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 STATISTICS

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STATISTICS

are sufficiently developed and whether they are work- ing with success or not. As regards the reports of the boards of managers of these societies, it may be said that, as all societies have more or less to do with money, it is desirable that the total amount of money given for the purposes of the society from its founda- tion should be counted up and that this total sum should appear in the annual report together with the amoimts for the year, so that the reader of the report may be able to estimate the whole work done by the society. If the society has other works besides the collection and disbursement of money, these should also be presented in condensed form from the time of the establishment of the society. Once the labour of collecting these statistics for the entire period of the existence of the society is done, it is only necessary after that to add to these totals the records of the year just closed.

The brief outline given above by no means exhausts the possible applications of ecclesiastical statistics. Each one must apply the principles here explained to spheres not yet under statistical examination in order to gain a full realization of the great usefulness and absolute necessity of thorough statistical records. When the statistical work of the State takes up eccle- siastical affairs, it is not necessary in every case to reject it at once. There are, however, undoubtedly affairs of the Church which are outside of all statisti- cal investigation on the jiart of the State. The State can successfully collect statistics of the external activi- ties of the Church in training and education, associa- tional life, and similar branches. In my opinion the church authorities of all ranks have in such case the im- perative duty of collecting for their respective depart- ments all those statistics which are adapted to present an image of the labours of the Church in each field. The uses of the often difficult and prolonged computa- tions are evident. The filling out of exact statistical palmers is of great value for all leaders of the Cathohc people, showing who are really Catholics. This api)lies just as much to what is purely religious as to what pertains to charitable, social, and associational life. Comparative statistics make it possible to detect failures from the figures, and also to find out what fields it is absolutely necessary to cultivate, what have not been worked at all or worked but httle. In the same way the successes are as easily to be seen from the figures and greatly increase the desire to go on working and the joy in the work.

As daily experience shows, the sum total of the sta- tistical records of the Church is of great importance for the reputation of the Church. The opponents of the Church take more interest in its statistics than many Catholics. When, therefore, from the careless- ness of those whose duty it is, the statistical presenta- tion is an imperfect one, the importance of the Church is greatly damaged, becau.se its opponents can con- clude, with apparent right, that the Church is abso- lutely unable to produce effects in this or that domain, or else labours with very little success. As an exam- ple of what is needed in this direction, it may be well to notice here a brochure recently published by Bishop Canevin of Pittsburgh, "An Examination, Historical and Statistical, into Losses and Gains of the Catholic Church in the United States" (1912). The frequent unedifying controversies with opponents, who fall back on our scanty stat istical figures, show that every force should be strained to produce an exact, com- plete, satisfactory statistical survey of the Church. Father Alberts says in "Literarische Rundschau", No. 8 (190.5): "Like all statistical material, the pro- tocols of visitations are a two-edged sword in the hands of the user, according as he wishes to use them for a good or undesirable end. As a rule the latter aim is the one sought, as it is seldom or not at all cus- tomary to keep a record of good works. If, therefore, any association in State or Church is not willing to yield

the records of its inner administration to unrestrained misuse, it must itself undertake the publication of such statistics themselves in order to set the user on the right road by offering the necessary explanations." It is not necessary in an article on church statistics to give the titles of the numberless works in which the results of these com- putations are arranged and given. These results have been pub- lished in various articles of The Catholic Encyclopedia treat- ing^ matters in which church statistics were necessarily referred to. Chief among these are the numerous geographical, ecclesiastical, social, and historical articles, which give the bibliographies of the respective subjects. Besides the books and treatises mentioned in the course of this article, it is only necessary to mention a few publications which treat church statistics, their uses, and neces- sity theoretically: Kirchliches Handhxikon, s. v. Statistik; Baum- QARTEN, Kirchliche Statistik (Worishofen. 190.5) ; Hislorische-poli- tische Blatter, CXXXIV, 831; Germanin (Berlin, 1905), No. 5, 6 January, in regard to the question of the establishment of a German bureau for church statistics; Augsburger Postzeitung (190.5), No. 49, 1 March; Zur kirchlichen Statistik in Kdlnische Volkszeitung (Cologne, 1905). No. 63. 22 January; Nenes torn Gebiele der kirchlichen Statistik in No. 272 (1905), "3 April; Ber- liner protestantisch-kirchliche Statistik (1905). No. 600, 22 July.

Paul Maria Baumgarten.

In Germany, beginning with the earUest years of the twentieth century, an active movement took shape towards the creation of a general and uniform body of ecclesiastical statistics. At the Forty-eighth Congress of the Catholics of Germany at Osnabrtick the erection of a German bureau for ecclesiastical statistics was warmly recommended as a preliminary step towards an international institute for ecclesias- tical statistics. This resolution has, indeed, not been carried out as yet; but the endeavours of the Cathohc Congresses have not remained without result. The want of universal ecclesiastical statistics was to some degree supplied by a book on general ecclesiastical statistics for Germany which appeared in 1908 under the title of "Kirchliches Handbuch"; a second volume was publi-shed in 1909 and a third in 1911. It gives statistical information from govern- mental and ecclesiastical official publications dealing with the movement of the Catholic population of Ger- many. It includes also the number of priests and of candidates for the priesthood, statistics of religious orders, ecclesiastical action, and the position of Catho- hcs regarding national education and morality. The manual, moreover, gives information on the organiza- tion of the whole Church in general and of the Church of Germany in particular, on ecclesiastical legislation and decisions, on the social and jjhilanthropic activity of Catholics, the position of the Church in other coun- tries, and Catholic missions among the heathen. The church authorities, too, favoured a further develop- ment of ecclesiasticalstatistics, both by recommending the "Kirchliches Handbuch", and especially by draw- ing up a questionnaire satisfying every scientific re- quirement. Whether these efforts of the church authorities will produce the desired effect depends on the response they meet with from governmental and municipal statistical bureaus and from registrars' offices; for without such co-operation the proportion of baptisms to births, of marriages before a minister of the Church to those before a registrar, and of ecclesiastical funerals to deaths cannot be ascertained.

The Protestant State Churches of Germany fol- lowed the example of the Catholics with regard to the keeping of parish-registers. But the results were published only in the nineteenth century, especially during the last decades. This is chiefly due to the "Kirchliches Jahrbuch", editedby J. Schneuder, which has been published for thirty-eight years; statistical records of individual churches, however, and a gen- eral account published in 1802 by tJie statistician Zeller of Wiirtemberg (Zur kirchlichen Statistik des evangelischen Deutschlimd im ,Iahr 182) preceded the pubUcation of the ".lahrbuch". The Church Con- ference of Ei.senbach (now "Deut.sehe evangelische Kirchenkonferenz"), in which all the Protestant Churches of Germany are representwl, has formed a special statistical commission which, since 1880, baa