About the Parish

The Original St. James Church

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The Catholic presence in Perris dates to 1893, when a small chapel was built on Perris Boulevard, four miles north of town, to serve the residents of the Perris Indian School — the forerunner of the Riverside Sherman Institute. Rev. P.J. Stockman, pastor of St. Bernardine Church in San Bernardino, traveled to Perris to offer religious services and classes. When the school closed in 1902, the chapel closed with it. In the years that followed, Rev. P.A. Quinn of Our Lady of the Lake in Lake Elsinore reported that the growing town of Perris called for a Catholic chapel of its own.

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The parish's first home was a building originally constructed in 1885 as a German Methodist Episcopal church. The first Mass was celebrated there on May 2, 1907. The building was purchased for the Catholic community through the generosity of Mr. & Mrs. James McCahill of Duluth, Minnesota, and was refurbished and dedicated as St. James the Less Church on May 10, 1910 by Bishop Thomas Conaty of the Diocese of Monterey–Los Angeles.

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For three decades, St. James the Less remained a mission of St. Anthony Church in San Jacinto and Our Lady of the Lake Church in Lake Elsinore. In 1941, it was erected as a full parish and welcomed its first resident pastor, Rev. Michael Scanlon. A new church, built in 1956 during the tenure of Fr. Cornelius Waldo at a cost of $49,000 and seating 350, was dedicated on May 19, 1957 by Bishop Charles Francis Buddy, the first Bishop of San Diego — and serves the community to this day.