Siobhan Cooney had tears in her eyes after seeing the completed church renovations at St. Francis of Assisi in Fulton for the first time Sept. 17. As a lifelong member of the church, now part of a pastorate with St. Louis in Clarksville, Cooney was baptized in an office building and remembers attending Mass at Atholton High School in Columbia.
“You know, the goal is always to keep growing,” said Cooney, pastorate director of faith formation at St. Francis, “We were able to buy this land and build this building. It was first built as kind of a multi-functional space. It used to have chairs that we could stack up and move and we could make classrooms or there would be events held in the space. It was what we could do at the time.”
After a summer of renovations, the multi-functional space is now a permanent church, with ceramic tiles, wooden pews, a larger sanctuary, permanent confessionals and a dedicated space with a new organ for the church’s beloved music program.
“We gather at this site to dedicate the newly and handsomely renovated worship space to the honor and glory of God,” Archbishop William E. Lori said in his homily during the church’s Sept. 17 rededication. “We do so as the church celebrates the 800th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi’s … passage from this world to the next, his transit from grace to glory.”
The archbishop noted that St. Francis was “an enchanting patron saint” and that the “stories surrounding him continue to enthrall us,” from the wolf of Gubbio to his sermon to the birds and the Christmas crèche at Greccio.
“The episode of his life that speaks most directly to tonight’s celebration is of course the rebuilding of a rundown church at San Damiano,” Archbishop Lori said. The story, he reviewed, tells of how St. Francis heard a voice while he was praying. It spoke to him from a crucifix, telling him to rebuild the Lord’s house which was falling into ruins.
“He took the Lord’s words literally. He began hauling stones, begging for materials and repairing the church with his own hands,” Archbishop Lori said. “As the work progressed, Francis came to realize that the Lord was asking more of him. Francis was being asked to repair and renovate the Church itself. The Church, which at that time had fallen into disarray due to infidelity and indifference.”
While it might be thought of as “a big misunderstanding,” it was not, the archbishop said.
“The rebuilt church of San Damiano stood and stands as a sign of the larger Church that Francis and his followers renovated. It stood and stands as a sign of that interior renovation that all of us must undergo,” Archbishop Lori said. “My friends, not unlike St. Francis himself, you have worked hard and you have sacrificed much so that this church would be repaired and renewed and graced with a beautiful new altar.”
During the dedication, the archbishop placed relics of St. John Neumman and St. Robert Bellarmine in the new altar. St. Neumman was a former pastor of St. Alphonsus in Baltimore before becoming bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. St. Bellarmine was born on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4, 1542, and died Sept. 17, 1621, the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis.
“Just as the church and the altar are consecrated to Christ, so let us be consecrated anew to Christ in the Holy Spirit,” Archbishop Lori said.
During the renovations, pieces with ties to St. Francis were included from former churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore that closed during the Seek the City to come initiative in 2024. The stones for the altar and under the tabernacle were from St. Clare in Essex. Made of Jerusalem limestone, the stones were quarried in the Holy Land for St. Clare’s renovation in 2016. A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the now-closed Shrine of the Little Flower, is featured in the church’s Marian garden.
The redesign of the church purposefully has a “noble simplicity” by using materials of stone and wood, according to Father Michael DeAscanis, pastor of St. Francis and St. Louis..
“Even our clear glass windows help us to see the beauty of nature around the church,” he said.
The renovations complete the church’s 1988 master plan. The three-phased plan, Father DeAscanis said, called for the building of a multi-purpose building first to host Mass, classes and spaghetti dinners, and was completed in 1998; the second phase created the faith formation wing, classrooms and a social hall and was completed in 2010; and the third phase was to build a church.
“As the parish progressed for the past 38 years and became part of a pastorate, we realized the size of this space was right for a church,” Father DeAscanis said. “So rather than build a new church, we decided to renovate the multipurpose building into a more permanent church.”
A capital campaign raised the $1.2 million needed for the renovations, Father DeAscanis said. Work started June 1 and was completed in time for the rededication Mass. Matthew Compton of Foundry Architects was the architect.
“Our parishioners responded very generously,” Father DeAscanis said. “It finished on time. Here we are. It all came together.”
Pope Leo XIV declared 2026 as a jubilee year dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. Begun Jan. 10 and ending Jan. 10, 2027, the jubilee year grants a plenary indulgence, which in Catholic teaching is the full remission of the temporal punishment due for sins that have already been forgiven, to those who participate in a pilgrimage to any Franciscan church or place of worship named after St. Francis.
“You don’t need to fly all the way to Rome to go through the holy doors. You can drive down to Fulton, Maryland, and come to St. Francis Church and receive plenary indulgence and the jubilee experience,” Father DeAscanis said. “We’ve had some already, but now that the church has been rededicated tonight, we really want to invite parishes in the diocese to make a pilgrimage here in October, November and December, and we will accommodate their pilgrimage.”
A dessert reception followed the rededication Mass.
“This is just a great thing to just kind of be part of the progression of how the church continues to grow,” Colleen Zorn, a St. Francis parishioner for 20 years, said before Mass. “We don’t have family in this area, so this is the family we have here. This is a really nice place to call home.”
“This is a real vote of confidence in the future of St. Francis parish,” Father DeAscanis said. “We are here to stay and to evangelize this part of Howard County.”
Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
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