How many Catholics signed the Declaration of Independence? One: Charles Carroll of Carrollton. But the story of Catholic influence in America’s founding does not end with his signature. The Catholic Carroll family of Maryland left an extraordinary mark on the nation’s early history. While Charles helped secure American independence, Daniel Carroll helped establish the new government, and Daniel’s brother, John Carroll, laid the foundation for the Catholic Church in the United States. The irony of Charles Carroll’s contribution is this: he was legally barred from entering politics, practicing law, or even voting. As a Roman Catholic in colonial Maryland, the law stood against him. He stepped forward anyway. When he signed the Declaration of Independence, he was among the wealthiest men in the colonies – Maryland’s largest landowner – which meant he had more to lose than almost any other man in the room. He knew it. He signed. He died in 1832 at ninety-five years old, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. By then, the legal barriers that had once excluded Catholics from public life in Maryland had largely disappeared, and the Church his family had long sustained was firmly established in the young nation. Daniel Carroll also played a vital role in the nation’s founding. One of only five men to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution, he helped shape the framework of the new federal government. Like Charles, he carried his Catholic faith into public service during a time when Catholics remained a small and often distrusted minority. John Carroll’s work was quieter in its form and permanent in its reach. America’s first bishop and later its first archbishop, he founded Georgetown University and established the nation’s first seminary. He led the effort to build a cathedral in Baltimore designed on American principles of architecture. The Baltimore Basilica, completed after his death in 1815, stands today as a Minor Basilica, a national historic landmark, and a national shrine. The Baltimore Catechism, published decades after his passing, was among the many fruits of the ecclesiastical structure he built from the ground up. Members of the same Catholic Carroll family, shaped by the Jesuit tradition, each answered a different calling. Charles risked everything to help win American independence. Daniel helped build the nation’s constitutional government. John helped build the Church that would serve generations of American Catholics. They were called to greater things than the law permitted and the age expected. Each answered. | 
