GIBBONS, JAMES. - American cardinal, born in Baltimore to Irish parents on July 23, 1834, died there on March 24, 1921. Ordained priest on June 30, 1861, he served as secretary and chancellor to Abp. Spalding of Baltimore; in 1868 he was consecrated bishop as the first Apostolic Vicar of North Carolina. In 1869 he took part in the Vatican Council. In 1872 he was transferred to Richmond, and in 1877 became coadjutor to Abp. B. J. Roosevelt of Baltimore, succeeding him the same year. In November 1884 he presided over the Third American Plenary Council. On June 7, 1886, he was created cardinal with the title of S. Maria in Trastevere, and in 1887 became Grand Chancellor of the Catholic University of America, to whose founding he had contributed. In 1903 he came to Rome for the election of Pius X: the first American cardinal to participate in a conclave. During World War I (1915–18) he crossed the ocean twice to visit soldiers at the front, becoming familiar with men of every denomination and thus dispelling many anti-Catholic prejudices among Anglo-American Protestants.
He understood the character and needs of the American people, winning great popularity and influence, and by his tact he facilitated relations between Catholicism and public authorities on the basis of liberty. He worked extensively for Catholic immigrants, the humble and the poor, and for the abolition of slavery. Such practical merits might have marked him as the most illustrious representative of Americanism (v.), yet the fact that he accepted without hesitation the brief of Leo XIII addressed to him concerning the controversies surrounding the issue shows that his thought did not intend to stray from Catholic tradition.
His popular apologetical works enjoyed wide circulation: *The Faith of our Fathers* (Baltimore 1876), which went through more than 280 editions and translations in the principal languages of the world; *Our Christian Heritage* (ibid. 1889); *The Ambassador of Christ* (ibid. 1897); *A Retrospect of Fifty Years* (ibid. 1917).