The Oldest Catholic Parish in the USA

Oldest Catholic parish in the U.S. celebrates 350th anniversary

Cardinal Wuerl celebrates the anniversary of Maryland's St. Francis Xavier Parish

The parish is located in Maryland and is dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier

Maria Teresa Pontara PederivaRomE
It may strike us as strange that Rome “boasts” two thousand years of Christianity, but if we stop to think about it for minute, evangelisation has taken years, sometimes even centuries to reach certain parts of the world. The Americas for example, where the sense of history is quite different from what it is here.
 
Hence California celebrates the 50th anniversary of a city’s foundation and new cities still being built. When America is able celebrate the 350^th anniversary of an event this is a big cause for celebration. And this is precisely what happened in Maryland’s St. Francis Xavier Parish last Saturday, in the presence of Cardinal Donald Wuerl. The parish church which has been dedicated to St. Francis Xavier has really set a record: it is the oldest Catholic Church in the United States in all the country’s founding states, that is, the legendary “13 colonies”.
 
“Let us look forward to the future with the same faith and confidence that has sustained us in our faith for so many centuries,” said Washington’s pastor referring to the Catholic community which helped build the city of Newtowne and St. Mary County, at a time of expansion in the agricultural and commercial sectors, characterised also by a strong evangelising impulse.
 
Among the pioneers who landed on these shores in 1634, was the Jesuit Andrew White. His celebration of the first Eucharist on American soil gave a “strong sense of unity and identity” to faithful of the time. This is when Jesuits began their missionary activity in America. They were often met with hostility by the Protestants, until in 1661, William and Temperance Bretton donated one and one-half acres of their land so that the congregation at Newtowne could build a chapel and establish a cemetery. The chapel was solemnly consecrated in 1662.
 
This anniversary could not pass unnoticed, Cardinal Wuerl said, because we are still called to take part in the New Evangelisation and do our bit to share the Gospel message, even if “the world around us has changed to be more secular, materialistic and individualistic.” The Church shows all the signs of history, including Christian history, for example the Test Act of 1704. But throughout the years it has continued to be a source of identity for all Catholics in the area, until 1967, when Jesuits ceased running the parish. It was subsequently taken over by the Archdiocese of Washington, led by the then Archbishop James Hickey.
 
 “What we celebrate today, then, is the fidelity of this portion of God’s family to the mission of the Church, to God’s plan, to God’s word,” Wuerl said. “But we do not just celebrate the past and look back on the accomplishments of the parish. Today we look also to the present moment and to the future. It is our turn to pass on the faith as did our ancestors all these many years. Our celebration today is of the faith and of this family and of the way this community has fostered and loved the faith.”
 
The Archdiocese of Washington is home to over 600,000 Catholics living in Washington, DC, and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.


>>>Saw this one over at the Opinionated Catholic!