CANTATEOP.ORG is a website managed and supported by Fr. Corwin Low, OP, a priest and friar of the Western Dominican Province (USA). It contains various musings, reflections, and perspectives regarding his main ministry, which is to lead Holy Rosary Catholic Church, a Dominican parish in northeast Portland in Oregon. The parish is a very faithful community and a “destination” parish for the greater Portland/Vancouver area, with families traveling more than an hour each way to seek out our preaching, our liturgy, and our community.
Recently he led an expedition as chaplain to a group of Catholics to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest point in the continent of Africa, and one of the famed Seven Summits on Earth. He took advantage of the climb to garner support in the form of prayers and donations with the goal of summiting the peak and to celebrate Mass there. On the morning of February 15, 2022, he and his team succeeded in reaching Uhuru Point, the highest point on the Kilimanjaro massif, where he celebrated a Mass in the Extraordinary Dominican Rite.
hrough the prayers and generous donations from parishioners and well-wishers across the globe, he was able to crowd-fund almost $11,000 USD to support the Dominican student brothers in formation, many of whom will be ordained priests, and hopefully bring the message of the gospel to the four corners of the Earth.
Originally I re-started this website so that people could track my progress on a blow-by-blow basis of my ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. But it occurred to me that once the campaign was over, it’d essentially Read more…
While I chose to primarily shoot photos on Mount Kilimanjaro, one of our trekkers, Yan, brought a GoPro with him. Yan does extensive trail running throughout the world, but particularly in the back yard Pyranees Read more…
While on Mount Kilimanjaro I received an email from Paul Senz, a contributor to the National Catholic Register, among other publications. He had stumbled upon this blog before I started ascending and followed along day-by-day. Read more…
At long last, the Dominican Student Brothers have received the donations from all those who supported my Kilimanjaro expedition and they wanted to send their heartfelt thanks to the benefactors. The Master of Students, Fr. Read more…
I apologize for not updating this blog sooner. Being gone from Holy Rosary even for a couple of weeks meant that I had a whole of tasks piled up for me when I returned. When Read more…
From the beginning I knew that going on this trek to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro would attract some attention. A Catholic Mass at the top of Africa is the sort of thing that just Read more…
19 years ago, before I entered the Dominican Order, I was a successful businessman checking things off a bucket list. One of the items was a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Read more…
On the way off the mountain and back into the town of Moshi those heading home (including myself) had to make a stop at the regional Health Ministry Hospital to get a RT-PCR COVID-19 test. Read more…
Of the Seven Summits (highest peaks on each of the seven “traditional” continents), the easiest to achieve (even though it is not the lowest) is Mt. Kilimanjaro. Yet, at 19,341 ft (5,895 m) it’s no Read more…
After months of planning and a healthy dose of Divine Providence I made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This was the point of this website and blog. I wanted to draw attention to Read more…
One of the challenges of being ”off the grid” so to speak, is that we depend so much on technology to do our day-to-day things. For instance, I depend on power sources to keep everyone Read more…
The best thing about wearing the habit on the trail is the silent way I can evangelize to people, not just the people in my group. But also the porters, the guides, and those people Read more…
Wearing a habit while trekking is a bit of a chore. In the morning it’s below freezing and I need to wear all sorts of layers for warmth. Yet, the crew needs to break down Read more…
I’ve never found camping to be a very restful experience. Oh yes, I can be extremely exhausted and then crash in a sleeping bag and tent. But that’s more out of necessity than the normal Read more…
We’ve figured out an efficient way of dealing with the wind (and the rain) for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The first night was difficult because it rained in the afternoon Read more…
The Lemosho Route is said to be the most beautiful route for a variety of reasons. The primary reason being that it is the longest and therefore it travels through many different micro climates. We Read more…
Twelve years ago my provincial asked me to spend my residency year (year of apostolic work during my education and formation) at our mission parish in Mexicali, Mexico. It’s a boarder city about two hours Read more…
On the feast day of St. John of Matha, I celebrated the first Mass with my trekking group. Just a few people attended because most were trying to shake jet-lag and had already retired for Read more…
I arrived in Moshi today in the early hours of the morning. Moshi is at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Coming off the airplane the shock was the bureaucracy of Tanzania government, especially under COVID-19. Read more…
It’s been about 21 years since I made a flight connection at Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates on my way to visit the Dominicans in Pakistan. At that time I thought it Read more…
Flying overseas these days requires a great deal of patience. COVID-19 restrictions, procedures, and regulations change constantly, and various countries implement them differently. What was true yesterday isn’t necessarily true today. Furthermore, not even the Read more…
I’ve been working on the Internet since its inception, back when none of us had any idea that it would take off the way it has (and imploded several times). There are always difficulties with Read more…
During the course of the year, one Mondays one can find me in the local mountains near Portland. Sometimes I have to go further afield, depending on the weather. But I do like to stay Read more…
I am fond of saying that I enter the wilderness as a Dominican and exit the wilderness as a Franciscan. This is a sort of inside joke that only religious would get. It refers to Read more…
Under normal conditions a bishop consecrates each and every altar of Jesus Christ. Thus, a bishop would have consecrated the altar at our parish churches, including the one at my parish of Holy Rosary. This Read more…
In a huge sigh of relief, I received my PT-PCR test results this morning and they were NEGATIVE! Praise God! We already live in a complicated world, made worse as a result of the Covid Read more…
Six months ago I made my first plans to travel from Portland, Oregon to Moshi, Tanzania. Obviously there are no airlines that provide direct, non-stop routes between these two cities. And I doubt that there Read more…
Today on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the Catholic Sentinel, Oregon’s Catholic Newspaper printed an article about my climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro this month. It appears on their homepage Read more…
19 years ago I was living in Seattle. So, to get to Mt. Kilimanjaro I had to fly to Amsterdam and then take a KLM flight from there to Moshi in the United Republic of Read more…
This past weekend I was in Las Vegas doing supply work at the parish of St. Bridget. St. Bridget rectory was not available so I got to stay at St. Christopher’s which is a couple Read more…
St. Martin de Porres is a particularly relevant saint for our time. He had a Spanish father and a mother with African slave and native American blood. He was most definitely of a mixed race. Read more…
In any trek, planning is secondary to safety. Come to think of it, it’s also secondary to many things. But the current plan is to arrive at the Lemosho gate (on the west side of Read more…
My main goal on this Mt. Kilimanjaro climb is to confect the Eucharist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is going to be very tricky because celebrating Mass outside has its challenges. Any Read more…
Starting in the 1960s there was a great iconoclast movement in the Church—not to the Church, but within the Church. Priests and religious left in droves. Religious life lost much of its sacred nature. And Read more…
Like most mountains there are several ways up Mt. Kilimanjaro. Because it’s the largest free-standing mountain in the world, it has a really substantial footprint—the diameter at it’s widest point is almost 25 miles (though Read more…
In 2002, a Canadian friend was planning an ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro with her 62 year old mother and she asked me if I wanted to join her. As an outdoor enthusiast I readily agreed. Read more…
Mt. Kilimanjaro is one of the famed Seven Summits, a collection of the highest mount peaks on each of the seven continents. So while Kili (as the locals are apt to call it) doesn’t rank Read more…