Portland, OR parishes

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arieh0310

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Hello Portlanders,

I am getting close to converting and am looking for an orthodox parish. My wife is a little uneasy about exploring Catholicism and I don’t want to scare her off with a heterodox pastor.

What I am looking for is a parish that has a pastor loyal to all that the Church teaches and celebrates a reverent liturgy that follows the GIRM (no innovation).

Anyone have any suggestions? (preferably on the west side, I live in Beaverton)
 
I am an expert on most Portland Parishes!!!

Unfortunately, you don’t have anything particularly great out on the west side.

Of the three parishes you have out there (St. Matthew’s in Hillsboro, St. Cecilia’s in Beaverton, and Holy Trinity in Beaverton), I can’t particularly reccomend one over the other. However, St. Cecilia’s has Fr. O’Brien as vicar, who is a good man. I think Holy Trinity has Fr. Mike Vukey as their vicar, who’s another good man, although I didn’t know the parish as a whole. St. Matthew’s is run by the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, a very good order. Fr. Hugo is their vicar, who I also knew when he was a seminarian as a good man.

Unfortunately, I don’t know any of their pastors, so I couldn’t recommend any of them as completely orthodox, although I’m personally comfortable with St. Cecilia’s and St. Matthew’s.

If you’re willing to drive further, Holy Rosary parish in downtown Portland is famous for being extremely orthodox, with their 11:00 a.m. mass being very similar to what you see on EWTN. They’re run by a group of strong Dominicans.

St. Patrick’s under the Freemont Bridge is pretty orthodox as well, although there’s been some internal politics between parishoners and their new pastor. Similarly, Immaculate Heart Parish, also downtown, is very orthodox, and is strongly multi-cultural if you’re looking for that kind of thing.

Finally, St. Bridgetta’s up past Forest Park still does the Tridentine Mass.

If you’re towards the South end of beaverton, you could also try Our Lady of the Lake parish in Lake Oswego, which I’ve heard good things about too.

That should be everything you ever wanted to know 😛
Josh
 
Josh,

Thanks for the suggestions, I may try St Cecilia. I have actually attended mass at St. Matthews when Fr. Hugo was the celebrant. I enjoyed it and thought it was a reverent service. However, on their parish website I noticed that they offer yoga meditation :mad: . I was quite dissappointed.

Has anyone heard anything about St Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Aloha? It is right around the corner from my house.
 
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arieh0310:
However, on their parish website I noticed that they offer yoga meditation :mad: . I was quite dissappointed.
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Wow… I missed that. Yeah, that’s a flag for me too.
Has anyone heard anything about St Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Aloha? It is right around the corner from my house
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Actually… I haven’t… that’s really odd. I tried to go to every Parish when I was living in Beaverton, but I never heard about that one.

Sorry.
Josh
 
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arieh0310:
Has anyone heard anything about St Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Aloha? It is right around the corner from my house.
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Oh, my goodness. That’s an interesting parish. I work with a guy who is a leader there, converted a couple years ago to Catholicism. Of course, he had been receiving communion fo 10 years or so. Well, if it was actually the Eucharist I don’t know. You see, they would take turns baking the bread to be broken. And what was left was quite literally thrown to the birds outside. There are no pews, no kneelers, to alter really…just a bunch of folding chairs and a table in front. People come in with their lattes and doughnuts for this fellowship…

…need I go on? Their on my list of places to infiltrate and reform :cool:

Holy Rosary is certainly the most orthodox parish in the whole area, with people driving as far a 100 miles to come to mass there. The only drawback to it is the drive for most people, and the lack of a sense of community. Most people seem to keep to themselves. But it is a moving mass, very reverent (still have a communion rail even), and a beautifully restored church building.

St. Cecilias is allright…kinda middle of the road. Holy Trinity is a pretty charismatic church, with a full band, drums, guitars, keyboard…lots of hands in the air and an upbeat rithym but not much reverence.

If you’re on the west side of Portland, I suggest St. Edward Parish in North Plains. Its a farm community, but the church is growing in size. A nice sense of community there. Plenty of people of all ages, including young families. The Pastor is Bishop Steiner, a good man. It may have some slight modern tendencies (i.e. unnecessary Eucharistic Ministers, and some people hold hands during the Our Father), but they sing regular hymns, kneel at the consecration, are quiet coming into church, have confession once a week, have eucharistic adoration occassionally, a tabernacle right off the altar, and is generally pretty reverent. I like it.

I’ve lived in the Portland area my whole life. Any other parishes you want to know about, I’m happy to offer my two cents worth.
 
Chris W:
Oh, my goodness. That’s an interesting parish. I work with a guy who is a leader there, converted a couple years ago to Catholicism. Of course, he had been receiving communion fo 10 years or so. Well, if it was actually the Eucharist I don’t know. You see, they would take turns baking the bread to be broken. And what was left was quite literally thrown to the birds outside. There are no pews, no kneelers, to alter really…just a bunch of folding chairs and a table in front. People come in with their lattes and doughnuts for this fellowship…need I go on?
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Not true! Your information is very old and outdated. While it’s true in the past this parish did have some problems, the pastor for the last five years or so and who is there now is very orthodox. There are kneelers, the tabernacle was moved up to the front of the church, the liturgy is very reverent. You better go check it out for yourself.

And please be careful about judging other parishes and parishioners.
 
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Didi:
Not true! Your information is very old and outdated. While it’s true in the past this parish did have some problems, the pastor for the last five years or so and who is there now is very orthodox. There are kneelers, the tabernacle was moved up to the front of the church, the liturgy is very reverent. You better go check it out for yourself.

And please be careful about judging other parishes and parishioners.
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That’s good news! My co-worker says there has been a recent renewal of sorts there (I understood it had been just in the last year or so)…that’s wonderful. Glad to hear it. My feeling from him is that the people there are earnest in their desire to live the Catholic faith and that the problems are/were for the most part merely a lack of direction and education, rather than a refusal to abide by Catholic teaching.

BTW. Any parish that has problems like the ones that were at that parish, are rarely (in my opinion) a problem with the parishioners themselves, but rather, are the result of the leadership. We all need education and direction from good pastors. Sounds like you have that now and I’m glad to hear it. 👍
 
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Didi:
And please be careful about judging other parishes and parishioners.
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So I did some more asking around (feeling bad for having offended you, Didi) and am told the new pastor is Fr. Urbanski? He’s from the parish in Roy if I’m thinking of the right guy…and quite orthodox if I remember him correctly.

Don’t hold it against me, k? :o If a person is considering coming into the faith and asks for a referral for a parish, I want to dissuade them from a parish that I think isn’t on track, and recommend parishes that I know are…so they get off to the best start.
 
ChrisW –

Yes, Fr. Louie Urbanski is the pastor and he is wonderful. Very orthodox and obedient. His homilies are awesome. He actually speaks about sin and hell (in a loving way), the horror of abortion, the sin of contraception. He’s not afraid at all to speak the truth.

The parish has changed a lot over the past five years and I would agree with your assessment that nobody really set out to do things that were sinful; many were just led astray unfortunately.

Check out a Sunday Mass sometime soon – you will be pleasantly surprised!
 
I know the music director at St. Pius X parish in west Portland very well.

While the music director before him did a lot of “interesting” things, he’s brought back traditional hymns, use of the organ and strong choral works.

Things are becoming more reverent, particularly at the 10:30AM Mass, but it takes time.

Holy Rosary is definately your best bet. The 11AM Mass is particularly nice.

Immaculate Heart in North Portland offers a Latin Mass (Novus Ordo) pretty much every Saturday night at 5:30PM for the vigil. A choir I sing with provides Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony. You can find out the schedule at cantoresinecclesia.org.

St. Birgitta in NW Portland offers the Tridentine Mass at 8AM and a fairly traditional Novus Ordo English Mass at 10AM.

The Cathedral isn’t too bad…the 11AM Mass there has the Cathedral Choir. When they do decent music they are great.

Those are some of the good ones…now…some to avoid:

Holy Trinity - The priest is good, but he’s fairly new. He has a lot of past issues to deal with at Holy Trinity.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - Past posts make it clear why you’ll want to steer clear of this place.

St. Philip Neri - On the east side…the Paulists have done quite a number on this place.

St. Francis of Assisi - also on the east side. run by a “parish administrator” who is a woman named Valerie. I recall them getting in a bit of trouble for praying for “John our Bishop and Valerie our Pastor” during the prayers of the faithful.

St. Andrews - North Portland. Pastor may be a registered member of the Communist party. A beautiful old church that has been gutted so that the altar is in the middle of the church and chairs are on both sides. During the papal interregnum, the pastor asked the people what they wanted from the next pope during a homily. One person said “equality for women” and the whole congregation stood and applauded. ugh.

That’s a few. Good luck in your search!!
 
St Francis in Sherwood might be worth looking into, but it is about 20 minutes to 1/2 hour drive from where you are. We have 24 hour adoration year round, among other things.
 
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NetNuncio:
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - Past posts make it clear why you’ll want to steer clear of this place.
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You might want to do a little more investigation before you cast stones. This parish has a strong subset within the Hispanic community, and had a strong subset within the Vietnamese community until they moved to form their own parish.

A lot of the issues arose with the founding pastor and the community itself, and was exacerbated by the second priest who was there a very short time. The current pastor has done much to bring it to normalcy, and many of the troublesome parishoners have moved on.

Avoiding the parish because of issues 10 years ago is not always the best reccomendation.
 
my same buddy who is music director at St. Pius X was music director at St. Francis in Sherwood. Not sure what the music or liturgy is like there now.

As far as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton goes, I just speak from experience…which goes back about 4 years ago…if it’s better now, praise God!
 
Thanks everyone for the (name removed by moderator)ut. I am actually going to have lunch with Fr. Urbanski today (the pastor of St Elizabeth Ann Seton). I am going to ask some very direct questions and let him know what I am looking for in my home parish; he can either tell me to look elsewhere or that I can call this parish home.

We will see. I would love to go to a parish within my community but I seem to be more drawn to traditional liturgies (like TLM or Latin NO, Gregorian chants, communion rails, smells and bells, etc). I am in a bit of a quandry, we will see where I land.
 
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NetNuncio:
my same buddy who is music director at St. Pius X was music director at St. Francis in Sherwood. Not sure what the music or liturgy is like there now.
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Has the music director at St Pious X changed in the recent past? Last time I was there it was a guy named Tim something (can’t remember the last name) and I thought he’d been there a while.

…just curious.
 
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arieh0310:
I am actually going to have lunch with Fr. Urbanski today (the pastor of St Elizabeth Ann Seton). I am going to ask some very direct questions and let him know what I am looking for in my home parish; he can either tell me to look elsewhere or that I can call this parish home.

We will see. I would love to go to a parish within my community but I seem to be more drawn to traditional liturgies (like TLM or Latin NO, Gregorian chants, communion rails, smells and bells, etc). I am in a bit of a quandry, we will see where I land.
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Please let us know what you think after talking to Fr. Urbanski (he seemed like a very respectable priest when I saw him last in Roy or Verbort…can’t remember which…and that’s been a few years ago).

Thx,
Chris W
 
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otm:
The current pastor has done much to bring it to normalcy, and many of the troublesome parishoners have moved on. QUOTE] Still asking around about that parish, I have heard they lost a sizeable amount of parishioners with the recent changes (improvements)…as much a 20-25%? If so, that is indicative I think of real reform.

I think Karl Keating spoke about that phenomenon in an e-letter a while back, describing how a parish may lose parishioners in the intial stages of a return to orthodoxy, but then grows by leaps and bounds once established in that new atmosphere.

That’s encouraging. 🙂 But, I suppose it takes a while to overcome a less than great reputation. I hope it does grow as a result. What a good example it would be for other parishes who might fear losing parishioners if they too return to orthodoxy.
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Chris W:
Please let us know what you think after talking to Fr. Urbanski (he seemed like a very respectable priest when I saw him last in Roy or Verbort…can’t remember which…and that’s been a few years ago).
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I met with Fr Urbanski and he is a great guy. We talked about sin, objective truth, fidelity to what the Church teaches, following the GIRM, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, false ecumenism, Sacraments, etc, etc, etc. He was instrumental in having kneelers installed in the parish, installing a crucifix (they didn’t have one for 10-12 years :eek: ), and how by returning to orthodoxy the “founders” of the church left and the parish grew.

I just may call this parish home, but I will have to attend mass. Like I said before, I really enjoy TLM or NO with all the “smell and bells” so I will have to see how Fr Urbanski does it.
 
Chris W:
Has the music director at St Pious X changed in the recent past? Last time I was there it was a guy named Tim something (can’t remember the last name) and I thought he’d been there a while.

…just curious.
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There is a guy named Tim who is music director of the Youth choir at the 6PM Mass, but the music director has changed. A woman was there for 16 years or so and she retired a year or so ago. The new music director is a young guy named Adam . He was music director at St. Francis in Sherwood for a few years and at St. Birgitta for a short time as well.
 
The drive is worth it. I would drive from Mt Angel Seminary on Sundays to go to Holy Rosary Parish. It is one of the most amazing parishes that I have ever been to and I have attended mass at different parishes from east coast to west.
 
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