Catholics in Washington.
By Examiner
THE following, as the writer says, is worthy of careful attention. The gigantic strides which the Roman Church is making in the United States are not the result of chance, but of a well-defined plan. The student of prophecy has no difficulty in forecasting the result. For many years past the Catholic Archbishop has held, evidently for speculation, a large part of a square in the business part of the city. He now wants to sell it, and has asked Congress to remit all taxes on it. It is to be hoped the donation will not be made. The Archbishop's property already exempted is rated at $1,905,604, and this assessment is not much more than half its real value. He is steadily and rapidly acquiring valuable real estate in the District. Next to the Government, the Archbishop is the wealthiest proprietor. He buys no odds and ends; all his lots are of the best class. He buys for churches, parochial schools, nunnery schools, convents, asylums, homes for the aged. As he pays no taxes, he can hold until he can sell at a profit and buy more. At the present rate of purchase, he and the United States will own between them three-fourths of the real estate in the District, before the end of the century. The Baptists, who are more numerous here than the Catholics, and the Methodists, who have a still greater numerical superiority, own together several times as many churches as the Archbishop of Baltimore; but they do not together own as much exempted property. The figures are as follows: Archbishop Gibbons holds exempted property, $1,905,604; the Methodists, $636,449; Baptists, $319,921—total, $956,370. Excess of Archbishop's exempted property, $949,234. A striking difference between the Archbishop and the Protestants is that he has a carefully digested policy in regard to the acquisition of property; and they have none of any kind. Another is, he has no paid agents to take care of his; while the agents of the Protestants are all paid. It is easy to see what the result will be in this District: the Archbishop's successor will be the most wealthy corporation sole at the national capital; and when he transfers his archiepiscopal residence to Washington, which he will do when he finds it no longer necessary to mask his designs, he will be so strongly entrenched as to defy attack. He will then be a strong political power; strong enough, when backed by seven millions of Catholics in the United States, to control the balance of power in the national elections. Recently, a significant movement has been made here by the Archbishop against the public schools. The priests have refused to give absolution to parents who send their children to these schools. Hereafter, every Catholic child is to be brought up in the parochial schools taught by the priests. The Catholic population is to be isolated, as well as the priests can accomplish it, from the rest of the population, by separate education and separate social life. The placing the public schools under the ban with bell, book, and candle has not been noticed, except in short paragraphs, by the Washington daily press. I regard it as of great importance, and ask the careful attention to it of all who love the Republic. —Examiner.