section_path: Papacy (1878–1903)/Foreign relations/United States
section_name: United States
paragraph_text: United States
  
  The United States frequently attracted his attention and admiration. He confirmed the decrees of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) and raised James Gibbons, the archbishop of that city, to the cardinalate in 1886.
  
  On 10 April 1887, a pontifical charter from Pope Leo XIII founded the Catholic University of America, establishing the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States.
  
  American newspapers criticized Pope Leo because they claimed that he was attempting to gain control of American public schools. One cartoonist drew Leo as a fox unable to reach grapes that were labeled for American schools; the caption read "Sour grapes!"
  
  In 1892, Pope Leo XIII opened the Vatican archives to William Eleroy Curtis, a special envoy planning the commemoration of Christopher Columbus at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
  
  The United States frequently attracted his attention and admiration. He confirmed the decrees of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) and raised James Gibbons, the archbishop of that city, to the cardinalate in 1886.
  
  On 10 April 1887, a pontifical charter from Pope Leo XIII founded the Catholic University of America, establishing the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States.
  
  American newspapers criticized Pope Leo because they claimed that he was attempting to gain control of American public schools. One cartoonist drew Leo as a fox unable to reach grapes that were labeled for American schools; the caption read "Sour grapes!"
  
  In 1892, Pope Leo XIII opened the Vatican archives to William Eleroy Curtis, a special envoy planning the commemoration of Christopher Columbus at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.