| His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons |
|
|---|---|
| Cardinal, Archbishop of Baltimore | |
| See | Baltimore |
| Enthroned | October 3, 1877 |
| Reign ended | March 24, 1921 |
| Predecessor | James Roosevelt Bayley |
| Successor | Michael Joseph Curley |
| Other posts | Bishop of Richmond (1872-77) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | June 30, 1861 |
| Consecration | August 15, 1868 |
| Created Cardinal | June 7, 1886 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 23, 1834 Baltimore, Maryland |
| Died | March 24, 1921 (aged 86) Baltimore, Maryland |
James Gibbons (July 23, 1834—March 24, 1921) was an American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Richmond from 1872 to 1877, and as Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 until his death in 1921. Gibbons was elevated to the cardinalate in 1886, the second American to receive that distinction.
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The fourth of six children, James Gibbons was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Thomas and Bridget (née Walsh) Gibbons. His parents were from Tourmackeady, County Mayo, Ireland, and settled in the United States after moving to Canada. After falling ill with tuberculosis in 1839, his father moved the family to his native Ireland, where he believed the air would benefit him. There, Thomas operated a grocery store in Ballinrobe and young James received his early education. His father died in 1847, and his mother returned the family to the United States in 1853, settling in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Gibbons decided to pursue Holy Orders after attending a sermon given by Paulist co-founder, Clarence Walworth. In 1855, he entered St. Charles College in Ellicott City. After graduating from St. Charles, he entered St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore in 1857. He suffered a severe attack of malaria during his time at St. Mary's, leaving his state of health so poor that his superiors almost considered him unsuitable for ordination.
On June 30, 1861, Gibbons was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Francis Kenrick of Baltimore.
He then served as a curate at St. Patrick's Church in Fells Point for six weeks before becoming the first pastor of St. Brigid's Church in Canton. In addition to his duties at St. Brigid's, he assumed charge of St. Lawrence Church in Locust Point and was a chaplain for Fort McHenry in the Civil War, during which he supported the Union despite having been born and largely raised in the South.
In 1865, Gibbons was made private secretary to Archbishop Martin John Spalding. He helped prepare for the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in October 1866. At Spalding's prompting, the Council fathers recommended both the creation of an apostolic vicariate for North Carolina and the nomination of Gibbons to head it.
In 1899, Pope Leo XIII sent Gibbons a letter, known by its first words in Latin Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, concerning new opinions on virtue, nature and grace, religious life and other matters, with regard to so called "americanism".
On March 3, 1868, Gibbons was appointed Apostolic Vicar of North Carolina and Titular Bishop of Adramyttium by Pope Pius IX. He received his episcopal consecration on the following August 15 from Archbishop Spalding, with Bishops Patrick Neeson Lynch and Michael Domenec, CM, serving as co-consecrators. At age 34, he was one of the youngest Catholic bishops in the world and was known as "the boy bishop."
His vicariate, the entire state of North Carolina, had fewer than seven hundred Catholics. In his first four weeks alone in North Carolina, Gibbons traveled almost a thousand miles, visiting towns and mission stations and administering the sacraments. He also befriended many Protestants, who greatly outnumbered Catholics in the state, and preached at their churches. Gibbons made a number of converts, but finding the apologetical works available inadequate for their needs, he determined to write his own; Faith of Our Fathers would prove the most popular apologetical work written by an American Catholic.
Gibbons became a popular American religious figure, gathering crowds for his sermons on diverse topics that could apply to Christianity as a whole. He was an acquaintance of every president from Andrew Johnson to Warren G. Harding and an adviser to several of them.
From 1869 to 1870, Gibbons attended the First Vatican Council in Rome. Aged 35 years and 4 months when the Council opened, he was the youngest American bishop present by a mere six days (which he conceded to Jeremiah Francis Shanahan, Bishop of Harrisburg) and the second youngest in all (Basilio Nasser, Melkite Bishop of Baalbek, Lebanon, was more than five years his junior, aged just 30 years and 3 months at opening). Gibbons voted in favor of the doctrine of papal infallibility. He assumed the additional duties of Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, in January 1872.
Gibbons was later named the fourth Bishop of Richmond on July 30, 1872. He was installed as Bishop on October 20, 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 1886, Gibbons was created a cardinal, becoming the second American to attain that rank in the Catholic Church. Gibbons advocated the creation of The Catholic University of America and served as its first Chancellor upon its creation in 1887.
Gibbons advocated for the protection of labor, an issue of particular concern because of the many Catholics who were being exploited by the industrial expansion of America's urban East coast at the turn of the century. He was once quoted as saying, "It is the right of laboring classes to protect themselves, and the duty of the whole people to find a remedy against avarice, oppression, and corruption." Gibbons had a key role in the granting of Papal permission for Catholics to join labor unions.
Gibbons successfully defended the Knights of Labor (a union which had a significant Catholic membership) from papal censure, thereby winning a reputation as labor's friend, though in fact he deplored class consciousness and condemned industrial violence.
Part of Gibbons' popularity derived from the works he authored. The Faith of Our Fathers (1876) remains the most enduringly popular. Also widely read were Our Christian Heritage (1889), The Ambassador of Christ (1896), Discourses and Sermons (1908), and A Retrospect of Fifty Years (1916). He contributed a number of essays to much-read journals such as the North American Review and Putnams' Monthly. His style was simple but compelling. Protestant Americans looked often to Gibbons for an explanation of the Catholic position on contentious issues.
In 1876 Gibbons published The Faith of Our Fathers: A Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ [1].
In 1899, Gibbons granted the Imprimatur for the Challoner edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible.
James Cardinal Gibbons stated “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."[1] Sunday is implicit only in that it is the day of the Lord's resurrection, and was quickly honored as such by the earliest Christians[2], as it was never made explicit in the pages of Scripture: "For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible."[3] As it was the first day of the week and the day of the Resurrection, it symbolized the New Life in Christ. According to the Catholic Church and virtually all other Christian denominations - Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic - the ritual elements of the Mosaic law, such as observance of the sabbath or dietary laws, were abrogated by the coming of Christ and the New Covenant; St Thomas Aquinas went so far as to say practicing ritual elements of the Mosaic law was a mortal sin, as it was tantamount to denying that the Messiah had come.[4]
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. 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."
In 1932, sculptor Leo Lentelli created and installed the The James Cardinal Gibbons Memorial Statue in Washington, D.C.
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John McGill |
Bishop of Richmond 1872–1877 |
Succeeded by John Joseph Keane |
| Preceded by James Roosevelt Bayley |
Archbishop of Baltimore 1877–1921 |
Succeeded by Michael Joseph Curley |
