When a fire last December damaged the Pope Francis Center in Landover Hills, Maryland, the St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church that worships in the chapel there was displaced. After two months of seeking a place to worship while its facilities are being repaired, the Deaf Catholic community now gathers at St. Hugh of Grenoble Parish in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“As a beautiful example of the Church being One Body of Christ, Father Walter Tappe (pastor of St. Hugh Parish) graciously offered both his school space for religious education and his church for the Catholic Deaf Community to gather to celebrate in communion,” said Mary O'Meara, the executive director of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Deaf and Disabilities Ministries. “We are most grateful to St. Hugh of Grenoble Catholic Church for this kind welcome.”
The Deaf Catholic Community has worshiped at its Landover Hills location since 1975; however, O’Meara said, “the Deaf Catholic Community has been present and active in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington for decades before that. Gallaudet University was founded in 1864, and served as the seedbed for Deaf vocations and Deaf Catholic lay leadership since its inception.”
Prior to relocating to St. Hugh’s, the Deaf Catholic parish met at several other nearby churches in the weeks following the fire. During the winter school break, the community was able to gather in the classrooms at St. Mary’s School in Landover Hills, next to the Catholic Deaf Center. When classes resumed there, the community worshipped in the atrium at St. Matthias Apostle Church, in Lanham, Maryland.
“We were kind of nomads,” O’Meara said, “and that experience just solidified and really made so very important the imperative nature of gathering as a community and being present to one another and finding Christ in that midst of that gathering.”
In finding their long-term temporary home, O’Meara said, “Father Tappe and the community of St. Hugh’s have afforded us the comfort and the sense of being anchored in one place until we are back in our own space.”
“What a beautiful gift it is to have that sense of welcome and being settled,” she added.
Above and below, parishioners of the St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church pray during a Feb. 13 Mass at St. Hugh of Grenoble Church in Greenbelt, Maryland. (CS photo by Mihoko Owada)
O’Meara noted that because of the ongoing pandemic, “our community – as all communities – have been kept apart. We were just getting back into a new normal experience of Church, when, sadly, we had a fire in our chapel.”
While Masses for the Deaf Catholic community were live streamed via the internet, O’Meara said, “gathering in person is vital to all communities, but in particular to a community with a visual language.”
“Persons who are Deaf fill the roles of lector, sacristan, and acolytes,” she said. “Deaf Catholics are truly able to live what it means to be full and active participants in the Liturgy when gathered together as community. The fire displaced our gathering space, but not our need to gather.”
At St. Hugh’s, the St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church meets in the parish school at 1 p.m. each Sunday for two classes: one for religious education and catechesis for about eight Deaf children who are preparing for the sacraments, and another for Spanish-speaking Catholics living with a family member with disabilities. Mass is celebrated in the church at 2 p.m. each Sunday by Father Min Seo Park, the chaplain to the St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church and the Catholic chaplain at Gallaudet University, who also provides pastoral ministry for Deaf Catholics throughout the archdiocese.
Father Tappe, St. Hugh’s pastor, said that after he discovered the Catholic Deaf community was looking for a place to meet and worship, “I was delighted to extend to them an invitation to use our school and church facilities on Sunday afternoons until their facility in Landover Hills is restored.”
He added that extending an invitation to the St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church was a way “to pay forward” a kind gesture extended earlier to his Greenbelt parish.
“It provided us with an opportunity to pay tribute to a favor we received many years ago when St. Hugh School suffered a catastrophic fire on Christmas Eve. The local synagogue in Greenbelt, Mishkan Torah, invited the students and teachers of our school to use the classrooms of their Hebrew School until our school building could be repaired,” Father Tappe said. “It was an act of kindness that our parish has never forgotten. We are blessed now to be able ‘to pay forward’ that act of kindness to the Catholic Deaf Center in their hour of need.”
O’Meara said the invitation to worship at St. Hugh’s Parish “shows we are one body in Christ.” The parish, she said, “has shared their home and hearts with the Catholic Deaf Community in solidarity and communion as we recognize our one Lord, one faith and one Baptism.”
In addition to the kindness shown the Catholic Deaf Community by St. Hugh Parish, O’Meara said she is also grateful to Father Joseph Jenkins, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Mitchellville, Maryland, whose parish is hosting a monthly recitation of the rosary and Mass for persons living with mental illness that is sponsored by Office of Deaf and Disabilities Ministries.
The St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Catholic Church gathers at St. Hugh’s while its chapel in Landover Hills, Maryland is being repaired after a December fire there. (CS photo by Mihoko Owada)
O’Meara noted that all weekly Deaf Catholic Masses are live streamed at https://stfrancisdeafcatholicchurch.com/live-streamed-masses. She said that it is her hope that as the two parishes share worship space, they will get to know each other.
“We welcome everyone across The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to join us, virtually or in person at St. Hugh’s at 2 p.m. All are welcome,” she said. “We as Church are an amazing mosaic of gifts and talents. St. Hugh’s has shared theirs with us, and we pray we can share ours with them as well.”
