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.
