 For his writing on religion and politics he received the first Thomas Merton Award from Pittsburgh's Thomas Merton Center in 1972.Carroll left the priesthood and the Paulist Fathers in 1974 to become a writer, and, in the same year, was a playwright-in-residence at the Berkshire Theater Festival.On May 20, 2013, he received the honorary Doctor of Letters from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.