My brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Thank you and Welcome!

In presenting our website to you, I wish to take this opportunity to thank all our parishioners and visitors who have supported our parish family.  Even if you think you know all about our ministries and organization, this website will be a reference guide for you, and will give you names and phone numbers of our parish.

This is also an excellent way to welcome our new parishioners, acquaint them with our many services, and the ways they may serve our brothers and sisters.  Even though we are a large and diverse community, we want to strive to be a family who extends our arms to embrace new members as sisters and brothers.

Certainly, information is one important purpose of this website.  Giving you as much information as we can about our parish is important in itself.  I also hope that this website will inspire you to become an active member in our community.  There are many opportunities for you to serve.

Fr. Jaime Hernández

Pastor

The History of St. John the Evangelist Church

The story of St. John’s in Clinton, Maryland, is deeply interwoven into the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. The first Catholics settled here, in Southern Maryland.  Rev. Andrew White, S.J., the first Jesuit priest in this country, offered mass in 1634 for the Piscataway Indians a mere six miles from the present site of St. John’s Church.  In 1875, the Cardinal Bishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, directed the founding of a new parish in Surrattsville under the patronage of  St. John the Evangelist.  Until land and money were available, the newly formed parish continued to use St. Peter’s Church in Waldorf and St. Mary’s Church in Piscataway.  The Rev. John J. Conway, Pastor of  St. Peter's and St. Mary’s, also  headed the newly established  St. John’s Church.   [It should be noted that the town of Clinton was originally known as Surrattsville.  After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Mary Surratt (a Catholic) and her son were implicated in the assassination plot, for which Mrs. Surratt was later hanged.  Soon thereafter the U.S. Post Office changed the name of the town to Robeystown and, in 1878, to Clinton.]