St. Mary of the Annunciation
In 1788, a small group of Catholics established a congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, which became known as St. Mary of the Annunciation. Without experience with the Catholic hierarchy, the congregation organized using local Protestant models of trusteeships.
With the spirit of a newfound democracy, the congregation exercised a free hand in parish administration, which occasionally put them at odds with Bishop John Carroll, the Prefect Apostolic of the United States in Baltimore, Maryland.
The resulting tension came to a head when the congregation refused Bishop Carroll’s appointed priest in 1810. By 1816, the situation in Charleston had become so embroiled that the new Archbishop of Baltimore, Leonard Neale, SJ, placed St. Mary’s under interdict. It prohibited the celebration of sacraments at the church, which remained in place for three years. At its end, the third Bishop of Baltimore, Ambrose Maréchal, recommended that the Holy See establish a territory that included the Carolinas and Georgia as a separate diocese.