John Carroll | |
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Baltimore | |
 Portrait byGilbert Stuart, c. 1806 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Province | Baltimore |
| See | Baltimore |
| Appointed | November 6, 1789 |
| Installed | December 12, 1790 |
| Term ended | December 3, 1815 |
| Predecessor | Diocese erected |
| Successor | Leonard Neale |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | February 14, 1761 |
| Consecration | August 15, 1790 by Charles Walmesley |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 8, 1735 |
| Died | December 3, 1815(1815-12-03) (aged 80) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Motto | Ne derelinquas nos domine deus noster (Forsake us not, O Lord, my God, stay not far from me) |
Ordination history of John Carroll | |||||||||||||
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| Styles of John Carroll | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | none |
John CarrollSJ (January 8, 1735 – December 3, 1815[1]) was anAmerican Catholic prelate who served as the firstBishop of Baltimore, then the only diocese in the nascentUnited States, from 1789 to 1815. He became the first Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808, up to which point Carroll had also administered the entire U.S. Catholic Church. Born to an aristocratic family in the colonial-eraProvince of Maryland, Carroll spent most of his early years as a priest inEurope, teaching and serving as achaplain. After returning to Maryland in 1773, he started organizing the Catholic Church in America with a small cadre of priests. TheVatican appointed him to several roles as leader of the American Catholic hierarchy, culminating in his appointment as archbishop.
Carroll foundedGeorgetown University inWashington, D.C., andSt. John the Evangelist Parish inSilver Spring, Maryland, the firstsecularparish in the country.
Carroll was born on January 8, 1735, inUpper Marlborough,Maryland, in the colonial-eraProvince of Maryland, to Daniel Carroll I andEleanor Darnall Carroll at thenoble Carroll familyplantation.[2][a][5][6] John Carroll grew up on the plantation.[7]
John Carroll was home-schooled by Eleanor Carroll, then sent to a Catholic school in Bohemia Manor, Maryland. As theProvince of Maryland did not allow Catholic education, the school was run secretly by the Jesuit Reverend Thomas Poulton. When Carroll reached age 13, his family sent him and his cousin Charles to theCollege of St. Omer in theArtois region of France. The school was a popular destination for the education of boys from wealthy Catholic families in Maryland.[10]
Carroll joined theSociety of Jesus as apostulant at age 18 in 1753. In 1755, he began his studies of philosophy and theology at a Jesuit seminary in Liège, Belgium.
On February 14, 1761, Carroll was ordained to the priesthood in Liège by Bishop Pierre Louis Jacquet. Carroll was formally professed as a Jesuit in 1771.[7][11] Carroll remained in Europe until he was almost 40, teaching at St Omer and in Liège. He also served as chaplain to a British aristocrat traveling in Europe.[12]
When Pope Clement XIVsuppressed the Society of Jesus in 1773, Carroll returned to the family plantation in Maryland. The suppression of the Jesuits was a painful experience for Carroll; he suspected that theCongregation for the Propagation of the Faith was responsible for it.[12] Since the laws of Maryland prohibited the establishment of a Catholic parish, Carroll worked as a missionary in both Maryland and theProvince of Virginia.[8] In 1774, he built a small chapel on the plantation called St. John the Evangelist.[13]
In 1776, theContinental Congress asked Charles Carroll, attorneySamuel Chase andBenjamin Franklin to travel to the BritishProvince of Canada on a diplomatic mission. Charles persuaded his cousin John to join the delegation. The goal of the mission was to persuade the French population of the province to ally themselves with theThirteen Colonies in theAmerican Revolution.[7]
However, the mission to Canada was a failure; the American delegation could not win any support there.Jean-Olivier Briand, the bishop of Quebec, banned his priests from meeting with Carroll and the rest of the mission. When Franklin became sick, Carroll escorted him back from Montreal toPhiladelphia.[14] Carroll then returned to the family plantation, performing ministerial duties during the war years.[8]
During the colonial period, the Catholic clergy in the Thirteen American colonies were under the jurisdiction of theApostolic Vicariate of the London District in England. After the American Revolution, anti-British sentiment in the new United States made it important to change that jurisdiction. When BishopRichard Challoner, the most recent vicar-apostolic, died in 1781, his successor, BishopJames Talbot, refused to exercise jurisdiction in the United States. The Vatican had to come up with a new arrangement.[15]
The end of the American Revolution marked the loosening of anti-Catholic sentiment and laws in the United States. Beginning on June 27, 1783, Carroll held a series of meetings atWhite Marsh Manor inBowie, Maryland. These meetings started the formation of the American Catholic Church.[16] That same year, Carroll and several supporters began fundraising for an Academy of Georgetown for educating Maryland Catholics.
Regarding the leadership of the American church, the Maryland priests felt it was too soon to have an American bishop.[15] Thepapal nuncio in France, CardinalGiuseppe Doria Pamphili, then asked Benjamin Franklin, at that point in Paris asAmerican Minister to the French court, for advice on the matter.[17] Franklin responded that theseparation of church and state did not permit the U.S. government officially to indicate a preference. Privately, Franklin suggested that the Vatican could put a French bishop in charge of the American church, but also expressed his admiration for Carroll's abilities.[15]
On June 9, 1784,Pope Pius VI appointed Carroll as provisionalsuperior of the missions for the United States, with the power to celebrate the sacrament ofconfirmation.[17][18] The Vatican reportedly appointed Carroll to please Franklin.[12]
Unlike in other countries, Catholicism was not regulated by government in the new United States. With little contact with the Vatican and no American hierarchy, local parishes were setting their own standards and practices. Some communities created churches administered by laity without Carroll's permission. Other parishes were controlled exclusively by their clergy.
Through his meetings with the clergy, Carroll sought to build a church structure that accepted the need for lay involvement while providing a reasonable degree of hierarchical control.
Carroll frequently published articles refuting anti-Catholic slanders and misinformation. He also fought proposals to establish a Protestant denomination as astate religion. However, Carroll always treated non-Catholics with respect and said that Catholics and Protestants should work together. Carroll suggested that the chief obstacles to Christian unity were the lack of clarity by the Vatican on the boundaries ofpapal primacy and the use of Latin in the Catholic liturgy.[15]
After the end of the American Revolution (1775–1783), on November 26, 1784, the Vatican established theApostolic Prefecture of the United States, naming Carroll as its prefect apostolic.[8]
In a February 1785 letter to CardinalLeonardo Antonelli, Carroll reported on the status of the Catholic Church in Maryland, which had the largest Catholic population in the United States. He said that despite having only 19 priests in Maryland, some of the more prominent families in the state were still observant Catholics. He did mention that some of these Catholics enjoyed dancing and novel-reading. Carroll also urged the Vatican to allow American clergy a voice in appointing their first bishop, to ease their fears of Vatican control.[8]
Pope Pius VI granted Carroll's request "that the priests in Maryland be allowed to suggest two or three names from which the Pope would choose their bishop". The pope also designated Baltimore as the first see for an American diocese, again at the priests' request.[8] The Maryland clergy, by a vote of 24 to 1 in April 1789, recommended that the Vatican appoint Carroll as the first bishop of Baltimore.[8]
On November 6, 1789, Pius VI appointed Carroll as bishop of Baltimore. He was consecrated in England by BishopCharles Walmesley. He was assisted by the Reverends Charles Plowden and James Porter, on August 15, 1790, in the chapel ofLulworth Castle inDorset.[19][8][11] Returning to the United States, Carroll was invested as bishop atSt. Thomas Manor Church inCharles County, Maryland.[20] When it was established, the Diocese of Baltimore had jurisdiction over what is today the area of the United States east of theMississippi River.
Carroll selected theChurch of St. Peter in Baltimore to serve as hispro-cathedral. Constructed in 1770, St. Peter was the first Catholic church in Baltimore.[21] The pro-cathedral was the site of the first synod of American priests and deacons in 1791.[22] It also hosted the first ordination of a priest (1793) and the first consecration of a bishop (1800) in the United States.[23][24]
In March 1790, Carroll sent a message of congratulations, along with a blessing, to the newly elected president,George Washington, on behalf of all American Catholics.[25] In 1795, at Carroll's request, the Vatican appointed the ReverendLeonard Neale as acoadjutor bishop in Baltimore to assist him.[26]
In 1804, the Vatican gave Carroll jurisdiction over the Catholic Church in theDanish West Indies.[27] In 1805, theLouisiana Territory was added. Carroll was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society in July 1815.[28]
Since 1783, Carroll had been striving to build a Catholic institution to train American priests and educate Catholic lay people, both men and women. Construction ofGeorgetown College started in 1788 in theVillage of Georgetown in the newly establishedDistrict of Columbia.[29] With the ending of the Jesuit suppression, the order was able to administer the new college. Georgetown College opened on November 22, 1791[30] TheBishop John Carroll statue is located at the university.
In 1791, Carroll convened asynod in Baltimore, the first diocesan synod in American history. It was attended by 21 priests. The agenda items included:
The synod decrees represent the first local canonical legislation in the new nation. One decree dictation that parishes divide their income into one third to support their clergy, one third to maintain their churches and the remainder to aid the poor.[31]
To train priests for his new diocese, Carroll asked theFathers of the Company of Saint Sulpice to come from France to Baltimore. The Sulpicians arrived in 1791 and started the nucleus ofSt. Mary's College and Seminary in Baltimore.[8] Carroll gave his approval for the establishment of theOrder of the Visitation of Holy Mary in Baltimore.[14] He was not successful, however, in inducing theCarmelites, who had come to Maryland in 1790, to take up the work of education.[citation needed]
In 1796, a group ofAugustinian friars from Ireland arrived in Philadelphia.[32] Carroll took the lead in restoring the Jesuit Order in Maryland in 1805, without informing Rome, by using an affiliation with the Russian Jesuits. They had been protected in theRussian Empire from suppression byCatherine the Great. That same year Carroll urgedDominican friars from England to open a priory and college in Kentucky to serve the numerous Catholics who had been migrating there from Maryland. In 1809, the Sulpicians invited SisterElizabeth Ann Seton to come toEmmitsburg, Maryland, to found a school. Carroll had to contend with a "medley of clerical characters".[12] One of the most notorious was Simon Felix Gallagher of Charleston, an eloquent alcoholic with a large following.[33]
By the early 19th century, the Diocese of Baltimore had outgrown the St. Peter's Pro-Cathedral. In 1806, Carroll oversaw the construction of the first cathedral, the Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore.
The new cathedral was designed by architectBenjamin Latrobe, who had overseen construction of the newUnited States Capitol building. Carroll laid the cornerstone of the new cathedral on July 7, 1806.[34]
In April 1808,Pope Pius VII elevated the Diocese of Baltimore into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, making it the first archdiocese in the United States.[35] The pope divided the nation into four suffragan dioceses under the new archdiocese:
Pius VII named Carroll as the first archbishop of Baltimore.[35] In 1808, he consecrated the ReverendMichael Egan as the first bishop of Philadelphia. Two years later, Carroll consecrated the ReverendJean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus as the first bishop of Boston and the ReverendBenedict Flaget as the first bishop of Bardstown.[35]
John Carroll died in Baltimore on December 3, 1815.[35] His remains are interred in the crypt of theBasilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[34]
During this period, the scriptures were read in Latin during masses and Catholics had limited access to bible translations. Carroll strongly believed that Catholics should be able to read and hear the scriptures in English or whatever vernacular language they used. He insisted that priests perform liturgical readings in the vernacular. He was a tireless promoter of theCarey Bible, an edition of the English-languageDouay-Rheims translation that was published in sections. He encouraged clergy and laity to purchase subscriptions to this bible so that they could read the scriptures.[15]
As both superior of the missions and bishop, Carroll promoted the use ofvernacular languages in the liturgy, but was never able to gain the support of the Vatican. In 1787, he wrote:
Can there be anything more preposterous than an unknown tongue; and in this country either for want of books or inability to read, the great part of our congregations must be utterly ignorant of the meaning and sense of the public office of the Church. It may have been prudent, for aught I know, to impose a compliance in this matter with the insulting and reproachful demands of the first reformers; but to continue the practice of the Latin liturgy in the present state of things must be owing either to chimerical fears of innovation or to indolence and inattention in the first pastors of the national Churches in not joining to solicit or indeed ordain this necessary alteration.[36]
It would be nearly 200 years until Carroll's wish for vernacular language-liturgy was realized in the United States as a result of theSecond Vatican Council (in Eastern Catholic Churches the use of English was permitted even few years earlier).
Carroll advocated for the humane treatment and religious education of enslaved people by their owners. However, in his early years, he never called for theabolition of slavery in the United States.[37] In later years, he promoted a policy of voluntarygradual emancipation by slave owners. Carroll believed that this policy would prevent the breakup of families of enslaved people and allow for the care of their elderly.[15] Responding to critics of this approach, he said:
Since the great stir raised in England about Slavery, my Brethren being anxious to suppress censure, which some are always glad to affix to the priesthood, have begun some years ago, and are gradually proceeding to emancipate the old population on their estates. To proceed at once to make it a general measure, would not be either humanity toward the Individuals, nor doing justice to the trust, under which the estates have been transmitted and received.[15]
In 2018, investigations by Georgetown University andJohn Carroll University revealed that Carroll owned two enslaved men while he was bishop and archbishop: Charles and Alexis.[38][39][40] Carroll sold Alexis in 1806 to a Baltimore man named Mr. Stenson, but Carroll kept Charles.[38] In his will, Carroll bequeathed ownership of Charles to his nephew, the diplomatDaniel Brent, on the condition that Brent free Charles within a year of Carroll's death. Carroll also provided Charles with a small inheritance.[41][39]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| New office | Prefect Apostolic of the United States 1784–1789 | Prefecture abolished |
| New diocese | Bishop of Baltimore 1789–1808 | Succeeded by Himself as Archbishop of Baltimore |
| Preceded by Himself as Bishop of Baltimore | Archbishop of Baltimore 1808–1815 | Succeeded by |
