ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1780's John Carroll had consistently maintained that it was essential for American Catholics to accept no foreign jurisdiction over their affairs, save the spiritual authority of the Pope, and even in this realm he sought certain privileges which would reduce Rome's influence in the American Church to a minimum. Carroll had strongly opposed placing the ecclesiastical affairs of the Catholic Church in America under the jurisdiction of Propaganda, for this in itself could be defined as undue foreign influence. Carroll's statement that American Catholic allegiance to Rome served to bar them from civil office in some of the states was most true in New York. Protestants often charged American Catholics with holding, as an article of their belief, to the doctrine of papal infallibility. The refusal on the part of American Catholics to attribute to the Pope any temporal power or infallibility, in no way resulted in a denial of the Pope's spiritual supremacy over the whole Church.
