GIBBONS, JAMES. – American cardinal, born in Baltimore to Irish parents on 23 July 1834, died there on 24 March 1921. Ordained a priest on 30 June 1861, he became secretary and chancellor to Msgr. Spalding, archbishop of Baltimore; in 1868 he was consecrated a bishop, as the first apostolic vicar of North Carolina. In 1869 he took part in the First Vatican Council. In 1872 he was transferred to Richmond; in 1877 he became coadjutor to B. J. Roosevelt, archbishop of Baltimore, whom he succeeded that same year. In Nov. 1884 he presided over the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. On 7 June 1886 he was created cardinal of the title of S. Maria in Trastevere, and in 1887 became grand chancellor of the Catholic University of Washington, whose foundation he had helped to promote. In 1903 he came to Rome for the election of Pius X: he was the first American cardinal to participate in a conclave. During the First World War (1915–18) he crossed the ocean twice to visit combatants at the front, becoming acquainted with soldiers of every denomination and thereby causing many anti-Catholic prejudices among Anglo-American Protestants to fall away.
He understood the character and needs of the American people, thereby gaining great popularity and influence, and through his tact succeeded in facilitating relations between Catholicism and the public authorities on the basis of liberty. He worked extensively on behalf of Catholic immigrants, the humble and the poor, and for the abolition of slavery. So many practical merits could mark him out as Americanism (v.), but the very fact that he accepted without hesitation the brief addressed to him by Leo XIII concerning the controversies that had arisen on the subject demonstrates that his thought did not intend to depart from Catholic tradition.
His works of popular apologetics had wide resonance: The Faith of our Fathers (Baltimore 1876), of which more than 280 editions and translations appeared in the principal languages of the world; Our Christian Heritage (there 1889); The Ambassador of Christ (there 1897); A Retrospect of Fifty Years (there 1917).