The Plenary Councils of Baltimore were three meetings of American Catholic bishops, archbishops and superiors of religious orders in the United States. The councils were held in 1852, 1866 and 1884 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Francis Patrick Kenrick was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania (1842–1851) and the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Maryland(1851–1863).