One year after his installation Mass as archbishop of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in North America, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy marked the anniversary in a very different setting, celebrating Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church in St. Mary’s County, a small brick church at one of the oldest Catholic parishes in the original 13 colonies.
The March 11 Mass at the rural parish in Newtowne near Leonardtown, Maryland, brought the archbishop to the southernmost region of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, where parishioners welcomed him with prayer, hospitality and a strong sense of Catholic tradition stretching back centuries.
Father Edward “Ted” Hegnauer, pastor of St. Francis Xavier, thanked Cardinal McElroy for making the trip from Washington to visit the parish, which has about 250 registered parishioners.
Father Thomas Robertson, priest secretary to the archbishop, said the visits have allowed parishioners across St. Mary’s County to meet their shepherd personally as he celebrates Mass in local churches and greets parishioners.
Noting the archbishop’s pastoral approach, Father Robertson said, “To see each person and the way he looks at people when he’s preaching and engages with them, it’s been a really extraordinary experience.”
Over the past year, Father Robertson said he has gained a deeper appreciation for the demands of the archbishop’s ministry.
“It’s been incredible to see the volume of things that he encounters day to day,” he said. “He really loves the archdiocese and loves the people. Watching him work has taught me a lot about what it means to be a shepherd.”
For longtime parishioner Steve Raley, the archbishop’s visit was another chapter in a family history closely tied to St. Francis Xavier Parish.
According to the parish website, St. Francis Xavier, which was founded in 1640, is the oldest Catholic parish established in the original 13 colonies.
Raley said his mother, Eleanor Alvey, was born in the manor house located just behind the church when her parents worked the land as tenant farmers. She was baptized at St. Francis Xavier, and Raley himself received all of his sacraments there and has spent most of his life connected to the parish.
The Newtowne Manor House behind the church dates to the late 18th century and was part of a Jesuit mission established in the area in the 1600s. The Georgian-style structure, listed on the National Register of Historic Places served the Jesuit community for many years and was later occupied by tenant farmers.
Today Raley is a member of the Friends of Newtowne Manor House, a committee dedicated to preserving and restoring the property.
In many ways, Cardinal McElroy’s visit to St. Mary’s County retraced a landscape shaped by centuries of missionary travel. Long before the modern parish system took shape, Jesuit missionaries rode on horseback and traveled by boat between scattered Catholic communities, celebrating Mass in manor houses, plantation chapels and small mission sites that served Catholic settlers.
From those early missions grew the network of parishes that now serve St. Mary’s County.
The visit to St. Francis Xavier marked the final stop on Cardinal McElroy’s tour of the county’s 14 parishes, which are served by about 16 priests. He said he has been warmly welcomed everywhere he has gone. The cardinal visited the parishes during the week between March 5 and 11.
He joked that parishioners have made sure he has experienced plenty of local cooking.
“I’ve had so much crab and ham,” he said with a laugh.
During his homily, Cardinal McElroy reflected on the central symbol of the Christian faith and why the cross remains the defining sign of Christianity even though the Resurrection stands at the heart of Christian hope.
“What is the symbol of our faith?” he asked parishioners.
“The cross.”
“But what is the most important event in the life of Jesus?” he continued. “The Resurrection.”
“So you would think the central symbol of Christianity would be something like a sunrise,” he said. “But it is the cross.”
The archbishop said the cross reveals three essential truths about God.
First, he said, the cross shows the depth and personal nature of God’s love.
“God draws no boundaries around His love,” Cardinal McElroy said. “God’s love for us is personal and individual.”
He pointed to the Gospels as the clearest example of that personal love.
“And how do we know this?” he asked. “Because when we read the Gospels and see how Jesus encounters people when He walks on the earth, He encounters each person differently, with a particular type of love, coming to them, knowing what is in their hearts, trying to be there for them.
“And He does it in a different way from person to person. Because people are different.”
Second, the archbishop said the cross reminds believers that God understands human suffering.
“Our God is not a God of remoteness and abstraction,” he said. “In the person of Jesus Christ, God knows what suffering is.”
Reflecting on Christ’s Passion, Cardinal McElroy said the suffering of Jesus was deeply human.
“And if you ask me what I think was the hardest suffering for Christ on the cross,” he said, “I think it was probably looking down from the cross and seeing His mother before Him, having to watch all that was happening.
“I think that was probably among the deepest suffering in the Passion.”
Because Christ experienced suffering fully, he said, believers can trust that God understands their own struggles.
“So when we have suffering in our lives and we pray to God, God understands what that suffering is like, because God has been there before and suffered,” the cardinal said. “Christ suffered physically, spiritually and emotionally. And this God understands in a very intimate way what suffering is.”
Cardinal McElroy said the cross speaks to the reality of human sin and the possibility of redemption.
Reflecting on the ways people often look back on past mistakes they cannot undo, the cardinal said Christ offers peace through His sacrifice.
“When we sin, we are called to repent. We are called to try to heal what we have done to another person. We ask for forgiveness. For serious sin, we go to Confession,” he said.
“But I find as I get older in life, I sometimes look back and realize that there are sins I have committed where I truly hurt someone. And it still weighs on me.
“I would give a lot to be able to go back and undo those things. But we cannot.”
Yet Christ’s sacrifice on the cross offers peace and healing, the archbishop said.
“When you have those wounds in your life, and we all do, Christ says, ‘I will take that burden on myself, I will carry you forward. And I want you to be at peace,'" Cardinal McElroy said.
After the Mass, parishioners gathered for fellowship with the archbishop.
Raley and other members of the Friends of Newtowne Manor House committee presented Cardinal McElroy with a book about the history of the manor house, wrapped in red foil paper.
Parishioner Dale Rebarchick shared stories about the parish’s history and life in Southern Maryland, joking about the region’s distinctive way of speaking.
“Have you learned the Southern Maryland dialect yet?” he asked. “If not, we’ll teach you.”
In parts of Southern Maryland, some longtime residents still speak with a distinctive local accent that linguists describe as a blend of Tidewater Southern English and coastal Mid-Atlantic speech patterns, shaped by the region’s maritime heritage and rural communities along the Chesapeake Bay.
For Raley and other parishioners, the moment reflected a continuity stretching across centuries.
Just as earlier generations worshiped in the same parish community, families today gather at St. Francis Xavier for Mass, Baptisms and the other sacraments that continue to shape Catholic life in Southern Maryland.
