Plenary Councils of Baltimore
Wikimedia list article
The Plenary Councils of Baltimore were three conferences of American Catholic bishops, archbishops and superiors of religious orders in the United States. The councils were held in 1852, 1866 and 1884 in Baltimore, Maryland.
These three conferences played major roles in the 19th century in the establishment of Catholic education in the United States. They also defined the roles and rules for the church hierarchy, the clergy and Catholic laypeople.
Historical background
The Vatican erected the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1789, the first and only ecclesiastical province in the United States. At that time, the Catholic population in the country was under 30,000 and the majority of them lived in Maryland. All the Catholic dioceses in the United States were then part of Province of Baltimore. From 1829 to 1849, the bishops attended seven provincial councils, all of them held in Baltimore. The bishops used the provincial councils to establish uniform procedures and policies for the province;.
From 1830 to 1850, the Catholic population in the United States, fueled by immigration, grew from 24,000 to 1.1 million, forcing the Vatican to create new ecclesiastical provinces.
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