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GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Sunday, November 01, 2009

The Carrolls of Carrollton




Maryland's First Family gets a special celebration.

John Carroll was the first Bishop of the Catholic Church anywhere in America. He sat in Baltimore at a time when Washington, DC was under the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He was the first President of Georgetown University. His large lovely statue sits in the middle of the main campus. He is a very big deal in the ecclesiastical history of the US, particularly the impulses of his brothers in the area of preservation of the church-state divide and the joint separation tandem with the free exercise of religion expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. How?
His brother was Daniel Carroll. His cousin was Charles Carroll. Google their wikipedia entries, it's amazing.
Daniel Carroll signed the US Constitution. Charles Carroll is a signatory to the Declaration of Independence. They sat on constitutional conventions, and the maryland legislature. They were Jesuit educated. As Catholic minorities they wanted to be sure that their religion was both preserved against discrimination of protestantism and that there was not one established State religion as was the case in England, much of Europe and even in a few colonies officially prior to the Independence.

Why do you bring this dusty history up now? Well, the living progeny of Daniel Carroll, an esteemed and lovely Carol Carter, has donated a large illustrious looking plaque that is now embedded in the walls of the Saint Anthony Chapel at Saint Matthews and it will be dedicated next Saturday after the 5:30 Mass at Saint Mattews. It commemorates the fact that the Carroll family, one if not the largest land owning families in Maryland, donated the funds (and the Italian Carrerra Marble) to build the chapel. This is a particularly special chapel because the relics of Saint Anthony are venerated there every Tuesday after the 5:30 Mass. Saint Anthony from Padua is the famous Franciscan Preacher who was so effective in his preaching it is said that the only thing that did not disintegrate after his death was his tongue.

If you can't make it-remember to say a prayer of special thanks to the Carrolls of Carrollton next Saturday.

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