Church marks centennial in 'wild'

On June 19, 1903, Pope Leo the XIII issued a papal decree that continues to affect life in Oregon east of the Cascades.

Prior to that time, there was only one Catholic diocese covering all of Oregon. Pope Leo's decree recognized the need for change, and the Diocese of Baker was born.

The name came from Baker City, which was the principal Eastern Oregon population center of that era.

In 1903, Sisters was a tiny rural community at the confluence of Cascade Mountain trails, and Bend was merely that -- a bend along the Deschutes River.

One hundred years later, the Diocese of Baker now makes its home in the growing city of Bend, and the Catholics of Eastern Oregon are celebrating the centennial of Pope Leo's declaration.

Peggy Buselli, of St. Edward's Catholic Church in Sisters, is one of the committee heads and organizers of the diocesan celebration.

"We're having six regional events to spread the celebration out," she said.

Buselli explained that the first of the regional celebrations will take place next week, on Sunday, February 23, at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond.

All the parishes and missions from the Central Oregon area will gather to celebrate the confirmation of more than 230 new church members.

Similar centennial celebrations will take place in Ontario on March 2, Baker City on April 6, Hermiston on May 18, The Dalles on June 8 and Klamath Falls on June 15.

The centennial observance will culminate in a diocese-wide celebration at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds on October 10. More than 30 bishops from around the country are expected to attend the final celebration.

Pope Leo's creation of a diocese in Eastern Oregon was one of his last official acts, since he died a month later.

Prior to his death however, he managed a few more appointments, one of which was that of Charles J. O'Reilly as the first Bishop of the Diocese of Baker.

O'Reilly was elevated to the bishopric from his position as a parish priest in Portland.

According to early accounts, one of his peers is reputed to have said that the new bishop was "to be more pitied than applauded."

The reason, according to the Catholic Sentinel of Portland, the oldest Catholic newspaper on the West Coast (1870), was that the new diocese "was born in an effort to bring the Gospel to a large, wild and remote region."

Indeed, when the newly ordained bishop arrived in his equally new diocese, he had just 13 priests to minister to a far-flung "see" of 66,800 square miles.

A century later, Bishop O'Reilly's successor is Robert Vasa, the fifth Bishop of Baker.

Vasa set the tone for the Diocesan Centennial.

"The diocese and parishes we see today are built on the deep and abiding Faith, Hope and Charity of those who struggled and built during the first hundred years of our history," said Vasa, whose allusion to the 19th Century names for the Three Sisters was probably not an accident.

Vasa noted the church's present day challenge "to build a genuine City of God in the midst of an increasingly secularized society.

"Here we resolve to build on the legacy of the past," Vasa said, "but to create also a new legacy for the new century of believers."

For further information on any of the centennial events, contact Father Jim Logan or Peggy Buselli at the Diocesan Office in Bend at 388-4004.