The Baltimore Basilica- America's First Cathedral

Brief History of the Basilica

The historic Baltimore Basilica, built from 1806-1821, was the first great metropolitan Cathedral constructed in America after the adoption of the Constitution. America's first cathedral, officially known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, quickly became a symbol of the country's newfound religious freedom.

Two prominent Americans guided the Basilica's design and architecture: John Carroll, the country's first bishop, later Archbishop of Baltimore, and cousin of Charles Carroll, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, father of American architecture and President Thomas Jefferson's Architect of the Capitol.

For more than 100 years until the American Revolution, the Catholic Church consisted of a persecuted but devout minority. With the adoption of the new constitution, church leaders wanted to build a cathedral to celebrate their newly acquired right to worship openly. Bishop Carroll's original vision of the cathedral adopted the forward-looking neoclassical architecture of the new federal city in Washington. He wanted an architectural symbol that was considered "American," not Gothic and reminiscent of the Dark Ages in Europe.