Roman Catholic Strength

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 24, 1913

Roman Catholic Strength

ADVANCE sheets of the official Roman Catholic Directory present some interesting figures for study. According to this report the United States now ranks as one of the countries in which Roman Catholicism has reached its highest numerical strength, 23,329,000 persons in this country being recorded as members of the Catholic Church. Of this number upward of seven millions are found in the Philippines. Of the Catholic countries of the world Italy heads the list, with a sum total of 30,500,000 souls who nominally adhere to that faith. Austria and Germany have but a few more than are found in the United States, while Spain has four million and the British Empire ten million less than this country in Catholic population. Referring to this, the Christian Advocate of March 27 says:—

In so far as these figures indicate the growth of a body aiming at political supremacy and the subordination of the state to the will of a church, we deprecate this multiplication of adherents. We have been accused of bigotry because of criticisms we have uttered against the politico-ecclesiastical machinery of Romanism. We shall probably be compelled to repeat many times what we now put down in all candor, namely, that we have no quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church as an institution seeking to redeem the lives of men and women from destruction by the offices of a religion which teaches the doctrines of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our only contention is with that influential element in the Roman Catholic Church which is trying to make religion an agency by which political supremacy shall be secured, and which would use that supremacy, when obtained, as a means of substituting ecclesiastical control for civic and national authority.