"So that one day we may be one": The Interfaith Center at Columbia, Maryland

The period following World War II saw the first concerted efforts to establish worship space shared by Catholics, Protestants, and (sometimes) Jews. Catholics' ecumenical participation soared during and after the Second Vatican Council. However, practical, theological, and social factors restricted joint participation in church-building projects. One exception to this rule was the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center (IFC) in the "new town" of Columbia, Maryland, the only canonically-established parish in the United States which shares a building with Protestant congregations. Columbia's developer, Protestant denominations, and the Archdiocese of Baltimore negotiated the project over the course of five years in the mid-1960s. Both participants and outside observers hoped that the experience of sharing worship space would herald a new and more ecumenically-inclined future.