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RESEARCH CENTER
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND THE
FIRST MASS ON ST. CLEMENT’S ISLAND
by Rev. Rory T. Conley, Ph. D.
Pastor, St. Aloysius Church, Leonardtown
“On the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, in the
year 1634, we celebrated on this island the first Mass which had been
offered up in this part of the world...
With these words Father Andrew White, S.J. memorialized the founding of
Maryland and the first celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice in the
English-speaking colonies. It was here, on St. Clement’s Island in St.
Mary’s County with the offering of the Mass on March 25, 1634, that the
history of the Archdiocese of Washington begins. For some of the settlers,
most certainly Father Andrew White and his fellow Jesuits, the journey to
Lord Baltimore’s new colony of Maryland had been undertaken precisely so
that the cross of Christ could be raised and the Gospel proclaimed there
not only for the benefit of their fellow colonists, but also for the sake
of the native peoples they had come to evangelize. The Calverts, led by
the second Lord Baltimore, Cecilius, were motivated by both piety and the
prospect of prosperity. For the seventeen Catholic gentlemen adventurers
the settling of the new colony would provide not only the liberty to
practice their faith publicly but also the opportunity to make their
fortune. The remaining one-hundred and thirty or so settlers, the majority
of whom were Protestants, were virtually all indentured servants enticed
by the promise of fifty acres of land upon the completion of three to five
years of servitude. Thus, even for those who were not considered
“gentlemen,” Maryland offered a measure of wealth they could never hope
for in England. Clearly then among the Jesuits, the Calverts, the
gentlemen adventurers and the laborers who erected the cross on St.
Clement’s Island were to be found a number of hopes and aspirations for
the new colony of Maryland.
Not long after the Mass the expedition sailed back down the Potomac a few
miles to where the confluence of another river, with the Potomac formed a
natural harbor. The local Indians had a small village there but readily
sold the land to Governor Leonard Calvert for the colony’s first permanent
settlement and capital, St. Mary’s City. A hut the Indians had built there
became the first Catholic chapel in Maryland. This humble house of worship
was the forerunner not only of the brick chapel dedicated to St. Ignatius
which would soon follow. The Piscataways easy accommodation of the
colonists is explained by both their peaceful nature and their desire to
gain the Englishmen as allies in their defense against the attacks of the
warlike Susquehannas, their neighbors to the north.
Having determined the location of the new colony’s principal town the
colonists set about making a new life for themselves, dividing up the
land, building homes, planting crops, etc. Establishing the new colony
also required that the colonists erect new institutions to govern the
social, political, and economic life of Maryland. Within a year of the
first landing a colonial assembly of all free men began to meet. At first
most of these men were Catholics and through the assembly they enjoyed a
right denied them in England, the right to participate in government. The
Calverts, having experienced discrimination because of their religious
convictions mandated that complete religious toleration for all Christians
be established in the colony. However, the Catholic community was dealt a
crushing blow in 1645 when elements hostile to Lord Baltimore’s rule over
Maryland, aligning themselves with the Parliamentary faction in England’s
Civil War, rebelled against the Calverts. While the primary target of the
rebels displeasure was the Calvert family, the Catholics in the colony
were also violently attacked and the chapel at St. Mary’s City destroyed.
Father Andrew White and another priest were taken back to England, put on
trial and then banished. Three other priests were forced to flee to
Virginia where they died of hardship. The Calverts reasserted their rule
over Maryland by early 1647 and two Jesuits returned the following year.
However, by the time of the Jesuits’ return most of the Indians they had
hoped to evangelize had been driven out of Maryland or had died from
disease. Only a few Indian converts remained.
Two years after the Calverts regained control of the colony Lord Baltimore
demonstrated his sincere commitment to religious freedom for Catholics and
Protestants by promulgating through the colonial assembly the Religious
Act of 1649. Composed by both Catholics and Protestants the Act is a
landmark document on religious toleration as the first legislative act on
religious freedom. Of course, the Act introduced nothing new to Maryland
and applied only to Christians. Still, given the intense animosities based
on religion which were then rending English society, the Act was a unique
and courageous statement. Unfortunately, in 1651, Parliament commissioned
a group of the Calverts’ enemies to insure the colony’s obedience to its
rule. Once in control of the colonial government, the Protestant
commissioners repealed the Act of Religion of 1649 and replaced it with a
new ordinance which gave religious liberty to all Christians “provided
that this liberty not be extended to popery...” Catholics were forced to
endure official hostility until the Calverts regained full control of
Maryland following the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660.
The restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England apparently gave
the Catholic community in Maryland a greater sense of security as they
began to build free standing churches. In 1690 sheriffs assigned to report
on Catholic activity reported that there were nine churches and chapels
then in existence in Maryland. The most important of these was a brick
chapel erected in St. Mary’s City under the patronage of St. Ignatius,
which was built between 1660 and 1667. Recent archeological research
indicates that this structure, with its many accouterments imported from
Europe, was certainly the grandest building in Maryland at the time.
Undoubtedly, the chapel at St. Mary’s City reflected both the desire of
local Catholics to give fitting honor to the Lord and their own sense of
pride as citizens of Maryland. Other chapels constructed in these years
included those at the Jesuits’ three manors of St. Inigoes, Newtown, and
St. Thomas, as well as three chapels around Newport and one at Matapany.
These early churches were forerunners of the church of St. Ignatius at St.
Inigoes and the parishes of St. Francis Xavier, St. Ignatius at Chapel
Point, St. Mary’s in Newport and St. Nicholas Church which is now the
chapel at the Patuxent Naval Air Station.
But once again, events in England led to the end of religious toleration
in Maryland. After James II, the last Catholic king of England had been
driven from his throne, the Calverts’ opposition rose up in April, 1689.
Using religion as a pretext, and feeding on absurd fears of popish plots
and Catholic collusion with the Indians, the opposition formed “An
Association in arms for the defense of the Protestant Religion,” asserted
their support for the new Protestant monarchs, William and Mary, and took
control of the colony. The Revolution of 1689 marked a decisive turning
point in the status of Catholics in Maryland. Fifty-five years after the
founding of the colony as a haven for religious liberty, Catholics in
Maryland were stripped of their civil rights and subject to government
persecution. The process was slow, but persistent. The “Associators”
quickly moved against Catholics, seizing their arms, closing the brick
chapel at St. Mary’s City and forbidding the public practice of
Catholicism. The Catholics of Maryland adapted themselves to their limited
circumstances and, with their identity reinforced by the common experience
of discrimination, managed to hold together as a community until the
American Revolution reestablished their right to practice their religion
freely. With the coming of the Revolution other locations, such as Boston
and Philadelphia, would come to the fore as the hallowed grounds of
American liberty. However, for Marylanders, especially Maryland Catholics,
St. Clement’s Island will remain the place where our freedom began.
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