July 30, 2010
Crofton, MD
Nicholas J. Carroll dies at age 87
Former Roman Catholic priest who became a civil rights specialist
Nicholas J. Carroll, a former civil rights specialist with the U.S. Department of Education whose life was defined by fighting for social justice, died July 30 of a heart attack at his Crofton home. He was 87.
Mr. Carroll, whose father was a purveyor of altar wine and mother was a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Overbrook, Pa. He attended Waldron Mercy Academy in Merion Station, Pa., and graduated in 1941 from St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia. The next year, Mr. Carroll entered the Society of Jesus Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues at Wernersville, Pa.
After earning a degree in philosophy at Weston College, now part of Boston College, Mr. Carroll taught classical languages in Philadelphia and Washington. He enrolled at Woodstock College in Baltimore County, where he earned a degree in theology and was ordained in 1954.
He was an associate pastor at the Roman Catholic Church of the Gesu in North Philadelphia and at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore. From 1963 until 1968, he taught at Georgetown Preparatory School in Washington.
He left his order in 1969 to marry the former Elizabeth Ann Leonard, who had been a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Read the Baltimore Sun Obituary here