"The Mother Church of Oakland" ( Closes! )

California Catholic Daily ^ | August 8, 2008 | staff

[kellynla]

Among the casualties of Oakland’s new Cathedral of Christ the Light is Old St. Mary’s Church, a 155 year-old parish that will close permanently in September.

Oakland Bishop Emeritus John Cummins celebrated a special Mass of thanksgiving on July 26 at Old St. Mary’s Church to honor former parishioners, alumni of the old parish school, and all those who had ministered at the parish since its founding in 1858.

St. Mary’s parish, however, goes back a few more years. "Oakland's first Catholic chapel was established on this site in 1853," parishioner Grant Ute told the Oakland Tribune. "In the early days, parishioners included members of the Peralta and Castro families, indigenous people and Californios. In the 1900s, there came a wave of Irish immigrants. Then Italian. Then Filipino in the '60s, and Vietnamese in the '70s. We now read liturgies in Spanish, Vietnamese, English and Tagalog."

The current church building – a Gothic-style wood frame and stucco structure with German stained glass windows – was completed in 1872 and has gone through renovations and retrofits.

“Bishop Floyd Begin renovated the church according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council,” wrote Bishop Cummins on the web site of the Catholic Parish of Christ the Light. “The loss of the marble altar and its worshiping angels was sadness for many.”

While St. Mary’s sanctuary has been kept up, some sections have peeling paint, said the Tribune, and no one may use the choir loft for safety reasons