St. Francis of Assisi Parish

St. Francis of Assisi Parish
1131 SW Oak Street, Portland

St. Francis of Assisi is a parish in the same vein as St. Andrew and St. Philip Neri.  It is, for lack of a better descriptor, a liberal parish.  The most startling thing, for me, was for the congregation to be greeted at the beginning of Mass not by the priest, but by a woman with long grey hair in a ponytail, wearing glasses and a green piece of clothing that I can only describe as a vestment.  By all appearances, she is a priestess.  For a while I thought she would be saying Mass.  Instead, she stood with the pastor during the entire service and led parts of the service.  Based on reading the website and bulletin, I believe her title is Pastoral Administrator. 

It would appear that one of the hallmarks of liberal parishes, along with an emphasis on social justice (which I support), a belief that women should be ordained (which I do not support), is a stressing of egalitarianism.  This "we are all the same," 'we are all equal" idea is anti-hierarchical and is expressed at St. Francis by listing their pastor not as "pastor" (a shepherd who leads his flock), but as "priest moderator."  And neither the parish bulletin nor its website lists Father Robert Krueger at the top, but several rungs down as if he is just one of many leaders in the church.  (On the website, the Pastoral Administrator gets first billing.)  As the website says:  "We are also unique in that we have a Pastor Administrator, Valerie Chapman, who sees to the daily management of the parish in every way except those duties only allowed by priests, namely celebrating Mass and administering the Sacraments."

The church building was built in 1931.  It is a wood and concrete structure located close-in eastside Portland.  It is on SW 12th Avenue between Pine and Oak streets, just three blocks south of E. Burnside Street.  The exterior of the church is not terribly attractive but the inside is quite nice.  The interior walls and ceiling are made of beautiful unpainted wood.  There is an attractive set of wooden Stations of the Cross and a few other nice artistic touches.  The altar is placed atop a good-sized unvarnished tree stump, obviously satisfying someone's back-to-nature aesthetics. 

At today's Mass there was an enthusiastic six-person choir supported by a pianist, guitarist and flutist.  A drumset was available to the flutist, but he only used brushes softly on the snare drum. 

In his homily, Father Krueger expounded upon Jesus' warning in Matthew that one "cannot serve God and mammon."  He talked about how scarcity can bring out the worst in us; that greed and hording are the results of anxiety over not having enough.  That instead we should follow Jesus' admonition not to "worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear." 

All well and good, but then Father Krueger started talking about the "attack on unions" in Wisconsin, where the governor is seeking to take away the unions' right to collective bargaining.  He said we should support the unions.  I am not so sure.  The conflict between unions and management is not about fairness, in my opinion, but about who can have a bigger share of the pie.  Management, despite not doing any labor, would like the biggest share.  The unions, despite not risking any capital nor coming up with the idea to form the entity, also wants the biggest share.  To say that Jesus supports workers over management does not make sense to me.  Why is the workers' desire for mammon any more noble than management's? 

Here is where the liberal ideal of egalitarianism comes close to Communism.  The liberal would like the workers' share of the pie to be much larger.  But carried to its logical end, this will kill the golden goose and impoverish the worker.  Achieving the right balance between workers and management, it seems to me, should be the goal of society at large.  Whether removing collective bargaining rights for State workers in Wisconsin would achieve that goal is not clear.  But it seems that State workers' wages and benefits have outpaced the private sector these last 20 years and some scaling back is appropriate.  The plight of today's State workers is pretty good.

The "Our Father" was sung with the entire congregation holding hands across the aisles.  The line, "Our Mother, who art in Heaven" was added to the prayer.  The kiss of peace, much like at St. Andrew, lasted something like five minutes, with everyone greeting everyone else.  It was a little chaotic for my taste, but I am sure it is a much-beloved practice of the parish

Although one can't learn much about such things by attending a single Mass, I want to touch upon St. Francis' social outreach.  According to St. Francis' website, the parish feeds 300 people daily at its "Dining Hall" located in the church basement.  The neighborhood has its share of those in need and a few of those persons were present during the Mass.  Certainly these social justice churches do much good work. 

Finally, although St. Francis is not my cup of tea, the parishioners could not have been more friendly or more sincere.  If you think that modern day America has strayed from some of the ideals of the Sixties, if you want a parish where you can help the poor, if you feel that an old-school parish fails to "honor diversity," then you will love St. Francis of Assisi Parish.