Sertum laetitiae (November 1, 1939) was an encyclical from Pope Pius XII to the Catholic Church of the United States of America in memory of the 150th anniversary of the inthonization of the first American bishop. The encyclical recalls Pope Pius VI, who appointed bishop John Carroll of Baltimore in 1789. It took the help of George Washington, a friend of Carroll to start the Catholic Church in the USA. One hundred years later, in 1889, Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Longinqua Oceani addressed the Church in the United States and issued praise and admonitions.