In 1674, 102 years before Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, St. Mary Parish in Newport, Maryland, was established, giving Catholics in that rural community a place to pray together and receive the sacraments in a colony where English settlers had first arrived 40 years earlier.
In 2024 – two years before the United States will mark its 250th anniversary and 10 years before Maryland marks its 400th anniversary – St. Mary’s in Newport, a country parish still nestled in a quiet rural community in Southern Maryland, celebrated its 350th anniversary at a Sept. 7 Mass led by Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory.
Just before the Mass ended, Cardinal Gregory noted, “It’s a wonderful gesture to celebrate the faith that has been rooted in parishes for centuries, and to thank all of the people through the ages who have sustained the faith and left it for you.”
Moments earlier, the parish’s choir led the choir in singing “Faith of Our Fathers” in an acknowledgment of the men and women and families who lived and passed on the faith there for 350 years, and “Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above” in tribute to Mary, the parish’s patron saint.
In his homily, the cardinal reflected on the account from the Gospel of Mark of Jesus healing the deaf man, and said, “We all need the power of Jesus’ healing and saving mission… Jesus comes to heal all of us – you and me.”
Concelebrating the Mass with Washington’s archbishop were Father Gregory Coan, the parish’s administrator; Father Lawrence Swink, an archdiocesan priest; and two Jesuit priests, Father James Casciotti and Father Mark Horak.
The parish’s website highlights its peaceful setting and historic distinction:
“Off a lightly-traveled side road, in an out-of-the-way corner of Southern Maryland, in a lovely expanse of fields and farms surrounded by woods and creeks, lies the third-oldest continuously-open parish in the Unites States: St. Mary Catholic Church in Newport.”
The two older Catholic parishes, also in Charles County and established when Maryland was a new colony, are St. Ignatius in Chapel Point, founded in 1641 and with its present church built in 1798, and which according to its website is the “oldest Catholic parish in continuous service in the United States;” and St. Francis Xavier in Newtowne, founded in 1640 and with its current church built in 1731, and which according to its website is “the oldest Catholic church in the 13 original colonies.”
St. Mary’s website notes that it was established in 1674 by two Franciscan priests, Father Basil Hobart and Father Polycarp Wickstead, and it was the only Franciscan parish in the 13 colonies. Beginning in 1698, the parish was served for 183 years by Jesuit priests, and later by priests from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and then by priests of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington when that archdiocese expanded in 1947 to include Southern Maryland.
St. Mary’s website also notes other historic distinctions about the parish. Its former church, built in a Greek Revival style in the 1790s and completed in 1840, is believed to be the oldest standing structure in Charles County and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. That church, which is currently under renovation, contains a second floor gallery and pre-Civil War church painting and stenciling. Plans are for St. Mary’s to move its Shrine of St. John Vianney to the historic church when it is restored.
In 1931, Father William Baldus, who served as the pastor of St. Mary’s for two decades, established the Shrine of St. John Vianney there as the first shrine in the United States to honor that saint, a humble parish priest in France who was canonized in 1925 and is the patron saint of priests.
The current church at St. Mary’s in Newport was built and dedicated 70 years ago, in 1954. Catholics first worshipped at St. Mary’s when Maryland was established as a haven for religious freedom, and they kept the faith in the decades prior to the American Revolution when anti-Catholic laws were enacted in the colony. Farm families in Charles County continued to attend St. Mary’s Church from that time and through the Civil War and then through two World Wars and the Great Depression in the past century, and some of their descendants continue to be parishioners there in the digital age along with newer residents of the county.
After the 350th anniversary Mass, Cardinal Gregory greeted parishioners and guests outside St. Mary’s Church before they headed to the parish hall for an anniversary dinner. Parishioners interviewed by the Catholic Standard reflected on their family connections to the country parish and what makes it special.
Frank Wathen, a past grand knight of the Knights of Columbus Holy Ghost Council 11484, noted that he is a direct descendant of John Wathen, who came to Maryland from England in 1670 as an indentured servant, later became a farmer and was among the first parishioners at St. Mary’s in Newport when it was founded in 1674. Today Frank Wathen and other family members, including his parents Pat and Jenny Wathen who live nearby on their family farm, continue to attend St. Mary’s Church.
“I sometimes can hardly fathom it, how long we have been here, the Wathen family, still very active in the community and at St. Mary’s in Newport to this day,” Frank Wathen said. “To practice (our faith) here, to serve here, to be a part of this small country community since 1674, it’s a lasting legacy.”
His parents Pat and Jenny Wathen, who both will turn 88 years old in December, have been married for 68 years and raised their 10 children at St. Mary’s Parish. Jenny Wathen said the secret to their long marriage is “love, patience, understanding and talking it out.” Pat Wathen joked that there was no way he could have afforded alimony payments to support 10 children.
When asked how long he has been a St. Mary’s parishioner, Pat Wathen said, “Ever since the day I was born.” He said he helped out at their family’s farm – which used to grow tobacco and now grows crops including soybean and corn – “from the time I was able to put a harness on the horse.” After graduating from high school, he worked for the phone company for more than four decades to support his family.
Jenny Wathen noted how St. Mary’s parishioners knew each other and their children and grandchildren over the years, and how the farm families there provided pork, lamb and chicken for parish picnics, along with vegetables that they grew on their farms. Today the parish is known for its monthly food pantry serving the community.
Mary Frances Bowling, a lifelong parishioner who is now 81 and who grew up on a family farm and raised her four children in the parish, said, “It’s a very close community. We look out for one another and take care of one another.”
Another lifelong parishioner, Betty Bowling, is 83 and noted how parishioners over the years volunteered to help out however they could at St. Mary’s. Asked what the parish’s 350th anniversary meant to her, she said, “It’s amazing. I’m glad I was part of it.”
A more recent parishioner, Katherine Nutter, has attended St. Mary’s for 30 years and raised her two children there. Nutter, who works for a software company, said, “It’s a family church… I always call it the church in the field.”
That point was echoed by Irma Simpson, a longtime St. Mary’s parishioner who said, “It’s just the place you want to be. It’s quiet, out (away from) all of the noise and chaos. It’s a very close country parish.”
The St. Mary’s Parish website notes that it “may be the most rural parish in the Archdiocese of Washington… Surrounded by farms and fields and woods, off several back roads, filled with gardens full of flowers, our parish provides a welcome retreat to hear that still, small voice of God.”
The guests at the parish’s 350th anniversary dinner included Barbara Dorsey Kennedy, who grew up in St. Mary’s as one of 12 children in her family. Kennedy, who worked for the U.S. Food and Drug administration as a contracting officer, now lives in Columbia, Maryland, but said she came back for the anniversary gathering because “it (St. Mary’s) was like home.”
Her sister Sarah Dorsey Swann, a retired U.S. Department of State worker who has remained as a St. Mary’s parishioner over the years, said that after growing up there, the parish always seemed like family to her. Now her parents and a brother and sister are buried in the parish’s cemetery. “I just feel like this is my church. I’m still here,” Swann said.
As he prepared to join the anniversary dinner, Father Coan, St. Mary’s administrator since this past July, noted how the Catholic faith planted there 350 years ago by those pioneering English settlers to Maryland continues today. “They left us this great faith,” he said.
