James Gibbons | |
|---|---|
| Cardinal,Archbishop of Baltimore | |
 | |
| See | Archdiocese of Baltimore |
| Appointed | May 29, 1877 (coadjutor) |
| Installed | October 3, 1877 |
| Term ended | March 24, 1921 |
| Predecessor | James Roosevelt Bayley |
| Successor | Michael Joseph Curley |
| Other post | Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere |
| Previous post | Bishop of Richmond (1872–77) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | June 30, 1861 by Francis Kenrick |
| Consecration | August 15, 1868 by Martin John Spalding |
| Created cardinal | June 7, 1886 byLeo XIII |
| Rank | Cardinal-Priest |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1834-07-23)July 23, 1834 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | March 24, 1921(1921-03-24) (aged 86) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Education | St. Charles College St. Mary's Seminary |
| Motto | Emitte spiritum tuum (Send forth your spirit) |
| Signature |  |
| Styles of James Gibbons | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reference style | |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Religious style | Cardinal |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
James Gibbons (July 23, 1834 – March 24, 1921) was anAmerican Catholic prelate who served asArchbishop of Baltimore for more than forty years, from 1877 until his death in 1921. Created acardinal in 1886, he was the second American cardinal, afterJohn McCloskey.
Ordained a bishop at age 34, Gibbons previously served asApostolic Vicar of North Carolina (1868–1872) andBishop of Richmond (1872–1877). In 1876, he published theapologetic bookThe Faith of Our Fathers, which became a best-selling work. During his time as Baltimore's archbishop, Gibbons became one of the most recognizable Catholic figures in the country. He defended the rights oforganized labor and advocated forAmericanism as a means of assimilation.
James Gibbons was born on July 23, 1834, inBaltimore, Maryland, the fourth of six children,[1] to Thomas and Bridget (née Walsh) Gibbons. His parents were fromTourmackeady,County Mayo, in Ireland. The family left Ireland to settle in Canada, then moved to the United States.[2]
After contractingtuberculosis in 1839, Thomas returned with the family back to Ireland, hoping the Irish climate would help him recover. He opened a grocery store inBallinrobe, where James Gibbons worked as a child. Slight of build and a little under than average height, James Gibbons suffered fromgastric problems and consequent periods ofanxiety andclinical depression. Thomas Gibbons died in Ireland in 1847; in 1853, Bridget Gibbons moved the family back to the United States, settling inNew Orleans, Louisiana.[2] As a young boy he remembered seeing PresidentAndrew Jackson riding in his carriage.[3]
While attending a Catholic retreat in New Orleans, Gibbons heard a sermon by ReverendClarence A. Walworth, co-founder of thePaulist Fathers. Inspired to become a priest, Gibbons in 1855 enteredSt. Charles College inEllicott City, Maryland. After graduating from St. Charles in 1857, he went toSt. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. He suffered a severe attack ofmalaria while at St. Mary's, leaving him so debilitated that the staff doubted his ability to handle the priesthood.[2]
Having recovered from malaria, Gibbons was ordained a priest on June 30, 1861, for the Archdiocese of Baltimore by ArchbishopFrancis Kenrick at St. Mary's Seminary.[4] After Gibbons' ordination, the archdiocese assigned him ascurate at St. Patrick's Parish in theFells Point section of Baltimore for six weeks. They then named him the firstpastor of St. Brigid's Parish[5] and as pastor of St. Lawrence Parish, both in Baltimore. During theAmerican Civil War, Gibbons served as achaplain forConfederate Army prisoners atFort McHenry in Baltimore.[4]
In 1865, ArchbishopMartin Spalding appointed Gibbons as his personal secretary.[1] Gibbons helped Spalding prepare for theSecond Plenary Council of Baltimore in October 1866. At Spalding's prompting, the council fathers recommended the Vatican created anapostolic vicariate forNorth Carolina and appoint Gibbons head to it.[6]
On March 3, 1868,Pope Pius IX appointed Gibbons as the first apostolic vicar of North Carolina andtitular bishop ofAdramyttium.[7] He received hisepiscopal consecration on August 15, 1868, from Spalding, with BishopsPatrick Lynch andMichael Domenec serving asco-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore. At age 34, he was one of the youngest Catholic bishops in the world and was known as "the boy bishop."[citation needed]
Gibbons' vicariate contained fewer than 700 Catholics spread over the state of North Carolina. During his first four weeks in office, he traveled almost a thousand miles, visiting towns and mission stations and administeringsacraments. During his road trip, Gibbons befriended manyProtestants, and was invited to preach at Protestant churches. Gibbons made a number of converts to Catholicism.[6][1] Gibbons became a popular American religious figure, gathering crowds for his sermons on diverse topics that could apply to Christianity as a whole. Over his lifetime, Gibbons met every American president, fromAndrew Johnson toWarren G. Harding, and served as an adviser to several of them.
During theSecond Plenary Council in 1866, Gibbons advocated for the creation of a Catholic university in the United States to educate priests and laymen. However, the proposal remained in limbo for the next 19 years.[1][8]
In 1869 and 1870, Gibbons attended theFirst Vatican Council inRome. Gibbons voted in favor of the doctrine ofpapal infallibility. He assumed the additional duties ofapostolic administrator for theDiocese of Richmond,Virginia, in January 1872.
Gibbons was named by Pius IX as the fourth bishop of Richmond on July 30, 1872. He wasinstalled as bishop on October 20, 1872.
On May 29, 1877, Pius IX named Gibbons ascoadjutorarchbishop of Baltimore. He automatically succeeded as archbishop on October 3, 1877, after the death of ArchbishopJames Bayley.[6] For the first twenty years of his administration, Gibbons had noauxiliary bishop to assist him. He therefore travelled extensively throughout the archdiocese, coming to know the priests and parishioners very well.
On June 7, 1886,Pope Leo XIII created Gibbons as acardinal priest and on March 17, 1887, assigned him the titular church ofSanta Maria in Trastevere in Rome.[9] He was the second American cardinal after CardinalJohn McCloskey.
In 1885, the bishops in theThird Plenary Council in Baltimore decided to build theCatholic University of America in theDistrict of Columbia. The university opened on March 7, 1889, with Gibbons serving as its first chancellor.[1][8]In 1903, Gibbons became the first American cardinal to participate in apapal conclave. He would have participated in the1914 conclave but he arrived late.[10]
DuringWorld War I, Gibbons was instrumental in the establishment of theNational Catholic War Council. He allowed Reverend William A Hemmick to serve American troops in France during the war. Hemmick became known as the patriot priest ofPicardy. At the end of the war, Gibbons supported American participation in the newLeague of Nations.
James Gibbons died on March 24, 1921, in Baltimore at age 86.[10]
In 1899, Gibbons became embroiled in a controversy with the Vatican about a biography of ReverendIsaac Hecker, the founder of thePaulist Fathers. A biography,Life of Isaac Hecker, had recently been published in French. The Vatican decided that the preface to the French edition contained controversial opinions about individualism and liberalism. The translator, AbbéFélix Klein, had attributed those views to Hecker. The book inflamed an ongoing dispute overAmericanism, liberal attitudes on obedience to papal authority in the United States that the Vatican considered aheresy.[11][12]
On January 22, 1899, Leo XIII sent Gibbons anencyclical,Testem benevolentiae nostrae ("Concerning New Opinions, Virtue, Nature and Grace, with Regard to Americanism"). The encyclical condemned the Hecker biography for Americanism.[11][12] In response, Gibbons and other American church leaders assured the pope that the opinions in the book preface belonged to Klein, not Hecker. They further asserted that Hecker never promoted any deviation from or minimization of Catholic doctrines.[12][11]
During his tenures in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, Gibbons established cordial relationships with localrabbis.[13] In an 1890 letter, Gibbons said:
For my part I cannot well conceive how Christians can entertain other than most kindly sentiments toward the Hebrew race, when I consider how much we are indebted to them. We have from them the inspired volume of the Old Testament which has been consolation in all ages to devout souls. Christ our Lord, the Founder of our religion, His Blessed Mother, as well as the apostles, were all Jews according to the flesh. These facts attach me strongly to the Jewish race.[13]
In 1890, Gibbons condemnedpogroms targeting Jews in theRussian Empire. In 1903, he condemned theKishinev pogrom in present-dayChișinău, Moldova, in which rioters killed 49 Jews and injured hundreds more. He pleaded for the public to assist Russia's Jews.[14] When Jewish leaders in 1915 in Ohio were opposing a state law that would promote Bible readings in public schools, Gibbons sent them a letter of support. DuringWorld War I, he supported American Jewish Relief fundraising in Baltimore.[13]
Gibbons initially opposed thewomen's suffrage movement in the United States. However, when thenineteenth amendment to theUS Constitution passed in 1920, allowing women to vote, Gibbons urged women to exercise that right, describing it "...not only as a right but as a strict social duty."[10]
Gibbons advocated for the protection of working people and their right to organize in labor unions. He believed that industrials in America's eastern cities were exploiting Catholic immigrant workers. He was once quoted as saying, "It is the right of laboring classes to protect themselves, and the duty of the whole people to find a remedy against avarice, oppression, and corruption."[15] Gibbons played a key role in the granting of papal permission for Catholics to join labor unions.[16]
Regardingmanual labor Gibbons said that "the Savior of mankind never conferred a greater temporalboon on mankind than by ennobling and sanctifying manual labor, and by rescuing it from the stigma of degradation which hadbeen branded upon it", adding that "Christ is ushered Into the world not amid pomp and splendor of imperial majesty, but amid the environments of an humble child of toil. He is the reputed son of an artisan, and his early manhood is spent in a mechanic’s shop". He concluded that "every honest labor is laudable, thanks to the example and teaching of Christ".[17]
In Rome in 1887 Gibbons implored the Vatican not to condemn theKnights of Labor and defended the rights of workers to organise.[18]
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In early 1904, Congolese activists established theCongo Reform Association in England to protest atrocities and injustices against the people of theCongo Free State in Africa. It was a colony under the direct control of KingLeopold II, the Catholic king ofBelgium. In October 1904, organizers were staging the 13thUniversal Peace Congress in Boston, Massachusetts, with Congo being on the agenda. The Belgian Government protested this topic because the organizers had not invited Leopold II to send a representative. At the request of the Belgians, Gibbons wrote a letter to the organizers, asking them to drop discussion of Congo. Gibbons' efforts not only failed to sway the organizers, but made him the target of much criticism. Gibbons responded to his critics, saying "I fear, that this agitation against King Leopold's administration is animated partly by religious jealousy and partly by commercial rivalry."[10] He feared that the British Government, along with British merchants and Protestant missionaries, were conspiring to expel Catholic missionaries from the Congo.[19]
According to the historianJohn Tracy Ellis, rival business and religious interests were indeed supporting the Congo Reform Association. However, Leopold was exploiting and oppressing the Congolese population. Furthermore, Gibbons had based his support on the views of the Belgian government and intermittent reports from Catholic missionaries.[10] Said Ellie;
"For one of the few times in Gibbons' long life, his normally keen judgment went astray and exposed him to the charge of partisanship and of ignorance of the facts governing an issue. The cardinal should have steered clear of the case."[10]
AuthorAdam Hochschild’s book,King Leopold’s Ghost, gives a less flattering account of Gibbons' involvement with the Congo issue;
"[King Leopold’s] representatives inRome successfully convinced the Vatican that this Catholic king was being set upon by unscrupulous Protestant missionaries. A stream of messages inLatin flowed from theHoly See across the Atlantic to the designated Catholic point-man for Leopold in the United States, James Cardinal Gibbons ofBaltimore. Cardinal Gibbons believed that the Congo reform crusade was the work of "only a handful of discontented men... depending largely upon the untrustworthy hearsay of the natives."[20]
Leopold later awarded Gibbons with the Grand Cross of theOrder of the Crown for his assistance.[21] His support of Leopold gained the recognition of PopePius X.[22]
During his many speaking engagements as a priest, Gibbons' audiences included many Protestants wanting to learn about Catholicism. He wanted to recommend books on Catholicism to interested Protestants, but he found the existingapologetical works to be inadequate for Americans. To fill that need, Gibbons in 1876 publishedThe Faith of Our Fathers: A Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.[6][1][23]
Understanding that many Americans viewed their faith as coming directly from the Bible, Gibbons took pains to explain the biblical roots of Catholic doctrine and rituals. He also wanted to show readers that Catholicism was an American faith, rebutting the claims by anti-Catholic nativists that Catholicism was a heretical belief imposed by Europeans.[23]
The first printing of 10,000 copies, a large number for that era, sold out quickly.[23] By 1879, 50,000 copies had been sold. Sales reached 1,400,000 by 1917 and it remained the most popular book in the United States until the publication of the novelGone With the Wind in 1939.[23]
Gibbons wrote essays for theNorth American Review andPutnams' Monthly. He was also a contributor to theCatholic Encyclopedia.[7]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
Works by or aboutJames Gibbons atWikisource
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Erected | Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina March 3, 1868 – May 20, 1877 | Succeeded by Stanislao Marco Gross |
| Preceded by Vincenzo Cima | Titular Bishop of Adramyttium March 3, 1868 – July 30, 1872 | Succeeded by Louis-Taurin Cahagne,O.F.M.Cap. |
| Preceded by | Bishop of Richmond July 30, 1872 – May 20, 1877 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Wincenty Lipski | Titular Bishop of Ionopolis May 29 – October 3, 1877 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Archbishop of Baltimore October 3, 1877 – March 24, 1921 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere March 17, 1887 – March 24, 1921 | Succeeded by |
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