Gibbons, James (1834-1921), was one of the leading American religious figures of his time. Gibbons was appointed archbishop of Baltimore in 1877. He quickly became the principal spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church of the United States. Gibbons’s astute handling of church-state affairs won him friends and admirers among political leaders and Americans of all religions. He masterfully interpreted the United States to the Vatican and Catholicism to non-Catholic Americans. He was a well-regarded public figure who reassured Americans that Catholicism did not represent international interference in U.S. affairs. Gibbons also reassured Pope Leo XIII that there was no foundation for charges of the heresy called Americanism brought by conservative Catholics in France. The pope made Gibbons a cardinal in 1886. Gibbons was the second American to be made a cardinal.
Gibbons was born in Baltimore on July 23, 1834. He was ordained a priest in 1861 for the archdiocese of Baltimore. Gibbons was ordained a bishop in 1868. He died on March 24, 1921.
