A view of Baltimore’s Basilica nestled amid the city’s famed row houses / Public domain
St. Louis, Mo., Nov 15, 2022 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The bishops of the United States are meeting this week for their fall assembly in Baltimore. They’re gathering to elect a new president and discuss issues facing the Church such as the Ukraine war and the Synod on Synodality, among other things.
In the early days of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in the early 2000s, the bishops held their fall meeting in Washington D.C. — a location that makes a lot of sense, given Washington’s status as the nation’s capital, as well as the city where the USCCB is headquartered.
But since 2006, the bishops’ fall assembly has been held in nearby Baltimore.
But what’s so special about Baltimore? For American Catholics, quite a lot.
For starters, Baltimore was the first diocese in the United States, having been established as such in 1789 and elevated to an archdiocese in 1808. Before its establishment, Catholics in the young United States were under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicariate of the London District in England.
Maryland, at the time, was the most Catholic of the 13 colonies, having been founded by Catholic colonists wishing to create a society where they could practice their faith. The territory of the Diocese of Baltimore originally included the entire fledgling country.
John Carroll was chosen as Baltimore’s first bishop, and thus the de facto leader of Catholics in the U.S. A cousin of Charles Carroll — the sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence — Carroll’s tenure as bishop led to many Catholic firsts. In 1791 he founded the first seminary in the country, and he ordained the first priest in the U.S. in 1793. Carroll laid the cornerstone for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore’s present co-cathedral, in 1806. In 1809, the future St. Elizabeth Ann Seton arrived in Baltimore and started the country’s Catholic school system.
Though several other dioceses in important cities such as New York, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) would be established after 1808, Baltimore would remain the only archdiocese in the country until 1846. The Archdiocese of Washington was not created until the 20th century.
In 1858, the Vatican issued a decree granting the right of precedence in the United States to the Archbishop of Baltimore. This means that the Archbishop of Baltimore takes precedence over all other American archbishops — cardinals excluded — in councils, gatherings, and meetings of the hierarchy regardless of seniority, the archdiocese explains.
In addition to being “first,” Baltimore has historically played an important role in hosting councils and meetings in the U.S. According to the archdiocese, the first Baltimore synod was held in 1791 when 22 priests met with Bishop Carroll to draw up guidelines for the practice of the faith by the clergy and laity, and later synods took on a national character since the diocese was the only one in the country. Most notably, plenary councils of all the country’s bishops were held in Baltimore in 1852, 1866, and 1884. One enduring effect of the last plenary council was setting in motion the process to create the Baltimore Catechism, which was the primary teaching document in U.S. Catholic schools for nearly a century.
According to the archdiocese, Baltimore today “enjoys a position of importance in the American Church as a leading center of ecumenical, social and civic progress, along with being one of the prime locations for priestly formation in the United States.”
Given all this history in Baltimore, it’s not too surprising that the bishops’ annual fall assembly was moved to Baltimore in 2006.
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With so much about Baltimore Catholicism hanging on tradition, it amazes that Francis’ Vatican has not yet stepped up to stomp it. Calling Card. Gregory to see what consolidation and liquidation may be bureaucratically and sociologically sensible.
We read: “Maryland, at the time, was the most Catholic of the 13 colonies, having been founded by Catholic colonists wishing to create a society where they could practice their faith.”
The backstory…
is that one George Calvert, a convert, was given a peerage and later a charter from Charles I (after first declining to settle at the Jamestown location where he refused to sign the Protestant Oath of Supremacy). In 1633 George Calvert’s son, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, organized Maryland for both Catholics and Protestants. (The other two colonies most open to freedom of religion were Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.)
The middle of the story…
is that religious tolerance in Baltimore was formally but only temporarily established under the Act of Toleration of 1649. . . “During the period of the Commonwealth, however, the very men [Anglican] who had sought an asylum in Maryland overthrew the authority of Lord Baltimore and passed severe penal laws against the [now minority] Catholics, sending all the priests as prisoners to England. In a few years they returned and resumed their labors under great disadvantages. Though a law of toleration was passed [again] in 1649, it was of brief duration” (until 1654). (John Gilmary Shea, “Our Faith and Its Defenders: The Catholic Church in the United States”, 1896).
The rest of the story…
is that the descendants of waves of immigrant Catholics enjoyed the illusion of assimilation when John Kennedy was elected President in 1960. But, now, also burdened by a pseudo-Catholic President and Speaker of the House, Catholics are obliged to be counter-cultural—since all of America has been colonized by the ersatz religion of Secular Humanism, arguably “established” by the Executive and by the Courts (corrected in part by the Dobbs decision on abortion “rites”).
The First Amendment restrains only the Congress who in coming weeks will get fully into the act by imposing (the “rite” of) gay marriage from sea to shining sea. So much for Baltimore and its flash-in-the-pan freedom of religion, and its endangered status today as a “leading center of ecumenical, social and civic progress.”
Once upon a time in the late 50’s there was a Pope named John XXIII.
Once upon a time there was a quarterback who played for the Baltimore Colts named Johny Unitas.
And among young Ballamer Catholics (like me) at that time there was a popular saying – “Johnny-Unite Us”.
At the same time – young George Weigel and young Nancy D’Allesandro were growing up in Ballamer.
Go figure
NO ONE I consider a serious Catholic considers either Biden or Pelosi to be a serious Catholic, and that has been a fact for years.
It should NOT be necessary to state that obvious fact – but it is.