History
OCP—serving the Catholic community for 100 years
As the Church has changed, OCP has always sought—and will continue to seek— to grow and change with it. From our beginnings 100 years ago as a beacon of information for Catholics in Oregon to the publisher of the most widely distributed missal programs in the U.S., we have certainly come a long way.
1922: In the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan was rampant in Oregon and the persecution of Catholics was one of its main goals. To combat the Klan, Archbishop Alexander Christie established the Catholic Truth Society of Oregon—the original name of OCP. The stated purpose was to provide Catholics and non-Catholics alike with information about the Church and the activities of its educational and charitable institutions.
1925: The Catholic Truth Society of Oregon prints and distributes a quarter million pamphlets about the Church to 25 states, the Philippine islands and some parts of Canada.
1928: The Catholic Truth Society incorporates and acquires the Catholic Sentinel, which had been the diocesan newspaper for the state of Oregon since 1870, and continues to be one of the most successful, award-winning diocesan newspapers in the United States.
1934: The Catholic Truth Society makes the historic decision to begin publishing My Sunday Missal. At the time, Mass was still celebrated in Latin, so My Sunday Missal was printed to present each Sunday’s liturgy in English so that congregants could follow along. It took off in popularity and by the early 1940s, My Sunday Missal was being distributed throughout the U.S.
1960s and ’70s: The Catholic Truth Society revises My Sunday Missal in order to increase participation in Mass among congregants.
1971: The missal is expanded to include a broader selection of music and rebranded as Today’s Missal.
1980: The Catholic Truth Society changes its name to Oregon Catholic Press in order to reflect its growth from an informative service organization to one of the largest publishers of Catholic music and liturgical resources in the world. This change also ushered in a new age of successful growth and outreach, including the publication of OCP’s own collections of liturgical music.
1982: OCP launches the popular missal Breaking Bread, an annual resource with synopses for each of the weekly readings and more than 800 hymns and songs. OCP also publishes its first hymnal—and the first Spanish-language hymnal published in the US—Canticos de Gracias y Alabanza.
1989: OCP publishes Flor y Canto in order to serve Hispanic communities. Now, in its third edition, Flor y Canto is far and away the best-selling Spanish Catholic hymnal in the US.
1994: OCP acquires the music and products of North American Liturgy Resources (NALR), including the most popular Catholic hymnal ever published, Glory & Praise. Soon after, OCP publishes an expanded version, which includes many songs originally published by OCP, in Glory & Praise, Second Edition.
1998: OCP increases its library of resources even further through the acquisition of Pastoral Press, the book publishing division of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.
2001: OCP decides to share its success with parishes throughout the United States with the Parish Grants Program. This annual program provides Catholic parishes with direct financial assistance in order to enhance the worship experience for their congregations. As of 2015, OCP has awarded more than $2.2 million to thousands of parishes all over the country.
2003: OCP launches Liturgy.com, a web-based liturgy preparation program that has helped thousands of parishes prepare more fulfilling liturgies for their assemblies.
2006: OCP begins publishing Breaking Bread with Readings, which includes the full version of the weekly readings, and is now one of the most widely used missal programs in the United States.
2009: OCP publishes Thánh Ca Dân Chúa, the first-ever national Vietnamese hymnal in the US, to provide for the liturgical and musical needs of multigenerational Vietnamese-American assemblies.
2014–15: OCP releases Spirit & Song All-Inclusive Digital Edition. This revolutionary new service offers subscribers unlimited access to downloadable editions of the music featured in the Spirit & Song hymnal. Breaking Bread Digital Music Library launches next, giving parish music directors full, digital access to all the music, accompaniments, choral settings, recordings and responsorial psalms in Breaking Bread.
2017: OCP partners with GIA to create the new, jointly owned ONE LICENSE, providing non-commercial reprint permissions for more than 100,000 songs from over 340 different publishers and copyright holders. ONE LICENSE provides a single source for the most-used music in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant communities in the United States, Canada, Australia and other English-speaking countries around the world.
2020-21: In response to the needs of the evolving Church, including the difficulties of the devastating coronavirus pandemic, OCP develops more ways to support the faithful’s experience of the liturgy. These efforts include the Breaking Bread eMissal app, as well as Catálogo Musical Digital, which provides parish music directors full, digital access to the Spanish, English and bilingual music in popular OCP resources. Beloved quarterly magazines Today’s Liturgy and Liturgia y Canción are converted to a FREE, digital-only format and print planning books Today’s Liturgy: Music Planning Resource and Liturgia y Canción: Páginas de Planificación are created for those who prefer preparing the liturgy on paper. Existing resources like Prayer of the Faithful and Oracion de los Fieles are now offered in digital versions.
Today: OCP celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022! This important milestone is commemorated through events, promotions and more throughout the year.
OCP continues to grow and evolve after a century of service to the Church. The company administers more than 20,000 music copyrights and publishes hundreds of music collections and more than 3,000 octavos/sheet music. Beyond its publishing efforts and suite of online tools, OCP conducts more than 500 virtual and in-person events each year and exhibits its products and services at many national and regional conventions and conferences.
With more than 150 employees dedicated to serving the needs of the Church through publishing the finest worship materials, both digitally and in print, OCP remains as dedicated to service as it was a century ago. First locally, then nationally, and now globally, OCP retains the passion of its founders in being a shining light of hope and truth in the world and is determined to continue that passion for another 100 years.