James Gibbons

American Roman Catholic cleric

• Born: July 23, 1834
• Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
• Died: March 24, 1921
• Place of death: Baltimore, Maryland

The most influential American archbishop of the late nineteenth century Roman Catholic Church, Gibbons helped establish Catholicism as an important and vital religion in modern American society.

Early Life

James Gibbons was the eldest son in a family of five children. His parents, Thomas Gibbons and Bridget (Walsh) Gibbons, were Irish immigrants. When James was three, his family returned to Ireland because of his father’s poor health. They resettled in New Orleans in 1853, six years after his father’s death. Upon his return to the United States, Gibbons worked as a clerk in a grocery store for two years. In 1855, he entered Saint Charles College, Ellicott City, Maryland. He moved on to Saint Mary’s Seminary in his native Baltimore in 1857 and was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church on June 30, 1861.

Throughout the Civil War, Gibbons pastored various congregations in the Chesapeake Bay area. In addition, he served as a volunteer chaplain at Forts McHenry and Marshall. His dedicated service earned for him much public admiration, and he was one of only three Catholic priests invited to pay their respects when the body of the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln passed through Baltimore.

Following the war, Gibbons’s influence in the Roman Catholic Church rapidly increased. In 1865, he was appointed secretary to the archbishop of Baltimore. A year later, he became assistant chancellor for that archdiocese. Gibbons was consecrated as bishop of North Carolina in 1868 and in the following year attended the Vatican I Council in Rome as the youngest bishop among the more than seven hundred in attendance. In 1872, Gibbons assumed the duties of the vacant Richmond see in addition to retaining his responsibilities in North Carolina. Despite the extraordinary demands on his time, he wrote his best-known work, The Faith of Our Fathers (1877), in 1876. This extremely popular book, written for the general public, presented an explanation and defense of Catholicism.

Photographs of Gibbons reveal an individual of slight but well-defined physical features, with a calm and peaceful demeanor. His unassuming appearance did not indicate the acumen and depth of the spiritual resources that enabled him to provide decisive leadership to the Catholic Church in the United States during the most volatile period in its history.

Life’s Work

In 1877, at the age of forty-three, Gibbons became the ninth archbishop of Baltimore—a position he would hold until his death in 1921. The oldest archdiocese in the United States, it was also the most prestigious. Such a position made Gibbons the unofficial leader of American Catholics.

Gibbons was a highly effective administrator and spiritual leader, although he did not gain national attention until he presided over the Third Plenary Council in Baltimore in 1884. The council brought together American bishops and archbishops to enact legislation on doctrine, ecclesiastical governance, and parochial education. A major accomplishment of the council was the establishment of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. There, Gibbons provided distinguished leadership as both its first chancellor and its principal advocate.

Gibbons’s work at the Third Plenary Council was highly acclaimed. He had diplomatically avoided many controversial social issues that would bitterly divide conservative and liberal Catholics throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century. His efforts prompted Pope Leo XIII to make Gibbons a cardinal in 1886. With this rapid rise to national prominence, Gibbons was thrust into the role of resolving a number of social issues. With the aid of his principal allies, Archbishop John Ireland and Bishop John J. Keane, Gibbons faced the pressing problems of organized labor and immigration.

Because of the deplorable working conditions of late nineteenth century America—for example, twelve-hour workdays and inadequate wages—the Knights of Labor was formed in 1869 to establish various labor unions. Its goals were primarily to limit working hours, improve working conditions, and increase wages. Because labor organizers were routinely fired by their employers, however, the membership and activities of the Knights of Labor became secretive. The pope had declared that membership in an organization requiring secret oaths and activities was incompatible with the Catholic faith. For this reason, as well as fear of socialist tendencies, conservative Catholic leaders opposed the Knights of Labor. In 1884, Cardinal Elzéar Taschereau of Quebec obtained a ruling from the Vatican forbidding Catholics to belong to the labor organization. Conservatives argued that the ruling included the United States as well.

Gibbons fought for the laborers. He maintained that the prohibition applied only to Quebec and that it would be wrong for the Catholic Church to oppose the American labor movement. Although Gibbons and his liberal allies admired the achievements of capitalism, they believed that adequate wages, improved working conditions, and shorter working hours were demanded by the principles of Christian charity and justice. Furthermore, Gibbons warned that condemnation of the Knights of Labor would create an unnecessary conflict of conscience for Catholic laborers. A Catholic would be forced to choose between a union and the Church. Because the goals of the labor movement were just, Gibbons argued, opposition was uncalled for.

Gibbons backed a series of strikes in 1886 and a year later presented the pope with a lengthy document defending the Knights of Labor. In 1888, the Vatican removed its ban on the organization. This reversal represented a major victory for Gibbons and set a precedent for strong Catholic support of labor reform in the following years.

The great wave of immigration in the nineteenth century created a second pressing issue for Gibbons. During this time, the Catholic population in the United States increased from three million in 1860 to more than twelve million by 1895. This rapid growth inspired strong anti-Catholic sentiments within American society, as seen in the formation of such organizations as the Know-Nothing Party (1854) and the American Protective Association (1887). These groups claimed that Catholic teachings opposed democracy and the separation of church and state, and they feared that priests would instruct their parishioners on how to vote based on orders from the Vatican. American society, they declared, was being attacked from an outside religious force.

Although such claims bore minimal influence on public opinion, they did create problems concerning how Catholics viewed their participation in American life. These attacks emphasized the ethnic differences that already existed among Catholics. For example, German Catholics tended to be rural, midwestern, and conservative, whereas Irish Catholics tended to be urban, eastern, and liberal. In response to these tensions, conservative Catholics began viewing American society as largely Protestant and hostile. They maintained that Catholics should not accommodate themselves to the larger culture but should preserve their religious and ethnic identity through traditional beliefs and customs.

Gibbons fought both the anti-Catholic claims and the conservative position. He countered that Catholicism was not opposed to democracy and could flourish in a nation where church and state were legally separated. He believed that Catholics could, and must, simultaneously be good citizens and faithful members of the Church. As a liberal, he argued that Catholics must adapt to the American situation rather than preserve their traditional beliefs and ethnic customs. Catholics should be assimilated into American society by actively participating in its social, political, and educational institutions.

The liberal position that Gibbons advocated was popularly titled “Americanism.” It was loudly condemned as heretical by its opponents and acclaimed as progressive by its supporters. The debate, however, was not decisive, because in 1895 Pope Leo XIII both praised the liberty of the Catholic Church in the United States and questioned whether the separation of church and state was the most desirable situation. Although Gibbons had not won a clear victory, he clearly set the pattern for full Catholic participation in an increasingly pluralistic American society.

Significance

The lengthy career of this distinguished religious leader reflected the changing, often turbulent, character of American society at the close of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. Gibbons’s concern over labor and immigration reflected the problems of a nation that was simultaneously becoming prosperous and ethnically diverse. He brought a strong religious and moral commitment to the pressing political, economic, and social issues of his day.

Gibbons’s range of interests was quite broad. He was routinely consulted on church-state issues and provided advice to a variety of political leaders. Often invited to preach in Protestant churches, he worked toward improving relations between different religions and participated in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. The patriotism of Gibbons was unparalleled as he helped establish the National Catholic War Council at U.S. entry into World War I in 1917. His tireless will helped not only Catholics but all Americans as well to define the national character at a crucial time in history.

Bibliography

Browne, Henry J. The Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1949. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1976. Close examination of the Knights of Labor controversy within the Roman Catholic Church. Particular attention is directed toward the role Gibbons played in changing his church’s position on the labor organization.

Cross, Robert D. The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958. A comprehensive overview of the various controversies between conservative and liberal Catholics in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America.

Dolan, Jay P. The Immigrant Church. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Reprint. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Although this book concentrates on issues that divided German and Irish Catholics living in New York City during the mid-nineteenth century, it provides a good framework for understanding the various ethnic and immigrant issues that Gibbons and the Church faced.

Ellis, John Tracy. American Catholicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. An excellent concise introduction to the history of Catholicism in the United States.

Gibbons, James Cardinal. A Retrospect of Fifty Years. Baltimore: John Murphy, 1916. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1972. An autobiographical recounting of the major events that shaped the author’s career.

McAvoy, Thomas T. The Great Crisis in American Catholic History, 1895-1900. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1957. An extensive and excellent inquiry into the Americanism controversy.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960. A series of essays written by both Catholics and Protestants that review and evaluate the role of Catholicism in early twentieth century American society.

Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984. Reviews the history of various religions in the United States. The chapter “Adapting to America” provides a concise and helpful framework for understanding the immigration and labor issues of the late nineteenth century.

Spalding, Thomas W. The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 1789-1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. A history of the archdiocese, covering its growth, tensions, politics, and how it influenced American Catholicism. Part 3, “The Gibbons Church, 1877-1921,” offers an extensive description of Gibbons’s activities as archbishop.