John Carroll | Biography

John Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, to a merchant father, Daniel Carroll, and a mother, Eleanor Darnall Carroll, descended from Lord Calvert, founder of the colony. He was educated at St. Omer's in France, where he was sent at the age of thirteen. Eventually, after two years of study (1753-1755) at the Jesuit novitiate in nearby Watten and three years of study in Liège, he became a member of the Jesuit order of priests who taught at the school.

Carroll was ordained at Liège in 1767 and renounced all claims to his father's estate in favor of his brothers and sisters. During 1771 he toured Europe as a tutor and kept a sketchy diary of his travels. When Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1773, Carroll obediently left the Continent for England. One year later he returned to his parents' Maryland home at Rock Creek. Carroll was an ardent patriot, but refrained from much active participation in the war. He did, however, accompany American emissaries on an ill-fated journey to Quebec in 1776. During the war years he wrote a "Plan of Reorganization" (1782) urging former Jesuits to reengage themselves actively in the Lord's work, and he participated the following year in a convocation outside Annapolis that petitioned Rome for appointment of a clerical superior for American priests.

Carroll's pamphlet, An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America (1784), perhaps his most significant literary accomplishment, was in response to what he considered an intolerant assault on liberty of conscience and the free practice of religion in America. The Reverend Charles Henry Wharton's Letter to the Roman Catholics of the city of Worcester (1784) was a widely circulated attack on the doctrines of Roman Catholicism by a former Jesuit priest. Carroll's scholarly retort was a masterful refutation of Wharton's misinformed assaults on Catholicism and a touching plea for religious tolerance and freedom of conscience. In an era of high anti-Catholic prejudice in America, Carroll's reasoned response to Wharton's harangue played an instrumental role in preparing the way for the guarantee of religious liberty that became part of the Bill of Rights attached to the United States Constitution during the 1790s.

In 1789 Carroll established a college at Georgetown, Maryland, so that Catholic boys would have a place of higher education in America. The doors of the college first opened in 1791. Later, after the Jesuits were again recognized by the church, Carroll entrusted the institution to their care. In 1790 Pius VI appointed him the first Catholic bishop of the United States.

Carroll's other major literary accomplishments included a pamphlet defending the cause of religious liberty and a long letter published over the pseudonym Pacificus that appeared in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States on 10 June 1789. Carroll's letter was in response to a letter that had appeared in the newspaper on 9 May in which the author had argued for the exclusion of members of non-Protestant sects from public office and that "the Protestant Religion is the important bulwark of our Constitution." In response Carroll recounted the contributions of Quakers and Roman Catholics to the nation from the time of colonial settlements through the Revolution. He pled for tolerance and respect for the conscience of others.

In 1790 Carroll presided over his first synod. He was instrumental in the founding of St. Mary's College in Baltimore (1803) and Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg (1808). Throughout his life, Carroll was a controversial figure within and without the Church. His attempts to remain conciliatory brought him the distrust of battling ethnic groups, competitive religious orders, and political partisans. All agreed, however, that he was a magnanimous figure, a fine preacher, and an accomplished scholar.