The Oregon missionaries were pioneers who settled in the Oregon Country of North America starting in the 1830s dedicated to bringing Christianity to local Native Americans. There had been missionary efforts prior to this, such as those sponsored by the Northwest Company with missionaries from the Church of England starting in 1819. The Foreign Mission movement was already 15 years underway by 1820, but it was difficult to find missionaries willing to go to Oregon, as many wanted to go to the east, to India or China. It was not until the 1830s, when a schoolmaster from Connecticut, Hall Jackson Kelley, created his "American Society for the Settlement of the Oregon Country," that more interest and support for Oregon missionaries grew. Around the same time, four Nez Perce arrived in St. Louis in the fall of 1831, with accounts differencing as to if these travelers were asking for “the book of life,” an idea used by Protestant missionaries, or if they asked for “Blackrobes,” meaning Jesuits, thus Catholic missionaries. Either way this inspired Christian missionaries to travel to the Oregon Territory. Oregon missionaries played a political role, as well as a religious one, as their missions established US political power in an area in which the Hudson’s Bay Company, operating under the British government, maintained a political interest in the Oregon country. Such missionaries had an influential impact on the early settlement of the region, establishing institutions that became the foundation of United States settlement of the Pacific Northwest.
St. James Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral located at 804 Ninth Avenue in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Seattle and the seat of its archbishop, currently Paul D. Etienne. The cathedral is named for St. James the Greater, patron saint of the archdiocese, and is the third church in the territory presently known as the Archdiocese of Seattle to bear the name.
Formerly known as Diocese of Nesqually, 1850-1907.
The Diocese of Spokane is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the U.S. state of Washington. Headquartered in Spokane, the diocese encompasses Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln, Spokane, Adams, Whitman, Franklin, Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin Counties. Its cathedral is the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane. On March 12, 2015, the Holy See announced Thomas Anthony Daly, the first auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of San José, to be the seventh Bishop of Spokane.
The Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau is an ecclesiastical territory of the Roman Catholic Church that covers the entire state of Alaska.
The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It encompasses the western part of the state of Oregon, from the summit of the Cascades to the Pacific Ocean. The Archbishop of Portland serves as the Ordinary of the archdiocese and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Portland whose suffragan dioceses cover the entire three states of Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. The dioceses of the province include Baker, Boise (Idaho), Helena, and Great Falls-Billings.
François Norbert Blanchet was a French Canadian-born missionary priest and prelate of the Catholic Church who was instrumental in establishing the Catholic Church presence in the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first Catholic priests to arrive in what was then known as the Oregon Country and subsequently became the first bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Oregon City.
The Diocese of Helena is the Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in western Montana with its cathedral located in Helena. The diocese was created from the year-old Apostolic Vicariate of Montana on March 7, 1884, while Montana was still a territory. The Diocese of Helena is a suffragan diocese in ecclesiastical province of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, a province that encompasses Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver is a Roman Catholic Latin archdiocese that includes part of the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Catholic-Hierarchy.org is an online database of bishops and dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches. The website is not officially sanctioned by the Church. It is run as a private project by David M. Cheney in Kansas City.
The Diocese of Victoria is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its episcopal see is in Victoria. The diocese encompasses all of Vancouver Island and several nearby British Columbia islands. A suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Vancouver, the diocese's cathedral is St. Andrew's Cathedral and its present diocesan bishop is Gary Gordon.
James Peter Sartain, better known as Peter Sartain, is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle in Washington State from 2010 to 2019.
Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet was a French Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest who served as the first bishop of the now-defunct Diocese of Walla Walla and of the Diocese of Nesqually. Along with his elder brother and several other fellow French Canadian missionaries, Blanchet was instrumental in establishing the Catholic Church presence in the present-day U.S. state of Washington.
Joseph Jude Tyson is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been serving as the bishop of the Diocese of Yakima Washington State since 2011. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle in Washington State from 2005 to 2011.
Paul Dennis Étienne is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who is serving as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
The relationship between Pope Pius IX and the United States was an important aspect of the pontiff's foreign policy and Church growth program.
Edward John O'Dea was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Seattle from 1896 until his death in 1932; the diocese was called Nesqually until 1907.
Egidius Jünger, also spelled Aegidius Junger, was a German-born clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Nesqually from 1879 until his death in 1895, the only bishop of Western Washington born in Europe.
Monsignor Francis Xavier Prefontaine (1838–1909) was a French Canadian priest and missionary, an early resident in the pioneer days of Seattle, Washington, and a figure in the history of Seattle and the Puget Sound region of Washington State. He was Seattle's first resident Roman Catholic priest and built Seattle's first Catholic church.
North American Martyrs Parish is a Roman Catholic parish in Edmonds, Washington, served by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). The FSSP offers the Mass according to the form that was in use prior to the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Following the publication of Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in 2007, North American Martyrs Catholic Church became the first Tridentine Mass parish in Seattle to be directly supported by the Archdiocese of Seattle since Vatican II. Established as a quasi-parish, it was elevated to parish status in 2015. The parish is named after the North American Martyrs, eight Jesuit missionaries martyred in the mid-17th century.
