James Cardinal Gibbons (July 23, 1834 – March 24, 1921) was an American Catholic prelate who served as Apostolic Vicar of North Carolina from 1868 to 1872, Bishop of Richmond from 1872 to 1877, and as Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 until his death.

Slight of build and a little under than average height, James Gibbons suffered from gastric problems and consequent periods of anxiety and clinical depression.

[2] While attending a Catholic retreat in New Orleans, Gibbons heard a sermon by Reverend Clarence A. Walworth, co-founder of the Paulist Fathers.

[2] Having recovered from his malaria, Gibbons was ordained a priest on June 30, 1861, for the Archdiocese of Baltimore by Archbishop Francis Kenrick at St. Mary's Seminary.

[3] After Gibbons' ordination, the archdiocese assigned him as curate at St. Patrick's Parish in the Fells Point section of Baltimore for six weeks.

During the American Civil War, Gibbons served as a chaplain for Confederate Army prisoners at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

At Spalding's prompting, the Council fathers recommended the Vatican created an apostolic vicariate for North Carolina and appoint Gibbons head to it.

[5] On March 3, 1868, Pope Pius IX appointed Gibbons as the first apostolic vicar of North Carolina and titular bishop of Adramyttium.

[5][1] Gibbons became a popular American religious figure, gathering crowds for his sermons on diverse topics that could apply to Christianity as a whole.

Over his lifetime, Gibbons met every American president, from Andrew Johnson to Warren G. Harding, and served as an adviser to several of them.

During the Second Plenary Council in 1866, Gibbons advocated for the creation of a Catholic university in the United States to educate priests and laymen.

On June 7, 1886, Pope Leo XIII created Gibbons as a cardinal priest and on March 17, 1887, assigned him the titular church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The book inflamed an ongoing dispute over Americanism, liberal attitudes on obedience to papal authority in the United States that the Vatican considered a heresy.

[10][11] On January 22, 1899, Leo XIII sent Gibbons an encyclical, Testem benevolentiae nostrae ("Concerning New Opinions, Virtue, Nature and Grace, with Regard to Americanism").

[10][11] In response, Gibbons and other American church leaders assured the pope that the opinions in the book preface belonged to Klein, not Hecker.

[12] In an 1890 letter, Gibbons said:For my part I cannot well conceive how Christians can entertain other than most kindly sentiments toward the Hebrew race, when I consider how much we are indebted to them.

[13] When Jewish leaders in 1915 in Ohio were opposing a state law that would promote bible readings in public schools, Gibbons sent them a letter of support.

[15] Regarding manual labour Gibbons said that "the Savior of mankind never conferred a greater temporal boon on mankind than by ennobling and sanctifying manual labor, and by rescuing it from the stigma of degradation which had been branded upon it", adding that "Christ is ushered Into the world not amid pomp and splendor of imperial majesty, but amid the environments of an humble child of toil.

[9] Said Ellie; "For one of the few times in Gibbons' long life, his normally keen judgment went astray and exposed him to the charge of partisanship and of ignorance of the facts governing an issue.

A stream of messages in Latin flowed from the Holy See across the Atlantic to the designated Catholic point-man for Leopold in the United States, James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore.

Cardinal Gibbons believed that the Congo reform crusade was the work of "only a handful of discontented men... depending largely upon the untrustworthy hearsay of the natives.

To fill that need, Gibbons in 1875 published The Faith of Our Fathers: A Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

[5][1][22] Understanding that many Americans viewed their faith as coming directly from the Bible, Gibbons took pains to explain the biblical roots of Catholic doctrine and rituals.