colony of Maryland his son and successor, equally desirous of encouraging the settlers to maintain the form of worship they desired, took no clergymen officially, but erected chapels for each creed, leaving the people to arrange for a ministry as they chose. Father Andrew White and another Jesuit Father came out with the first settlers as gentlemen adventurers, under the proposals issued by Lord Baltimore, bringing out mechanics, laborers, and farmers. As proprietors they took up lands, and those who followed them did the same. These plantations afforded a support to the Catholic clergy in Maryland, down to the suppression of the Society of Jesus, the chapel being attached to the residence of the priest, for the laws of the colony forbade any separate structure for Catholic worship, and when Rev. Mr. Carroll landed in 1774 there was not, so far as we know, a public Catholic church in the province of Maryland.

The Rev. Mr. Carroll, some years later, thus described the condition of Catholics in Maryland during the three quarters of the century: "Attempts were frequently made to introduce the whole code of penal English laws, and it seemed to depend more on the temper of the courts of justice than on avowed and acknowledged principles that these laws were not generally executed as they were sometimes partially. Under these discouraging circumstances Catholic families of note left their church and carried an accession of weight and influence into the Protestant cause. The seat of government was removed from St. Mary's, where the Catholics were powerful, to Annapolis, where lay the strength of the opposite party. The Catholics, excluded from all lucrative employments, harassed and discouraged, became, in general, poor and dejected.

"But in spite of their discouragements their numbers increased with the increase of population. They either had

CONDITION OF CATHOLICS.

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clergymen residing in their neighborhoods or were occasionally visited by them; but these congregations were dispersed at such distances, and the clergymen were so few that many Catholic families could not always hear Mass, or receive any instruction so often as once in a month. Domestic instructions supplied, in some degree, this defect; but yet very imperfectly. Amongst the poorer sort, many could not read, or if they could, were destitute of books, which, if to be had at all, must come from England; and in England the laws were excessively rigid against printing or vending Catholic books. Under all these difficulties, it is surprising that there remained in Maryland, even so much as there was, of true religion. In general Catholics were regular and inoffensive in their conduct; such, I mean, as were natives of the country; but when many began to be imported, as servants, from Ireland, great licentiousness prevailed amongst them in the towns and neighborhoods where they were stationed, and spread a scandal injurious to true faith. Contiguous to the houses where the priests resided on the lands, which had been secured for the clergy, small chapels were built; but scarcely anywhere else; when divine service was performed at a distance from their residence, private and inconvenient houses were used for churches. Catholics contributed nothing to the support of religion or its ministers; the whole charge of their maintenance, of furnishing the altars, of all travelling expenses, fell on the priests themselves, and no compensation was ever offered for any service performed by them, nor did they require any, so long as the produce of their lands was sufficient to answer their demands. But it must have been foreseen that if religion should make considerable progress, this could not always be the case."

1

Account of condition of religion prepared by Bishop Carroll about 1790. It was first published in the "Metropolitan" for 1831 by Rev. C.

The Catholics in Maryland from the time of the settlement of that province had been subject to the Vicar-Apostolic of England, and when the Vicariate-Apostolic of the London District was established to the bishops to whom successively the management of that part of England was confided by the Holy See. The missionaries extending their labors to New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, carried the same jurisdiction to those colonies. This jurisdiction was not derived from any express act of the Holy See, but arose like that of the Archbishop of Rouen in Canada, from the fact of vessels sailing from ports in the jurisdiction of European bishops who gave faculties, under a settled law of the Church. Bishop Challoner tells us that the Jesuit missionaries in Maryland used at first to ask rather for approbation than for faculties. But after Pope Innocent XII., by his Brief issued February 14, 1702, ordained that all missionaries in Vicariates-Apostolic should obtain faculties from the bishops in charge, and not exercise any functions without them, the Maryland missionaries applied regularly for faculties.'

"All our settlements in America have been deemed subject in spirituals to the ecclesiastical superiors here, and this has been time out of mind; even, I believe, from the time of the archpriests. I know not the origin of this, nor have ever met with the original grant," wrote Bishop Challoner in 1756. "I suppose they were looked upon as appurtenances or appendixes of the English mission. And after the division of this kingdom into four districts, the jurisdiction over

C. Pise, who translated it from a French version. The citation here is from Bishop Carroll's manuscript.

1 Pope Innocent XII. had already by his Brief "Ad Pastorale Fasti gium," January 12, 1697, revoked all personal exemptions of religious of any order in Spanish America. Hernaez, "Coleccion de Bulas," Brussels, 1879, i., pp. 499–500.

PROPOSED VICARIATE-APOSTOLIC.

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the Catholicks in those settlements has followed the London district' (as they are all reputed by the English as part of the London diocese), I suppose because London is the capital of the British Empire, and from hence are the most frequent opportunities of a proper correspondence with all those settlements. Whether the Holy See has ordered anything in this regard I cannot learn." "

A document in the archives of the Propaganda shows that action was soon after taken.

"The Vicars-Apostolic of London since the time of James II. have always had authority over the English colonies and islands in America; but as it did not appear on what basis this custom was founded, a decree was obtained in the month of January, 1757, from Benedict XIV. of happy memory, in favor of Mgr. Benjamin Petre, Bishop of Prusa, then VicarApostolic of London, giving him ad sexennium jurisdiction over all the colonies and islands in America subject to the British Empire, and after the death of that prelate it was confirmed March 31, 1759, for six years more to Mgr. Richard Challoner, Bishop of Debra, now Vicar-Apostolic of London." "

3

"The said Vicar-Apostolic is so far from any ambition or desire of increasing his jurisdiction in those parts that it would afford him great pleasure to be relieved of a burthen which exceeds his strength and to which he cannot devote due attention. The great distance does not permit him to visit them in person. He accordingly cannot have the nec

A document showing Bishop Giffard's exercise of jurisdiction in this country will be found in "Catholic Church in Colonial Days," p. 374. * J. Fisher (i. e., Richard Challoner) to Rev. Dr. Stonor, Clergy Agent, September 14, 1756. Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster.

Letter of the Cardinal Prefect to Bishop Challoner, March 31, 1759. Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster.

essary information to know and correct abuses: he cannot administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to the faithful there, who remain totally deprived of that spiritual aid: he cannot provide ecclesiastical ministers, partly for the same. reason of distance, and partly from want of money to meet the expense.

"If the Sacred Congregation, moved by these reasons and by others which may easily occur to the mind, should deem it more suitable to establish a Vicar-Apostolic over the other English colonies and islands, it seems that the city of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, is the most suitable place for his residence, as being a city of large population, and, what is more, a seaport, and consequently convenient for keeping up free correspondence with the other provinces on the mainland, as well as with the islands. This additional reason may be given, that there is no place in all the English dominions where the Catholic religion is exercised in greater liberty."

1

Bishop Challoner himself thus described the condition of his transatlantic flock in 1756: "As to the state of religion in our American settlements, the best account I can give is, there are no missions in any of our colonies upon the Continent, excepting Mariland and Pensilvania; in which the exercise of the Catholick religion is in some measure tolerated. I have had different accounts as to their numbers in Mariland, where they are the most numerous. By one account they were about 4,000 communicants; another makes them to amount to about 7,000; but perhaps the latter might design to include those in Pensilvania, where I believe there may be about 2,000. There are about twelve missioners in Mariland and four in Pensilvania, all of them of the Society.

Ragguaglio della Religione Cattolica nelle Colonie Inglesi d'America." Manuscript in the Archives of the Propaganda, written after 1763.