During this century the Holy Father has been able to restore the
Catholic hierarchy in England, Scotland, Holland, and to create it
anew in India. This means the orderly management of the works and
the purposes of the Catholic religion, since the episcopate is the
divinely instituted organ for its spread and its administration. In
many lands a numerous episcopate has sprung up. In our own beloved
country it has grown almost at the rate of one see for every year
of the century. The apostolic activity of the episcopate has been
usually beyond reproach. The care of souls, the creation of parishes,
building of churches, convents, schools, and charitable institutions
has gone on in every diocese of the Catholic world. Some bishops have
distinguished themselves by their sanctity of life and their love for
the poor; others by their learning and their skill in their writing
works of utility for the faithful; others by their holy martyrdoms,
both in pagan and Christian lands; others by devotion to great works of
common charity and utility—nearly all by their exemplary lives and the
conscientious performance of their duties.
No nation has a monopoly of this outpouring of the highest sacerdotal
devotion; and no nation or people, as far as I can learn, has been
without a steady succession of remarkable bishops, men who would have
done honor to any age of Christian history. I believe that it is the
constant and edifying service of the episcopal body which is chiefly
responsible for the improvement in learning, morality, and laborious
enlightened zeal on the part of the clergy, diocesan and monastic,
which it seems just to claim for the nineteenth century. In some
lands the episcopal office is freer than in others, and its beneficent
activity is more immediate and visible. In all the bishops have kept
the bond of unity, often at no inconsiderable sacrifice of personal
comfort. Neither schism nor heresy of any formal and noteworthy nature
has been connected with the episcopal office. It would ill become me
to discriminate where the merits are so equal. I may, however, be
permitted to rejoice with my countrymen at the end of the century that
the life and the teachings of a Carroll, a Cheverus, a Bruté a Neumann,
a Dubois, have not been without salutary effect, and have set a shining
mark for the imitation of all coming generations. Particularly have
such men inculcated habitual courtesy and charity in dealing with all
those who did not share the faith of Catholics. They were fresh from
the storms of foreign religious hatred and infidel intolerance, and
knew by personal experience the benefit of mutual good understanding
and personal respect.
In the United States, particularly, the Catholic episcopate has been
very active in providing for the most fundamental spiritual needs
of their flocks—churches for religious services, priests for the
administration of sacraments, schools for the preservation of the
revealed Christian faith, orphanages for the little waifs and castaways
of society. Whether short or long, the periods of government of these
Church rulers have never been idle nor marked by self-indulgence.
Almost every one has left some monument of faith as a contribution
to the general good of Catholicism. I would neither exaggerate nor
boast, yet it occurs to me, after many years of service, travel, and
observation, that few ages of Christianity can show a more laborious
and elevated episcopate than the nineteenth century.
The recruiting of the diocesan clergy has been the gravest duty of
this episcopate, for religion lives by and for men. It can get along
without wealth or monuments, but not without intelligent teachers of
its tenets and faithful observers of its precepts. In keeping with
the decrees of the Council of Trent diocesan seminaries have been
opened where it was possible, and elsewhere provincial institutions
of a similar character. Both flourish in the United States, and grow
more numerous with every decade. The older clergy, long drawn from
the venerable schools of Europe, have left a sweet odor among us,
the purest odor of self-sacrificing lives, of devotion to poor and
scattered flocks, of patient, uncomplaining contentment with the
circumstances of poverty and humility. There is no diocese in the
United States where there cannot be heard tales of the hardships and
brave lives of the ecclesiastics who laid the foundations of religion.
We remember them always, and hold their names in benediction. The
younger generation of our clergy enjoys advantages denied to their
predecessors; but we consider that they owe it to those predecessors if
they have a degree of leisure to perfect the culture of their minds,
and a faithful Catholic people to ask for the benefits which must
accrue from greater learning, if it be solid and well directed.
Yet I cannot admit that our older clergy were deficient in the learning
of the schools. The names of England and Corcoran are at once on our
lips, not to speak of a long array of others almost equally entitled
to distinguished mention. If the external conditions of the diocesan
clergy have improved, their relations to the Church authority have
been safeguarded with even greater earnestness and efficiency. The
dispositions of synods, provincial councils, and the three plenary
councils of Baltimore have, we are happy to say, had little to do with
questions of doctrine. They have all been held for the improvement
of discipline and notably for the welfare of the clergy. In the same
direction, also, have tended the numerous decisions and instructions
from the Roman congregations, whose wisdom has never been invoked
by us in vain, and whose sympathy for our conditions we gratefully
acknowledge.