A Great Archdiocese.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 30, 24 July 1902, Page 20

A Great Archdiocese.

The demise of Archbishop Corrigan reminds us (says an American exchange) that after Paris, the Archdiocese of New York has, perhaps, within its jurisdiction m^re Catholics than any other in the world. Its churches and chapels number 5.%2, its priests count 716, its parinh schools 120, its ho-pitah 16, its industrial and reform schools 2G, its orphan asylums <5, and its Catholic population is estimated at 1 ,200 000. Thene figures do not touch the suffragan dioceses subordinated to New York, nor do tluy cover the statistics of even the country parts of the diocese proper ; they apply only to the city of N^w Yo. k itself, not counting Brooklyn. And yet two centuries ago New York was in the woods ! The Indian wigwam was almost the only human habitation on Manhattan Island, and the Indian canoo was the only crait that rippled the Burfare of its waters. To-day the, number of Catholics m New York city proper h ulmost half the totul population of the United States at the cloo of the war of independence. The first diocepo created in the United States was that of Baltimore, and the firi-t bishop appointed to the Baltimore diocece C^nd that largely at the instanceot Benjamin Frankliu) was the Right Rev. D. Carroll, cousin of the famous Charles Canoll ot OurrelltOL', whose name is inscribed in the list of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Later on — in 18'K — th» Holy See crente.il four new dioceses, those of New York, Bo^tcn, Philadelphia and Bardstown,

and raired Baltimore to the dignity of an archdiocese. To-day there are fourteen archbishops, sixty-nine bishops and- , five vioara apostolic m the government of the Church in the United States. Archbishop Corriganwas the sixth Msbop of New York, and be, like nil his predeoeasors except one v.m- of Irish blood. Archbishop Hughes, the first raised to the dignity of archbishop in New York, stands out as the boldest figure in the American episcopate. n n l cX A iIQi 1Q k and by him waß laid thp "or'ier-stone -f St. Patrick'a uatnedral, the moat mujeßtio temple of worship in the New World un the eve of that noteworthy event s<»ujo of our Anplr-lribhrnen' who had made money and drawn the linn between themselves and their poorer brethren, whiepered with nnotuous suggestive ness to the great prelate that it would be politio to charge the name of that church from Saint Patrick to some other paint. Doubtless Saint George would have suited those gentlemen. Archbishop Hughes alluded to the matter in his corner-stone sermon. He paid that nothing of that kind could be done without express permission from Rome ; and, speaking for himself, he declared that he could not do bo if he would and that he would not do so if he could