ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



749 



solemnly approved for the whole Church. The 

 same congregation in November raised the feast 

 of St. Bede the Venerable to the dignity of a 

 general feast for the whole Church, with a proper 

 office and mass. 



Electric light on an extensive scale (6,000 lamps 

 of 16-candle power) was installed in the Vatican 

 in January. Leo XIII said, in reference to this 

 noteworthy event in the history of the apostolic 

 palace : " People will no longer be able to reproach 

 the Vatican with being the enemy of light." 



The Sacred College lost seven of its members 

 by death in the course of the year. They were 

 Cardinal Americo Ferreira dos Santos Silva, Bish- 

 op of Porto, Portugal, aged seventy; Cardinal 

 Augustine Bausa, Archbishop of Florence, aged 

 seventy-two; Cardinal Krementz, Archbishop of 

 Cologne, aged seventy-nine; Cardinal Sourrieu, 

 Archbishop of Rouen, aged seventy-four ; Cardinal 

 Schonborn, Archbishop of Prague, aged fifty-five; 

 Cardinal Mertel, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, 

 aged ninety-three; and Cardinal Verga, Bishop 

 of Albano, aged sixty-seven. 



United States. Although the papal letter on 

 Americanism was directed to Cardinal Gibbons, 

 it was felt to be addressed to every member of the 

 Catholic episcopal hierarchy in the United States, 

 and was so received and acknowledged. Several 

 of the more important archdioceses throughout 

 the country, notably Baltimore, Philadelphia, and 

 Milwaukee, responded with letters to his Holi- 

 ness, thanking the Holy Father for his care, and 

 generally condemning and repudiating the views 

 censured by the apostolic letter under the name 

 of Americanism. The superior general of the 

 Paulists, of which Father Hecker was the found- 

 er, also thanked his Holiness for defining the 

 objectionable heresy, and promised that the 

 Life of Father Hecker would be withdrawn from 

 sale and altered until it should meet in all re- 

 spects with the approbation of the Apostolic See. 

 The general tenor of the letters was that of deep 

 gratitude to the Pope for defining Americanism 

 out of existence, and thus refuting the accusation 

 of the French doctrinaires that the American 

 Church was given over to heretical doctrines and 

 practices. The term as used by the accusers 

 had been made to cover every form of objection- 

 able dogma, and the papal letter, by defining the 

 two senses in which the term was used, slew no 

 lion of heresy, but a particularly annoying cocka- 

 trice. 



The annual meeting of the archbishops of the 

 United States was held on Oct. 12 at the Catholic 

 University of America, Cardinal Gibbons presid- 

 ing. The most important action of the meeting 

 was the decision to appeal to the Congregation of 

 the Propaganda to persuade that body to allow 

 the Christian Brothers to maintain their course 

 of study as pursued for some years in the United 

 States. Early last year the superiors of the 

 order in France proceeded to enforce the rule 

 that the brothers should teach only the branches 

 of a common-school education, thus absolutely 

 prohibiting the teaching of the classics. It was 

 from this last inhibition that the appeal of the 

 archbishops was made. 



It was also decided by the meeting to maintain 

 out of Church funds the Indian mission schools, 

 the Government appropriation for which was due 

 to expire June 30, 1900. 



The decision of the Propaganda on the appeal 

 of the archbishops was reached in December. It 

 was adverse, being to the effect that the Chris- 

 tian Brothers would be obliged to follow the 

 letter of the rule of the order and cease alto- 

 gether from teaching classics. 



By a decision of the Supreme Court of the 

 United States in the case of Bradford vs. Rob- 

 erts, it was held that a hospital managed by a 

 Catholic religious society was not a religious in- 

 stitution within the meaning of the Constitution. 

 The court maintained that such an institution 

 (referring specifically to the Providence Hospital 

 in Washington, the 'appropriation to which of a 

 sum of money by Congress brought the matter 

 before the court), when its work was not con- 

 fined to the members of the Church to which its 

 directors belonged, was a secular corporation. 



Five episcopal sees were made vacant through 

 death in the course of the year 1899. Right Rev. 

 William O'Hare, Bishop of Scranton, died Feb. 

 3; Right Rev. John Vertin, Bishop of Sault Ste. 

 Marie and Marquette, Feb. 26; Right Rev. John 

 A. Watterson, Bishop of Columbus, April 17; 

 Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker, Bishop of Savan- 

 nah, July 29; and Right Rev. Louis de Goes- 

 briand, Bishop of Burlington, Nov. 5; Right Rev. 

 James Duggan, formerly Bishop of Chicago, died 

 March 27. 



Right Rev. John W. Shanahan was in January 

 appointed Bishop of Harrisburg, and Right Rev. 

 Peter Bourgade was transferred from the epis- 

 copal see of Tucson to the archbishopric of Santa 

 Fe. Other episcopal appointments were: Right 

 Rev. Alexander Christie, formerly Bishop of 

 Vancouver Island, Archbishop of Oregon; Right 

 Rev. G. A. Rouxel, Auxiliary Bishop of New 

 Orleans; Right Rev. James H. Blent, Bishop of 

 Porto Rico; Right Rev. Frederick Eis, Bishop of 

 Marquette; and Right Rev. Frederick C. Hop- 

 kins, S. J., Vicar Apostolic of Honduras. 



The American archbishops in February issued 

 a general appeal for funds for the support of the 

 Indian and negro missions in the United States. 

 Of the entire number of Indians in the United 

 States (112,130), nearly two thirds, or 74,468, pro- 

 fessed the Catholic faith, having 135 Catholic 

 churches and 74 priests. 



The Catholic population of the United States 

 at the end of 1899 was reckoned at 10,130,000. 

 The number of archbishops was 14; bishops, 77; 

 priests, 11,636, of whom 8,660 were diocesan. The 

 number of churches was given as 10,339. 



Cuba. The passing of Cuba into the hands of 

 the United States produced a change in the con- 

 dition of the Catholic Church in the island which 

 promised many a perplexing problem before the 

 Church could be put on a self-supporting basis. 

 Under Spanish rule the clergy received salaries 

 from the Government, the Bishop of Havana re- 

 ceiving the same salary as was given the Gov- 

 ernor General. Although the Church was pos- 

 sessed of much valuable property in Cuba, the 

 separation of Church and state left the former 

 financially embarrassed, partly because the Span- 

 ish Government had turned into the public purse 

 a large part of the Church revenues, and partly 

 because the Governor General of Cuba had also 

 borrowed extensively from ecclesiastical funds. 

 None of these sums had been repaid, and after 

 a conference between Cardinal Gibbons and Arch- 

 bishop Chappelle it was decided to present the 

 claim to the representative of Spain, to which 

 power the Church looked for reimbursement. 



In the meantime the change from an estab- 

 lished church supported by the Government to a 

 free one depending on the contributions of the 

 people compelled a radical change in the entire 

 system of administration. To add to the em- 

 barrassments of the situation, a majority of the 

 priests in the island gave notice of their intention 

 to return to Spain. The Church found much dif- 

 ficulty in getting Spanish-speaking priests to take 



