Franciscan Order to Assume Pastoral Care of Oakland Parish

BURLINGAME AND OAKLAND -- Bishop Michael C. Barber, SJ, Bishop of Oakland, and Father Joseph Seraphin Dederick, OFM Cap, Provincial Minister of the Western America Province of Our Lady of Angels, jointly announce the Capuchins will assume pastoral care of St. Jarlath Parish in Oakland, effective Aug. 1, 2022.

For the first time in the history of the Diocese of Oakland, the Capuchin Franciscans, a religious order of ordained and lay men, will assume pastoral care of a diocesan parish.

The Capuchins are no stranger to the diocese, however. Since the early 1980s, the friars have had a house of studies, St. Conrad Friary, in Berkeley.

Also well-known in the diocese, Capuchin Father Hai Ho will be the new pastor of St. Jarlath. He is the former chaplain for Saint Mary's College of California, in Moraga, and currently is his order’s vicar-provincial, director of post-novitiate formation, and guardian of St. Conrad Friary. Other members of the order will join him in a new Capuchin community at St. Jarlath. Father Enrique Ballesteros, a diocesan priest who is currently St. Jarlath’s pastor, will receive a new assignment.

There are approximately 10,500 Capuchin brothers, both ordained and lay, in the world. The order began in the sixteenth century, when a Franciscan priest, Father Matteo de Bascio, felt called to reform the Franciscans. The group adopted the custom of wearing a hooded robe; Capuchin refers to the nickname for the hood (cappuccino).

The Capuchins arrived in Oregon in 1910, eventually finding their way to California. Today, the Western America Province of Our Lady of Angels has a presence in Berkeley, Burlingame, La Cañada, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Ynez, and Solvang, as well as five locations in Mexico. General offices are in Burlingame.