Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1909

Significant Statistics

A CORRESPONDENT of The Freeman's Journal (Catholic) states that the archbishop of St. Louis has prepared for the United States Census Bureau the statistics of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, and reports a membership of fifteen million. Dr. H. K. Carroll, in his annual statistical survey of the churches of the United States, credits to the Roman Catholic Church 12,394,731 members, out of a total church-membership in the United States of 34,282,543. If these figures are correct, more than a third of the church-members in the United States are Roman Catholics. In 1850, according to the census that year, one fifty-fifth of the population of the Union were Roman Catholics, while according to the census of 1900 the number of Catholics had increased to such an extent that they constituted one seventh of the population. In the light of the recent declaration of representative Roman Catholics that it is their established purpose to make America a Catholic country, these statistics are full of meaning.