May 14, 2004
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information, Contact:
Bud Bunce (503) 233-8373
bbunce@archdpdx.org
Oregon Catholic Conference celebrates 25 years of service
The Oregon Catholic Conference will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of its 1979 founding with a 9:00 a.m. Mass on Saturday, May 22, 2004 at the Loyola Jesuit Center in Portland. Archbishop John G. Vlazny, Archbishop of Portland in Oregon and President of the Oregon Catholic Conference Board of Directors, will preside at the Mass and the celebration. The Oregon Catholic Conference is a joint office of the Archdiocese of Portland and the Diocese of Baker enabling the Catholic bishops of Oregon to address common matters and issues of concern in the public policy arena. Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Bishop of the Diocese of Baker, is the Vice President of the Oregon Catholic Conference. Portland Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth D. Steiner is a Board Member. Father Dennis O'Donovan, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Portland, serves as the Secretary -Treasurer of the Conference. Now in his 20th year of service to the Conference, Robert J. Castagna is the General Counsel and Executive Director of the Oregon Catholic Conference.
Archbishop Cornelius M. Power of Portland and Bishop Thomas J. Connolly of the Diocese of Baker organized the Oregon Catholic Conference and held its first meeting in Portland on January 17, 1979. Father Joseph Jacobberger, now pastor of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, was the Conference's initial Secretary-Treasurer. Portland attorneys Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, now a U. S. Court of Appeals Judge for the 9th Circuit, and the late F.Leo Smith were the incorporators who, on December 21, 1978 signed the original Articles of Incorporation of the Oregon Catholic Conference and filed them on January 9, 1979 in the office of the Corporation Commissioner of the State of Oregon.
Since its inception, the Archbishops of Portland in Oregon have served as the President of the Conference's Board of Directors: Archbishop William J. Levada, now the Archbishop of San Francisco; then Archbishop Francis E. George, now Francis Cardinal George of Chicago; and the present Archbishop of Portland, Archbishop John G. Vlazny. The bishops of the Diocese of Baker have served as the Conference's Vice President: Bishop Thomas J. Connolly and Bishop Robert F. Vasa. Robert J. Castagna has served as the Conference's General Counsel and Executive Director since October 1, 1984.
During the past 25 years, the Oregon Catholic Conference has been engaged actively in the public policy debates in this state on issues with a moral component or dimension to advance the common good for all Oregonians and on issues touching upon the life of the Catholic Church in society. The Conference identifies public policy issues and advocates before the Oregon Legislative Assembly and the Executive branch of state government from a consistent ethic of life framework. The framework of the consistent ethic of life is constructed on the central value of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the person across the spectrum of public policy issues, from conception until natural death, and from this ethic of life flows the Catholic Church's analysis, reflection, advocacy and testimony on public policy issues.
Over the years, the Oregon Catholic Conference has played a leading advocacy role before the Oregon Legislative Assembly on protecting the lives of and services provided to poor, weak and vulnerable persons.
The Conference has advocated the defense of human life, particularly as
related to issues of end-of-life treatment, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
In 2001, the Conference initiated the Campaign for Fairness, ultimately
joined by a total of 24 faith-based direct service, advocacy and organized
labor organizations successfully urging the Oregon Legislature to strengthen
the social safety net of services provided to Oregon's vulnerable persons.
More than 17,000 postcards were delivered to the Capitol to legislators
and the Governor's office to urge restoration of funding human services'
programs. In 2003, the Oregon Catholic Conference joined as one of the
convener religious bodies in forming the Oregon Faith Roundtable Against
Hunger. During its years of advocacy and testimony before the Oregon Legislature,
the Conference has been instrumental in restoring public assistance benefits
for two-parent unemployed families, securing the extension of unemployment
insurance benefits for workers who had exhausted their benefits, introducing
and obtaining the state earned income tax credit for low income wage earners,
advocating for decent housing and collective bargaining rights for farmworkers,
increasing and protecting increases in the minimum wage, seeking additional
funding for affordable housing, attempting to preserve general assistance,
emergency assistance, medically needy benefits, disability and elderly
services and services for poor and vulnerable persons, resisting attempts
to expand the
application of the death penalty, opposing
the explicit rationing of health care services for the poor--primarily
poor women and children and opposing the legalization of physician-assisted
suicide. The Oregon Catholic Conference has emerged as the leading voice
at the Legislature in calling for Oregon's public policy to recognize in
law the conscience rights of individuals, particularly the constitutional
rights of freedom of religion for health care providers, including health
care institutions.
The Oregon Catholic Conference also has been a leading participant and advocacy voice for providing the necessary financial resources to preserve the safety net of social services in Oregon, to exempt those living below poverty from a state income tax obligation and for providing the educational opportunities and resources necessary to educate the children of the state.
As the Conference looks forward to its future engagement in Oregon's public policy debates, the Conference reflects on where it and the people of this state have journeyed over the past 25 years and asks God's blessings on and wisdom for its leaders and people in the years ahead.