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Financial, Support for tl1c Clmrclt in Texas
first time, a large number of Swiss Catholic immigrants, impelled by religious unrest at home, came to the United States. 18 The Church had to provide for their spiritual welfare and, quite naturally, the Bishops looked to Europe for the help they needed. 19 Even more troublesome for the Church were the years from 1861 to 1871. The United States was torn apart by the Civil War and Recon- struction, and Europe was rent asunder by the Prussian-Austrian strug- gle, the Franco-Prussian War, and the fight for the unification of Italy. The flow of immigrants from war-ravaged Europe was temporarily slowed, almost stopped during the War between the States, but by 1871 the Catholic population of the United States had been increased by 741,000 immigrants, who swelled the number of Catholics to more than 4,000,000. Irishmen still constituted the bulk of the incoming tide, about 370,000, the Germans being second, with about 24,000. Many particu- larly the Germans and Frenchmen from Alsace-Lorraine, made their way through New Orleans to Texas. German and Austrian Catholics continued to enter the country in an undiminished stream-220,000 in the years 1872-1881; Poles and Ital- ians, too, began coming in large numbers. The Church continued to grow and expand as the population increased and moved steadily westward. Many dioceses ceased to be missions; they had attained maturity and were able to care for themselves. New Orleans, St. Louis, St. Paul, St. Joseph, Los Angeles, Peoria, and Wheeling were dropped during this period from the list of beneficiaries by the various European mission societies. A good indication of the development of the Church in the United States was the erection of Santa Fe into an archdiocese in 1875, followed by Chicago five years later. Another proof of the changed status of the Church was the designation in 1875 of Archbishop John McCloskey of New York as the first American Cardinal. Naturally, the new dioceses and vicariates in the West and some of the older ones in the South still needed help. The Diocese of Galveston continued on the list of the active charities of the missionary societies. The Diocese of San Antonio and Vicariate of Brownsville (erected in 1874) were immediately placed on the list. San Antonio received a total of $34,000 before it was dropped in 1918; and the Vicariate of Brownsville received $76,000 before being 18 The immigrants of this period have been estimated to have included 600,000 Irish, 245,000 Germans, and I 4,000 Swedes, besides some 100,000 others. Roemer, op. cit., 133. 19 /bid., I 33.
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