John Carroll (January 8, 1735 – December 3, 1815) was an American Catholic prelate who served as the nation's first Catholic bishop, overseeing the Diocese of Baltimore, then the only diocese in the nascent United States, from 1789 to 1815. He became 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-era Province of Maryland, Carroll spent most of his early years as a priest in Europe, teaching and serving as a chaplain. After returning to Maryland in 1773, he started organizing the Catholic Church in America with a small cadre of priests. The Vatican appointed him to several roles as leader of the American Catholic hierarchy, culminating in his appointment as archbishop.
Carroll founded Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and St. John the Evangelist Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland, the first secular parish in the country.
Carroll was born on January 8, 1735, in Upper Marlborough, Maryland, in the colonial-era Province of Maryland, to Daniel Carroll I and Eleanor Darnall Carroll at the noble Carroll family plantation. John Carroll grew up on the plantation.
Carroll's older brother, Daniel Carroll II (1730–1796), was one of five men to sign both the Articles of Confederation (1778) and the US Constitution (1787).
Carroll's cousin, Charles Carroll (1737–1832), was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He participated in the 1828 setting of the "first stone" in the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
John Carroll was home-schooled by Eleanor Carroll, then sent to a Catholic school in Bohemia Manor, Maryland. As the Province 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 the College of St. Omer in the Artois region of France. The school was a popular destination for the education of boys from wealthy Catholic families in Maryland.
Carroll joined the Society of Jesus as a postulant 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. 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.
When Pope Clement XIV suppressed 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 the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith was responsible for it. Since the laws of Maryland prohibited the establishment of a Catholic parish, Carroll worked as a missionary in both Maryland and the Province of Virginia. In 1774, he built a small chapel on the plantation called St. John the Evangelist.
In 1776, the Continental Congress asked Charles Carroll, attorney Samuel Chase and Benjamin Franklin to travel to the British Province 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 the Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolution.
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 to Philadelphia. Carroll then returned to the family plantation, performing ministerial duties during the war years.
During the colonial period, the Catholic clergy in the Thirteen American colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic 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 Bishop Richard Challoner, the most recent vicar-apostolic, died in 1781, his successor, Bishop James Talbot, refused to exercise jurisdiction in the United States. The Vatican had to come up with a new arrangement.
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 at White Marsh Manor in Bowie, Maryland. These meetings started the formation of the American Catholic Church. 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. The papal nuncio in France, Cardinal Giuseppe Doria Pamphili, then asked Benjamin Franklin, at that point in Paris as American Minister to the French court, for advice on the matter. Franklin responded that the separation 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.
On June 9, 1784, Pope Pius VI appointed Carroll as provisional superior of the missions for the United States, with the power to celebrate the sacrament of confirmation. The Vatican reportedly appointed Carroll to please Franklin.
Financial reform and lay involvement
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.