694 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



that the President should answer the letter 

 personally, not officially. 



Belgium. Belgium, imitating the policy of 

 France, adopted a line of proceeding to dimin- 

 ish the influence of the Catholic Church. Re- 

 ligious teaching was suppressed in the schools, 

 and (June 26, 1883) a law was passed making 

 theological students liable to conscription. The 

 Catholic party established schools of their own 

 in which the pupils increased from 580,380 in 

 1880 to 622,437 in 1882. 



A curious case in the Belgian and American 

 courts resulted, August 14, in the acquittal 

 of Canon Bernard, who had been arrested in 

 America for embezzling the funds of the dio- 

 cese of Tonrnai. The bishop of that see, Mgr. 

 Dupont, becoming more or less insane, was 

 removed by the Pope, who appointed Bishop 

 Rousseaux to the management of the diocese. 

 Bishop Dupont, however, endeavored to gain 

 possession of the diocesan funds, and the Gov- 

 ernment claimed that the funds really belonged 

 to the state. Canon Bernard, acting under 

 orders to remove the funds, brought them to 

 the United States. As there had been no mis- 

 appropriation, his innocence was recognized. 



Louise Lateau, the stigmatica of Bois d'Haine, 

 died there on August 24. S-he was. born 

 Jan. 30, 1850, and from childhood was noted 

 for her piety and charity, especially in the 

 cholera-season of 1866. She was prostrated 

 by a lingering malady the following year, 

 and the stigmata, or wounds like those of 

 Christ, began to appear in 1868, that in the side- 

 being the first. She was also declared to have 

 lived without food from 1871. Her case ex- 

 cited much attention, and for a considerable 

 period her symptoms were examined by medi- 

 cal men of all opinions. By Catholics gener- 

 ally the facts were accepted as well established, 

 and she was regarded as one of those record- 

 ed to have received the stigmata, St. Francis 

 of Assisi being the first. Others, however, im- 

 peached the evidence and denied the facts. 



A congress, theological and devotional, was 

 held at Liege, Belgium, June 5-10, 1883, called 

 the Congress of Eucharistical Works. 



Switzerland. Early in the year an attempt 

 was made to give the Catholic cantons reore- 

 sentation in the Federal Council, from which 

 they had been excluded for thirty years, but 

 the project failed. The position of the Catho- 

 lic Church, however, was improving; Mgr. Mer- 

 millod, Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, who 

 had long been in exile, was permitted to re- 

 turn. The Old Catholic body, though support- 

 ed by the Government, had not gained ground, 

 and was unable to retain the Church of St. 

 Joseph, which had been taken from the Cath- 

 olics, who accordingly recovered it. 



Austria-Hungary. The year was marked by 

 a great national pilgrimage to the. tomb of St. 

 John Nepomucene, at Prague, in May, and by 

 the religious and national celebration in Aus- 

 trian Poland of John Sobieski's victory over 

 the Turks at Vienna in 1683. During the 



year the laws making seminarians amenable to 

 military service were to some extent a dead 

 letter. 



Russia. The negotiations which Pope Leo 

 XIII had conducted with the Emperor led, 

 early in 1883, to a greater prosperity for the 

 Catholic Church in the Russian dominions 

 than it had enjoyed for many years. "With the 

 consent of the Russian Government, the Pope 

 appointed twelve bishops to sees which had 

 long been vacant. Numbers of priests were 

 allowed to return from exile. The Catholic 

 Metropolitan of Russia, Mgr. Fialkowtski, 

 Archbishop of Mobile v, died on Feb. 11. 



United States. The Catholic Church in the 

 United States, at the close of 1883, had 13 

 archbishops, 57 bishops, 6,835 priests, and 

 6,613 churches an increase of 289 priests and 

 372 churches since 1882. The total number of 

 Catholics is uncertain, the estimates being, as 

 far as statistics can be depended on, below the 

 real population, which, judging by the ratio 

 of births and deaths, must exceed 7,500,000. 

 In Vermont, of 7,350 children born, 2,037 

 were baptized in Catholic churches ; the ratio 

 of births to population is 1 to 45 '2, but the 

 Catholic population is estimated at only 36,- 

 000, when probably 50,000 would be nearer 

 the truth. Of 90,980 births in Ohio, 16,216 

 were baptized in Catholic churches. 



A provincial council, called at New York, 

 met on September 23. Besides the cardinal, 

 who presided as Archbishop of New York, it 

 was attended by seven bishops of New York 

 and New Jersey, and the Coadjutor Arch- 

 bishop of New York. The decrees of the 

 Council were transmitted to Rome for ap- 

 proval. About the same time the Pope called 

 the various archbishops of the United States 

 to Rome to discuss the matters to be treated in 

 a Plenary Council of the whole Church in the 

 United States, to be held in .Baltimore in 

 1884. As several of the archbishops were 

 unable from ill health to go, bishops from the 

 provinces represented them and vacant sees. 

 Many sessions of the American archbishops 

 and bishops were held, and various points re- 

 lating to the adaptation of the law governing 

 the Church in the United State? to the general 

 law of the Church, and to the position of af- 

 fairs in this country, were finally settled upon. 



The celebrations in the year showed a 

 strange contrast. The Jesuits celebrated April 

 17, the 250th anniversary of the founding of a 

 mission of their order in Maryland, at the very 

 outset of its colonization ; and Chicago, now 

 the see of an archbishop, celebrated the 50th 

 anniversary of the erection of the first Catholic 

 church, May 27; and the first resident priest 

 at Chicago, Rev. J. M. J. St. Cyr, almost wit- 

 nessed the celebration, dying Feb. 21. 



Several cases touching the Catholic, Church 

 were before the courts in 1883. In March, 

 Chief-Justice Morton, of the Supreme Court 

 of Massachusetts, decided that a bequest of 

 money to have masses said for the soul of the 



