A Letter to Father Fanning in the Dedication Booklet, November 25, 1973:

Dear Father Fanning:

It is always an occasion of great joy when a new and larger church, to provide for the spiritual needs of a rapidly growing parish, is completed and ready to receive the faithful in worship together. I am most happy, then, to be with you today to celebrate the dedicatory Mass of the new St. Peter's Church.

Having its origins in 1700 as a Mission of St. Ignatius Church at Chapel Point, St. Peter's and other missions and parishes of the late 17th and early 18th centuries firmly established Southern Maryland as the cradle of American Catholicism. It is a rich heritage for which we are deeply grateful.

I want especially to thank you, Father Fanning, and your assistant, Father Perkins, for devoted pastoral leadership of your flock, and the Sisters of Charity for so diligently instilling the love of Christ in the hearts of school children in their care.

May God's blessing be with you and remain with you and all members of the St. Peter's parish family. In a very real sense, it is the people of the parish who will dedicate the new St. Peter's Church by their lives of fidelity.

Devotedly yours in Christ,

+William W. Baum, Archbishop of Washington

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The Archbishop's Blessing of the Cornerstone to the Church:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, who are the cornerstone hewn from the mountainside not by the hand of man, and the foundation which cannot be moved, make firm this stone which is to be laid in Your name. You who are the beginning and the end, be likewise, we pray, the beginning, the increase, and the end of this work, which is fittingly begun for Your praise and glory.

Jesus' Benediction Upon the Rock Who is Our Patron:

Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter (rock), and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." (RSV Matthew 16:16-18).