“From the Archives” — Celebrating Mass in Secret in the Late 1700s
The Roman Catholic Church was prohibited in Virginia until American independence. Until then, offering Mass in public was illegal, and celebrants would have been subject to persecution. It is well known, however, that courageous Jesuit priests from Maryland crossed the Potomac River (often hidden by darkness of night) and celebrated Mass secretly in private Alexandria homes for small groups of Catholics. It is also believedthat priests came from Maryland to offer Sunday Mass in a log chapel, possibly an old Episcopalian chapel, at Princess and Royal Streets, in the early 1770s. An article in the Baltimore Sun, October 22, 1854, describes this building as a simple frame structure with four rooms, one of them serving as “the Roman chapel.”
The status of Catholics living in this area changed in 1786 when the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Assembly adopted the Virginia Bill of Rights, drafted by George Mason. The bill’s 16th section granted all citizens the “fullest toleration in the exercise of religion.” Mason’s bill was the model of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment. The new Virginia law finally permitted Catholics to worship publicly.
Despite the official legal tolerance for the Catholic faith in the state, anti-Catholic bigotry persisted. In his early days in Alexandria, Father Francis Ignatius Neale (Saint Mary pastor, 1795-1818, and president of Georgetown College, 1808-1809) was once pelted with stones as he walked the streets of Old Town! — Kitty Guy, Parish Historian
— Kitty Guy, Parish Historian
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 in 2022. An archive of the features is located here.