PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM VERSUS CATHOLICISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 49, 8 April 1898, Page 28

PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM VERSUS CATHOLICISM.

137,000,000. Nearly all the authorities just quoted are Protestants. Even by taking the highest estimate, and unfairly including the Greeks, Russians, and other non-Catholic Easterns among the " Protestants," we fall vastly short of the 250,000,000 co-religionists claimed by our budding local statistician.

He is a fearless figure-] ugtjler. KU thesis will allow only 1 ."30,000,000 Catholics alive upon this planet. With a stroke of his pen he thus cuts out of existence from 50.000.000 to 100.000.000 of them. 'Chambers' Encyclopaedia' (lß9l) gives (on the authority of the ' Statesman's Year-book') 210,000,000; the ' Encyclopedia Britannica' (18S6) gives as high as 218 000,000, and evidently disapproves of the lowest estimate for 12 years ago— ls2 000,000. Brachelli's estimate of the Catholics in Europe with Werner's

for the rest of the world gave ( IHK(> ) 218,732,908. TO.lbe ('Sr. Michael's Calender') gives 2K>,Hsf},ooo ; Casnrtelli (18% j over 217,000,000; ' Huzell's Annual' (1897), 240,000,000 ; the ' Scientific Miecell.iny ' 2.~>4.700,000. The ' Vera Roma ' published last year what io term d a German Protestant estimate of 280,000,000. So ne of the^e figures are probably exaggerate 1 : others understated. All of them are mere estimates. But hai ' Protestant ' no scruple of conscience in wiping out .■50.000,000 or 100,000.000 ? And why and oh ! why did he not at least straightforwardly state that higher and far higher estimatts than his were in existence ?

His misleading statistics regarding given countries will be dealt with at the proper time. I await serious attempt at proof of his quoted statement. During the progress of his task I shall afford him opportunities of reconciling his statement with the rapid and continued spread of the Catholic Church in the countries that were the cradle of the Reformation ; and with the flatly contradictory statements made by a number of Protestant writers — lay and clerical — who hold, in effect, with the Anglican Bishop of Grafton, Dr. Green, that " the Roman Church is scoring always, scoring everywhere, and s.oring heavily." Aw rcvoir. — Yours, etc., Editor, N. Z. Tablet. Dunedin, April 3.

A DUNE DIN CONTROVERSY. A great part of our Jubilee leader having 1 been copied into th« Dunedin Evening Star of March 20, a Protestant polemic took exception to — without contradicting or qualifying — our statement that in 1849 the Province of Otago had only 90 Catholics among a total population of 8,899. '' Ido not think," wrote our pugnacious friend, in last Saturday's Star, " it is even fair to leave the question here, for it is only right to take a broad view of the case ; then we shall be better able to find out the true state of affairs. The following figures show a marked decline relatively year by year for the last 300 years : — Non-Romanists, 250,000,000 ; Romanists, 150,000,000. Increase during the present century : Protestants, 275 per cent. ; Romanists, 30 per cent. Had Romanists increased in the same ratio as Protestants the Roman Church would number 450,500,000." The remainder of the letter contains similarly garbled and inaccurate figures regarding particular countries. The following reply was sent to the Star on Monday morning- :—: — TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — The writer who signs himself '• Protestant " in your is&ue of Saturday furnishes a telling illustration of the truth that statistics are edged tools and need careful handling. The c iinpariBon he institutes is of the kind termed " odious." It did not fairly arise out of anything that appeared in the Tablkt Jubileo article. It was merely dragged in, and, in Jubilee time, might better have been left alone. Our Protestant friend has stated in the course of his letter that Catholicism has shown '• a marked decline relatively year by year for the last 300 years." I hold him strictly to this letter of this statement. In the dibcussion of it I will take nothing tor granted and grant nothing but what he proves. In support of this particular assertion he quotes statistics covering the p<i*L 300 years, but has forgotten to intimate the source from which he got them. These figures are not evidence for themselves. I deny their accuracy. It now remains for the writer of the letter to establish their correctness — if he can. Many of your readers are probably aware that beyond 70 years back there are practically no official statistics of religious denominations ; that even now Great Britain, the United States, and several other Christian countries publish no such returns ; that the only available figures of the kind for the wide world are merely estimates or guesses by this or that statistician ; and that they differ so hopelessly from one another as to afford no s;ifc grounds for such a dead-sure comparison as our friend' 1 Protestant " has been making in your columns. "Protestant's" figures are grotesquely misleading. (1) He unduly and enormously swells the numerical strength of the Protestant denominations. (2) He unfairly diminishes that of the Catholic body. (1) He divides all Christendom into two camps — " Romanists " and '■ non-Romanists." These latter he coolly labels as all "Protestants." According to The Time of May 4, 1684, there are reputed to be some 700 Christian sects in England alone. There are probably a few hundred more abroad — of every kind, trom the " highest " Ritualists down to the Unitarians and the rationalistic Protestants in Germany. "Protestant" lumps all these rival creeds together as one Church. And as a make-weight he iiings into the Babel some 80,000,000 Eastern Christians who abhor the Reformation, and tickets them " Protestants " also. And then he claims to have got together a grand total of 2">0.ooi),0O0 '• Protestants." Where tie got them. Heaven only knows. Certainly not from Mulhall, Brachelli, Schem, Meyer, or any other authority on statistics that 1 am acquainted with. Ralston lialch (lh.i'J) and Schem both give 100,000,000 as the number of Protestants in the world. The Encyrlopwdia JBritnnnica, (1SS0) gives 1ij0.000.000 ; lloltzmann and Zoepffel (lßß2) about 113,000,000 ; Hubner(lßß4), 123,000,000. Meyer (1897) gives the highest estimate that I am acquainted with —