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Bible Dictionaries
Carroll, John
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
or
First bishop of the hierarchy of the United States, first Bishop and Archbishop of Baltimore, born Upper Marlboro, Maryland, 1735; died Baltimore, Maryland, 1815. His father, Daniel Carroll, a native of Ireland, was a successful merchant in Upper Marlboro; his mother, Eleanor Darnall, was closely related to the wife of Charles Carroll of Carrollton; his brother, Daniel Carroll (1733-1829), was a member of the Colonial Congress (1780-1784) and of the new Congress (1789-1791) and was one of the two Catholic signers of the Constitution in 1787. John Carroll was educated at the Jesuit school at Bohemia Manor in Maryland, and at the Jesuit College of Saint Omer in French Flanders. In 1753 he entered the Society of Jesus, studied at Liege, and was ordained in 1769. Four years of teaching philosophy and theology at Liege and Bruges and a winter spent traveling in Europe as tutor to Lord Stourton's son, were followed by his return to Maryland in 1774 after the suppression of the Society. Volunteer missionary labors in Maryland and Virginia occupied his time. In 1776, at the request of the Continental Congress, he accompanied Charles Carroll, Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Chase on a mission to Canada in a vain endeavor to secure the cooperation, or the neutrality, of that country in the Revolution. At the close of the war his patriotism and wisdom were largely instrumental in reorganizing the infant Church of the United States, free of the jurisdiction of the Vicar-General of London, under which the Colonial Church had been for a century, and independent of any foreign power. As the choice of his associates in 1784 he was appointed, by the pope, Superior of the Missions of the United States, which then included less than 30,000 Catholics. In 1788 his name was submitted to Rome, by permission of the Holy See, as an episcopal candidate selected by twenty-four out of twenty-six assembled priests, and he was named Bishop of Baltimore in 1789, his diocese reaching from Georgia to Maine and westward to the Mississippi. He was consecrated in the chapel of Thomas Weld at Lulworth Castle, England, August 15, 1790, by the Right Reverend Charles Walmesley, Vicar Apostolic of London. Among the difficulties with which he had to cope were the extravagant claims of lay trustees, the question of nationalism in parish churches, and the occasional intrusion of unworthy priests. In 1791 he called the first Synod of Baltimore, attended by 22 priests. The same year the opening of Georgetown College, founded on his plans, took place, and Sulpicians from France inaugurated the beginnings of Saint Mary's College and Seminary. Bishop Carroll conferred Holy Orders, for the first time within the territory of the thirteen States, on Reverend Stephen Badin in 1793. In 1800 he consecrated his coadjutor, Right Reverend Leonard Neale. In 1806 he laid the corner-stone of the Cathedral of the Assumption which replaced Saint Peter's pro-Cathedral in 1824. The suffragan sees of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) were erected in 1808, and the pallium conferred on Archbishop Carroll. He lived to see the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, having reorganized it in his diocese in 1805. Active always in civicaffairs, he was president of the Female Humane Charity School of Baltimore, head of the Library Company, and one of the three trustees of Saint John's College at Annapolis. At his death clergy in the United States numbered about 85.
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Entry for 'Carroll, John'. 1910 New Catholic Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/c/carroll-john.html. 1910.
