A new bronze bas-relief commemorates the donation made by the future President George Washington towards the construction of Virginia’s first Catholic church, now the Basilica of St Mary in Alexandria.
“This beautiful bronze sculpture, by noted American sculptor Thomas Marsh, depicts the moment that led to our founding as the first Catholic parish in Virginia in 1795,” Fr Edward Hathaway, rector of the Basilica of St Mary, told the Catholic Herald.
More than a celebration of the parish’s history, the sculpture is “a celebration of the gift of freedom of religion in our country, which would eventually be enshrined in the US Constitution”, he said.
The sculpture depicts Washington presenting his donation to Col John Fitzgerald, an Irish immigrant, Washington’s aide-de-camp and one of the founders of St Mary Parish. Washington and Fitzgerald were “dear friends”, Hathaway said.
The inscription beneath the sculpture reads: “On St Patrick’s Day, 1788, Irish émigré Col. John Fitzgerald accepted George Washington’s donation toward building the first Catholic Church in Virginia.”
Less than a year after making the donation, on February 16, 1789, Washington was unanimously elected the first President of the United States. He served two terms before retiring in 1797 after declining to seek a third.
The meeting took place at Fitzgerald’s home, and Washington is believed to have been the first person to contribute financially towards the construction of the church. Although he was not a Catholic, he was a strong supporter of religious freedom.
“His support for the Catholic community was crucial for us, in particular,” Hathaway said.
“But, on a larger scale, it set an example of how men and women in the United States would be free to worship according to their consciences.”
Catholicism struggled to establish itself in colonial Virginia. In 1570, Spanish Jesuit missionaries near what is now Williamsburg were killed by Native Americans. When Virginia became a British colony in 1607, the Church of England was established as the official religion and Catholicism was prohibited.
Several decades later, in 1647, Giles Brent, former Governor of Maryland, together with his sister, established Virginia’s first Catholic settlement. Three years later, Pope Urban VIII created the Prefecture Apostolic of Virginia and entrusted it to the Capuchin Fathers.
Catholics in Virginia were not able to practise their faith openly until the Virginia General Assembly passed the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1785.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the first Catholic diocese in the United States, was established in 1789. At the time, it encompassed the entire country. Today, part of its territory borders the Diocese of Arlington, which serves north-eastern Virginia.
The Basilica of St Mary was designated a minor basilica in January 2018.
