Final respects paid to forgotten Catholics of 300 years ago who valued religious liberty.
Early Maryland founders helped establish religious liberty precedent in North America
Maryland officials reinterred 65 of the state’s earliest settlers in a powerful ceremony more than 300 years after the settlers’ first burials.
The reinterment was held at Historic St. Mary’s City, a colonial town off the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, on Sept. 20. Earlier this year, the site drew national headlines when it opened up a reconstructed 17th-century Catholic church.
The Brick Chapel was the center of Catholic worship in Maryland until 1704, when the Protestant governor of Maryland shuttered the building’s doors.