October 08, 2007
THE CATHOLIC COLONY of Maryland was first planted in 1634 at St. Mary's, which became the first capital city of the Calvert family's palatinate. The attempt to run Terra Mariae as a Catholic feudal state was continually frustrated by a number of fiery Protestant settlers, who eventually broke out into open rebellion in the 1650s while the Civil Wars raged back in England. Happily, Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, sent out an army under Gov. William Stone to restore order to the colony, but was defeated by the Puritan force in March, 1655 at the Battle of the Severn. During the Puritans' persecution of the Church, all the Catholic churches in Maryland were destroyed, and in 1667 a new ecclesiastical edifice was raised in St. Mary's: the Brick Chapel.
Rather disappointingly, Catholic governance did not last, and in the early 1700’s, royal authority was stripped from the Calvert dynasty and Maryland was erected as a crown colony, with the Church of England established. The new royal governor locked the doors of the Brick Chapel and forbade its use for any religious purpose, moving the capital to Annapolis. The Jesuit fathers who built the church disassembled it, using elements in a new chapel being built within a manor house, as public Catholic churches were no longer allowed under the law. The first permanent Catholic church in Anglo-America was no more.
THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY years after its original construction and three centuries since its demise, the Catholic Chapel at St. Mary’s City is rising again on its original site. Under the auspices of the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission, archaeological research was completed during the 1990s, money was raised for reconstruction, and the Chapel is being rebuilt now in 2007 using the very same methods that would have been used to construct the original in 1667.
As it happens, the tabernacle from the original chapel was saved by the Carroll family, who donated it to the Sisters of Mercy in Baltimore where it survives. Skilled Maryland craftsmen have been commissioned to create an exact replica for the reconstruction. Originally under the premier archiepiscopal See of Baltimore, the Brick Chapel is now within the bounds of the Archdiocese of Washington, but I have no idea whether or not it will be consecrated. An altar stone, believed to be the original, has been found and will be included in the chapel. How appropriate it would be to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the birthplace of the Church in America, praying that the slow resurgence of Catholicism we have seen in recent years will continue and augment with the grace of God.
Monday, October 8th, 2007
Posted by Andrew Cusack