From the Archives – 1776 & The Right to Practice Our Catholic Faith in Virginia

In 1776, the practice of Catholicism became legal for the first time in Virginia as the Virginia Constitutional Convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason. That law guaranteed freedom of worship, granting “the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by magistrate.” A decade later, in 1786, the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted Thomas Jefferson’s Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which further guaranteed religious freedom and disestablished the Church of England as the formal faith of the commonwealth, a move to separate Church and State. This move put Catholics on an equal footing with members of the Anglican Church and allowed Catholics to fully participate in civic life, which had not previously been the case

Nevertheless, there was no Catholic church in Alexandria until Col. John Fitzgerald took the lead in constructing one. On March 17, 1788, he hosted a dinner party at his Alexandria home. A former aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington, Fitzgerald served as Alexandria’s mayor from 1786 to 1787. He also was a devout Irish Catholic. We know Washington attended the dinner party because he recorded it in his diary, which still can be found in the archives at his Mount Vernon home. Although no formal record exists of the dinner conversation, early Saint Mary parish histories maintain it was at this 1788 Saint Patrick’s Day dinner party when Fitzgerald first proposed to his guests that a Catholic church be built in Alexandria. Washington is said to have made the first donation. His financial ledger corroborates the event with an entry for March 17, 1788: “gave toward the construction for a publick house of worship.” His donation of 1.5 sterling silver pounds is an estimated equivalent of $300 in 2025. — From Parish Archival Sources

In 2020, to commemorate the 225th anniversary of our parish, we started “From the Archives” as a weekly feature online and in our bulletin to spotlight the history of Saint Mary’s. Due to its popularity, we are continuing the series. An archive of the features is located here.