Ordinariate Mass Comes to Evangelize Portland, U.S. Capital for “No Religion” in February

PORTLAND, Oregon – The Portland Anglican Patrimony Society is hosting an Ordinariate Mass on February 22, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter in the Catholic Church, at Holy Rosary parish.

The Ordinariate Mass, celebrated with Divine Worship: The Missal, will be held at Holy Rosary Church and Dominican Priory (375 NE Clackamas Street) at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 22. Liturgical music will be provided by Cantores in Ecclesia. A wine and cheese reception in Siena Hall will follow the Divine Worship Mass.

The Portland Anglican Patrimony Society involves a core group of families aiming to build a community that meets the Ordinariate’s prerequisites in Architects of Communion before they can request the bishop establish them as an official community-in-formation.

In fact, the Portland Anglican Patrimony Society is at ground zero of a city that fits the Ordinariate’s evangelizing mandate from Pope Francis. Portland is known as America’s most religiously unaffiliated metro area, the “atheist capital of the northwest” with 42% of its residents identifying as having “no religion.”

Kevin Greenlee, coordinator for the Portland Anglican Patrimony Society told the ACS that the group aims to build critical mass necessary to have an official community with a dedicated Ordinariate priest that can unleash more Catholic evangelization in the Greater Portland area using the gifts of the Anglican patrimony.

Although the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter celebrates its patronal feast by transferring it to the nearest Sunday, Greenlee said the chancery gave them permission to celebrate the feast on its date in the universal calendar.

“I was raised Pentecostal, but entered Anglicanism during college and practiced it for more than a decade,” he said. Greenlee then became Catholic, and currently works as a parish business manager in Vancouver, Washington just across the Columbia River from Portland. 

“In 2017, when I was entering the Church, I formed the Anglican Patrimony Society alongside some other former Anglicans in order to try and maintain and build the Anglican Patrimony within the greater Portland area,” Greenlee said.

They have held Evening Prayer regularly since 2017, at first monthly at Holy Rosary, and then transitioning to a Monday – Thursday online service since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The group has also hosted a number of Divine Worship liturgies, including Masses, Baptisms, Confirmations and Weddings in the Ordinariate Use, offered by Father Gabriel Mosher, O.P. at the request of the canonical members of the Ordinariate.

The Portland Anglican Patrimony Society has a website and newsletter to mobilize persons interested in the Ordinariate and the Catholic Church’s Anglican patrimony as they gain steam emerging from the pandemic.

For more information on the Portland Anglican Patrimony Society, visit ordinariatepdx.com/.
 

Peter Jesserer Smith is the vice president of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society and editor of the ACS St. Peter's Rambler.