Chicago, Archdiocese of

CHICAGO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City in the State of Illinois in the United States, and seat of a metropolitan archdiocese comprising the counties of Cook, Lake, Du Page, Kankakee, Will and Grundy in Illinois, with a total area of 10,136 sq km. Its suffragan dioceses are Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford and Springfield in Illinois. In 1948 Catholics numbered 1,755,868 out of 5,110,100 inhabitants, under the direction of the cardinal archbishop, of three auxiliary bishops, 1,113 diocesan priests and 942 religious belonging to 25 institutions, with 549 churches, 447 parishes, a seminary, a Pontifical theological faculty, founded on 20 Sept. 1929, and a college in Rome, all dedicated to St. Mary of the Lake; in addition a minor seminary. In 1947 there were 6,196 conversions.

As early as 1674 the famous Jesuit Jacques Marquette was exploring the territory of the present diocese, but only at the end of the 18th century did white men begin to colonize it. In 1804 Fort Dearborn was built at the mouth of the Chicago River, and settlers established themselves around it. In 1833 about a hundred Catholics residing there asked Msgr. Rosati, bishop of St. Louis and administrator of Bardstown, of which Illinois formed part, to have a permanent priest. The bishop sent Abbot Saint-Cyr, who built the first church. In 1843 the progress achieved prompted the 5th Plenary Council of Baltimore to ask the Holy See to separate C. from the diocese of Vincennes (today Indianapolis) after the erection of the latter in 1834, in order to make it the seat of a bishopric. On 28 Nov. 1843 Gregory XVI erected the new diocese, elevated by Leo XIII to a metropolitan see on 8 Sept. 1880. In C. the XXVIII International Eucharistic Congress was held in 1926. Since 1892 The New World Publishing Co. has been published in C., the official organ of the archdiocese of C. and of the province of Illinois. - See Pl. LXXXIX.

Corrado Morin

PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO

On the occasion of the World's Exposition held at C. in 1893, a "Parliament of Religions" was held in that city, organized by the Protestant minister J. H. Barrow, from Sept. 11 to 27, to which the dignitaries of the various religions of the world were invited. Neither Islam nor Anglicanism officially adhered to it: the American archbishops, after some hesitation, decided to take part in it and entrusted the organization to Msgr. Keane, rector of the Catholic University of Washington, who also proposed the subject of the dissertations (discussion was excluded) for the various days of the congress. The themes proposed for each day were the following: God, man, religion, that is, the relationship between God and man; the various religions and their comparative study; the sacred scriptures; and then the relations of religion with the family, society, social problems, the prospects for the reunion of Christians, etc.

The purpose of the Parliament according to C. C. Bonney, director of the Exposition, "was to be understood as the union of all religions against irreligion."

Present at the congress, besides the Catholics, were the "Orthodox," the Protestants of the various denominations, the Jews, and then Buddhists, Shintoists, Confucians, Taoists, Parsis, all in their sacred vestments.

The session was opened with the recitation of the Pater noster recited by Card. Gibbons and followed by all those present. There followed in the various sessions the exposition, naturally apologetic, of the various beliefs, although in all there was the concern to bring out the moral-unifying element rather than the doctrinal, discriminating one of the various beliefs. For the particular illustration of the various faiths, sessions were held separately.

Msgr. Keane summarized the results of the "Parliament" as follows: 1) the comparison of religions leads to the affirmation of monotheism; 2) the effort toward the unity of the world is logically and historically oriented toward the historical person of Jesus Christ; 3) his Church must not be merely a federation of distinct bodies, but an organic unity, his true mystical body.

The "Parliament of Religions" of C. did not help - as indeed was foreseeable - to unify ideas or to clarify special points of view in the history of religions; but it served to accentuate the desire for the union of Christians, advocating above all the union of all the English-speaking Protestant churches. It also proposed to establish various committees to ensure the periodicity of such meetings, which were in fact held, although Leo XIII with a letter to the apostolic delegate advised Catholics to gather on their own account or at least to attend said meetings only as listeners.

Nicola Turchi