Operations
The not-for-profit company publishes liturgical music, books, choral collections, hymnals, missals, and support materials serving the Roman Catholic Church in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese.
OCP also publishes contemporary Christian music, through its Spirit and Song imprint. All music is consistent with the ethical directives and theology of the Catholic Church, making Spirit & Song a suitable alternative to mainstream praise and worship music for Catholic parishes.
Pastoral Press, a division of OCP, publishes religious education materials and academic and inspirational books.
OCP is the long-term publisher of the Catholic Sentinel, the diocesan newspaper for the Archdiocese of Portland. The Sentinel is the longest running Catholic newspaper in the Western United States. On July 21, 2022, the Archdiocese of Portland and Oregon Catholic Press issued a joint news release announcing that both the Catholic Sentinel and El Centinela (the Sentinel's Spanish language edition) would close on Oct. 1.
OCP represents well-known contemporary Catholic liturgical music composers Dan Schutte, and the other members known as the St. Louis Jesuits (Bob Dufford, John Foley, Tim Manion and Roc O'Connor), Bernadette Farrell, Carey Landry, Michael Joncas, Jamie Cortez, Bob Hurd, Tom Kendzia, Anne Quigley, and Christopher Walker. More contemporary songwriters, such as Steve Angrisano, Casey McKinley and Sarah Hart are represented by the Spirit and Song imprint.
Along with GIA Publications, OCP is a co-owner of OneLicense.net, having merged LicenSingOnline.org with OneLicense.net on January 1, 2017.
History
OCP was first founded in 1922 as the Catholic Truth Society of Oregon by Archbishop Alexander Christie. Its mission was to combat the Ku Klux Klan by providing information about the Catholic Church to all peoples. In 1934, OCP published its first Missal called My Sunday Missal (Now known as Today's Missal). The Missal was a major success for OCP, becoming popular in the United States. It would not be until 1982 that OCP would publish Breaking Bread, its first annual missal with weekly readings. After Breaking Bread was published OCP would continue to publish worship resources such as, Flor y Canto, Glory & Praise, Breaking Bread etc. As of 2026, OCP has more than 20,000 music copyrights and 3,000 octavos and continues to expand its repertoire to this day.
