The fourth priority of the Apostolic Plan approved this spring for Jesuits USA East focuses in part to work for racial justice and reconciliation. Other sections of the Plan call for transforming our Jesuit communities and strengthening Ignatian spiritual formation. The USA East Province is moving swiftly and diligently to start putting this Plan into action.
To that end, Father Provincial Joseph O’Keefe, SJ, has convened a Southern Maryland Task Force that will start the process of bringing together our current apostolic works in the area to engage more in the realities of a region so steeped in history and heritage. The Task Force, comprised of Jesuits, colleagues in mission, and members of the Archdiocese of Washington, including Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell, Jr., will work toward recommendations for the ministry of Jesuits and our partners in Southern Maryland. Three key Jesuit institutions—St. Ignatius Church in Port Tobacco, Loyola on the Potomac Retreat House, and St. Inigo’s (part of the first Maryland colony to serve as a refuge for persecuted Catholics)—will come together to collaborate on several key goals:
1. Preserve the religious and cultural heritage of the Society in Southern Maryland by assessing the physical and financial assets.
2. Through careful research, create exhibitions and programming focused on the history of the Jesuits at Maryland’s colonial foundation, their ministering to Catholics in the colonial and early national periods, their relationship to Native communities and African Americans, including Jesuit slaveholding and plantation operations, as well as later efforts to end segregation.
3. Collaborate with Jesuit-founded parishes open to exploring their local Catholic heritage and especially with such projects already underway at the Historic St. Mary’s City Foundation and the St. Peter Claver Parish Museum and Archives.
4. Contribute to reconciliation and healing with the history of Jesuit slaveholding by partnering with the retreat house, the Jesuit Conference, the Archdiocese of Washington, the Maryland Catholic Conference, Georgetown University, Loyola University Maryland, the Descendants Trust and Reconciliation Foundation, and local descendants to develop seminars that include reflective conversation and site visits. In partnership with Loyola on the Potomac and parish leaders, transform the Manor House into a pastoral center for prayer, conferences, study, days of recollection and historical research.
5. Work with the Archdiocese of Washington and the Maryland Catholic Conference to help descendants trace the history of their families.
6. Promote discernment and the Spiritual Exercises as the primary work of Loyola on the Potomac in collaboration with the parish.
7. Collaborate with the Province and Archdiocese for the pastoral care of the community and the continuance of worship and sacramental ministry in the church.
Fr. Mark Horak, SJ, who became pastor of St. Ignatius Chapel Point on Sept. 1, 2024, will chair the Task Force. “We Jesuits have left a huge cultural and historical legacy in southern Maryland. But this is a mixed legacy, of course. We were responsible for spreading the Gospel and leading the effort to desegregate our churches in southern Maryland in the 1950s and 1960s. But we were also responsible for participating in the great sin of enslaving and selling other human beings and, after slavery ended, of segregating our Church communities based on race. We need to acknowledge that great sin and to tell that part of our story too.”
Fr. James Casciotti, SJ, provincial assistant for pastoral ministries for the province, will also serve on the Task Force. “The significance of St. Thomas Manor and St. Inigo’s in the history of the Society and the Church can be put to apostolic use for future generations of Jesuits and companions. We can be part of a reckoning with our slaveholding past and reconciling with and honoring the descendants of slaves. In collaboration with Loyola on the Potomac Retreat House, we can assist in forming lay ministers and clergy in Ignatian spirituality and ground them in the history of the Church in Maryland.”
In a region that is part of the Archdiocese of Washington, Fr. O’Keefe is pleased to have two members of the archdiocese serving on the Task Force. Secretary of communications Paula Gwynn Grant is looking forward to her role. “I am honored to serve and assist the work of the Southern Maryland Task Force in all ways that I can in order to help bring about healing and reconciliation among all the different communities who are impacted.”
Bishop Roy Edward Campbell, Jr., holds a personal closeness to this mission. “I am honored to represent the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, myself as a possible descendant of enslaved people, along with other descendants and the Jesuit community, to help bring reconciliation and healing, together in a united effort by different communities, organizations, and groups.”
“I hope that this Southern Maryland Task Force will enable us to celebrate our saints, but also to acknowledge our grave sins and reconcile with the brothers and sisters we have wronged,” said Fr. Horak. “This initiative can be a sort of Examen, in which we ask ourselves: how have we failed to live the Gospel faithfully, and what can we do now to reconcile with our brothers and sisters?”
Please stay tuned for further updates from The Southern Maryland Task Force. We hope this initiative will serve as a model for how other components of the Apostolic Plan might be brought to light.
