Catholic Sentinel

The ''Catholic Sentinel'' was the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Portland. It was published by Oregon Catholic Press, which also published ''El Centinela'', the Spanish-language version of the ''Catholic Sentinel''. The ''Catholic Sentinel'' published an online edition from 1996 to 2022. In 2022, it was announced that both the ''Sentinel'' and ''El Centinela'' would be discontinued as of October 1, 2022.

History

The ''Catholic Sentinel'' was started in 1869 by grocer Henry Herman and printer J. F. Atkinson in response to anti-Catholicism. After the Whitman massacre in 1847, a Protestant minister falsely accused local Catholics of inciting a band of Cayuse Indians to killing 10 Protestant missionaries.

The ''Sentinel'' states it has consistently fought anti-Catholic prejudice. In 1879, editor Stephen McCormick stated:

The need of a vigorous defender of the Faith in the Northwest is apparent to every Catholic who notices the numerous calumnies and slanders the ''Sentinel'' is called on to refute in the course of a single year. We have to defend the truth against all attacks; to explain honest misconstructions; to correct willful misrepresentations; expose false assertions, refute sophistical arguments, and above all to advocate effectively, correctly and positively the Faith that is in us and which is the bond of Christian unity that unites us to our readers.

In August 1895, Rev. Roland Grant of the American Protective Association spoke at the First Baptist Church in Portland. Among other claims, members of the A.P.A. maintained that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church had instigated the Civil War, during which they said Catholics made up large numbers of deserters, and that both Grover Cleveland and William McKinley were controlled by the Church. The ''Sentinel'' covered Grant's speech, in which he spoke highly of an A.P.A riot in Boston a month earlier on the 4th of July.

In 1913, the editor of the '' Silverton Journal'', J. E. Hosmer, published a pamphlet entitled, "The Escaped Nun from Mount Angel Convent or The Last Stand of Desperate Despotism". Hosmer was later convicted of libel and recanted. In 1912, and for several years thereafter, the Ku Klux Klan circulated a bogus oath supposedly taken by members of the Knights of Columbus. The spurious pledge contained, among other provisions, those in which members purported pledged loyalty to the Pope and denounced Liberals, Masons, and Protestants; pledged not to hire any Protestant, and to send domestic workers as spies into Protestant homes.

In 1928, the ''Catholic Sentinel'' was acquired by the Catholic Truth Society of Oregon, later renamed Oregon Catholic Press. It moved to a new printing plant in 1963 after its former building was condemned as part of the Stadium Freeway project.

In 2017, the Catholic Press Association of the United States named the ''Sentinel'' Newspaper of the Year in its category. The last time the paper had won that honor was in 1959. It won it again in 2021.

On July 21, 2022, the Archdiocese of Portland and Oregon Catholic Press issued a joint news release announcing that both the ''Catholic Sentinel'' and ''El Centinela'' (its Spanish-language counterpart) would close on October 1.

References

External links

The ''Catholic Sentinel''

''El Centinela''
(in Spanish)

{{Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association

1870 establishments in Oregon
Newspapers published in Portland, Oregon
Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association
Newspapers established in 1870
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
Catholic newspapers published in the United States
Defunct newspapers published in Oregon
2022 disestablishments in Oregon