[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 69 (Tuesday, May 15, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S3171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

        350TH ANNIVERSARY OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER CATHOLIC CHURCH

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to celebrate the 350th 
anniversary of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Leonardtown, MD. I 
hope my colleagues will join me in celebrating the centuries of history 
in marking this anniversary, including the establishment of Catholicism 
in English America. It was 350 years ago that Leonardtown, which was 
then known as Newtowne, was founded as the first settlement in the 
Maryland province after the establishment of St. Mary's City. Its 
geographic location places it within view of St. Clement's Island where 
the English colonists first landed in 1634. Prior to its settlement by 
the colonists, the Piscataway Indians and their forebears had occupied 
the site for many centuries.
  Lord Baltimore founded the Maryland colony with the intention of 
providing his co-religionists with the civil liberty to exercise their 
religion freely, but it was not until the restoration of Charles II to 
the throne in England that the political climate in Maryland allowed 
for the building of a public chapel at Newtowne in 1662. The chapel was 
built by the local Catholics for the community that continues to the 
present day as Saint Francis Xavier's Parish, a parish within the 
Archdiocese of Washington.
  In 1967, when the Society of Jesus withdrew from Newtowne to work in 
other areas, St. Francis Xavier Church, Newtowne Manor, and the 7.5 
acres surrounding them were conveyed to the Archdiocese of Washington. 
The Archbishop of Washington at the time, James Cardinal Hickey, 
realized the religious, historical and archeological significance of 
these buildings, both of which are on the national Register of Historic 
Places, and he determined that they must be restored and preserved to 
maintain a link with the earliest days of the Roman Catholic Church in 
America.
  While the site of the current church, a.d. 1731, and the Newtowne 
Manor House, a.d. 1789, the graveyard, and the site of the original 
chapel have been excavated by archaeologists, more work remains to be 
done to tell the full story of what is believed to be the second public 
Catholic chapel built in the colonies. The first is thought to be in 
neighboring Charles County, MD. I join Father Brian P. Sanderfoot and 
the Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church congregation in encouraging 
further investigation and exploration of their history. Their work will 
inform all of us about the colonial history of the Catholic community 
in Maryland and the early colonial life and freedoms evidenced in the 
records and archeological findings of St. Francis Xavier Catholic 
Church.

                          ____________________