Marie Langenes
St. Andrew Parish has a long history of activism going back 50 years. It is valuable for us to periodically stop and reflect on our mission. More than 50 years ago, encouraged by our pastor Fr. Bert Griffin, we started on a social justice path. Fr. Leo Remington was also at St. Andrew in the early 1970s because the bishop sent him here as a punishment. (See Leo’s story in “history of St. Andrew”).
Health Help Center (1973): Mary Ann Dickey was recruited by Fr. Bert Griffin. When she came here to have a look at where the clinic would be, she found it would be in the basement of the school where there was no running water. Our very intelligent pastor said, “Can’t you just run a hose down there?” The clinic was established in a house here on the block. Mary Ann Dickey, Mary Anderson, Gayle Washington were directors with volunteer doctors and nurses and a Jesuit Volunteer, Suzy Happ. St. Andrew clinic and the Black Panther clinic on Williams Ave. shared funding sources and supplies.
St.Andrew Legal Clinic also started in the early 1970s. Tom and Anne Caruso and Keith Raines were the founders. Sanding, painting, getting used furniture and paying the bills was done by parishioners.
St. Vincent de Paul and St. Andrew began working together in the early 1970s – food, rent, utilities, and the Clothes Closet. Carol Bitz volunteered at our pantry when Hunter Biden was a Jesuit Volunteer at St. Andrew. The two of them went to the main Food Bank to pick up the weekly order for food. They then filled paper bags and delivered them to people’s homes. At first Carol thought he was Biden Hunter instead of Hunter Biden.
All done by people In the pews
Gordon Dickey (newly ordained 3 yrs.) organized neighborhood kids and was instrumental in getting the National Guard to bring trucks to clean up the area. Lunch was served after the clean up in our community center.
Fr. Bert Griffin was instrumental in forming the Albina Ministerial Alliance, pastors representing pre-dominantly African American congregations in N and NE Portland. At the time most churches in the neighborhood were African American and St. Andrew itself had many African American members. When Angela Davis’ Mother spoke, she filled our community center—standing room only.
St. Andrew was a founding member of POP (Portland Organizing Project) which became Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good. MACG organizes listening sessions, STAR gatherings, and started Puentes/Bridges, all for relationship building. MACG sponsored a 9 month course “Reckoning With Racism”- how to dismantle institutional racism in our parish. In 2024, the course was “Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization” focusing on Indigenous peoples.
A policy accomplishment of MACG is saving mobile home parks from being sold and developed. There are 14 mobile home parks in our city and the people living in them are still in their homes because MACG organized a postcard writing campaign and MACG members picked up people and took them downtown to a city council meeting to show the faces of who would lose their homes.
MACG work done by people in the pews.
We as a parish voted to be a Sanctuary church in the 1980’s after hearing from refugees fleeing death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala and the Contra war in Nicaragua. St. Andrew and other sanctuary churches in the area supported a Guatemalan family. An El Salvadoran man lived in the basement of the rectory.
St. Andrew hosts a Mayan Mass each 1st Saturday of the month.
In 2017, 350 of us voted to affirm Sanctuary status.
All done by the people in these pews.
The Spanish-speaking community has been with us 30+ years; noon Mass started in 1992. We are enriched by bi-lingual celebrations, picnics, camping trips, language classes, and learnings on sanctuary, immigration, and Know Your Rights.
Black Parishioners were surveyed in 1991 – Here were four take-aways: ensure minority involvement in all activities, display more minority art, more evangelization in the neighborhood needed. They asked for better white attendance at traditional black bible revivals.
White Privilege Survey was published in 1989. We did the survey during the homily and then had small group discussion after Mass in the community center. Two hundred of us spent a full retreat day on the White Privilege Survey. Here are two examples from that survey:
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
I can be pretty sure if I ask to talk to the person in charge, I will be facing a person of my race.
We held several Forums to review the Bishops’1979 Pastoral Letter Brothers & Sisters to Us and Dr. Bob Hughley’s paper in response. We adopted an anti-racism statement as an official position of our Parish: our recommendations (2 pgs.) were the agenda of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council in June 2001. Lou Boston and Marie Langenes were on that council which was advisory for Bishop Vlazny.
Our George Floyd altar displayed photos of those killed by police. Now we have a new Black Lives Matter banner. How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram Kendi was our all parish reads in 2021. 60 parishioners formed book groups to read and discuss The Third Reconstruction by Rev. Dr. William Barber. Many in this parish had a 3 hour training on how to be a White Ally with a toolkit by Dr. David Campt.
Annually, we have an Awards Mass with a homily honoring Rev. Dr. MLK. The awards go to a parishioner and a community member who have done and are doing social justice work.
Black Lives Matter demonstrations took place over many months starting in summer of 2020, and continue today every Thursday noon-12:30 pm beside the church on Alberta St.
All done by the people in the pews
Welcome the Whole Family committee started in 1996. We held town hall meetings and hosted a diocesan-wide workshop on the Bishops’ letter “Always Our Children.” We as a parish explicitly welcomed all members of the Christian family regardless of sexual orientation or gender.
Many march in the Pride Parade each year starting in 2001. Carol Bitz, Sharon Bishop, Kayreen Burns, and Mary Ann Dickey made the All Are Welcome banner.
One Spirit One Call promoted justice for women in the Church. 700 women from 54 parishes attended 10 events. St. Andrew and St. Francis women were lead organizers.
Nativity School started with a founders group led by Scott Powers. They discussed who would be invited to be students, those top performers in the neighborhood schools or students who are struggling. The building was a mess, not really in use from when the school closed in 1986. The building was remodeled, and in 2001, the Jesuit middle school started serving low-income families of all faiths, and is tuition-free.
In 2008-2009, Parishioners became ambassadors for the “campaign for the community”. They met with people in their homes to talk about what parts of the mission they were most passionate about, what motivated them to invest in the parish and especially at that time in the community center. Over $2 million was raised, including $500k from the Terrell family.
We were not alone in all these endeavors. During the same time, St. Francis and Immaculate Heart were active in social justice work.
And we are very fortunate to have former St. Francis parishioners join our community since 2019. More social justice-minded people in the pews!