Portland in Oregon, Archdiocese of (PORTLAND IN OREGON, ARCIDIOCESI DI)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PORTLAND IN OREGON, ARCHDIOCESE of. — An archdiocese and city in the State of Oregon, U.S.A. By an indult of the Holy See dated 28 Feb. 1836, the county of Oregon north of the American frontier was united 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 archdio-

Article illustration — PORTLAND IN OREGON, ARCHDIOCESE of — Aerial view of the city.
(phot. U.S.I.S.)

cese there are 2 abbeys, 281 priests, of whom 156 are religious belonging to 10 different congregations, 97 parishes, 15 chapels, 43 missions, 14 women’s 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 Holy Cross), 2 orphanages, and 8 hospitals.

At the request of the local Catholics, Msgr. Signay, bishop of Québec, sent them the priests Norberto Blanchet and Modesto Demers, and on 17 Apr. 1838 appointed Blanchet his vicar general. The latter left Montréal by canoe on 3 May 1838 and, after traveling 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 Fr. J. de Smet also went to Oregon. The Rev. Norberto Blanchet established his first mission at S. Paolo on the Willamette River and opened the first church in Oregon on 6 Jan. 1839. The boundaries between Canada and the United States had not yet been clearly defined, and the territory was under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Québec (Canada) and S. Louis in the United States. The two bishops requested that an independent apostolic vicariate be erected, which took place on 1 Dec. 1843 with the appointment of Msgr. Norberto 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, the archbishop’s brother, was consecrated bishop of Walla Walla (later suppressed on 31 Apr. 1850 with the creation of Nasqually), and Msgr. M. Demers was made 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. consists of the dioceses of Boise and Baker City.

BIBL.: E. V. O' Hara, Oregon City, in Cath. Enc., X, p. 293; J. G. Shea, Hist. of the Cath. Church in the Unit. States, IV, New York 1886, pp. 321–28; L. Le Jeune, Oregon, in Dict. général du Canada... Ottawa 1932; The official cath. direct., 1950, New York 1950, pp. 174–77. Gastone Carrière