Baltimore, Archdiocese of
BALTIMORE, ARCHDIOCESE OF
The archdiocese of Baltimore (Latin title: Baltimorensis ) is the senior metropolitan see of the United States, comprising Baltimore city and Baltimore, Allegany, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington counties, an area of 4,801 square miles, with an estimated total population in 2000 of 2,850,000, including 485,000 Catholics. The diocese was established on Nov. 6, 1789; the archdiocese on April 8, 1808.
Origins. Catholicism was brought to Maryland (1634) by the first English settlers, among whom were three Jesuit missionaries whose successors continued the work of ministering to the colonists and converting the Native Americans. The area comprising the present Baltimore archdiocese was probably served by itinerant priests, including Benedict Neale, who visited Harford County in 1747. In 1755 a group of exiled French Catholic refugees from Acadia (Nova Scotia) settled in Edward Fotterell's abandoned house on Calvert and Fayette streets in Baltimore. From 1756 to 1763 Jesuits from the White Marsh mission, 25 miles southwest, periodically conducted services first in Fotterell's house and after 1775, in St. Peter's. This small church was built by laymen on a lot purchased by the Jesuit superior from Charles Carroll of Annapolis and located near the northwest corner of the later Charles and Saratoga streets. By 1784, when the first resident pastor, Charles Sewall, SJ, arrived, the church had been enlarged to more than twice its original size, and a rectory had been added. There the vicar apostolic of the new Republic, John carroll, took up residence in 1786 and remained until his death in 1815. By then, three more city churches had been added as the Catholic population increased to an estimated 10,000—St. Patrick's (1795); St. John's (1799), on the site of the later St. Alphonsus; and St. Mary's Seminary Chapel (1808), a Gothic structure designed by Maximilian Godefroy.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction. From 1688 to 1784 the English colonies seemingly were under the jurisdiction of the vicar apostolic of the London District in the home
country. Before 1688 priests in the colonies (mostly Jesuits) apparently received all necessary faculties from the superiors of their religious communities. From 1784 to 1789 John Carroll as prefect apostolic exercised limited jurisdiction over the Church in the new Republic of the United States. After his appointment as bishop on Nov. 6, 1789, and his consecration in Lulworth Castle chapel, Dorset, England, on Aug. 15, 1790, Carroll assumed full responsibility for his vast Diocese of Baltimore, which was until 1808 the only see in the United States. It extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from Canada to Florida, an area of about 890,000 square miles, later comprising 25 states. The record of its territorial contraction as a diocese or archdiocese and as a province is, therefore, unique. In 1808, with the establishment of the suffragan sees of Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa., and Bardstown (later Louisville), Ky., and the creation of Baltimore as a metropolitan see, the Archdiocese of Baltimore was confined to what are now the District of Columbia, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, an area of 317,610 square miles. The archdiocese, which remained the only metropolitan see in the United States until 1846, was subsequently reduced in area by four main subdivisions. In 1820 it lost West Virginia and Virginia to the Diocese of Richmond, although the archbishops of Baltimore administered the see when it was vacant from 1822 to 1841. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia also were separated in 1820 to form the Diocese of Charleston, S.C.; these divisions left the two remaining parts of the archdiocese separated by more than 500 miles. In 1825 Mississippi and Alabama were severed when each became a vicariate apostolic; the latter included Florida, recently ceded to the United States by Spain. When the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., was created in 1868, Baltimore lost all of Maryland's eastern shore counties (nine) to the new see. In 1939 the District of Columbia was
made an archdiocese, although its archbishop was simultaneously archbishop of Baltimore until 1947, when it was given its own archbishop and an additional five Maryland counties previously governed by Baltimore.
The Province of Baltimore was, in practice, coterminous with the Republic from 1808 to 1846, when Oregon City (now Portland, Ore.) became the second U.S. province. Between 1847 (when the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Mo., was erected) and 1850 (when the provinces of New York, New Orleans, La., and Cincinnati, Ohio, were set up) the senior province was greatly reduced in size, losing Alabama and Mississippi, once part of the Baltimore archdiocese, to the New Orleans province. Delaware, never a part of the archdiocese as such, remained in the province when the state of Delaware was detached from the Diocese of Philadelphia and made part of the new Diocese of Wilmington (1868). West Florida, which had become part of the province in 1819, was transferred to the New Orleans province in 1850, but East Florida remained in that of Baltimore. The state of Pennsylvania also remained part of the Baltimore province until 1875, when the Province of Philadelphia was erected. Since then Baltimore has lost the District of Columbia and the five Maryland counties (1947) included in the Archdiocese of Washington, which belongs to no province. In 1962 the establishment of the new Province of Atlanta took the states of Georgia, North and South Carolina, and the eastern part of Florida, leaving the Province of Baltimore with all of Maryland except five counties, and Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia, with suffragan sees at Richmond, Va., Wheeling, W.Va., and Wilmington, Del.
Prominent leaders and developments. Baltimore's ordinaries, beginning with the renowned John Carroll, who ruled the see from 1789 to 1815, have included many outstanding prelates. Carroll's successor was his coadjutor, Leonard neale, whose brief administration terminated with his death in 1817. He was followed by the French-born Sulpician Ambrose marÉchal (1817–28); English-born James whitfield (1828–34); the Sulpician Samuel eccleston, a native of Maryland (1834–51); Irish-born Francis Patrick kenrick, who had served as bishop in Philadelphia, Pa., before his appointment to Baltimore (1851–63); Martin John spalding, born in Kentucky and auxiliary (1848–52) and bishop (1852–64) of Louisville, Ky., before his appointment as archbishop of Baltimore (1864–72); New York-born James Roosevelt bayley (1872–77); James gibbons, who became the second U.S. cardinal (1877–1921); Michael Joseph curley, Irish-born bishop of St. Augustine, Fla., when chosen for Baltimore (1921–47); Francis Patrick keough (1947–61); and Baltimore-born Lawrence Joseph shehan, who was named auxiliary of the archbishop of Baltimore and Washington in 1945 while serving as pastor of St. Patrick's, Washington. In 1948 he became auxiliary to the archbishop of Baltimore, where he took up residence as pastor of SS. Philip and James. Made first bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., in 1953, he was named to Baltimore in July of 1961 as coadjutor archbishop and succeeded to the see upon Keough's death on December 8 of that year. In February of 1965 Shehan was raised to the College of Cardinals by Paul VI in recognition of his leadership in the areas of ecumenism and racial justice. William D. Borders succeeded Cardinal Sheehan as archbishop of Baltimore in 1974 and promoted lay involvement in the administration of the archdiocese. The 14th archbishop of Baltimore is William Cardinal Keeler, who was appointed to the see in 1989 and named a cardinal in 1994. In addition to his guidance of the archdiocese, Cardinal Keeler has a world-wide reputation as a leader in ecumenical affairs, particularly in the Church's relations with the Orthodox and with Jews.
Under its episcopal leaders, Baltimore assumed an important role in U.S. Catholic history that was both enhanced and reflected by the many important meetings of Church leaders held in the see city. As early as 1791, Carroll had called a meeting of his clergy (22 attended) at which a number of regulations were decreed for observance throughout the diocese. These decrees were reaffirmed and amplified in 1810, when Carroll met informally with Neale, his coadjutor, and his newly consecrated suffragans Michael Egan of Philadelphia, Jean Cheverus of Boston, and Benedict Flaget of Bardstown. The First Provincial Council of Baltimore was held in 1829, followed by others in 1833, 1837, 1840, 1843, 1846, 1849, 1855, 1858, and 1869. Of these, the first seven—like the meetings of 1791 and 1810—were nationwide in scope and hence plenary in effect. Three other Councils of Baltimore were plenary in the strict sense, since they were presided over by an apostolic delegate (in each case, the incumbent archbishop of Baltimore) and the nation had by then been divided into additional provinces, each headed by a metropolitan archbishop. Held in 1852, 1866, and 1884, these meetings were epochal in character (see baltimore, councils of). In addition, Baltimore was the site of nine diocesan synods (i.e., meetings of the archbishop and his diocesan clergy concerning strictly diocesan regulations), which besides the national synod of 1791 included those held in 1831, 1853, 1857, 1863, 1865, 1868, 1875, and 1886.
When the diocese was created, Baltimore had only one church, St. Peter's, which served as procathedral for Carroll, Neale, and Maréchal until 1821. The first synod in the United States was held there, as was also the first ordination (Stephen T. badin, 1793), and the first episcopal consecration (Leonard Neale, 1800). In use until 1841, it was razed the following year to make room for Calvert Hall, a boys' school conducted there (1845–91) by the Brothers of the Christian Schools. To carry on the name of St. Peter's, another city parish of that name was established in 1842. On land purchased from the estate of the Revolutionary war hero and Maryland governor, John Eager Howard, the old Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was begun on July 7, 1806, when Carroll laid the cornerstone. (Contrary to later development, this stone designated the church under the name of Jesus and Mary.) The Romanesque-Byzantine structure designed by the British-born non-Catholic Benjamin Henry Latrobe, one of the architects of the national capitol, was dedicated on May 31, 1821, but it remained in debt and unconsecrated until May 25, 1876. The building escaped the fires of 1873 and 1904; its location placed it (1964) on the northern edge of the city's 22-acre Charles Center redevelopment area. The old cathedral, important for its historical associations, became the nation's fourth minor basilica on Sept. 1, 1937. Within its walls all of Baltimore's great councils were solemnized. Beneath its altar lie all the archbishops of Baltimore except Neale, Bayley, and Keough. On Sept. 21, 1959, the basilica ceased to be the metropolitan cathedral, but it was accorded the status of a cocathedral. The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen was built from funds bequeathed by Thomas J. O'Neill (1849–1919), an Irish-born Baltimore merchant. Ground was broken by Keough on Oct. 10, 1954, and the cornerstone was laid the following May. The building was consecrated on Oct. 13, 1959, and solemnly opened November 15.
Religious communities. A number of religious communities established their first U.S. foundations under the ordinaries of Baltimore: the Carmelites in Port Tobacco, Md. (1790); the Sulpicians in Baltimore (1791); the Visitation nuns (1799) and the restored Jesuits (1806), both in Georgetown, D.C.; the Christian Brothers (1845), the Josephites (1871), and the Bon Secour Sisters (1881), all in Baltimore. In addition, three new communities for women were founded within the archdiocese. In 1809 the Sisters of St. Joseph, as they were originally called, founded by St. Elizabeth seton, established St. Joseph's Academy in Emmitsburg, Md. The Oblate Sisters of Providence were founded in Baltimore in 1828 by Bl. Mary Elizabeth Lange. This community of African American Sisters is dedicated to the education of black children. The Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart began in 1891, when Mary Cunningham (later Mother Demetrias) joined with a group of Baltimore women in helping the Josephites with their catechetical and missionary work among the black missions. With headquarters in Towson, Md., they engage in general and special catechetics.
Within the archdiocese the Sulpicians, Josephites, Pallottines, and Trinitarians have their national headquarters; Baltimore is also a center for the Friars Minor Conventuals, Jesuits, and Xaverian Brothers, as well as for the Daughters of Charity, Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore City, Franciscans Sisters of the Third Order, Good Shepherd Sisters, Notre Dame de Namur Sisters, Oblate Sisters of Providence, Religious Sisters of Mercy, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Education. In the document establishing the diocese of Baltimore, the Holy See urged upon Carroll the necessity of establishing "an episcopal seminary either in the same city [Baltimore] or elsewhere, as he shall judge most expedient." By the time the new bishop issued the nation's first pastoral letter in 1792, he was able "to return God thanks for having conducted to our assistance a number of learned and exemplary clergymen, devoted by choice, and formed by experience to the important function of training young Ecclesiastics to all the duties of the ministry." These clergymen were the sulpicians, who had arrived in Baltimore in July of 1791. Three months after their arrival, and under the direction of Father Nagot, four Sulpicians and the five students who accompanied them from Europe had begun the pioneer U.S. Seminary, St. Mary's, Baltimore. The lack of native candidates to the priesthood during the Sulpicians' first 13 years nearly caused the closing of the seminary, and only the express wish of Pius VII saved the project. While continuing to prepare men from around the country for the priesthood, in recent decades it has also been offering training in theology to laymen and women.
Another training school for the diocesan priesthood, the seminary department of Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, was established in 1808 by the Sulpician John Dubois, later third bishop of New York. Mt. St. Mary's was from the start both a seminary and a lay college. Since ending its association with the Sulpicians in 1826, the college has been directed by an association of secular priests from various dioceses, with the archbishop of Baltimore as ex officio president. Its graduates include many bishops and the first U.S. Cardinal, John McCloskey. Defying national trends, in the last two decades of the twentieth century Mt. St. Mary's Seminary has increased its enrollment as dioceses from around the country continue to send candidates for the priesthood there in ever greater numbers.
The archdiocese currently has three Catholic colleges. Mt. St. Mary's and Loyola, Baltimore (1852), are directed respectively by secular priests and Jesuits. A college for women, Notre Dame of Maryland (1873), was founded by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. These three colleges had a total enrollment of 11,428 students at the end of the millennium. In addition, there were 22 high schools (10,922 students) and 73 elementary schools (24,314 students) in the archdiocese under Catholic auspices in 2000.
Charitable works. In 2000 there were five general hospitals; these are Sacred Heart, Cumberland (Daughters of Charity, 1911), and four in Baltimore: St. Agnes (Daughters of Charity, 1862), St. Joseph (Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, 1864), Mercy (Sisters of Mercy, 1874), and Bon Secours (Bon Secours Sisters, 1919). Rehabilitation centers and homes for the aged in the city of Baltimore include Dismas House East, Dismas House West, St. Elizabeth Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, St. Charles Villa, St. Joseph Nursing Home, and St. Martin's Home for the Aged. There are also the St. Agnes Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Ellicott City, Villa St. Catherine in Emmitsburg, and Stella Maris Center in Timonium.
Catholic press. The short-lived Metropolitan, founded in Baltimore by Peter blenkinsop in 1830, is credited with being the pioneer Catholic magazine in the United States. In 1842 Rev. Charles I. white of Baltimore began a monthly called the Religious Cabinet. Renamed the U.S. Catholic Magazine in 1843, in became a weekly in 1849 and was followed in 1850 by the Catholic Mirror, a weekly newspaper. Except for a brief period during the Civil War when its publisher was imprisoned for southern sympathies, it continued as Baltimore's archdiocesan paper until 1908. When White relinquished its editorship in 1853, he began another monthly under the old name of the Metropolitan and continued it until 1857. It died out shortly after a new editor took over in 1858. Since 1913 the official weekly organ of the archdiocese has been the Baltimore Catholic Review. Between 1944 and 1952 there were separate Baltimore and Washington editions. (Since then Washington has had its own paper.)
Other developments. The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) established a committee of bishops to draw up a catechism for use in elementary religious instruction throughout the United States. The first edition of the so-called Baltimore Catechism appeared in April of 1885; it was chiefly the work of Bp. John L. Spalding of Peoria, Ill., and Msgr. J. V. De Concilio of St. Michael's parish, Jersey City, N.J. This original edition became the No. 2 catechism, No. 1 being a simplified version and No. 3 an amplified one. In 1941 a considerably revised edition was published and remained a popular catechetical source until the Second Vatican Council encouraged new approaches to religious instruction. In 1995 the premier see of the United States welcomed Pope John Paul II to the city of Baltimore, where he offered a historic Mass at Camden Yards stadium.
Baltimore possesses a storehouse of documents "ranking first among the archives of the Catholic Church in the United States," according to John Tracy Ellis, American Church historian. Located at St. Mary's Seminary, these documents are cataloged chiefly according to the administrations of the successive archbishops. A few documents antedate the American Revolution. There are autographed letters from ten popes (beginning with Pius VII in 1817) and sixteen American presidents (beginning with Washington in 1790).
The principal patron of the archdiocese is the Blessed Virgin Mary, Assumed into Heaven (synod of 1791); St. Ignatius Loyola was chosen as the secondary patron (synod of 1886), since the Jesuits established the first missions in Maryland (1634). His Spanish name still identifies one of the oldest towns in the state (St. Inigoes, St. Mary's county, 1634) and its historic church. In 2000 the archdiocese counted 155 parishes, 18 of which were without a resident pastor, served by 597 priests, of whom 291 were religious, 187 permanent deacons, 80 brothers, and 1212 women religious.
Bibliography: t. w. spalding, The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 1789–1989 (Baltimore, 1989). Partial sources include j. d. g. shea, A History of the Catholic Church within the Limits of the United States, 4 v. (New York 1886–92). m. e. stanton, A Century of Growth: The History of the Church in Western Maryland, 2 v. (Baltimore, Md. 1891). m. j. riordan, Cathedral Records from the Beginning of Catholicism in Baltimore (Baltimore, Md. 1906). p. k. guilday, Life and Times of John Carroll: Archbishop of Baltimore, 1735–1815, 2 v. (New York 1927). j. t. ellis, Life of James Cardinal Gibbons: Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834–1921, 2 v. (Milwaukee, Wis. 1952). a. m. melville, John Carroll of Baltimore (New York 1955). By 1965 The Catholic University of America library contained studies of all Baltimore's archbishops from Carroll through Gibbons. Other valuable sources are the Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Maryland Historical Society, and the Maryland Room of the Pratt Library.
[j. j. gallagher/
r. t. conley]