PROVIDENCE
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PROVIDENCE
health, he began a tour of his diocese to collect, and
succeeded in raising some hundreds of thousands of
dollars in a few years, so that when he died (May,
1886) the new cathedral was almost completed without
any debt encumbering it. It was during his epis-
copate that the French Canadian Catholics began to
come to the diocese in considerable numbers, first to
Woonsocket and then to the various mill towns along
the little streams of the Blackstone and the Paw-
tuxet, and above all to Fall River. The bishop, en-
grossed with other things, did not realize apparently
the magnitude of the problem, and his attempts to
deal with it were not infrequently a cause of anxiety
and pain to himself and others.
Rt. Rev. Matthew Harkins succeeded Bishop Hen- dricken after an interval of eleven months. Born in Boston 17 Nov., 1845, educated at the Boston Latin School, Holy Cross College, and Douai College in France, he made his theological studies at Saint Sulpice (Paris), where he was ordained in 1869. The Vatican Council took place while he was continuing his studies in Rome. Made pastor of Arlington in 1876, he was transferred to St. James' parish, Boston, in 1884, in succession to Bishop Healy of Portland and Archbishop Williams of Boston, its former pas- tors. On the 14 AprU, 1S87, Bishop Harkins was consecrated in the new (uncompleted) Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Providence which had first been opened a year before for the obsequies of his predecessor. A man of wide reading, acute mind, and judicial temperament, a lover of order and method, he has devoted himself to the task of organizing his diocese. He has particularly made his own the dio- cesan charities. The orphan asylum begun in 1851, transferred in 1862, had always obtained a precarious income from fairs and donations, and for these he substituted parochial assessments. Through the gen- erosity of Joseph Banigan the Home for the Aged in Pawtucket was built in ISSl. Mr. Banigan also built the large St. Maria Working Girls' Home in Providence in 1894 at a cost of $80,000, and either gave in his lifetime or left by will (1897) sums of $25,000 or more to nearly every diocesan charity. St. Joseph's Hospital was begun in 1891 and the St. Vincent de Paul Infant Asylum in the following year; the Working Boys' Home began in 1897, the House of the Good Shepherd in 1904, Nazareth Home (a da}--nursery, that also supplies nurses in the homes of the poor) in 1906. In Woonsocket and Newport and other parts of the diocese similar charitable institu- tions have been erected at the suggestion and advice of Bishop Harkins. Almost twenty parishes out of a total of seventy-nine are exclusively French Cana- dian, while there are a few small parishes of mixed French and English-speaking Catholics. In the last fifteen years (1911) the Italians have come to Provi- dence and the vicinity in large numbers, so that now there are perhaps between thirty and forty thousand of them in the diocese. Two churches for the Italians were dedicated in Providence in 1910 and other smaller parishes provide for their needs in the out- lying districts. The four colonies of Poles have four Polish parishes, while the Portuguese have one in Providence. One Syrian parish in Central Falls ministers to some of the Orientals in these parts.
Parochial schools are established in the greater num- ber of the English-speaking parishes of the cities. Thus out of seventeen English-speaking parishes in Providence, nine have large and well-equipped schools; of the four in Pawtucket, three have schools; the three parishes in Newport have schools. The others are either very small or heavily in debt or unable to procure suitable teachers. Among the French Canadians, with whom the church school is a patriotic as well as a religious institution, it is rare to find a parish without its school. Religious women are usually the teachers (in ten schools, the
Sisters of Mercy) ; in only three are there Brothers
for the larger boys. La Salle Academy, a diocesan
High School of which the bishop is president, obtained
a university charter from the state (1910). The
teachers are diocesan priests (for the classics) and
Christian Brothers. It is conveniently situated in
Providence. One day high school (St. Francis
Xavier's Academy) and two boarding schools (Bay-
view, Sisters of ^lercy, and Elmhurst, Religious of
the Sacred Heart) provide similar training for the
girls. In all there are some eighteen thousand chil-
dren receiving Catholic training in the diocese.
A diocesan weekly paper, the " Pro\'idence Visitor", sanctioned by the bishop and edited by diocesan priests, has a considerable influence among the Cath- olics of the state. The Catholic Club for men, es- tablished in 1909, has its own home in Providence and a large and influential membership. The Catholic Woman's Club, established in 1901, has a member- ship of four hundred and is noted for considerable literary and social acti\'ity. Although in a numerical majority, Catholics do not exert any perceptible in- fluence on public life. They receive their share of elective offices, the last two governors, the one a democrat, the other a republican, being Catholics. Frequently the mayors and other city officials are Catholics. There has, however, never been a Catholic judge of a superior court.
The clergy until recently was nearly exclusively diocesan. From 1878 to 1899 the Jesuits had St. Joseph's parish in Providence, but left there, as there was no prospect of opening a college. Now various small communities of men have parishes in outlying districts. Westerly (1905, Klarist Fathers), Ports- mouth (1907, Congregation of the Holy Ghost), Natick (1899, Sacred Heart Fathers); in 1910 the Dominicans began a new parish between Pawtucket and Providence. The Catholic population of the diocese, approximately from 250,000 to 275,000, live for the most part in the densely inhabited Providence County, only eighteen parishes, and several of them very small, existing in the foiu- other counties of the state, while there are sixty-one in Providence county.
History of the Catholic Church in New England: Diocese of Providence, I; Chancery Records.
Austin Dowling.
Providence, Divine (Lat., Providenlia; Greek, vpbvoia). — Providence in general, or foresight, ia a function of the virtue of prudence, and may be defined as the practical reason, adapting means to an end. As applied to God, Providence is God Himself considered in that act by which in His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized. That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God. The universe is a system of real beings created by God and directed by Him to this supreme end, the concurrence of God being neces- sary for all natural operations, whether of things animate or inanimate, and still more so for operations of the supernatural order. God preserves the uni- verse in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities. In spite of sin, which is due to the wilful perversion of human liberty, acting with the concurrence, but contrary to the purpose and intention of God and in spite of evil which is the consequence of sin. He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the uni- verse was created. All these operations on God's part, with the exception of creation, are attributed in Catholic theology to Divine Providence.
The Tixlimony nf Universal Belief. — For all re- ligions, whether Christian or pagan, belief in Provi-
