Bishop Sample to Portland! Updated

Just saw the news on Vatican Information Service:

He says the EF Mass!

Vatican City, 29 January 2013 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father appointed Bishop Alexander King Sample as archbishop of the archdiocese of Portland (area 76,937, population 3,296,705, Catholics 412,725, priests 300, permanent deacons 72, religious 653), Oregon, USA. Bishop Sample, previously bishop of Marquette, Michigan, USA, was born in Kalispell, Montana, USA, in 1960, was ordained to the priesthood in 1990, and received episcopal ordination in 2006. In the national bishops' conference he currently serves on the Subcommittees on Native American Catholics and on the Catechism. He is also vice-postulator for the cause for canonisation of Venerable Frederic Baraga, first bishop of the Diocese of Marquette. He succeeds Archbishop John George Vlazny, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

More later...


Update:

I can’t think of much better news to wake up to than the announcement that Bishop Alexander Sample has been appointed as Archbishop of Portland, Oregon! (I wrote about him here a few months back.)

This is simply GREAT news for the Church, and for those of us in the Diocese of Baker who yearn for a true leader to guide this part of the country back toward orthodoxy!

He’ll have his hands full, of course; Portland is a bastion of “gay pride” parishes and pastors, not to mention the feminist “wymyn-priest” proponents. It will be an uphill battle to rid the Archdiocese of the vermin that infest it, but I have a feeling Bishop Sample will be up to the task!

I have heard rumors that some of the liberal-modernist-progressive types in the Archdiocese have been planning an escape route for months – whispers of Bishop Sample’s appointment-to-come have been circulating for quite some time.

Bishop Sample’s appointment is good news for the Diocese of Baker, too. We have a new bishop without any experience whatsoever, and rumors here suggest that he’s been following the dubious guidance of Archbishop Vlazny and retired Bishop Skylstadt, who served as our Apostolic Administrator for over a year (and succeeded in completely undermining a blossoming movement toward liturgical reverence and reform here). 

The Archbishop of Portland serves as the Ordinary of the archdiocese, of course. He is also the Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Portland; the suffragan dioceses of this province include those in Oregon, Idaho, & Montana. Those would be the dioceses of Baker (eastern Oregon), Boise (Idaho), Helena (Montana), and Great Falls-Billings (Montana). I don’t know much about the bishops in Montana, but I do know that the bishop of Idaho has been less than enthusiastic about providing the EF Mass to those who desire it – and I know of at least two groups in Idaho who fit into that neglected category.

Bishop Sample, as Archbishop, will be able to exert some influence on these other bishops. He’ll be able to set the standard, as well as offer fraternal episcopal support to bishops who come under attack when they veer to the right on Church matters. Think about it: Archbishop Sartain in Seattle has been fighting the good fight against “gay marriage” in that state; he could use a vote of support from a fellow archbishop! And of course there’s Archbishop Cordileone down south in San Francisco…

Could it be that the Pacific Northwest might be on its way to becoming at least a little less of a spiritual wasteland?! Let us hope and pray.

Please, keep Bishop Sample in your prayers. He will need them in Portland.

Here's a "Sample" video: