The Catholic Church came to Lewes, DE in 1902, when a mission priest from St. John the Apostle Church in Milford made occasional trips to Lewes to hold Masses in a small second floor room in the old firehouse building at the corner of Third & Chestnut streets. Services continued at that site until 1915, when the Catholic population outgrew the available space. At that time a modest two-story frame building was purchased and moved to Market & Orr Streets and was named St. Michael's Catholic Church, a mission church of St. John the Apostle.  In 1905 when St. Agnes by the Sea opened in Rehoboth, many Catholics from Lewes traveled to Rehoboth to attend Mass, and attendance dwindled at St. Michael's. The fate of St. Michael's is uncertain. It was either moved or demolished when the telephone company purchased the land. In 1905, The Most Reverend Bishop Monaghan of the Wilmington Diocese purchased several cottages and a vacant lot covering the entire length of the oceanfront block between Brooklyn and Laurel Streets in Rehoboth Beach. He presented the property to the Franciscan Teaching and Nursing Order as a summer vacation retreat for sisters. A small chapel was established and later expanded to a frame church to accommodate Catholic worshippers.On August 9, 1906, St. Agnes by the Sea opened as the first Catholic Church in our resort area. The Church was named in honor of Sister Agnes, the first Mother Superior of U.S. Franciscan Order. Over the next few years, a rectory opened as well as two large cottages situated between the Church and rectory. The land was originally owned by the Rehoboth Beach Camp Meeting Association of Methodist-Episcopal Church.  At first, St. Agnes was open only during summer months.  Reportedly, the nuns helped the survivors of the two shipwrecks that occurred at the end of Brooklyn Avenue. In 1946 the Franciscan Order converted the buildings for rentals and called them Star of the Sea.

In 1962 the Church was damaged beyond repair in a storm and was razed to make room for apartments. In the 1970's, the entire Franciscan property was leased to developers who constructed the Star of the Sea high-rise condominiums, which exist today.As the Catholic population grew, the Wilmington Diocese purchased property at the corner of King Charles and Laurel Streets and built St. Edmond's in 1939. Named for Bishop Edmond Fitzmaurice, St. Edmond's continued as a mission church of St. John's in Milford until 1952 when it became a separate parish under its first pastor, Msgr. Francis J. Desmond. Originally, St. Edmond's was open only on Sundays during the winter. In 1954, St. Edmond's built an elementary school, staffed by Benedictine nuns from Ridgely, MD, which was adjacent to the Church. Students attended from Georgetown and the surrounding areas; however, the school closed in 1969 when the community of nuns was obliged to withdraw. The classrooms are presently used for Religious Education classes for both St. Edmond's and St. Jude's.During Msgr. Desmond's pastorate, three missions were established: St. Ann's, Bethany Beach (1955); St. Michael the Archangel, Georgetown (1956); and St. Jude The Apostle, Lewes (1960). St. Michael's became a separate parish in 1957; St. Ann's, in 1972; and St. Jude's in November 2002.In 1959 the Diocese bought land north of Five Points in Lewes and built the Shrine of St. Jude a mission Church to St. Edmond's. In the early 60's the Church was open every weekend but was closed from Labor Day-Memorial Day because of a small number of people in attendance. Beginning in the early 70's, Masses were celebrated from May-October. By 1984, St. Jude's was opened from the second Sunday of March until the Sunday after Thanksgiving. With the growth of the Catholic population in our area, St. Jude's held a regular weekend schedule by the late 1980's. St. Jude's became St. Jude The Apostle Parish on November 30, 2002, when Bishop Michael Saltarelli formally dedicated the Church as an independent parish and assigned Rev. James D. Hreha as its Founding Pastor. Since that time it has become a vibrant parish, offering a variety of ministries and has grown to 1310 families as of March 2006.