Cardinal Gibbons at the Basilica

Maryland Historical Society

James Gibbons, first Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, was born July 23, 1834, to Irish immigrants Thomas Gibbons and Bridget Walsh in Baltimore, Maryland. Gibbons' family returned to Ireland in 1839, where his father operated a grocery in Ballinrobe, County Mayo. His father's death in 1847 led to the family's return to the United States in 1853; this time they settled in New Orleans. There the young James was employed as a clerk until he decided to enter the seminary in 1855. He attended minor seminary at St. Charles' College, Ellicott City, and St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, for his education and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Baltimore on June 30, 1861.

Cardinal Gibbons and students

Maryland Historical Society

He was soon appointed the first pastor of St. Bridget's Church, a predominately Irish parish in the Canton section of Baltimore. He also began to visit Fort McHenry at this time to minister to the Union soldiers stationed there during the Civil War. In 1865 he became secretary to Archbishop Martin John Spalding where, among his other duties, he helped prepare for the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866). He was nominated for the newly created vicariate apostolic, a kind of diocese of a region that is predominantly non-Catholic, of North Carolina at these meetings and was installed as vicar in 1868. He served in the position until 1872 when he was appointed the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Richmond. In May 1877 he was named coadjutor to Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Baltimore and succeeded him as the ninth Archbishop of Baltimore on October 3, 1877, an office he held for the next forty-four years until his death in 1921.

Cardinal Gibbons

Maryland Historical Society

Highlights of Gibbons' career include attending the First Vatican Council, 1870-71, presiding over the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884; and his elevation to the College of Cardinals in 1886. He was the recognized leader of the U.S. Catholic Church during the years he served as Archbishop of Baltimore and is credited with doing much to improve relations between the Catholic community and larger society through his involvement in civic affairs and associations with leaders of other religious denominations. Toward the end of his life, he was looked upon as a revered national figure whose opinion was sought on both domestic and international issues.

Cardinal Gibbons

Maryland Historical Society

Gibbons was also the author of a number of books, including Faith of Our Fathers (1876), an apologetical work that enjoyed widespread success among Catholic and non-Catholic audiences. His most famous work, however, was a letter he penned in defense of the Knights of Labor in 1887. This letter both averted condemnation of the popular labor union by the Vatican because of its secret rituals and marked an important turning point in the relationship between leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church and laborers. This letter is also credited as Pope Leo XIII's inspiration for writing Rerum Novarum (1891), one of the most significant papal encyclicals of the past two centuries.

He died March 24, 1921, and is buried in the crypt of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Glazier, Michael and Thomas J. Shelley, eds. The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997.

Glazier, Michael, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1999.

Ellis, John Tracy. Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, 2 vols. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co, 1952.

Spalding, Thomas. The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 1789-1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.