Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore is the premier see of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The archdiocese comprises the City of Baltimore and 9 of Maryland's 23 counties in the central and western portions of the state: Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington. The archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the larger regional Ecclesiastical Province of Baltimore. The Archdiocese of Washington was originally part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore is the oldest diocese in the United States whose see city was entirely within the nation's boundaries when the United States declared its independence in 1776. The Holy See granted the Archbishop of Baltimore the right of precedence in the nation at liturgies, meetings, and Plenary Councils on August 15, 1859. Although the Archdiocese of Baltimore does not enjoy "primatial" status, it is the premier episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America, as "prerogative of place".
Within the archdiocese are 518,000 Catholics, 145 parishes, 545 priests, 159 permanent deacons, 55 brothers, 803 sisters, 205 lay extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, five hospitals, 28 aged homes, 7 diocesan/parish high schools, 13 private high schools, and 4 Catholic colleges/universities.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore has two major seminaries: St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore and Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg.
This archdiocese was featured in the Netflix documentary The Keepers exposing the sexual abuse history at Archbishop Keough High School and the murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik in 1969. It was revealed in late 2016 that the Archdiocese of Baltimore had paid off numerous settlements since 2011 for abuse victims.
History
Before and during the American Revolutionary War, the Catholics in Great Britain's thirteen colonies in America were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of the London District, in England. After the Treaty of Paris, signed September 3, 1783, ended the war, Maryland clergy delivered a petition to the Holy See, on November 6, 1783, for permission for the missionaries in the United States to nominate a superior who would have some of the powers of a bishop. In response, Pope Pius VI on June 6, 1784, confirmed Father John Carroll, who had been selected by his brother priests, as Superior of the Missions in the newly independent thirteen United States of North America, with power to give the sacrament of confirmation. This act established a hierarchy in the United States and removed the Catholic Church in the U.S. from the authority of the Vicar Apostolic of the London District.The Holy See then established the Apostolic Prefecture of the United States on November 26, 1784. Because Maryland was one of the few regions of the colonial United States with a substantial Roman Catholic population, the apostolic prefecture was elevated to become the Diocese of Baltimore—the first diocese in the United States—on November 6, 1789. In 1790, Father Carroll traveled to England where he was ordained and consecrated as a bishop in Lulworth Castle in Dorset, by Bishop Charles Walmesley, O.S.B. The first American-born Catholic priest, William Matthews, was ordained by Carroll at St. Peter's Pro-Cathedral in the Diocese of Baltimore in 1800.
On April 8, 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the suffragan dioceses of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Bardstown in Bardstown, Kentucky, which moved in 1841 to the larger city of Louisville, from the territory of the Diocese of Baltimore and simultaneously raised it to the rank of metropolitan archdiocese, thereby making it the "Archdiocese of Baltimore". The newly established "Province of Baltimore"—whose metropolitan was the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore—comprised all of the states and territories of the nation.
The archdiocese again lost territory in following decades with the creation of the Diocese of Richmond on July 11, 1820; and the Diocese of Wilmington on March 3, 1868. In between, a part of the District of Columbia had been retroceded to Virginia in 1846, so in 1850 that new piece of Virginia was transferred to the Diocese of Richmond.
On July 22, 1939, the City of Washington was erected as a separate archdiocese. The archbishop of Baltimore, Michael J. Curley, was simultaneously named the first archbishop of the new Archdiocese of Washington and continued to administer the two archdioceses as a single unit — in persona episcopi. The see was temporarily renamed the Archdiocese of Baltimore-Washington, in recognition of the nation's capital. Eight years later, on November 15, 1947, Patrick A. O'Boyle was appointed the second archbishop — and first residential archbishop — of the Archdiocese of Washington, which consequently began to function as a separate diocese. Therefore, the territory of the "new" archdiocese — consisting of the District of Columbia and the two Washington suburban and three southern counties of Maryland — were permanently separated from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which was thus reduced to its current extent and resumed its previous name.
From 1808 until 1847, Baltimore was the only archdiocese in the United States and therefore the entire country was one ecclesiastical province. As the nation's population grew and waves of Catholic immigrants arrived, the Holy See continued to erect new dioceses and elevate certain others to the status of metropolitan archdioceses, which simultaneously became metropolitan sees of new ecclesiastical provinces. Thus, the Province of Baltimore gradually became smaller and smaller. In 1846, the Diocese of Oregon City, now Portland, Oregon was raised to an archdiocese. Following in 1847, the then Diocese of Saint Louis was elevated to an archdiocese and metropolitan see of the new Province of Saint Louis. Also in 1850, the Diocese of New York was raised to an archdiocese. In 1875, the dioceses of Boston and Philadelphia were likewise elevated.
The archdiocese began to publish its diocesan newspaper, The Baltimore Catholic Review since 1913 as the successor to the earlier diocesan publication The Catholic Mirror, published 1833 to 1908. The name has since been shortened to The Catholic Review. In 2012, it changed from weekly to biweekly issues and in December 2015, it transformed again to a monthly magazine.
Plenary Councils of Baltimore
The Plenary Councils of Baltimore were three national meetings of Catholic bishops in the United States in 1852, 1866 and 1884 in Baltimore, Maryland.- First Plenary Council of Baltimore : among the decrees were one that required immigrant priests to provide a letter of reference from their previous bishops, and a requirement that marriage banns be published.
- Second Plenary Council of Baltimore : promulgated the custom of the Churching of women, the blessing of women after giving birth, focusing on blessing and thanksgiving; and set the age for first communion at ten years of age, as well as, handling other ecclesiastical matters.
- Third Plenary Council of Baltimore : was presided over by Archbishop of Baltimore James Gibbons as Apostolic Delegate. It set six Holy Days of Obligation, and appointed a commission to draft a catechism, and addressed other subjects.
Notable people
- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - Seton founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809. A year later, she opened the first free Catholic school for girls in the United States. Many trace the modern Catholic school system in America to Seton's Emmitsburg institution. In 1975, Seton became the first American-born person to be canonized a saint.
- Mother Mary Lange - Born in Cuba, Elizabeth Clarisse Lange migrated to United States in the early 19th century. She eventually settled in Baltimore and opened a free school in her home where she educated black children who faced intense prejudice and were denied access to most schools. In 1828, Lange founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first sustained religious order for women of African descent in the United States. She also opened what would later become St. Frances Academy - the first Catholic School for African-American children in the U.S. In 1991, the Catholic Church opened a cause of sainthood for Lange, naming her a "servant of God."
Sexual abuse cases
A report released by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on August 14, 2018, singled out Bishop and future Cardinal William Keeler for transferring abusive Pennsylvania priest Father Arthur Long from the Diocese of Harrisburg to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. On August 15, 2018, one day after the Pennsylvania report was published, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced that a pre K-8 Catholic school scheduled to be opened in 2018 and named for Keeler would no longer bear his name. Despite a denial from Long's religious order and the Archdiocese of Baltimore that Long abused children while serving the Archdiocese of Baltimore, a leaked church memo written in 1995, the year Long was removed from ministry, revealed that accusations of "inappropriate behavior" had surfaced against Long in 1991 and 1992 during his time in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the Pennsylvania report noted that Keeler was notified of accusations of Long sexually abusing children when he was serving as Bishop of Harrisburg in 1987. Long died in 2004.
In March 2019, Archbishop Lori banned accused former Archdiocese of Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Gordon Bennett from practicing any form of ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the suffragan Diocese of Wheeling–Charleston. In April 2019, the Archdiocese of Baltimore added the names of 23 deceased clergy to a list of accused clergy which the Archdiocese published in 2002. Long, a Jesuit, was among those added to the list.
Episcopate
"Prerogative of Place"
The Archdiocese of Baltimore is led by the Archbishop of Baltimore and a corps of auxiliary bishops who assist in the administration of the archdiocese as part of a larger curia. Sixteen men have served as Archbishop of Baltimore; the current archbishop is William E. Lori.In 1858, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Pius IX, conferred "Prerogative of Place" on the Archdiocese of Baltimore. This decree gives the archbishop of Baltimore precedence over all other archbishops of the United States in councils, gatherings, and meetings of whatever kind of the hierarchy, regardless of the seniority of other archbishops in promotion or ordination.
Co-cathedrals
The archbishop is concurrently the pastor of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland in north Baltimore and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The older cathedral is located on Cathedral Hill above downtown, near the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood. Both are called co-cathedrals. The archbishop appoints a rector for each of the co-cathedrals. The basilica, built in 1806–1821, is the first cathedral constructed in the United States. It is considered the mother church of the United States. During the time from the first bishop John Carroll's installation in 1790 to the dedication of the old Baltimore Cathedral in 1821, the bishop's throne was at St. Peter's Church. It was located two blocks south on the northwestern corner of North Charles Street and West Saratoga Street, serving as the pro-cathedral with its attached rectory, school and surrounding cemetery. Old St. Peter's was across the street from the "Mother Church of the Anglican Church" in Baltimore, Old St. Paul's Church, with four successive buildings at the site beginning in 1730 at the southeast corner of Charles and Saratoga streets in downtown overlooking the harbor. St. Peter's Roman Catholic parish was razed in 1841.The Archdiocese of Baltimore is one of only five United States dioceses that have two churches serving as cathedrals in the same city, the others being the Diocese of Honolulu; the Diocese of Burlington, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Archdiocese of Anchorage, Alaska. Other dioceses with two cathedrals have them in separate cities.
Bishops
Archbishops of Baltimore
The list of archbishops and their terms of service:- John Carroll, raised from Bishop to Archbishop in 1808
- Leonard Neale
- Ambrose Maréchal
- James Whitfield
- Samuel Eccleston
- Francis Patrick Kenrick
- Martin John Spalding
- James Roosevelt Bayley
- James Gibbons
- Michael Joseph Curley
- Francis Patrick Keough
- Lawrence Shehan
- William Donald Borders
- William Henry Keeler
- Edwin Frederick O'Brien, appointed Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre
- William Edward Lori
Coadjutor bishops
- Dominic Laurence Grässel appointed in 1793 but the notice arrived after his death
- Leonard Neale
- James Whitfield
- Samuel Eccleston
- Lawrence Joseph Shehan ; future Cardinal
Auxiliary bishops
- Alfred Allen Paul Curtis, previously appointed Bishop of Wilmington
- Owen Patrick Bernard Corrigan
- Thomas Joseph Shahan
- John Michael McNamara, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Washington
- Lawrence Joseph Shehan, appointed Bishop of Bridgeport ; future Cardinal
- Jerome Aloysius Daugherty Sebastian
- Thomas Austin Murphy
- Thomas Joseph Mardaga, appointed Bishop of Wilmington
- Francis Joseph Gossman, appointed Bishop of Raleigh
- Philip Francis Murphy
- James Francis Stafford, appointed Bishop of Memphis and later Archbishop of Denver, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary
- William Clifford Newman
- John Ricard, appointed Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee
- Gordon Dunlap Bennett, appointed Bishop of Mandeville
- William Francis Malooly, appointed Bishop of Wilmington
- Mitchell T. Rozanski, appointed Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts
- Denis J. Madden
- Mark E. Brennan, appointed Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston
- Adam J. Parker
- Bruce Lewandowski
Other affiliated bishops
- John J. Chanche, P.S.S., appointed Bishop of Natchez in 1841
- Ignatius A. Reynolds, appointed Bishop of Charleston in 1843
- Henry B. Coskery, appointed Bishop of Portland in 1853; did not take effect
- William Henry Elder, appointed Bishop of Natchez in 1857 and Archbishop of Cincinnati in 1883
- Thomas Albert Andrew Becker, appointed Bishop of Wilmington in 1868 and Bishop of Savannah in 1886
- Thomas Patrick Roger Foley, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Chicago in 1870
- John Joseph Keane, appointed Bishop of Richmond in 1878, Rector of The Catholic University of America in 1886, and Archbishop of Dubuque in 1900
- Mark Stanislaus Gross, appointed Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina in 1880; resigned the episcopate c. 1881
- Jeremiah O'Sullivan, appointed Bishop of Mobile in 1885
- John Samuel Foley, appointed Bishop of Detroit in 1888
- Placide Louis Chapelle, appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Santa Fe in 1891, Archbishop of New Orleans in 1897 and Apostolic Delegate to Cuba and Extraordinary Envoy to Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898
- Patrick James Donahue, appointed Bishop of Wheeling in 1894
- William Thomas Russell, appointed Bishop of Charleston in 1916
- William Joseph Hafey, appointed Bishop of Raleigh in 1925 and Bishop of Scranton in 1938
- Thomas Joseph Toolen, appointed Bishop of Mobile in 1927
- Peter Leo Ireton, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Richmond in 1935 and Bishop of Richmond in 1945
- John Joyce Russell, appointed Bishop of Charleston in 1950 and later Bishop of Richmond in 1958
- Philip Matthew Hannan, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Washington in 1956 and Archbishop of New Orleans in 1965
- Michael William Hyle, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Wilmington in 1958
- John Selby Spence, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Washington in 1964
- Edward John Herrmann, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Washington in 1966 and Bishop of Columbus in 1973
- Victor Benito Galeone, appointed Bishop of Saint Augustine in 2001
- F. Richard Spencer, appointed Auxiliary Bishop for the Military Services, USA in 2010
Education
High schools
- Archbishop Curley High School, Baltimore
- Archbishop Spalding High School, Severn
- Bishop Walsh School, Cumberland
- Calvert Hall College High School, Baltimore
- Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore
- Institute of Notre Dame, Baltimore
- Loyola Blakefield, Towson
- Maryvale Preparatory School, Brooklandville
- Mercy High School, Baltimore
- Mount de Sales Academy, Baltimore
- Mount Saint Joseph High School, Baltimore
- Notre Dame Preparatory School, Baltimore
- Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School, Baltimore
- St. Frances Academy, Baltimore
- St. John's Catholic Preparatory, Buckeystown
- St. Maria Goretti High School, Hagerstown
- St. Mary's High School, Annapolis
- The Catholic High School of Baltimore, Baltimore
- The John Carroll School, Bel Air
Churches
- Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore, Maryland
- Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg, Maryland
Province of Baltimore
- Diocese of Arlington
- Diocese of Richmond
- Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
- Diocese of Wilmington