1810 to 1846 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. By 1829, Lucier had established a permanent land claim next to the
Willamette Fur Post near
French Prairie. At this time, the region was claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. In 1836, Lucier and 15 other Catholic settlers petitioned Auxiliary Bishop
Norbert Provencher, head of the church in present-day
Manitoba, to send a priest to their settlement. They constructed St. Paul's Church, the oldest church in Oregon, in St. Paul, Oregon, that same year. However, the British-owned
Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) which owned
fur trading concessions in the region, objected to Provencher establishing a Catholic mission in the
Willamette Valley. To appease the HBC, Provencher agreed to move the mission north of the
Columbia River into present-day Washington State. In 1838, he sent the missionary priests
François Norbert Blanchet and
Modeste Demers to
Fort Vancouver in Washington. In 1843, the
Vatican established the
Vicariate Apostolic of the
Oregon Territory, with Blanchet as its first
vicar apostolic. 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, Oregon, from
Belgium. Oregon City became the second American archdiocese, preceded only by the
Archdiocese of Baltimore. In 1853, the first Catholic church in Salem,
St. Joseph's, was founded. The Vatican erected the Vicariate Apostolic of
Idaho and
Montana in 1868, taking those territories from the Archdiocese of Oregon City. When Blanchet retired in 1880, Seghers succeeded him. In 1884, Seghers successfully petitioned the Vatican to reappoint him as bishop of Vancouver Island so that he could continue missionary work in Alaska.
1885 to 1928 To replace Seghers in Oregon City, Leo XiII appointed Bishop
William Gross from the
Diocese of Savannah as archbishop in 1885. Gross dedicated
St. Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland in 1885 and founded the
Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon order in 1886. Gross opened a senior citizens home in 1896 and
Mount Angel College in Saint Benedict in 1887.
St. Boniface Church in
Sublimity and a minor seminary were constructed in 1889. Gross presided over the Third Provincial Council of Oregon in 1891. In 1901, Christie obtained the former campus of Portland University, a Methodist institution. He traded the campus for a couple of archdiocesan properties and a payment of $1. Christie reopened the school as Columbia University, which is today the
University of Portland. In 1903, at Christie's request, the Vatican erected the
Diocese of Baker City, covering all of eastern Oregon. The archdiocese opened the Christie Home for Orphaned Girls in 1907 and dedicated
St. Mary's Church in
Mount Angel in 1912. The
Catholic Truth Society was established in 1922, and Christie successfully campaigned against an Oregon law that would eliminate
parochial schools, which was eventually settled by the
Supreme Court in
Pierce v. Society of Sisters. Following Christie's death in 1926,
Pope Pius XI named Auxiliary Bishop
Edward Howard from the Diocese of Davenport as the fifth archbishop of Oregon City.
1928 to 1974 On September 26, 1928, the Vatican renamed the Archdiocese of Oregon City as the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon because Portland had grown much larger than Oregon City. To avoid confusion with the
Diocese of Portland in Maine, the Vatican added "in Oregon" to the archdiocesan name. Bishop
Cornelius Power of Yakima succeeded him in 1974.
1974 to present During his tenure in
Portland, Power formed a five-year plan for the archdiocese and created an
endowment fund. He founded the Oregon Catholic Conference and held the first clergy and archdiocesan conventions. He reorganized the local curia,
Catholic Charities, and re-established
Catholic Truth Society of Oregon as the
Oregon Catholic Press. Power also encouraged ministries to
Spanish-speaking and
Southeast Asian residents. He retired in 1986. Auxiliary Bishop
William Levada of the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles was the next archbishop of Portland in Oregon, named by
Pope John Paul II in 1986. During his tenure in Portland, Levada helped to revitalize Mount Angel Seminary. He briefly taught at the seminary as well. He also reorganized
Catholic Charities, worked in outreach to the
Hispanic Catholic community, and renovated St. Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
Titular see of Oregon City In 1996 the title of Archbishop of Oregon City was revived as a
titular see; since 2009, the titular Archbishop has been
Joseph Augustine Di Noia.
Bankruptcy The
archdiocese's sexual abuse scandal prompted the archbishop to file for
Chapter 11 reorganization for the archdiocese on July 6, 2004. Portland became the first archdiocese or diocese to file for bankruptcy. Vlazny described his actions by saying, "This is not an effort to avoid responsibility. It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation."
Clergy sexual abuse settlements In April 2007, the archdiocese announced a settlement with sexual abuse victims and the bankruptcy court had approved a financial plan of reorganization. The archdiocese paid $71.45 million to 169 victims, averaging $342,000 each; this was the eighth-largest sexual abuse settlement by a Catholic diocese or archdiocese in American history. The bankruptcy filings listed 11 archdiocese priests as perpetrators of sexual abuse. In March 2011, the Oregon Jesuit Province agreed to pay $166.1 million in damages to nearly 500 victims of sexual abuse by Jesuit clergy. On August 6, 2016, World Spark, a retirement home provider run by the priest Michael Maslowsky, was forced to surrender documents showing that there had been numerous complaints of sex abuse against vulnerable residents at World Spark's St. Anthony Village elderly home, including some with dementia, between 2009 and 2016. By order, the documents were given to a plaintiff from a lawsuit which began in 2014. In 2018, Sample acknowledged the history of sex abuse in the archdiocese which he described as an "institutional and spiritual" failure, At the same time, it was reported that more than 100 sex abuse lawsuits were settled prior to the 2004 bankruptcy. ==Bishops==