CARROLL. — Under this surname, two Catholic and patriotic families of Maryland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are to be recalled, united by a certain kinship through the female line. To the first, which came from England (1688) and Baltimore (v.), belongs the patriot CHARLES C. OF CARROLLTON (1737–1832), statesman and active supporter of American independence, senator of Maryland. The second, of Irish origin (early eighteenth century), included DANIEL C. (1733–1829), an ardent patriot, representative of Maryland at the first colonial congress (1780–84) and at the Congress of Philadelphia (1789) for the revision of the American Constitution, and his brother JOHN C., father of the Catholic Church in the United States, first bishop and archbishop of Baltimore, born at Upper Marlboro on 8 May 1735 and died at Baltimore on 3 December 1815. After completing his studies at the Jesuit college of St-Omer (France), he entered the Society of Jesus in 1753 and was ordained a priest in 1769. When the Society was suppressed (1773), he returned to his Maryland, where he worked with other Jesuits in evangelizing the region, while also actively supporting the cause of the independence of the United States of America. In 1776 he accompanied B. Franklin, S. Chase, and C. C. of Carrollton to Canada to invite the Canadians to join with the Americans in the struggle for independence. When Pius VI separated the American Catholics from the jurisdiction of the apostolic vicar of England, John C. was appointed apostolic prefect of all the United States of America (1784); when the first episcopal see in America was Baltimore (v.), he was elected its first bishop (1789, consecrated in England on 15 August 1790) and archbishop (1808). On the occasion of the revision of the American Constitution (1789), John C. was commissioned by the Catholics to prepare a memorial in defense of the rights of the Catholics who had participated extensively in the War of Independence. The memorial was presented to Congress by Washington and supported by Franklin, a personal friend of John C., and by the two Catholic delegates Daniele C. and Tommaso Fitz-Simons, representatives of Mary-land and Pennsylvania. Thus came about the amendment to art. 3 of the American Constitution concerning freedom of religion, still in force today.
John C. is rightly called the father of the Catholic Church in the United States: having found it poorly organized, impoverished, and persecuted by the intolerance of the Protestant sects, at his death he left it flourishing, with bishops, clergy, seminaries, religious houses, schools, and educational colleges. He particularly favored the Sulpicians (1791) and mother E. SEGATO (v.), founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity. Extremely hospitable and charitable, pleasant in conversation, and broadly tolerant of the opinions of others, he was a man of great piety and profound humility, to the extent that he wished to die lying on the floor of his room.
Of the few writings he published, the following may be recalled: An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America (Annapolis 1784), a reply to the apostate C. Whaston; An Address from the Roman Catholics of America to G. Washington Esq. President of the U. States (London 1790), a patriotic address to G. Washington on the occasion of his election as the first president of the United States; A discourse on General Washington (Baltimore 1800), a funeral eulogy of the father of the country, delivered in Baltimore Cathedral on 22 February 1800.
A. Pietro Frutaz