The main website for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in El Cerrito is at sjtbc.us
In 2025 St. John the Baptist church celebrates its 100th year as a parish. The celebration started with the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist. We moved the solemnity from June 24 to the preceding Sunday. On June 21, Bishop Barber celebrated the opening Mass of our centennial year. He also blessed our new altar. Our celebration will continue until the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist in 2026.
History
When we were only 50
Fr. Abaloe wrote a history of our first 50 years as a parish and our earlier years as a mission. The digitized version of the history is available here. It includes pictures of many of the parishioners at the time.5
When we were 75
When we turned 75 in 2000, a group of parishioners published a booklet that added to our history. As we turned 100 we endeavored to record an image of what the parish looked like. That is this website.
Approching 100
Pandemic
The covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on the parish. You can read all about it on this page
Clustering with St. David of Wales
At the beginning of 2025, just before our centennial, St. John the Baptist Church and St. David of Wales were clustered
Our Centennial year
Bishop Barber started our centennial with a magnificent Mass Opening Mass
The Mass was followed with a wonderful dinner and live entertainment.
Teaching about St. John the Baptist
During our centennial year we conducted several catechetical sessions to educate people about our patron. Information from these sessions are on this page
Who we are as we celebrate our Centennial
Ethnic communities
The parish has from its beginning has always been supported by various ethnic groups. 100 years ago, we were mainly people of Portuguese and Italian origin. Today we have people from many different origins. We currently offer Mass in English, Mandarin, Portuguese (Brazilian). We include a number of articles from these groups that explain what they are contributing to the parish now.
Brazilian Community
Filipino Community
Chinese Community
Hispanic Community
Ethiopean Community
Tongan Community
Parish groups
In addition to the ethnic communities there are many groups that make the parish work well. These groups also provided us with information about what they do to make the parish run well.
English Tea
Open to Spirit of God/BLD
El Cerrito Royale
Young Ladies Institute
Faith Formation
We have many different teaching ministries to help form and educate people oa all ages and backgrounds.
Vacation Bible Day Camp was a summer camp for all our young k-6 children
Adult Fatith Formation
childrens religious education
confirmation/youth ministry
The people
The most important part of our parish are the people who worship with us. In an effort to record who we are we tried several things. Like our 50th year history and 75th year booklet we took pictures of many parishioner. See who you recognize in our picture gallery. Since we were not limited to static prictures we got some brave souls to do video interviews for us and some people who would submit an article to decribe their time at St. Johns