March 19, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 53 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMEMORATING THE 1790 ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST CARMELITE SISTERS IN THE 
                           STATE OF MARYLAND

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                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 19, 2020

  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Carmel 
of Port Tobacco, Maryland, will mark the 230th anniversary this year of 
their establishment as the first women's religious order in our state. 
Established in 1790, the same year that Maryland and the other thirteen 
states were in the process of ratifying the First Amendment 
guaranteeing freedom of worship, the Carmelite nuns were Americans who 
had left for Europe years earlier in search of the Catholic religious 
life. With their return, they began a tradition of religious orders for 
women and men of many faiths to build and grow in Maryland and in 
America.
  Founded originally as a haven for those facing religious persecution 
in Europe, the colony of Maryland welcomed many Catholics to its shores 
from its origins in 1634. In the years before the American Revolution, 
Catholics in Maryland and elsewhere faced persecution for practicing 
their faith. An absence of any local Catholic religious orders for 
women led a number of American women to travel to Europe to join orders 
there. Among them were Mother Bernardina Matthews and her nieces Sister 
Mary Aloysia Matthews and Sister Mary Eleanora Matthews, who had left 
Maryland in their youth. Together with Mother Clare Joseph Dickenson of 
England, they set off from their convent in Hoogstraten, Belgium, on 
April 19, 1790, and reached New York on July 2 after an arduous sea 
journey. On the evening of July 10, they arrived in Port Tobacco, which 
was then the seat of Charles County, Maryland.
  From 1790 to 1831, the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Carmel of Port 
Tobacco grew from these original four to twenty sisters. Guided by 
their spiritual director, Father Charles Neale, they followed the rule 
established by Saint Teresa of Avila in the sixteenth century, living a 
life of poverty and prayer, focusing on contemplation, meditation, and 
charitable works. After Father Neale's death in 1823, the convent fell 
on hard times, and the sisters resettled in Baltimore in 1831, where 
they served the population of the growing city.
  Although the Discalced Carmelites eventually spawned chapters across 
the northeastern United States, only one chapter remains active today, 
serving Maryland. In 1933, a group of supporters founded `The Restorers 
of Mount Carmel' to purchase the site of the original convent, which 
was preserved as a historic site. In 1976, a group of American Catholic 
missionary women from Great Mills, Maryland, were granted permission to 
move to the site and re-establish a religious community there. They 
left in 1982 but were quickly followed by the return of Carmelite nuns 
from elsewhere in the country determined to carry on the order 
established in 1790. Since that re-establishment, there have been as 
many as fifteen Carmelite nuns living at the convent, carrying on the 
traditions of their forebears and adding to the religious diversity of 
our state and our nation.
  I am proud to represent a state that was founded to promote religious 
tolerance and be a welcoming haven to all seeking freedom to worship 
and pursue a better life. Maryland has been enriched by its many 
religious communities, including the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the 
Carmel of Port Tobacco, who were pioneers at the start of America's 
independence. I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating the 
order on celebrating its 230th year.

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