Smyrna times., 1936-06-04
FIELD MASS AT OLD BOHEMIA
Annual Mass Sunday, June IA, on
Site of First Catholic School

Annual Mass Sunday, June IA, on
Site of First Catholic School
The annual Military Field Mass
will be held at Old Bohemia near
Warwick, Md, on Sunday, June
14th, at IL a. m, standard time,
instead of October as has been the
custom in previous years. During
these beautiful June days when we
see thousands of graduates issuing
from Catholic Schools from the
grammar grades to the university,
it is well to recall that at Old Bo-
hemia the first Catholic school was
established in the thirteen original
colonies under the auspices of the
Jesuit Fathers. Bohemia Manor,
situated at the junction of the
great and little Bohemia rivers
near Warwick, Maryland, and
about six miles from Middletown,
delaware, was founded by Father
Thomas Mansell, S. j. in 1704 un-
der the title of St. Francis xavier's
mission. Since the days when the
Jesuit Fathers sailed across Chesa-
peake Bay from Baltimore and up
the mouth of the Bohemia River
there has been a Catholic Church
and congregation there as the
names of those who sleep in the
adjoining cemetery eloquently
testify. That Catholic families
from Bohemia slowly seeped over
the Maryland line into Delaware is
demonstrated by the first Della
ware document to mention them
075D; There are about five or
six families of Papists who are at
tended once a month from Mary
land by a priest. The Delmarvia
Peninsula today holds a strategic
position on the Atlantic Seaboard,
since all lines of communication
between the capital of the nation
and the nations greatest city and
seaport, pass through it; but two
hundred years ago the Catholic
school at Bohemia Manor was
turning out men like Charles Car
roll of Carrollton, the signer of the
Declaration of Independence and
John Carroll, archbishop of Balti-
more and the first Catholic bishop
of the United States of America
A hundred years ago, Wilmington's
Catholic College-St. Mary's-
training New York's future lead
ers and scholars men like Arch
bishop Michael J. Corrigan and DR..
Henry Brand. In 1890 st. Francis
Xavier's School at Bohemia Manor
was transferred to Georgetown,
Washington, d. G., and today is
famous and thriving Georgetown
University still conducted by the
scholarly sons of Ignatius. Little
wonder, then, that every Catholic
newspaper in the Country is carry
i ing this week Bohemia's story, un-
Ger the caption Field Mass on
site of First Catholic School in
America" and it would cause even
less wonder did the heads of Cath
olic Education in America, in the
very near future, meet in annual
pilgrimage at Old Bohemia Church.
In fact, this seems to be a cherish
ed hope of Father John Walsh, the
pastor of Middletown and Bohemia
who supervises the annual field
mass there at the shrine and hal
lowed spot sacred to the memory
of Jesuit Fathers who Gin yester-
years spent themselves and were
spent, as the Apostles of old, for
the salvation of souls" Tourists
from all parts of the country are
even now stopping off to visit Bo-
hemia Manor, and it would ill befit
the Catholics of the Diocese of
Wilmington to be ignorant of the
historical gem they possess or
recant to their duty of preserving
it for future generations of Ameri-
can Catholics. According to a
sketch. by Rev. James L. Nc
Sweeney Of Wilmington, Bohemia
| is not only rich in Jesuit traditions,
but in Suplican traditions as we'll
When the Jesuits moved the school
to Georgetown in 1890, the Sui
ipician Fathers reopened Bohemia
as preparatory seminary, under
Father Ambrose Marechal, who af-
terwards became Archbishop of
Baltimore. In 1899 they withdrew
to Baltimore and remained there
till the founding of their now fam
GUS seminary at Ellicott City and
Catonsville-St. Charles College.
So, Bohemia is not only sacred to
the Jesuits-educators of the st.
Sulpice-from whose seminaries
have come the priesthood Cath
olic) of the United States. Hence,
Bohemia is the site of the First
Catholic College and the first Cath
olic preparatory seminary in
America. 1t was, to the early
Catholic settlers, for in Bohemia
cemetery are buried the mortal re-
mains of hundreds whose bodies
were brought from distant points
that they might rest in consecrat-
ed ground