Bishop Buddy Scrapbook 1937 (3)

Ordination recalls past ceremony 130 years ago

CALIFORNIA'S first ordinations took place Dec. 18, 1841 but only tonsure and minor orders were con- ferred, not the priesthood. And the ceremony was held-not in the mission church which was "tumbling into ruins" - but in the pre- sidio chapel on the bluff where Father Junipero Ser- ra founded his first mission in 1769, naming it after San Diego de Alcala. The ordinations were conducted by Bishop Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM, who in 1840 had been named first Bishop of the Californias by Pope Gregory XVI and assigned San Diego as his seat. BISHOP DIEGO y Moreno administered orders to three "ecclesiastical students" identified only as Jimenez. Rosalez and Ambris. He also confirmed 125 persons in the chapel·. History records that "nowhere is mention made of a visit (by Bishop Diego y Moreno) to the mission which, however, the bishop doubtless went to see with his attendants." Father Vincente Pasqual Oliva was in charge of the mission then, but no mention of him is recorded when Bishop Diego y Moreno visited the mission. "FATHER OLIVA must have paid his respects to the new head of the Church in California at the presidio or Old Town of San Diego, but his presence is not noted anywhere," according to mission history. The mission was relocated from the presidio to its present site in Mission Valley in 1774 and then again in 1776 following the disastrous Indian attack.,"\

Southern Cross Reporter MUCH HAS happened in the Church in San Diego from the first ordinations in California in 1841 and the ordination set for March 17 at California's first church, Mission San Diego de Alcala. To be ordained priest by Bishop Maher at a 5 p. m. Mass tomorrow, Friday, in the mission's church will be the Rev. John Proctor. He has been attending the Theological College at Catholic University of America and will return there to continue his studies.