AN EXTRACANONICAL INSTITUTION: THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE AMERICAN ARCHBISHOPS, 1890–1919 Robert Trisco* Introduction From 1884, when the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore was held, to 1919, when the first meeting of what was to become the National Catholic Welfare Conference took place in Washington, D.C., the entire Catholic hierarchy of the United States never assembled. In this respect it was not different from the episcopates of most of the other countries subject to the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, although the German bishops regularly met at Fulda and Freising during these years. Nine of the twelve archbishops met in Baltimore in 1886 for the sole purpose of judging three secret societies in keeping with a decree of the Third Plenary Council. Prompted by complaints or questions from some bishops, the prefect of Propaganda Fide, Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni, had asked the Archbishop of Baltimore, Cardinal James Gibbons, who had presided over the council, to summon a meeting of the archbishops at which the status of the suspected societies could be determined.1 Some American bishops thought that meetings of the hierarchy would be useful. In 1888, for example, William Henry Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati, wrote to Cardinal Gibbons that members of the hierarchy had frequently expressed the desire for more frequent meetings of the bishops of each province “and that once a year or thereabouts, theArchbishops of the country . . . should meet together . . . for an interchange of views & the consideration of questions of interest.” Elder believed it obvious that such meetings “would be of very great service to religion in bringing about at least a proximate agreement of spirit and administration & in fostering The Jurist 68 (2008) 53–91 53 * Professor Emeritus of Church History, The Catholic University of America. 1 John Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834–1921 2 vols. (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1952) I, 453–454, and Fergus Macdonald, The Catholic Church and the Secret Societies in the United States. “Monograph Series,” XXII. (New York: United States Catholic Historical Society, 1946) 147–148. 54 the jurist unionofmindsandhearts.”2 ElderevenpersuadedtheArchbishopofNew Orleans, Francis Janssens (who had been promoted to that metropolitan see only onAugust 7, 1888), to write to Gibbons “about an annual convocation of the archbishops”; he complied diffidently, recognizing that it was not becoming in him—“the Baby on the list”—to make suggestions.3 It does not seem that Gibbons took the initiative. When most of the American bishops, however, convened in Baltimore in November, 1889, to celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the first episcopal see in the United States,4 the archbishops agreed “that they should meet together once a year for the purpose of consulting on the general interests of the Church in America, the wish also being expressed that at some date before the time of their own meeting, each of them should have called around him his suffragans and taken advice from them as to what matters they would wish to bring before the Archbishops .”5 They decided to hold their first meeting the next year, on July 23, 1890, in Boston. Thus was launched the uninterrupted series of conferences that provided the only instrument of common policy and united action in the Church of the United States for three eventful decades although it lacked any canonical authority to make binding decisions. Notable is the fact that the archbishops did not request any permission from Rome to initiate the novel practice of annual meetings. At that time the Apostolic Delegation in Washington had not yet been established. Sources This study is based primarily on the complete series of the minutes of the annual meetings preserved in theArchives of theArchdiocese of Baltimore , the archbishop of which presided over all the meetings. Some of them, however, are copies of originals in theArchives of theArchdiocese of St. Louis, deposited there by the successive archbishops of that see who were secretaries for more than two-thirds of the meetings. Copies of the minutes of most of the meetings from 1893 on, in either typewritten 2 Elder to Gibbons, Cincinnati, September 13, 1888, Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Gibbons, RG I 9 (hereafter abbreviated as “AAB” and “Gibbons, RG...