PORTLAND IN OREGON, Archdiocese of. - Archdiocese and city in the State of Oregon, U.S.A. By indult of the Holy See dated 28 Feb. 1836, Oregon County north of the American frontier was joined to the apostolic vicariate of Rivière Rouge (Canada).
The archdiocese today covers an area of 21,398 square miles with a total population (1940) of 878,693 inhabitants. Catholics number 94,786. In the archdiocese there are 2 abbeys, 281 priests of whom 156 are religious of 10 different congregations, 97 parishes, 15 chapels, 43 missions, 14 female congregations with 1,149 sisters, 1 diocesan seminary, 2 religious scholasticates, 3 colleges and universities (University of P., under the direction of the Fathers of the Holy Cross), 2 orphanages and 8 hospitals.
At the request of the local Catholics, Msgr. Signay, bishop of Québec, sent them the priests Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, and on 17 Apr. 1838 appointed Blanchet his vicar general. The latter left Montréal by canoe on 3 May 1838 and after more than 4,000 miles landed at Fort Vancouver on 24 Nov. 1838, accompanied by Demers as far as Rivière Rouge. The first Mass was celebrated in Oregon on Sunday 14 Oct. Two years later, in 1840, the Jesuit Father J. de Smet also went to Oregon. Rev. Norbert Blanchet established his first mission at St. Paul on the Willamette River and opened the first church in Oregon on 6 Jan. 1839. The boundaries between Canada and the United States were not yet well defined and the territory was under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Québec (Canada) and of St. Louis in the United States. The two bishops asked that an independent apostolic vicariate be erected, which took place on 1 Dec. 1843 with the appointment of Msgr. Norbert Blanchet.
On 24 July 1849, the apostolic vicariate was elevated to an archdiocese with the dioceses of Walla-Walla and Vancouver as suffragans. Msgr. Magloire Blanchet, brother of the archbishop, was consecrated bishop of Walla Walla (later suppressed on 31 Apr. 1850 with the creation of Nasqually) and Msgr. M. Demers was created bishop of Vancouver. The territory was divided on 3 March 1868 to form the apostolic vicariate of Idaho, which became the diocese of Boise on 25 Aug. 1893, and again in 1903 to form that of Baker City. By the apostolic constitution Ecclesiastum omnium sollicitudo of 26 Sept. 1928 (AAS, 21 [1929], pp. 649-51), Pius XI transferred the see from Oregon City to the industrial center of P., giving the diocese the title of P. in Oregon. The ecclesiastical province of P. is composed of the dioceses of Boise and Baker City.
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