John Carroll (bishop) - Ministry As Superior of The Missions

Ministry As Superior of The Missions

The Roman Catholic clergy at the time of the new Republic were keenly aware that anti-British sentiment made their canonical allegiance to Bishop Richard Challoner, the vicar-apostolic of the London district, somewhat suspect. As a result, they explored various options, and when Bishop Challoner died in 1781, his successor, James Talbot, refused to exercise jurisdiction in the new nation. But the American clergy, then numbering some two dozen, did not feel the time was right for a bishop in the new nation.

The papal nuncio to France conferred with the American ambassador in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, as to how the issue might be resolved in a way that would be acceptable to the new nation. Franklin responded to the inquiry by stating that the separation of Church and State in the United States did not permit the government to have any official opinion on who should govern American Catholics, but suggested privately that perhaps a French bishop might be given oversight of the small but growing Roman Catholic community in the U.S.

It does not appear that Franklin's suggestion of placing the American Church under the jurisdiction of a French bishop was seriously considered by the Vatican. The nuncio did, however, take into account remarks by Franklin of the high esteem he and others had for John Carroll. Carroll was appointed and confirmed by Pope Pius VI, 6 June 1784, as provisional Superior of the Missions in the thirteen United States of North America, with faculties to celebrate the sacrament of confirmation.