With the external expansion, the progress of internal organization keptpace. InNov.,1791,bishopCarrollcon- vened the first diocesan synod in Baltimore, which was attended by 22 clergymen. In 1800 father Leonard Neale was appointed his coadjutor, with the title of bishop of Gortyna inpartihus. In 1808 Baltimore was raised to the rank of a metropolitan see, with four suffragan bishop- rics— New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstowii (this see was in 1842 transferred to Louisville). The purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 added to the American Church a new diocese. New Orleans, which had been erected in 1793. As the see was vacant at the time of the purchase. Dr. Carroll was directed by Pius Vll to administer its ecclesiastical affairs. He ac- cordingly appointed a vicar-general, but the conten- tions which arose on the subject of jurisdiction led to protracted discords. Archbishop Carroll died Dec. 3, 1815, the last years of his episcopate having been mark- ed by the continuance of a very rapid increase of the Catholic population, which at this time was estimated at 200,000. A number of religious orders, especially Jesuits, Sulpitians, Augustinians, Dominicans, and Car- melites, not only swelled the numbers of the clergy, but established a number of Catholic institutions of learn- ing. Archbishop Carroll was succeeded by Dr. Ambrose Marechal, after whose death, in 1828, Dr. James Whit- field became archl)ishop. Yielding to the urgent advice of the learned l)ishop of Charleston, Dr. England, arch- bishop Whitfield in 1829 assembled the first provincial council of Baltimore. Several new episcopal sees had in the meanwhile been established, and the provincial council was attended l)y the bishops of C;iiarlcston, Bardstown, Cincinnati, Boston, and St. Louis. As all the bishops had at this time numerous conflicts with the lay trustees, who claimed the right of electing the priests and a<lministering the Church property, the council passed two decrees against the abuse of power
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 82 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
by lay trustees. Another decree strongly recommended tlie establishment of a society for the diffusion of good books. The Catholic jio])ulation of the United States was estimated by the assembled fathers at 600,000, the rapid increase being cliieHy due to the stream of immi- gration from Ireland. The second provincial council of Baltimore, in 1833, was composed of ten prelates, and ilirected that the Indian tribes of the Far West and the Catholic negroes of Liberia should be conlided to the care of the Jesuits. The mission of Liberia, which was begun in 1842, proved a complete failure, and was aban- doned in 1845. At the date of the second council the Church consisted of 12 dioceses, with 308 priests, of whom 72 were Americans, 91 Irish, 73 French, 17 Ital- ians, 39 Belgians and Germans, some English and Span- ish, and 1 Pole. Archbishop Whitfield died in 1834, and was succeeded by Samuel Eccleston. During his administration five more provincial councils were held in Baltimore, in the years 1837, 1840, 1843, 1846, and 1849. Most of these councils recommended the erection of new episcopal sees, the number of which, therefore, received a large increase. While there were only sixteen in 1840, they numbered twenty-seven in 1850. The council of 1840 also recommended the formation of Catholic tem- perance societies; that of 1846 chose " the Most Bless- ed Virgin, conceived without sin, as the patroness of the United States;" and that of 1849, which was attend- ed by twenty-five bishops, asked the pope for the defi- nition of the immaculate conception as a doctrine of the Catholic Church, a request which a few years later was complied with by pope Pius IX.
Many dioceses during this period were greatly troubled by contiicts between the bishops and the lay trustees of the churches. The latter were often unwilling to abandon the control of the churches which had been built by the contributions of the faithful, and the bishops were in- flexible in claiming the sole control over the entire Church property of their dioceses. Repeatedly priests and congregations were excommunicated. Sometimes excommunicated priests defied for years the authority of the bishops; but finally the bishops carried their point, and the trustee system was completely crushed out, chiefly through the efforts of John Hughes, bishop of New York. The steady progress of Roman Catholi- cism, which the majority of Americans continued to re- gard as a form of ecclesiastical despotism, irreconcilable with, and therefore dangerous to, the free political in- stitutions of the country, led. from 1834 to 1844, in sev- eral cities to popular outbursts of Protestant indigna- tion, and even to unlawful attacks upon Catholic church edifices and monasteries.
The immense influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany during the decade from 1840 to 1850, which annually added more than 200,000 Catholics to the population of the country, and the great industrial advantages which the people gener- ally derived from the more rapid development of the resources of the country, gradually softened the pop- ular feeling with regard to a religious system which liad so long been an object of intense aversion. The spread of the Roman Catholic Church in consequence of immigration was most ra))id in the Middle Atlantic and the Western States, whicli couhl offer to immigrants the best prospects of material success. The Southern States, with their negro-labor system, offered the least inducement to immigrants, and conseiiuently received the smallest increase of Catholic population. In 1840 Oregon City was raised to the rank of a metropolitan see; in 1847, S(. Louis; in 1850, New Orleans, New York, and Cincinnati. Thus in 1850 the Catholic Church had 6 archbishoprics, with 27 episcopal sees, 1800 priests, 1073 churches, tiOO stations, 29 ecclesiastical institutions, 17 colleges, and 91 female academies. The Catholic population, which had received a large increase not only by the continuance of immigration, but by the ces- sion of California and New Mexico to the United States, was estimated at 3,500,000.