James Cardinal Gibbons

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His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons (23 July 1834 - 24 March 1921) was an American prelate, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 until his death. In 1886 he became the second man from the United States to be made a cardinal. He served as Cardinal-Priest for Santa Maria in Trastevere basilica in Rome.

James Cardinal Gibbons by Carl Bersch (1834-1914)
James Cardinal Gibbons by Carl Bersch (1834-1914)
Coat of Arms of James Cardinal Gibbons.
Coat of Arms of James Cardinal Gibbons.

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Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was ordained a priest there in 1861, and in 1868 Pope Pius IX nominated him Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina, which did not yet have a Catholic diocese within its borders. He was consecrated titular bishop of Adramyttium at the age of 33. Gibbons was the youngest bishop at the First Vatican Council, and he gave the Imprimatur for the Challoner edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible. In 1872 he became the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia and served there until May 1877, when he was named Coadjutor Archbishop of Baltimore. He succeeded as Archbishop that October on the death of Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley.

In 1876 Gibbons published The Faith of Our Fathers: A Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ which became a best-selling conversion manual in the United States and as of 1980 is in its 111th printing. In his 1917 preface to the 83rd edition the Cardinal noted that "since the first edition appeared, in 1876 up to the present time, fourteen hundred thousand copies have been published and the circulation of the book is constantly increasing. The work has been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe." Noted agnostic, literary critic and fellow Baltimorean H.L. Mencken wrote, in Treatise on the Gods, "the best exposition of Catholic doctrine is probably The Faith of our Fathers, by the late Cardinal Gibbons."

Gibbons advocated the creation, was among the founders, and served as the first Chancellor of The Catholic University of America. President William Taft honored Gibbons for his contributions at his 1911 golden jubilee celebration. In 1917, President Theodore Roosevelt hailed Gibbons as the most venerated, respected, and useful citizen in America.

In his later years he was seen as the public face of Roman Catholicism in the United States, and on his death was widely mourned. Now, he is famous for his support of the labor movement in the United States, and for the numerous schools named after him. Mencken, who reserved his harshest criticism for Christian ministers, wrote, in 1921 after the Gibbons' death, "More presidents than one sought the counsel of Cardinal Gibbons: he was a man of the highest sagacity, a politician in the best sense, and there is no record that he ever led the Church into a bog or up a blind alley. He had Rome against him often, but he always won in the end, for he was always right."

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Preceded by:
James Roosevelt Bayley		 Archbishop of Baltimore
1877–1921		 Succeeded by:
Michael Joseph Curley

|Gibbons, James]][[Category:

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