Alexander King Sample
Alexander King Sample was born in 1960 in Kalispell, Montana, and trained as a metallurgical engineer before entering the priesthood. Ordained for the Diocese of Marquette in 1990, he was named its bishop by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 — at the time the youngest bishop in the United States.
In 2013 Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Portland in Oregon. He is widely regarded as one of the most liturgically traditional bishops in America, known for promoting Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, ad orientem worship, and the older form of the Roman Rite, and for his pastoral letters on the sacred liturgy.
If the previous pages have shown shepherds narrowing the door to the ancient Mass, here is one who has spent a quarter-century holding it open. Archbishop Sample is, by long and consistent record, among the most liturgically traditional bishops in America. He called Summorum Pontificum 'one of the greatest gifts that could be given to the Church.' He named the old rite the 'touchstone' of any true reform. He urged his brother bishops to be 'as generous as possible' with the faithful who ask for it — and he has practiced what he preached.
His traditionalism is not confined to the old Missal. He has mandated chant and Latin, advocated worship turned toward the Lord, directed his people to kneel for Communion, and written pastoral letters that read like a catechism of the sacred. When Traditionis Custodes fell in 2021, he refused to 'respond precipitously,' studied it, and then implemented it in Portland with no major changes — keeping the 1962 Missal authorized while many of his brothers were closing it down.
The traditional Catholic owes him plain gratitude. In an age when the Mass of Ages has been treated by many of its custodians as a problem to be managed, Archbishop Sample has treated it as a treasure to be handed on. He is a friend of Tradition — and a model of what a friend looks like.