On March 25, 1634, over 140 European settlers arrived at St. Clements Island, within the jurisdiction of our parish, and Father Andrew White, S.J., celebrated the first recorded Catholic Mass in the original 13 English-speaking colonies for the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
Father Andrew White established a mission at White’s Neck within a few miles of Holy Angels Church. Edwin W. Beitzell, one of our late parishioners and a renowned local historian, found in the archives of Woodstock College of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, a very old record book that contains a list of early Jesuit Missionaries in Maryland. On this list the following cryptic notation faded by time and barely decipherable is found: “Father White can in twice. Had a chappel at White’s Neck without a house.”
In 1770, we became a mission parish of the Sacred Heart Church with Mass celebrated in private homes. On October 2, 1904, the first Mass was held in the new Holy Angels chapel. Two years later, it was canonically established as a parish in the Archdiocese of Baltimore on October 2, 1906 – the Feast of the Guardian Angels. In 1962, the present Holy Angels Church was built on the east side of Route 242, across the road from the first chapel and school. By this time, the parish now belonged to the Archdiocese of Washington, and Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, the Archbishop, dedicated the new church on September 9, 1962.