Catholic Church, The

The, in its largest sense the entire body of Christian believers; in a restricted, but ordinarily accepted sense, the Church of Rome; those who recognize the see of Rome, that is to say, the pope, as the head of the church. It is impossible to condense the doctrine of the greatest church on earth into a few lines. A full discussion must recognize four cardinal points of belief: the supremacy of the pope or a belief in his full authority in matters of faith and morals; the right of the church to say what the Scriptures mean; the sacrament of confession and penance as a divinely appointed way to obtain forgiveness of sins; and the direct line of apostolic succession or priesthood derived through the apostles from Jesus Christ himself.

As to its practical teachings, the most important are: equality of prince and peasant, regardless of nationality or color; the wickedness of human slavery; the duty of priesthood to refrain from marriage; the doctrine that marriage may not be cancelled by divorce, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder"; the sanctity of human life, "Thou shalt not kill"; the duty of providing for the unfortunate, as by hospitals and asylums. The latter end is attained largely by voluntary associations of men, called monks, and women, called nuns, who withdraw from the world, refrain from marriage, and devote their lives to works of mercy and charity.

A Catholic authority writing at the beginning of the century estimates that of 447,000,000 Christians, 230,000,000 belong to the Church of Rome. Of these 160,000,000 live in Europe and 58,000,000 in the two Americas. Of European countries, those situated on the Mediterranean are most solidly Catholic. France has 35,000,000; Sweden and Norway have but 1,000 each. There are in the United States, speaking for 1906, about 14,484 priests, 11,814 churches, and about 12,000,000 adherents. There are (1910) 22,587,079 Catholics under the United States flag. The count includes the Catholics of the United States proper, Alaska, the Philippines, Porto Rico, and the Hawaiian Islands. The Catholic population under the British flag, is 12,053,418. In the United States proper there are 12,347,027 Catholics. The directory shows 4,845 parochial schools in the United States, with an attendance of 1,237,251. The Catholic population of the leading states in the Union is as follows:

New York, 2,722,649; Pennsylvania, 1,494,766; Illinois drops from second to third place with 1,443,752; Massachusetts is next, with 1,373,772; Ohio has 619,265; Louisiana, 557,431; Wisconsin, 532,217; New Jersey, 496,000; Michigan, 489,451; Missouri, 452,703; Minnesota, 427,627; California, 391,500; Connecticut, 370,000; Texas, 283,917; Iowa, 242,009; Rhode Island, 242,000; Indiana, 218,758; Kentucky, 194,296.

There are in the United States 1 papal delegate, 1 cardinal, 14 archbishops, 90 bishops, and 21 abbots. There are 86 seminaries for ecclesiastical students.

In addition to the secular clergy there are 40 religious orders of priests represented in the United States, the principal ones being the Jesuits, Benedictines, Capuchins, Franciscans, Dominicans, Holy Cross Fathers, Paulists, Redemptorists, and Oblates. Representatives of 122 sisterhoods are engaged in teaching in the country.

New York and Chicago are rated as having 1,200,000 Catholic inhabitants each. In this count the villages and suburban towns are included. The archdiocese of New York does not embrace the city of Brooklyn, which is a diocese itself. The Boston diocese, which includes a large manufacturing territory outside the city, follows with a Catholic population of 700,000, while the diocese of Brooklyn is fourth with 500,000. Philadelphia is fifth with 485,000 and New Orleans sixth, with a population of 450,000, while Pittsburg, St. Louis, Cleveland, Newark, and Hartford follow. The archdiocese of Milwaukee is the fourteenth largest in the country with a population of 235,000. New York heads the list as to the number of priests, there being 824. Chicago follows with 643 clergymen, Boston 598, Philadelphia 521, St. Louis 507, Pittsburg 422, Baltimore 405, Milwaukee 362, and Cleveland 353.

Baltimore is the residence of the chief American dignitary of the church; at present, James, Cardinal Gibbons.

The following passage is taken from Macaulay's brilliant essay on Ranke's History of the Popes:

There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs.... Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.

See Churches; Christianity

Catiline (108-62 B. C.), a Roman senator. He was descended from a patrician but impoverished family. In politics he was an adherent of Sulla. He held various public positions, including that of praetor and governor of Africa. In 66 B. C. he desired the consulship, but was defeated.

Catiline was a man of depraved morals, intemperate habits, and of inordinate ambition. He surrounded himself with a coterie of young nobles who were noted for gambling, drinking, and every sort of debauchery. He formed a conspiracy to overthrow the authority of the Senate and place himself and companions in authority. Fulvia, a mistress of one of the conspirators, revealed the plot to the consul Cicero, who immediately set spies at work to ferret out the details. November 8th, after hostilities had actually been begun in the provinces, Catiline had the audacity to take his regular seat in the senate, whereupon Cicero turned upon him with the famous Catilinian oration, beginning "How long, now, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?" To the astonishment of Catiline, Cicero went on to lay before the senate the innermost details of the plot. Catiline arose with haggard face and bloodshot eye. He made a miserable shift to reply; then, with curses on his lips, he turned with unsteady step and left the chamber. He hurried from Rome to join his forces in Etruria. Lentulus and others of the conspirators who remained in Rome to gather intelligence were arrested and executed as traitors. The consul Antoninus was sent against the forces of Catiline. Catiline fought with desperate bravery at the head of his troops, but was defeated and slain. See Sallust; Cicero; Ibsen