Pioneer Bishops of Maryland

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Maryland up to 1900.  For more information about Maryland, see my blog of February 11, 2017.

Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, converted to Catholicism in 1625.  He dreamed of an English colony in the New World where Catholics could practice their faith without hindrance.  He did not live to see it, but his son, Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, did.  King Charles I, a Protestant, granted Cecilius Calvert proprietorship of the Maryland colony in 1632 and named officially after Charles’ queen, Henrietta Maria, a Catholic (but many Catholics know that Maryland is named for the Virgin Mary).  Calvert came to Maryland to secure his property, accompanied by Father Andrew White, who said the first Mass in Maryland on March 25, 1634.  The original colonists consisted of about 20 “gentlemen,” mostly Catholic, and about 250 craftsmen and laborers, mostly Protestant.  At a time when Catholics and Protestants in England rarely got along, this was a noble experiment. 

The good will that existed in Maryland between the religions would wax and wane.  Protestants from Virginia attacked St. Mary’s City, the Maryland capital, in 1644, forcing Calvert and many of his Catholic colonists to flee.  Calvert later regained control, and in 1649, the Maryland legislature enacted the Act Concerning Religion, the first time a government had permitted freedom of worship.  The following year, Puritans, who had been allowed by the Maryland colony to escape persecution in Virginia and to establish a town (now Annapolis), started a rebellion.  They gained control of Maryland and began to persecute Catholics and Anglicans.  The Puritan government, supported by Oliver Cromwell’s rule in England, repealed the Act Concerning Religion in 1654.  Lord Baltimore once again gained control of the colony in 1658 and the Act Concerning Religion was restored.

Religious toleration was allowed in Maryland during the reigns of King Charles II and King James II, but ended with the reign of William and Mary starting in 1689.  Catholics were once again persecuted in Maryland.  Laws prohibited Catholics from voting, from holding public office, or practicing their Faith, and priests were not allowed to exercise their sacred duties.  These laws were not always enforced and Catholics were usually allowed to attend Mass in their homes or in homes owned by priests.  Some Catholics chose to leave Maryland during this time—but many stayed—the Catholic population, estimated to be about 5,000 in 1670, had risen to about 12,000 by 1770.  These Catholics were served by a handful of Jesuit priests.

The American Revolution finally brought lasting freedom of religion for all Americans in the former English colonies.  Pope Pius VI created the Apostolic Prefecture of the United States in 1784 to separate the American church from London authorities.  John Carroll, a Maryland priest, was named the Apostolic Prefect, and in 1789, Pope Pius VI named Carroll to be the first Bishop of Baltimore—the Diocese of Baltimore was the entire United States.  At the time, there were less than 30,000 Catholics in the United States—16,000 in Maryland and 7,000 in Pennsylvania.  Most of these Catholics were English and many were from the middle or upper classes.  The immigrant Church was still several decades away.

Pope Pius VII named Carroll the first U.S. archbishop in 1808.  All of Maryland remained part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore until 1868 when the Eastern Shore counties became part of the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.  Five Maryland counties and the District of Columbia became the Archdiocese of Washington in 1939.

John Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1736, and was ordained a Jesuit priest in France in 1761.  He was a cousin of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.  After ordination, Carroll remained in Europe teaching at a seminary until 1773 when he returned to Maryland.  He established St. John the Evangelist parish in Silver Spring the following year.  At the request of the Continental Congress, he accompanied his cousin Charles, Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Chase in 1776 to Quebec hoping to have Quebec join the revolution against the English.  The mission was unsuccessful, but Carroll earned a patron in Franklin.  Carroll and other former Jesuits (the order had been suppressed around the world) met at what is now Sacred Heart Church in Bowie starting in 1783 to organize the U.S. Catholic church.  The following year, Pope Pius VI, at the recommendation of Franklin, appointed Carroll as Superior of the Missions in the United States (or Apostolic Prefect) with at least some of the authority of a bishop.

Pope Pius VI allowed U.S. priests to elect a bishop and they voted overwhelmingly for Carroll and he was appointed by the Pope to be the first Bishop of Baltimore in 1789.  He was named by Pope Pius VII to be the first Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.  He established Georgetown College (now University) in Washington, St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, and Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary in Emmitsburg, as well as schools for girls in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Kentucky, some run by Elizabeth Seton.  He organized the clergy in the United States, which included dealing with a number of “problem” priests, some of whom had come from Europe without an understanding of American ways.  He ordained new priests, including Stephen Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States.  He brought many religious orders to the United States.  Although he later placed more value on episcopal prerogatives, he initially sought to model the Catholic Church in the United States more on the ideals of the American Revolution rather than European traditions, which meant close relations with Protestants and the community in general, more personal methods of worship, and some degree of autonomy from Rome.  He died in 1815.

Leonard Neale was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1746, to a prominent Catholic family.  He was one of 13 children.  Neale was sent France at the age of 12 to get a Catholic education, as that could not be found in the British colonies.  He joined the Society of Jesus in 1767 and became a Jesuit priest in 1773.  He spent the next six years serving in England, Belgium, and France, before becoming a missionary in British Guiana in 1779.  His efforts there were resisted both by the British and the native peoples and he returned to Maryland in 1883.  John Carroll, the first Bishop of Baltimore, sent Neale to Philadelphia in 1793 to be pastor of St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s parishes.  Yellow fever had killed ten percent of the City’s population, including three priests.  Neale himself contracted yellow fever and recovered but never fully.  He established an orphanage to care for the children who had lost both parents during the epidemic.  Carroll appointed Neale as president of what is now Georgetown University in 1799.  (Both his brother and his nephew would also serve as president of Georgetown.)  Neale expanded the college’s curriculum, but was criticized for his strictness.  He resigned in 1806 and in 1808 established Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School and served as chaplain the rest of his life.

Bishop Carroll had requested a coadjutor bishop to help him with his Diocese, which then consisted of the entire United States.  The Vatican appointed Neale to that position in 1795, but because of turmoil in Europe, the paperwork did not arrive in Baltimore until 1800.  Neale was consecrated as a bishop that year—the first bishop consecrated in the United States.  Neale became Archbishop of Baltimore in 1815 upon the death of Archbishop Carroll (who had become an archbishop in 1808).  Neale only served as Archbishop for a year and a half before his own death in 1817 and during that time he lived mostly in Georgetown.  During his short time as Archbishop, Neale had to deal with the problem of lay trustees of parishes who often thought that they, not the bishop, should control the assignment of priests.  This was especially a problem in Charleston, South Carolina, where even the priests defied their Archbishop. 

Ambrose Marechal was born in 1868 near Orleans, France, to prosperous parents.  He entered the Sulpician seminary at Orleans and was ordained a Sulpician priest in 1792.  Because of deteriorating conditions in France due to the Revolution, Marechal sailed for Baltimore the day he was ordained.  He served as a priest in southern Maryland and on Maryland’s eastern shore.  He also taught at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and at Georgetown College.  The Sulpicians recalled him to France in 1803 and he taught there until they sent him back to Baltimore in 1812.  He returned to St. Mary’s to teach and later became president of the seminary.

Marechal was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1817.  Marechal dealt ably with several problems.  He objected to the creation by the Vatican, without his consent, of the dioceses of Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and the appointment of bishops to those dioceses, but eventually won the right of the archbishop to be consulted on these matters.  He also sought to resolve problems caused by the trustee system—many Catholic churches at this time had been built and were owned by the parishioners, not by the bishop.  This also led to a problem with men posing as priests and fooling lay trustees.  A trip to Rome in 1821 helped bring about some resolution to these problems and established the Archbishop of Baltimore as the leader of the U.S. church.  He also dedicated the Basilica of the Assumption in 1821.  Archbishop Marechal died in 1828.

James Whitfield was born in England in 1770.  After his father died in 1787, he and his mother traveled to Italy where she hoped her health would improve with a warmer climate.  Meanwhile, he pursued commercial activities.  Returning to England, they were detained by the French in Lyons, where Whitfield met Father Ambrose Marechal, a Sulpician priest.  Marechal convinced Whitfield to attend seminary in France and he was ordained a priest in 1809.  Whitfield’s mother died shortly thereafter, and he returned to England.  He came to the United States in 1817 at the invitation of Marechal, by this time the Archbishop of Baltimore.  Whitfield was named vicar general of the Archdiocese the following year.  After Marechal’s death in 1828, Whitfield was named to succeed him.

As Archbishop, Whitfield headed not only his archdiocese, but also the Province of Baltimore, which consisted of the entire nation.  By 1828, the United States had 350,000 Catholics and 160 churches.  Whitfield convened two provincial councils to address the needs of an expanding nation.  The First Provincial Council in 1829 directed, among other things, that converts to Catholicism need not be baptized if they had previously received a valid baptism, in mixed marriages the non-Catholic must promise to bring up their children as Catholics, the Douay version of the Bible is preferred, Freemasons cannot receive the sacraments, trustees cannot hire or fire a pastor, future churches should not use the trustee system, and Catholic education should be encouraged.  The Second Provincial Council in 1833 recommended, among other things, that the Jesuits be responsible for Indian missions in the West and the missions to former American slaves in Liberia.  He built new churches, sometimes with his own money.  Whitfield was particularly concerned with the African American community and it distressed him that he could not send missionaries to serve the half a million slaves in Virginia.  Archbishop Whitfield died in 1834.

Samuel Eccleston was born near Chestertown, Maryland, in 1801.  His father was an Episcopal priest who died when Eccleston was a young boy.  Eccleston’s mother later married a Catholic and Eccleston was educated at what is now St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.  He converted to Catholicism in 1819 and decided to become a priest.  He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1825, but later that year joined the Sulpician order.  He studied in Europe for two years before returning to teach at St. Mary’s Seminary, where he became president in 1829.

Eccleston was appointed the fifth Archbishop of Baltimore in 1834 at the age of 33—nine years after his ordination to the priesthood and 15 years after his conversion to Catholicism.  Eccleston convened five provincial councils, which directed, among other things, that Wednesdays in Advent are not to be days of fast and abstinence, priests may not borrow money for church uses without their bishop’s permission, and which also chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as the patron of the United States.  He also founded St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville (the first U.S. preparatory seminary), invited the Redemptorist priests to serve Baltimore’s growing German population, and invited other religious orders to open schools.  He served as archbishop during a time of great growth in Baltimore’s immigrant population, which he attempted to serve.  He was less supportive of the African-American Oblate Sisters of Providence and appointed a spiritual director only after being persuaded to do so by John Neumann, who was then the superior for the Redemptorist order.  Eccleston was the last Baltimore archbishop to be the only U.S. archbishop.  He died in 1851.

Francis P. Kenrick was born in Ireland in 1797 and ordained a priest in Rome in 1821.  Shortly after his ordination and at the invitation of Bishop Benedict Flaget, Kenrick came to serve the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky.  He taught at the diocesan seminary and earned a reputation as a theologian and scripture scholar.  This allowed him to be an effective homilist and a defender of the Catholic Faith in a state that was predominantly Protestant.

Kenrick was appointed coadjutor Bishop of Philadelphia and apostolic administrator in 1830 and became the third Bishop of Philadelphia in 1842.  Kenrick was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1851.  Archbishop Kenrick presided over the First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852, which was attended by over 40 U.S. bishops and recommended that actions be taken to improve governance of each diocese, that each parish have a school (free and supported by the parish), that each province have a seminary, that Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament be performed in all dioceses, and that the Society for the Propagration of the Faith be encouraged.  Kenrick published an English translation of the New Testament with a commentary.  He was greatly troubled by the Civil War and died in July 1863 shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg.  Kenrick’s younger brother, Peter, served as the first Archbishop of St. Louis.

Martin J. Spalding was born in Marion County, Kentucky, in 1810 and was ordained a priest (in Rome) for the then-Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1834.  Spalding served as cathedral rector, editor of the diocesan newspaper, and seminary president and professor prior to being named vicar general of the diocese in 1844.  He was named coadjutor bishop of Louisville (the Diocese had moved from Bardstown to Louisville) in 1848 and became Bishop of Louisville in 1850.  

Spalding was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1864.  He led the Second Plenary Council in 1866 (which dealt with diocesan management, general education, and education of clergy) and which set standards for ecclesiastical law in the U.S. Church.  He supported the rights of laborers to organize unions and founded St. Mary's Industrial School (later attended by “Babe” Ruth) as well as other institutions.  He also led efforts to serve slaves emancipated after the Civil War and to provide aid for needy Southerners.  He established many new parishes and schools within the Archdiocese and was very active at the First Vatican Council in 1869.  The Council approved the doctrine of papal infallibility and Spalding wrote a pastoral letter explaining that some U.S. bishops initially opposed the doctrine, not on religious grounds, but because they thought it would not be well received by non-Catholics in the United States.  He died in 1872.  Spalding was an outstanding speaker, noted author, and skilled canon lawyer and was said to be one of the most influential Catholic apologists of the 19th Century.  His influence was felt in the U.S. Church for decades to come.  

James Roosevelt Bayley was born in New York City in 1814 and raised as an Episcopalian and became an Episcopal priest in 1839.  He was the nephew of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton and a relative of two future presidents (Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt).  Influenced by the Oxford Movement and by reading the early church fathers, and by his acquaintance with Father John McCloskey (later Archbishop of New York and the first U.S. cardinal) Bayley converted to Catholicism in 1842 and was ordained a priest for the Catholic Diocese of New York in 1844.  His ordination resulted in his disinheriting a large fortune from his grandfather.  As a priest, he served as vice president and professor at St. John’s College and served as a pastor at a church on Long Island.

Bayley was appointed the first Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, in 1853, and was named Archbishop of Baltimore in 1872.  Archbishop Bayley implemented several reforms related to the administration of the Archdiocese.  He also established a fund-raising appeal that paid off the debt on the Cathedral and several Catholic societies.  Bayley was never in good health during his time in Baltimore and he died in 1877.

James Gibbons was born in Baltimore in 1834 as the fourth of six children of Irish parents.  The family moved back to Ireland in 1839.  His mother moved the family to New Orleans in 1853 after the death of her husband.  Gibbons entered the seminary in Maryland in 1855 and despite ill health, graduated in 1861 when he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.  He served as a pastor and as a chaplain at Fort McHenry prior to being named private secretary to Archbishop Martin Spalding in 1865.  Gibbons was named the first Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina in 1868 when he was 34 years old.  He was named Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, in 1872, and Archbishop of Baltimore in 1877.

Gibbons was named a cardinal in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII—only the second American to be so honored.  As Archbishop, he presided over the third plenary council of Baltimore in 1884, which begot the Baltimore Catechism, encouraged Catholic schools in each parish, established the Catholic University of America, and set six Holy Days of Obligation.  He supported the right of workers to form unions and convinced the Vatican not to condemn one of the first U.S. labor unions.  He also promoted, like Archbishop Carroll, a Church based on American ideals, rather than the European cultures of new immigrants.  Gibbons authored many books and was recognized by political leaders and many Americans to be the most prominent American Catholic of his time—he was acquainted with every U.S. president from Andrew Johnson to Warren Harding and advised many of them.  Gibbons advocated for the creation of the Catholic University of America and served as its first chancellor.  Gibbons died in 1921.  During his over 50 years as a bishop, he ordained almost 2,500 priests and consecrated 23 bishops.