St. Anthony Parish: village a model in archdiocese - From tumbledown church, new life rises - Fr. Michael Maslowsky and the rebirth of a Portland, Oregon parish

National Catholic Reporter, March 15, 2002 by Arthur Jones

It's 10:20 on a cool, sunny Sunday morning. St. Anthony's parishioners are headed for Mass. For many of them, the church is just two minutes away, along the curving path around the fountain.

These parishioners, residents of St. Anthony Village, are about 10 percent of the Mass-goers. They use canes or walkers, or steady themselves on someone's arm. Some amble along unassisted. Others ride in hand-propelled or electric wheelchairs.

It's an informal, Lourdes-like procession of friends and neighbors from an assisted-living accommodation along with their visitors and their caregivers. They talk or chat. One or two from the Alzheimer's units gaze curiously at their surroundings as they head toward the 3-year-old, 375-seat church -- the first in the archdiocese designed by an all-female architectural firm.

This is a phoenix parish. Nine years ago, Fr. Michael Maslowsky was sent in to close it. Instead it rose up to give new life to the community -- from the 4-month-olds in the daycare center, to nonagenarians in the village accommodation.

For 45 years "church" had been the basement of the increasingly tumbledown, finally closed parish school in this modest, changing southeast Portland neighborhood.

In 1993, tall, trim, ascetic-looking Maslowsky, a big-league Portland lawyer ordained in 1987, was sent in by Portland's then-archbishop, William Levada, to assess the place. Maslowsky saw a basement church with "exposed pipes, collapsing ceiling tiles, cracked walls and windows. Most of the property was overgrown with weeds and contained discarded mattresses and tires. It was not a very attractive place."

The priest spent three summer months having evening Mass three times a week and meeting for dessert with groups of parishioners. "Their faith was so strong," he said, that he resolved to find some way to keep the parish open.

St. Anthony had land, five acres. With a committed parish team, insights into nonprofit housing from Maslowsky's business community friends, financial support from federal tax credits and state guarantees, plus a strong though risky commitment from Portland's Archbishop Francis George (now Cardinal George of Chicago), Maslowsky and the parish took the plunge.

The result: A decade later, St. Anthony, with its 425 registered families, is the new model of church for the Portland archdiocese.

The village does not dominate parish activities.

Parish outreach takes many forms -- not least people helping out at the Goose Hollow overnight homeless shelter. Several years ago, when a 12-year-old boy in a disintegrating family needed help, one parishioner provided a home, another helped place him in a Catholic school, a third acted as mentor. Today, the prognosis for the youngster is great, and he is active in the parish.

This Sunday Mass, youth director Chris Wojnar was on the altar giving an account of parish teens' wide-ranging service activities. In the congregation was Maureen O'Shaughnessy. She directs the thriving religious education program. The village model of parish encourages an easy interaction across the age range, with seniors from the apartments sometimes helping out at the daycare center, and children from the religious education program making cards and little gifts to deliver to the elderly in their apartments on special days.

The village operates as a separate entity within the parish boundaries. It is a nonprofit organization with its own governance and operating structure. Maslowsky is president of St. Anthony Village Enterprises, which is developing villages at Assumption Parish in north Portland, and in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University, where the village will include student housing, the Newman chaplaincy and commercial space. In Roseland, in southeast Oregon, there will be special needs housing for young adults with physical and mental disabilities mixed in with a variety of low-income housing.

The overriding operating structure is fairly complex. Maslowsky has a separate entity for managing and operating the archdiocesan villages, and another for consultation work not under the archdiocesan umbrella. The villages are gaining wider Catholic attention. Officials in the Toledo, Ohio, diocese and the Atlanta, Ga., archdiocese are studying the Portland projects.

At St. Anthony, the bright blue, yellow, green, rose and russet apartment buildings surrounding the church include 16 units for independent senior living, 84 assisted living units, and 24 Alzheimer's residences. There is a flourishing daycare center for children 4 months to 5 years, currently at capacity with 80-plus children.

Mass is over. There is a reception and recognition lunch underway in the parish for the village residents and caregivers. It's just before noon. Maslowsky's been and gone.

Right now he's atop a 30-foot ladder in the stripped-bare Assumption parish church examining the blue ceiling paint. David Frye of Walsh Builders has a steadying hand on the ladder. Deacon Robert Lukosh, who will manage the 110-unit assisted-living facility at Assumption explains the layout to a reporter. The facility will open in April.