TRULY "A CATHOLIC CITY."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 259, 19 April 1878, Page 3

TRULY "A CATHOLIC CITY."

The correspondent of the Boston Christian Register thus writes of the progress of the Catholic church in Brooklyn, as it strikes a Protestant outsider :—: — I said in :i former letter that Brooklyn might almost be called a Congrerrationalist city. But if numbers are the test, it might well be culled a Catholic city. The Eoman Church here has more houses of wor- I _Miip than any other, about forty in all. more in proportion to population i tlic city oi! New York, in winch, I think, there arc fifty-three i Catholic churches. Most of these churches arc large and costly, and niiiny of them are magnificent in architecture and decorations. No church in the city is more brilliant in colour than the Church of St. Stephen, and the music here is im surpassed in the richness of {its. • piiility. The finest music of the orchestras of Damvosch and Thomas i> rivaled in the Hawses and Vc&pcra of this church. The church of " St. Mary by the Sea," the " Stella llaris " is a favorite church of the people, and grand requiem masses are frequently performed under its great Gothic arches. The bells most constantly heard are those of the Catholic Anprclus at morning and noon ; and the sound of these is not more punctual in the city of Rome than in this Protestant city. The Catholic schools in this city are numerous and good, and in no city are tbc school children better dressed or apparently more docile or well-behaved." Fabulous amounts are contributed to the Church for its expenses of worship, for its schools, its charities, its asylums, its celebrations ; and lack of means is rarely an obstacle to any Church enterprise that the Bishop decrees. Striking as the growth of the Roman Church is in the rural districts of our land, it is much more striking in such a city as this, where the net profits of a single church fair will be more than 10,O00dols — exceeding those of any single Protestant charity.