Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.
John Carroll (January 8, 1735 December 3, 1815) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the first bishop and archbishop in the United States. He served as the ordinary of the first diocese and later Archdiocese of Baltimore, in Maryland, which at first encompassed all of the United States and later after division as the eastern half of the new nation.
Carroll is also known as the founder of Georgetown University (the oldest Catholic college / university in the United States), and of St. John the Evangelist Parish of Rock Creek (now Forest Glen), the first secular parish in the country.
Pope Pius VI (Italian: Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 1717 – 29 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in 1799.Pius VI condemned the French Revolution and the suppression of the Gallican Church that resulted from it. French troops commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the papal army and occupied the Papal States in 1796. In 1798, upon his refusal to renounce his temporal power, Pius was taken prisoner and transported to France. He died eighteen months later in Valence. His reign of over two decades is the fifth-longest in papal history.