which I 
 take from Dr Juraschek) without comment. The 
 grand duchy of Luxemburg and Monaco would, no 
 doubt, show a large proportion of merely nominal 
 Catholicism, but the totals are too small to linger 
 over. The Balkan provinces, with Turkey and 
 Greece, add a larger contribution to the strength, 
 but it is utterly unprofitable and unnecessary to 
 inquire closely into the religious beliefs of these
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 295 
 
 illiterate communities. The Orthodox Greek and 
 Russian Churches have, in these districts, made 
 great inroads on the Roman jurisdiction, and at any- 
 time political changes — I need only recall recent 
 proceedings in Bulgaria — may strike hundreds of 
 thousands out of the Catholic total. In any case 
 the character of the people makes an exact inquiry 
 both impossible and superfluous. I assign the whole 
 of the numbers officially claimed to the authority of 
 the Vatican. The position of Rome in the rest of 
 Europe is therefore as follows : — 
 
 Country 
 
 Catholic 
 Total 
 
 Catholic 
 Loss 
 
 German Empire 
 Austria-Hungary 
 Switzerland .... 
 Belgium ..... 
 Holland ..... 
 Norway, Sweden and Denmark 
 Luxemburg .... 
 Balkan States, Turkey and Greece 
 Russia ..... 
 
 20,000,000 
 29,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 4,500,000 
 1,700,000 
 
 8,732 
 
 232,000 
 
 847,000 
 
 11,326,804 
 
 5,000,000 
 4,000,000 
 
 500,000 
 2,500,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 6,500,000 
 
 
 68,614,536 
 
 18,800,000
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 MORE than once in the course of this essay 
 I have been led to recall the fortune of that 
 earlier Roman Empire to which the Church 
 of Rome in a great measure succeeded. At the close 
 of our inquiry many a reader will instinctively revert 
 to the parallel. By the end of the fourth century the 
 Western Empire had so far decayed that the first 
 serious assault from the north laid it in ruins. Yet 
 we look in vain, in the letters of Symmachus or the 
 conversations of cultivated patricians that Macrobius 
 records, for a recognition of the decay in the leading 
 Romans of the time. Here and there we get a blunt 
 soldier like Ammianus Marcellinus breathing disgust, 
 as he returns from the menaced frontiers to the ener- 
 vation of the capital. But through nearly the whole 
 life of the time there is a feeling of security, an opiate 
 acquiescence in the tradition of Rome's immortality, 
 that we can hardly understand. So it is with the 
 life of the Church of Rome. Here and there a blunt 
 soldier, a priest or layman awakened to the danger 
 by his frontier war, raises a cry of alarm, but the 
 great majority of its supporters still idly cherish 
 the inherited belief in immortality, or even cling to 
 the dream of imperial expansion that quickened the 
 Catholic imagination half-a-century ago. Yet we, 
 who stand outside, see a rapid decay eating into the 
 foundations of every part of the Church and already 
 showing its grim triumph over what were once 
 flourishing provinces. 
 
 296
 
 CONCLUSION 297 
 
 I do not for a moment suggest that the imagination 
 may pursue the analogy further, and that at some 
 near impending date a historian will write the 
 dramatic story of the decline and fall of the Roman 
 Church. It would be invidious to suggest a parallel 
 between the Goths and Vandals and Huns that 
 pressed on the old Roman frontiers and the Pro- 
 testants, Greeks and Freethinkers that make inroads 
 into Romanism to-day ; nor would the possibili- 
 ties thus suggested be quite justified. There is a 
 far greater power of recuperation in the Church of 
 Rome than there was in the empire of Honorius. 
 There are easily realisable ways in which certain fatal 
 errors may be redeemed and some of the causes of 
 decay arrested. I will return to these possibilities 
 presently, and only wish, for the moment, to guard 
 against the misconstruction that the parallel with 
 the Roman Empire may naturally prompt. In the 
 meantime let us sum up the result of our inquiry 
 and conceive well the actual position of the Church. 
 
 The summaries at the close of each of my three 
 sections show a net loss to the Vatican, within the 
 last seventy years or so, of about 80,000,000 followers. 
 I have taken different periods for the commencement 
 of my inquiry in different countries, because the 
 leakage movement has varied with national and 
 cultural circumstances. Broadly speaking, the great 
 leakage begins with the culmination of the middle- 
 class revolt in the revolutionary wave of the early 
 thirties. In most countries the explicit secessions 
 were few up to that period, though it has been 
 necessary to describe the development of the move- 
 ment. In some countries — France, for instance — 
 there was a signal Catholic recovery, and my state- 
 ment of loss belongs entirely to the last thirty or 
 forty years. Indeed, it is probable, as the reader will
 
 298 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 easily detect, that 50,000,000 of the loss falls within 
 the last quarter of the nineteenth century. On the 
 other hand, if one cares to ask what has been the 
 total loss to the Vatican since the first revolutionary 
 stirrings of a century and a quarter ago, the figure 
 rises enormously. France was then wholly Catholic ; 
 Poland upheld the authority of the Vatican over a 
 vast area of Europe where it is now almost powerless ; 
 Ireland was pouring thousands of Catholics annually 
 into the wilderness of North America, of whom and 
 their descendants not a tenth have been retained in 
 the Church ; and Spain held large numbers of natives 
 in nominal allegiance to Rome, who had already 
 fallen away at the point where I begin to tabulate 
 the secessions. 1 We should have to add at least 
 20,000,000 to the total if we extended the inquiry 
 back over those years. I have felt it to be better to 
 restrict myself to the modern period, partly because 
 more reliable figures are available, partly because I 
 do not wish to include the grandchildren and great- 
 grandchildren of seceders. 
 
 That the total loss of 80,000,000 does not mean that 
 so many individuals have formally abandoned the 
 Church I have made quite clear as I proceeded. Any 
 attempt to tabulate actual secessions, and to find 
 how many of these seceders, or of their children, 
 were recovered, would be quite futile. The only 
 practicable thing to do, and the point, I assume, that 
 
 1 The earlier loss in Poland I have described. The facts as 
 to France and Spain need no further illustration, As to North 
 America, I have before me a letter to The Sun (12th February 
 1707), by M. J. O'Brien, showing from contemporary documents 
 that the Irish were arriving there in thousands every year from 
 1720 onwards. At specific ports the numbers were given as 5600 
 in 1727 and 5655 in 1728. The statistics of American Catholicism 
 that I gave show that the vast majority of these and their descend- 
 ants fell away to Protestantism.
 
 CONCLUSION 299 
 
 is of broadest social interest, was to discover how 
 far the Catholic population of each country falls 
 short by leakage of what it should be at the close of 
 the nineteenth century. If 30,000,000 of the French 
 were Catholic in 1875, and only 5, 500,000 (at the most) 
 are Catholic to-day, it seems plain that, allowing 
 for the slight increase of population in France, the 
 Church has lost 25,000,000 followers. That, at all 
 events, is the meaning of my statement of loss ; and 
 I may add that in countries like France most of the 
 living 25,000,000 have actually been baptised Catholic. 
 My statement means, in brief, that, after making full 
 allowance for conversions to Catholicism, immigration 
 and comparative birth-rates (where there is a proved 
 difference between the Catholic and non-Catholic), 
 the Church of Rome was, at the end of the nineteenth 
 century — though I have carried the figures to 1905 
 where it was possible — 80,000,000 short of its due total 
 entirely through secessions from its creed and 
 authority. The actual loss is far greater. This is 
 the net loss, after making allowance for all its converts. 
 In almost every chapter I have been able to rely on 
 Roman Catholic writers of repute for my estimate of 
 the loss in their several countries ; though, no doubt, 
 when Catholics find these admissions now gathered 
 together for the first time, they will shrink in concern 
 from the appalling statement of deficit. Anti-Catholic 
 writers, on the other hand, will claim that I have, in 
 view of the evidence I give, understated the Church's 
 losses. I believe I have ; but it was my desire to reach 
 a conclusion that bore no trace of strain, and that 
 the average impartial reader can easily gather himseh 
 from the statistics and authorities I have quoted. 
 It must be remembered that the largest statements of 
 loss in my account are based on the most positive 
 figures, and cannot be questioned. France, Great
 
 300 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Britain, the United States and Russia account for 
 nearly 50,000,000 of the total loss. In each of these 
 cases the result is not a matter of estimate at all, but 
 of exact statistical analysis ; and I should have had 
 the support of very high authorities, even Catholic 
 authorities, if I had put the loss for these countries 
 much higher. To France I allow a Catholic popula- 
 tion 50 per cent, larger than that claimed by Sabatier ; 
 for the United States I assign a loss 50 per cent, 
 lower than several American Catholic writers admit; 
 for Russia I have claimed the minimum that the 
 positive figures yield. In the other chief instances 
 of loss — Italy, Spain, Spanish America, Germany, 
 Austria and Belgium — my conclusion is less rigorous 
 in form. To an extent it is based on dwindling per- 
 centages, in conjunction with a high birth-rate, which 
 evince an indisputable loss of millions. To a further 
 extent it is based on political data to which we must 
 assign the grave importance which the Church itself 
 attaches to the political fidelity of its followers in 
 lands where there is a definite Catholic party. Only 
 to a slight extent have I relied on literary and other 
 indications on which judgment may differ. This it is 
 imperative to note. I do not dogmatise in presenting 
 a positive statement of the Church's loss, but merely 
 put together the plain and indisputable indications, 
 and then further suggest the conclusion that seems 
 to be warranted where exact figures fail. No doubt 
 a few neutral students will differ from me to the 
 extent of a few millions, but I feel sure they will 
 differ in the sense of saying that I have submitted 
 too modest an estimate of the Church's loss in Italy, 
 Spain and Spanish America. 
 
 Nor must the reader imagine that I have held too 
 rigorous a conception of what is or is not a Roman 
 Catholic. I have not attempted to strike off every
 
 CONCLUSION 301 
 
 man who does not go to church every Sunday. 
 Where church attendance has been used as a test 
 it has been taken generously, and allowance has been 
 made for casual absentees. But I decline to regard 
 as a Catholic one who never goes to mass or Easter 
 communion, or who habitually supports political 
 parties that are sternly condemned by, and openly 
 hostile to, the Church. Where there is obviously 
 neither belief nor obedience to commands that, on the 
 most familiar Catholic principles, bind under pain of 
 eternal damnation, I do not see how a census declara- 
 tion that one is a Roman Catholic can be taken 
 seriously. Our experience has been, in so many 
 instances, that such a declaration merely means that 
 one is neither Protestant nor Jew. At the same time, 
 the reader must not imagine that I have struck off all 
 who do thus habitually neglect mass. Only in a few 
 cases have we the exact figures of churchgoers. 
 Wherever we had them, we found that they cut down 
 the nominal Catholic population to an alarming extent. 
 It is probable that if we had an exact return of 
 the average number of churchgoers in Germany, 
 Austria, Italy, Spain and Spanish America, we should 
 have to add many more million seceders to the list. 
 
 With this reserve, therefore, I proceed to state 
 the actual number of Roman Catholics in the world. 
 The totals at the conclusion of each section amount, 
 together, to 188,650,230. I do not for a moment 
 suggest that all these are "practising Catholics." If 
 that test of real Catholicism could be applied over 
 Central and Spanish America, for instance, we should 
 see a great shrinkage of the figure. I have merely 
 put down all the Catholics claimed where I had not 
 positive grounds for lowering the figure ; and the 
 vastness of my subject entitles me to some leniency. 
 To these, however, we must add the total of Roman
 
 302 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Catholics on the foreign missions. I have already in- 
 cluded India andthe Philippines and other countries that 
 properly belong to this group, and the inquiry we made 
 into the Indian figures warned us to take such figures 
 with discretion. We saw that even the official census 
 was enormously below the Catholic claim. Farther 
 India claims 948,820 converts ; a figure which is, no 
 doubt, similarly inflated, but the whole question of these 
 mission statistics is too elusive to repay strict inquiry. 1 
 In China proper the Catholics claim to have 720,540 
 converts. As the Jesuit missionaries there had 
 300,000 converts in the seventeenth century, we 
 might be prepared to entertain this result of the 
 enormous labours and expenditure of the nineteenth 
 century. But Protestant missionaries, and even such 
 impartial authorities as Sir Robert Hart, would have 
 us hesitate in interpreting these figures. One quota- 
 tion will suffice to indicate that we must regard them 
 as we did the figures for India. The Church of 
 England Missionary Society's Report for i8gg says 
 (p. 329) : " It is now a very common practice for men 
 whose sole object is to plunder, to avoid paying their 
 debts, and to escape punishment by the authorities, 
 to place their names as Romanists on the register of 
 the Roman Catholic Church. They are then entitled 
 to the protection of the Romish priest and bishop, 
 and of the French Consul ; and can, and do, commit 
 acts of violence with impunity." These things have 
 
 1 Besides that very contradictory figures are offered us. Cardinal 
 Vaughan (Ency. Brit, supplementary edition) gives 783,237 for 
 Farther India and Indo-China. The Statesman's Year Book gives 
 893,234. The Encyclopedia 0/ Missions gives 948,829. The anti- 
 Catholic writer may reasonably complain that I take the most 
 generous figure. In almost all the other cases I pass over Cardinal 
 Vaughan's smaller figures, and admit the larger ones in other writers ; 
 though Cardinal Vaughan wrote in the closing years of the nineteenth 
 century.
 
 CONCLUSION 303 
 
 had much to do with the anti-Christian riots oi the 
 Chinese — one of the most tolerant of nations. In 
 Japan, where also material benefit somewhat com- 
 plicates the spiritual change, and where it is common 
 for a man to have at least two religions (Shinto and 
 Buddhism), the Church will hardly claim great pro- 
 gress. The Jesuits had 600,000 converts there in 
 1582, and the modern Catholics are chiefly found in 
 the old centres. The Encyclopedia of Missions gives 
 them as numbering 53,400, but as one of the most 
 recent missionary writers says ("The Christian Faith 
 in Japan ") : " It is difficult to obtain reliable figures, 
 especially in the case of the Roman missions." In 
 Korea they claim 32,200 followers; in Java 49,800; 
 in the Pacific Islands, 109,388 ; in Africa (besides 
 those we have given) about 200,000/ It is useless 
 to discuss these figures. Altogether they yield a 
 total of 2,114,148 for the foreign missions, besides 
 those we have included in previous chapters. Let 
 us add them en bloc to the Catholic total, which will 
 then stand at 190,764,378. 
 
 But this grand total of membership of the Roman 
 Catholic Church has now to be examined from the 
 point of view of cultural value. The childish practice 
 of "counting heads " no longer finds the favour it did. 
 The serious social student looks to quality rather than 
 quantity, and in the present inquiry this is peculiarly 
 necessary. The immense losses that the Church of 
 Rome has sustained have had many causes, but our 
 inquiry has made it clear that popular education 
 has been one of the most serious of these. Where 
 a large Catholic population, like that of Ireland or 
 Poland, has been taken out of its narrow groove, and 
 has made acquaintance with other religions, the effect 
 
 1 According to the Encyclopedia of Missions, from Catholic sources. 
 Secular authorities always give lower numbers.
 
 304 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 has been disastrous. Where a nation, like the French, 
 the Italian, the Spanish, or the Spanish-American, 
 has been liberated somewhat from the mist of dense 
 ignorance, there has been the same disastrous result. 
 The new enlightenment and freedom of the mass 
 of the people is the chief cause of the great revolt in 
 Catholic countries. If, therefore, any large proportion 
 of the Vatican's following still awaits the inevitable 
 shock of this first enlightenment the outlook is dark 
 for Roman authority. 
 
 On this point I have only to sum up the statements 
 as to cultural condition that I have made as we pro- 
 ceeded. Of the Vatican's 190,000,000 followers more 
 than 1 20,000,000 are illiterate. That grave statement 
 is fully borne out by the references to cultural con- 
 dition that I have made throughout the work. The 
 reader may indeed be reconciled to it at once by glanc- 
 ing back at the chapters on the Latin world. There 
 he will find that southern Italy, where the bulk of the 
 Italian Catholics are found, is illiterate to the extent 
 of 70 per cent., Spain to nearly the same extent, and 
 Portugal to the extent of 78 per cent. ; and, as the 
 majority of the literates have seceded, the Catholic 
 percentage of illiteracy rises much higher still. This 
 accounts for 35,000,000 illiterate Catholics. Then 
 there are 48,000,000 in Spanish America whom it is 
 more than polite to describe as illiterate. Half of 
 them are only imperfectly civilised. We have next 
 the Catholics of Russia, and the Slavonic communities 
 of Austria- Hungary and the Balkan States — most of 
 them illiterate to an extent varying between 75 and 
 80 per cent. The Latins and Slavs alone furnish 
 more than 100,000,000 illiterate followers of the 
 Vatican (if we include the Spanish Americans) ; and 
 with these we must associate most of the Asiatic and 
 African Catholics. For the other countries I allow
 
 CONCLUSION 305 
 
 the official rates of illiterates ; with due regard to 
 such circumstances as the lower literacy of the 
 Catholic than the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, 
 the illiteracy of Catholic immigrants into the United 
 States, and the great preponderance of the peasantry 
 in the Catholic population of Austria, Belgium, 
 Germany and France. 
 
 This rapid survey will show the reader at once that 
 the terrible figure of 120,000,000 illiterates in a total 
 of 190,000,000 — a figure that, of course, I have 
 obtained by careful analysis — is in reality a very 
 moderate one. It means, in plain English, that the 
 majority of the Roman Catholics of the world to-day 
 consist of American Indians, half-castes, negroes and 
 mulattoes ; Italian, Spanish, Russian and Slavonic 
 peasants of the most backward character ; and Indian, 
 Indo-Chinese, and African natives. These make 
 up much more than half of the whole. Further, 
 the great bulk of the remainder are the peasants 
 and poor workers of Germany, Austria, France, 
 Belgium and Ireland. The seceders from Rome 
 we found to be literate in such a very high propor- 
 tion that the contrast between faithful and unfaithful 
 must have a very different complexion for the social 
 observer from that which the Church petulantly seeks 
 to put on it. Indeed, this aspect of Catholicism is 
 perhaps the most important of all. When we note 
 the extraordinary impotence of Catholicism in the 
 great cities of Europe ; when we learn, in country 
 after country, that the middle class forsook it a genera- 
 tion ago, and the artisans are abandoning it to-day ; 
 when we find its authority rejected almost in propor- 
 tion as a nation is touched with culture ; and when we 
 see that its larger tracts of unchallenged authority 
 so constantly correspond with the darker areas in the 
 cultural map of the world — we see that its power
 
 306 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 rests largely on a basis that is directly and triumph- 
 antly challenged by the modern spirit — a basis of 
 ignorance. 
 
 Thus the decay of the Church of Rome is likely to 
 continue with unabated speed, unless there is some 
 revolution in its policy. The Vatican is confronted 
 with two grave dilemmas to-day, or will be so con- 
 fronted when the pathetic figure of Pius X. has passed 
 away, and a statesman comes to the throne. The 
 first dilemma is in regard to culture, the second in 
 regard to politics. 
 
 Without entering into theological considerations I 
 may submit that for people of any culture the Roman 
 theology, the most ample and conservative epitome of 
 medieval beliefs, is no longer possible except there 
 be granted a broad liberty of interpretation in a 
 symbolic sense. One has only to note the fact that, 
 with more than 100,000,000 followers in the civilised 
 world, the Catholic Church is singularly poor in 
 representatives in the front line of culture ; and when 
 its Mivarts and its Actons die we learn on what 
 terms they held the Catholic creed. But I have fully 
 illustrated this in the chapter on English Catholicism. 
 Under Pius X. this liberty will not be granted, and 
 the cultural level will sink lower and lower. The 
 modernists will carry on their spirited fight with the 
 Vatican, but if the present regime last long enough 
 they will be driven out, or coerced into silence. They 
 have been betrayed by thousands of priests whom 
 they know, and many of us know, to be in complete 
 sympathy with them. But the next regime, especially 
 if it come in time to have Vannutelli as its leader, 
 will undo the mischief, and cultured exiles will return 
 to the Church in hundreds. 
 
 But the dilemma arises when one thinks what the 
 effect of the change will be on the less cultivated
 
 CONCLUSION 307 
 
 followers. They have not the subtlety of culture, 
 and will be apt to see only that dogmas that were 
 supported with the penalty of damnation a few years 
 before may now be cavalierly rejected. They will 
 see that the supreme head, or heads, of the Church 
 made a profound and disastrous blunder. They will 
 realise that the claim of infallibility was an elaborate 
 myth — the papacy a lath painted to look like iron. 
 The grim arsenal of the Vatican will turn out, as did 
 that of China some decades ago, to consist of wooden 
 imitations of guns and painted dragons and innocent 
 crackers. The change will surely come. Either of 
 the Italian candidates will concede it — one openly, 
 the other discreetly — and Germany and America will 
 discover their power. But the change will come too 
 late for Catholics to have an esoteric and an exoteric 
 creed. The cultural line is not now sharp enough 
 the swarm and persistency of journals too great. 
 Hence the dilemma is a really grave one, and even 
 the inevitable and proper decision to grant liberty 
 will reduce the dimensions while it improves the 
 quality of the Church. 
 
 The political dilemma is even more serious. We 
 have seen illustrations of it in so many countries that 
 I need only recall it. Without indulging in political 
 speculations, it is enough to note that in Germany, 
 France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Spanish America, 
 Belgium, Holland, and to an extent in other countries, 
 the Catholic body is rent by a political struggle. The 
 rulers, the wealthy and the middle class see a menace 
 to their interests in the emergence of the proletariate 
 in the political world. The Church had had so poor 
 an experience of rulers and middle class that, when 
 the idea at last became current that the proletariate 
 had come to stay, it coquetted with democracy. Then 
 there was hope of regaining the rulers and the 
 
 U2
 
 308 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Liberals by taking the other side, and it was taken. 
 The result has been that the Catholic workers have 
 smiled at the Vatican's thunders, and abandoned the 
 Church in millions. What is to be done ? I venture to 
 think that a different policy will be followed in different 
 countries, and that the broad attitude will be in the 
 end that the Church must cease to meddle with 
 politics and economics. This will undoubtedly mean 
 an enormous sacrifice of power and prestige, and the 
 cultural opponents of the Church will be freer than 
 ever to detach its followers. The American dream 
 of a democratic Church is useless. The democracy 
 does not ask its aid anywhere ; the rulers do. In 
 either event the Church will suffer further losses. 
 
 But I shrink from forecasts. It is enough to have 
 thrown some light on the actual position of the 
 Catholic body. If that light is too strong for the 
 nerves of its adherents I can only say that I have not 
 sought to give pain, but have written, without any 
 feeling, on a question of great public interest. A first 
 effort to survey so wide a field, and thread one's way 
 through so many literatures, is bound to be imperfect. 
 It is claimed only that sufficient sound material is 
 gathered here for establishing the conclusion that the 
 Church of Rome has been decaying rapidly throughout 
 the nineteenth century, and the process is not in the 
 least arrested at the beginning of the twentieth 
 century. Such losses as those we saw in connection 
 with Ireland and Poland, and the lapse of millions for 
 sheer lack of priests in the United States, or under 
 political pressure in Russia, will not recur. But new 
 agencies are at work. The agencies that secularised 
 France are following the same paths in Italy and 
 Spain and Spanish America. The fight with modern 
 culture is going unequally in Germany and the 
 United States. Its unity torn into shreds, its clergy
 
 CONCLUSION 309 
 
 coerced by an ignorant despotism and harassed by 
 the spies of a modern Inquisition, its body so largely 
 composed of ignorant peasants whose faith has no 
 root in measured conviction, the outlook of the 
 Church is as dark as the whole stretch of its history 
 has been for the last century and a quarter.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Act of Toleration, the, 133 
 Africa, Catholicism in, 303 
 Albi, Archbishop of, 39 
 Alfonso XII., 76 
 Alsace-Lorraine, 206, 213 
 Alva, 259 
 
 Amadeo of Savoy, 76 
 Andre, Rev. Tony, 55 
 Angouleme, Catholicism in, 30 
 Antonelli, Cardinal, 47 
 Argentine, the Church in the, HO 
 Associations Bill, the, 38 
 Australia, the Church in, 160- 166 
 Austriacus, 236 
 
 Balan, 48 
 
 Balmez, Father, 285 
 
 Barcelona, persecution at, 78, 79 
 
 Bavaria, Kulturkampf in, 208 
 
 Bazin, 52 
 
 Bela, Dr, 244 
 
 Benkendorf, 291 
 
 Berlin, Catholicism in, 221 
 
 Birth-rate in Austria, 234 
 
 ,, in Germany, 212 
 Bismarck, 205, 209-211 
 Bodley, Mr, 17, 27, 37, 171 
 Bohemia, Catholicism in, 228-229, 2 36 
 Bolivia, the Church in, 120 
 Bonaparte, Prince R., 102, 103 
 Booth, Charles, 142 
 Boulanger, 21 
 Bourgain, Abbe, 17 
 Brandenburg, 201 
 Braye, Lord, 139 
 Brazil, the Church in, 106 
 British Empire, the Church in the, 170 
 Broglie, Abbe de, 25 
 Brunetiere, F., 37, 39 
 Btichi, Dr, 252 
 
 Buenos Aires, Catholicism in, in 
 Burgundy, Catholicism in, 27 
 
 Cahensly, Mr, on leakage, 178 
 Canada, the Church in, 152-160 
 Carbonari, the, 46 
 Carlists, the, 74 
 Catherine II., 290 
 Catholic Emancipation, 134 
 
 3" 
 
 Catholic Encyclopedia, 147 
 
 Census declarations of religion, 51, 155, 
 
 156 
 Centre Party, origin of the, 207, 208 
 Ceylon, the Church in, 167 
 Charles X., 19 
 
 Charles XII. in Bohemia, 229 
 Chile, the Church in, 119 
 China, Catholicism in, 302 
 Coliseum, the, 4 
 Colquhoun, Mr and Mrs, 232, 243, 
 
 244 
 Colombia, the Church in, 113 
 Consalvi, 44 
 Corruption at Rome, 45 
 Costa Rica, 123 
 Crestey, Abb6, 29 
 Cuba, the Church in, 117 
 Culture in the Church of Rome, 8-9 
 Czechs, the, 236, 239 
 Czerski, Father, 204 
 
 Daens, Abbe, 269 
 Daily News census, 142 
 DAnnunzio, Gabriele, 66 
 Davitt, Mr, 136 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 174 
 Delassus, Canon, on leakage, 178 
 Demain, 40 
 Denmark, 295 
 Dessaine, Abbe, 26 
 Diaz, Porfirio, 104 
 Droste-Vischering, Archbishop, 203 
 Dupanloup, Mgr. , 18 
 
 Easter duties, 20 
 Ecuador, the Church in, 1 19 
 Education in Spain, 91 
 El Progreso, III 
 Elder, Mr, on leakage, 180 
 Electra, 85 
 
 Emigration in Germany, 215 
 England, Bishop, 175 
 England, numbers of Catholics in, 146 
 Escuela Moderna, the, 87 
 Ex-priests in England, 147 
 ,, ,, France, 32 
 
 Falk Laws, the, 209, 210
 
 312 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Farther India, Catholicism in, 302 
 
 Febronius, 203 
 
 Ferdinand, King, 72 
 
 Ferrer Guardia, F. , 80 
 
 Ferri, Enrico, 64 
 
 Fiamingo, Professor, 54 
 
 Fischer, 52 
 
 Fitzgerald, P., 136, 140, 141 
 
 Flemings, the, 271 
 
 Fogazzaro, 53, 63 
 
 France, Anatole, 17, 29 
 
 Franchi, Ausonio, 48 
 
 Frederick the Great, 201, 229 
 
 Frederick William III., 203 
 
 Free?nan , s Journal, on leakage, 178 
 
 Freemasons in the Argentine, ill 
 
 ,, in Cuba, 117 
 
 ,, in Portugal, 96 
 
 ,, in Spain, 86 
 Freeth ought Congress at Rome, 60, 61 
 French, the, in Canada, 153-154 
 French refugees in England, 133 
 French Revolution, the, 15 
 
 Garcia, F. P., 103 
 
 Gasquet, Abbot, 134, 136, 138 
 
 Genoa, strike at, 56 
 
 German Catholic Church, the, 204 
 
 Ghio, Paul, 56 
 
 Gibbons, Cardinal, 31 
 
 Godoy, 71 
 
 Gotor de Burbaguena, 84 
 
 Greece, the Church in, 295 
 
 Greek Uniates, the, 287-290 
 
 Gregory XIII., 13 
 
 Gregory XVI., 45, 46 
 
 Griffiths, Bishop, 134 
 
 Guatemala, the Church in, ill, 115 
 
 Guyot, Yves, 28 
 
 Haeckel, Professor, 52 
 
 Haiti, the Church in, 121 
 
 Hamburg, Catholicism in, 222 
 
 Hasselt, Catholicism in, 272 
 
 Hays, Leonce, 29 
 
 Holy Roman Empire, end of the, 230 
 
 Honduras, the Church in, 121 
 
 "Hors de Rome" movement, 33 
 
 Houghton, Mr, 77 
 
 Houtin, Abbe, 38, 40 
 
 Hume, Major, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80 
 
 Hungary, the Church in, 242 
 
 Hutton, Mr E., 55 
 
 // Santo, 53, 63 
 
 Illegitimate births in Catholic countries , 
 
 238 
 Illiteracy of Roman Catholics, 304 
 
 ,, in Austria, 238 
 
 ,, in Hungary, 246 
 
 ,, in Italy, 59 
 
 Illiteracy in Spain, 89, 91 
 
 ,, in Spanish America, 124 
 
 ,, in Switzerland, 256 
 
 ,, in the United States, 193 
 
 Immigration into Switzerland, 253 
 
 „ ,, the United States, 182-186 
 
 India, the Church in, 167 
 
 Indo-China, the Church in, 302 
 
 Indulgences, sale of, in Spain, 92 
 
 Infallibility, 47 
 
 Inquisition, the, 44 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop, 177 
 
 Ireland, the Church in, 130 
 
 Irish, dispersal of the, 129 
 
 „ the, in England, 136, 137, 139, 
 142 
 
 Isaacson, Mr, 89, 109 
 
 Japan, Catholicism in, 303 
 
 Java, the Church in, 303 
 
 Jesuits, the, in France, 19 
 ,, in Poland, 286 
 ,, in Switzerland, 250 
 
 Jews in Austria, the, 239 
 
 Jordan, Dr, 233 
 
 Joseph II., 229 
 
 Josephism, 229 
 
 Journals suppressed by Rome, 40 
 
 Juarez, 104 
 
 July Revolution, the, 16 
 
 Juraschek, Dr, 15, 212, 245 
 
 Kannengieser, Abbe, 221 
 Kennedy, Mr Bart, 82 
 King, Mr Bolton, 44, 45, 51 
 Korea, the Church in, 303 
 Kossuthists, the, 246 
 Krose, Father, 205, 212 
 Kuiper, Dr, 278, 281, 284 
 Kulturkampf, the, 205, 207-210 
 
 Lamennais, 16, 
 
 Las Dominicales, 87 
 
 Latin Catholics, II 
 
 Leakage, total, from the Church, 298 
 
 Leo XIII., 49 
 
 ,, in France, 21 
 ,, death of, 5 
 
 Lerdo, 104 
 
 L'Exode, 33 
 
 Liberalism in Austria, 231-232 
 ,, in Italy, 46 
 
 ,, in Spain, 71, 72, 73, 86 
 
 ,, in Spanish America, 99 
 
 Loisy, Abb6, 38, 39 
 
 London, Catholicism in, 134, 138, 140- 
 144 
 
 " Los-von-Rom " movement, the, 240 
 
 Louis XVI., 16 
 
 Louis Philippe, 16 
 
 Louvain University, 270-271
 
 INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Lozano, Senor, 87 
 
 Lucerne, Catholicism in, 249, 250 
 
 Lugano, Catholicism in, 255 
 
 Lutz, 208 
 
 Luxemburg, 295 
 
 Magalhaes Lima, 95 
 
 Magyars, the, 242 
 
 Marriage in Catholic churches, 107 
 
 Marriage-rate in England, 145 
 
 Mass, obligation to attend, 23 
 
 Mauritius, the Church in, 169 
 
 May Laws, the, 209, 2IO 
 
 Mazzini, 46 
 
 McCarthy, M., 130, 131 
 
 Meric, Dr E., 25 
 
 Mexico, the Church in, 102- 106 
 
 Minocchi, Dr, 63 
 
 Mitchell, Father, 140 
 
 Mixed marriages in Germany, 218, 223 
 
 Modernism, 67 
 
 ,, in Germany, 226 
 
 Moleschott, 48 
 
 Monaco, 295 
 
 Monastic property, 35, 36 
 
 Monasticism in Belgium, 274 
 ,, in Spain, 89, 90 
 
 „ in France, 34-38 
 
 Month, the, 14 
 
 Montjuich, torture at, 78, 79 
 
 Morality in Italy, 65 
 
 ,, of Catholic countries, 238 
 
 Moran, Cardinal, 161 
 
 Morote, L. , 83 
 
 Mudie Smith, Mr, 143 
 
 Mullen, Father, 178 
 
 Murphy, Mr T., 136, 138, 139 
 
 Murri, Dr, 57, 62, 63 
 
 Napoleon I., 15, 46 
 III., 17 
 
 National Review, 7 
 
 New Brunswick, the Church in, 158 
 
 New South Wales, the Church in, 163, 
 
 i6 5 
 New Zealand, the Church in, 166 
 Newman, conversion of, 135 
 Netherlands, Protestantism in the, 259, 
 
 277 
 Nicaragua, 121 
 Niebuhr, 202 
 Nicholas I., 270, 291 
 Nocedal, 84 
 Non expedit, the, 49, 58 
 Norway, 295 
 
 O'Gokman, T., 176 
 O'Kane Murray, J., on leakage, 178 
 Old Catholics, the, 210, 220, 241 
 Ontario, the Church in, 157 
 Orsi, 45, 46 
 
 Pan-Germanism, 239 
 
 Pan-Slav movement, the, 239, 243 
 
 Panama, 122 
 
 Papal States, the, 44, 45 
 
 Paraguay, the Church in, 122 
 
 Paris, Catholicism in, 23, 28, 29 
 
 Passarge, L., 69 
 
 Paterson, Bishop, 132 
 
 Perez Galdos, 92 
 
 Peru, the Church in, 118 
 
 Pey-Ordeix, Segismondo, 86 
 
 Philippines, the Church in the, 123 
 
 Pieper, Pastor, 203, 212 
 
 Pius VII., 44 
 
 Pius IX., 46, 47, 49 
 
 Pius X., 5 
 
 Poland, partition of, 202, 230, 2S8 
 
 Polish Independent Church, the, 293 
 
 Positivism in Brazil, 108 
 
 Positivists and Rome, 2, 3 
 
 Prediction of Rome's future, 1-4 
 
 Priests in England, 144 
 
 Protestantism in France, 15 
 
 ,, in Germany, 213-215 
 
 ,, in Mexico, 106 
 
 ,, in Spain, 77, 81 
 
 Prussia, conversion of, 201 
 
 Quebec, the church in, 157 
 Quirinal, the, in the Vatican, 49 
 
 Ramon de Torre-Isunza, 84 
 
 Rationalists and Rome, 2, 3 
 
 Reformation, the, 44 
 
 ,, in the Low Countries, 259 
 
 ,, in Switzerland, 249 
 
 Religious communities in France, 34 
 
 Republicanism in Portugal, 96 
 
 Restrepo, J. R. , 114 
 
 Revolution in Austria, 230 
 
 Rhine Provinces, the, 201, 202 
 
 Romanists of Germany, 202 
 
 Ronge, Father, 204 
 
 Ruthenians, the, 244 
 
 Sabatier, 8, 18, 31 
 
 Salvador, the Church in, 121 
 
 Santo Domingo, the Church in, 121 
 
 Sarraga, Senora, 87 
 
 Sarrasi, 83 
 
 School attendance in England, 145-146 
 
 Scotland, the Church in, 148-149 
 
 Scraggs, W. L. , »oo 
 
 Seceders, total number of, 298 
 
 Semi-Rationalism, 203 
 
 Serbo-Croats, the, 244 
 
 Sertillanges, Pere, 5, 25, 26 
 
 Shinnors, Father, on leakage, 179 
 
 Sierra, Justus, 104
 
 314 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Slavs, the, and Catholicism, 239, 243 
 
 Slovaks, the, 244 
 
 Slovenes, the, 239 
 
 Sobieski, 2S9 
 
 Social Democrats, origin of the, 210, 
 
 224 
 Socialism in Belgium, 266 
 in Italy, 55-60 
 Sonderbund, the, 251 
 South Africa, the Church in, 169 
 Spanish America, the Church in, 100 
 Spanish literature, 85 
 Statesmanship at the Vatican, 12 
 Steiner, Father, 287 
 Strand Magazine, 5 
 Sweden, 295 
 Syllabus, the, 48 
 
 Taine on French Catholicism, 22-24 
 Tarrida del Marmol, Professor, 79 
 Thirlmere, R., 82 
 Thirty Years' War, the, 228 
 Ticino, Catholicism in, 255 
 Treves, the Coat of, 204 
 Turinaz, Mgr., 21, 23, 27 
 Turkey, the Church in, 295 
 
 Van Diemen's Land, 161 
 Vannutelli, Cardinal, 306 
 Vatican, the, and Italy, 49 
 
 ,, blunders of trie, 12, 13 
 Vatican Council, the, 206 
 Vaughan, Archbishop, 140 
 Venezuela, the Church in, 120 
 Veuillot, 16 
 
 Victoria, the Church in, 163, 165 
 Vienna, Catholicism in, 235 
 Virchow, 207 
 
 Volkspartei, the, in Austria, 239 
 Von Fircks, 212, 215 
 
 Walburg, Father, on leakage, 179 
 
 Waldeck Rousseau, 35 
 
 Walloons, the, 271, 273 
 
 Wells, H. G.,2 
 
 Werner, Father, 138 
 
 William I., 205 
 
 Wilmotte, 262, 264 
 
 Windthorst, 207 
 
 Wormeley, Elizabeth, 83 
 
 Wright, Dr Carroll, 176 
 
 Urba, Dr, 233 
 
 Uruguay, the Church in, III, 114 
 
 Zwingli, 249
 
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