PRINEVILLE — When Crook County Planning Commissioner Arleen Curths first heard the Catholic Diocese of Baker wanted to build a retreat center, complete with a chapel, on about 40 acres in Powell Butte, she was excited.

“I happen to be Catholic, and I live in Powell Butte and I would love that,” Curths said.

Two years ago, the county gave the diocese approval to build a community center, a church and a bishop’s manse, or residence, for Bishop Robert Vasa.

But when it came time for a 19-room, 7,213-square foot pastoral office, planning commissioners, including Curths, denied the application.

They said the pastoral office was a business office, not vital to religious activities and, therefore, could not be built on land zoned for exclusive farm use. Officials from the church, however, said the diocese’s business is religion, and they can’t function without a chancery, or business office.

“Oregon law provides where a church is approved, that the local government is also required to approve those uses that are customarily associated with the religious practice,” said Jeff Wilson, the attorney representing the diocese.

The diocese covers 18 counties in Central and Eastern Oregon, including Crook and Jefferson counties. Currently, it has its offices in Bend, but is hoping to move them to Powell Butte.

After the planning commission denied the application in February, the church appealed to the Crook County Court.

The court is scheduled to deliberate and make a decision May 20.

Curths said planning commissioners worked hard to accommodate the church’s wishes.

“We said, ‘Chapel, that’s an outright use. No problem,’” Curths said.

But, she said, the commission stretched the definitions some to help the church. For example, with the bishop’s residence.

“We allowed the bishop to build (a replacement house, which was) not on the footprint of the original house, but a much larger house and on a different spot of the land,” she said. “You have all these critical definitions stretched to accommodate the bishop, but when it came to the diocese office building, there is no stretching that definition.

“Office buildings are not allowed on EFU-zoned land.”

Vasa said the 19-room pastoral office is essential to him completing his mission.

“Right now, I have the chapel, with no support,” Vasa said.

“I have the retreat center, with no support.

“I have the cabins, with no support.

“It makes it a lovely plan and great place to visit. But it’s like saying you have a great computer, but the CPU has been removed. It’s great, but hard to run a computer without the central processing unit.”

Although the office would handle some secular administrative work, such as dealing with payroll taxes, he said the work is necessary for religious functions.

“To identify the chancery as a business office is a bit narrow,” he said. “It makes it sound like we’re running a shoe store. … We are an office that conducts the business of the church, and that business is religion and the salvation of souls and those are the spiritual functions.”

Curths said it’s an interesting case.

“This is a great exercise,” she said.

“The bishop says, ‘The pope has given me the job to take care of all the souls, and anything I do for the souls is church work.’ … Today, and in the past, they have had offices in Bend. Those offices exist on their own. … So, it’s difficult to say those offices are an intricate part of the retreat center.

“They have a life of their own. They exist separately. We said, ‘Boy, we can see the retreat center, the houses to keep campers, the chapel, the bishop living there. We can see all those as part of the religious work, but these offices existed separately before this retreat center.”