Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon (Archidioecesis Portlandensis in Oregonia) is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in western Oregon in the United States.
This article is about the archdiocese of Portland, Oregon. For the diocese of Portland, Maine, see Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.
Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
Archidioecesis Portlandensis in Oregonia
The counties west of Wasco, Deschutes, and Klamath.
76,937 km2 (29,706 sq mi)
(as of 2016)
3,448,824
431,267[1] (12.5%)
124
- December 1, 1843 – Vicariate Apostolic of Oregon Territory
- July 24, 1846 – Elevated to Diocese of Oregon City
- July 29, 1850 – Elevated to Archdiocese of Oregon City
- September 26, 1928 – Name changed to Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
158
Peter Leslie Smith
The mother church of the archdiocese is St. Mary's cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland. As of 2023, the archbishop of Portland is Alexander Sample.
The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon has the following suffragan dioceses:
As published in the 2013 "Oregon Catholic Directory," the archdiocese served 412,725 Catholics (out of more than 3.3 million people). There were 150 diocesan priests, 144 religious priests, 79 permanent deacons, 388 women religious, and 78 religious brothers. The archdiocese had 124 parishes, 22 missions, one seminary, 40 elementary schools, ten secondary schools, and two Catholic colleges.
History[edit]
1810 to 1846[edit]
When the American expedition of 1810 entered the Willamette Valley of present-day Oregon, it included 13 French Canadian Catholics. Several of them, including the fur trader Étienne Lucier, decided to settle there.[2] By 1829, Lucier had established a permanent land claim next to the Willamette Fur Post near French Prairie.
In 1836, Lucier and 15 other Catholic settlers petitioned Bishop Norbert Provencher in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba to send a priest to their settlement. They constructed St. Paul's Church, the oldest church in present-day Oregon, in St. Paul, Oregon that same year.[3] However, the Hudson's Bay Company objected to the establishment of a Catholic mission in the Willamette Valley. In a compromise, Provencher agreed to establish the mission north of the Columbia River in present-day Washington State. In 1838, he sent the missionary priests François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers to Fort Vancouver.[3][4]
In 1843, the Vatican established the Vicariate Apostolic of the Oregon Territory with Blanchet as its first vicar apostolic.[5] Along with all of Oregon, the vicariate also included present day Idaho and Montana. The following year, Pierre-Jean DeSmet, along with other priests and a contingent of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, arrived in Astoria from Belgium.[3]