| Translation of the handwritten Latin:
“Ad Futuram Rei Memoriam...”
In Everlasting Memory.
Inasmuch as we have erected by letters given the 24th day of July, 1846, the Archepiscopal See of Oregon City for the convenience and increase of the Catholic religion, we also provide that the Region subject to the Bishop of the same church of Nesqually should exist in the manner intended, because it must be erected into a Diocese properly so called, so we establish the same from the areas of Colville and Fort Hall, into episcopal regions of the Church provided that provisions for the ruling be handed over reasonably to the Bishop of Walla Walla in the same province.
So inasmuch as there are grave reasons for which it would seem that the Episcopal Church of Nesqually should be established we, with the advice of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, resolve to come to the designated erection of the same Episcopal Church.
And so with certain knowledge and our mature deliberation, and from the fullness of the Apostolic power, we separate the aforementioned region of Nesqually from the Archdiocese of Oregon City, and we divide it up and we erect it into an Episcopal Church and establish that it be ruled and directed by its own Bishop…
Given in Rome at St. Peter’s under the ring of the Fisherman May 31, 1850, in the fourth year of our pontificate.
By His Lordship Cardinal Lambruschini
as signed by A. Picchioni
Location: Archives of the Archdiocese of Seattle. Record Group 660. Decree of Establishment of Diocese [1850]. |