p. 21 | Why a Catholic Census? by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 10, 1912

Why a Catholic Census?

By Editor

Our esteemed contemporary the New York Sun, in its issue of August 31, published the following despatch from its correspondent in Milwaukee:—

“It is developed to-day that the conference of Archbishops Messmer of Milwaukee, Ireland of St. Paul, and Glennon of St. Louis, was intended to discuss a recent decision of President Taft with regard to the Catholic census of the country.”

“The recent official census reports were criticized by Catholics as giving far too small figures for the Catholic families of the country. The protests reached the President, and he has finally authorized the taking of a special census of Catholics by church dignitaries, and the archbishops were in conference with a view to studying how to make the census correct and sufficiently inclusive.

“Archbishops Ireland and Glennon were here as two who had led in the agitation against the government figures.”

Apart from the fact that the foregoing may be regarded as further convincing evidence of the truth of the charge that the Roman Church is in politics, it will be asked, Why is the Catholic hierarchy dissatisfied with the figures of the census? They were compiled, as we are assured, with the same scrupulous care to ascertain the status of all the religious bodies in this country, and it is somewhat significant that at this late date their accuracy should be questioned by the Catholics alone. Why should there be so much solicitude about taking a “special census” of Catholics, in advance of a presidential election? President Taft has stated that he has treated all religious denominations with equal fairness. Assuming this to be the case, and that the census figures are the results of such uniform treatment, why should he have suddenly come to the conclusion that “a special Catholic census by church dignitaries” is now necessary? Is such a census to supersede that taken by the officials in the government service, according to “uniformly fair methods,” which the census officials applied to all denominations? These are questions which will naturally be asked by the American people, who are interested in so strange a proceeding. According to the census, there were 12,321,746 Catholics in the United States, or about one eighth of our entire population. Are the rank and file of that church dissatisfied with these figures? or is it only the hierarchy that is agitating for this new census to be taken under their own auspices, in the hope of producing a more formidable showing, and thus placing the Catholic voting power in a better position to demand respect and consideration? Surely the public is not to be blamed if it detects in this affair all the earmarks of a strategic political move—another step forward in the great papal political campaign.

We shall watch with interest for developments in this strange proceeding, which is something startlingly novel in administrative methods, being, so far as we know, wholly without a precedent.—The Christian Herald, Sept. 18, 1912.