The new archbishop, Patrick W. Riordan, discussed founding a new parish in Oakland with the pastors of St. Mary's - Father Michael A.

Father Mc Sweeney said the first Mass, of St. Francis de Sales Parish on February 21, 1886, in Hanifin's Hall at San Pablo Avenue and 19th Street.

The structure was designed in a Norman Gothic Revival style, made of red brick, with a steeple and stained glass windows.

St. Francis de Sales Church was dedicated by Archbishop Francesco Satolli, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States on July 9, 1893.

Cardinal Satolli gave personal greetings from Pope Leo XIII to Mary J. Canning for her financial support in building St. Francis de Sales.

Father Mc Sweeney led St. Francis de Sales for twenty-three years, his health broke with a series of strokes in 1909.

On May 24, 1924, the small group from St. Francis de Sales met Pope Pius XI, who gave Father Dempsey the honor of Domestic Prelate.

Archbishop John J. Mitty appointed Monsignor Joseph M. Gleason fifth pastor of St. Francis de Sales.

Gleason, native San Franciscan, historian, raconteur, member of the Native Sons of the Golden West, on the faculty of Holy Names University, former Army chaplain during the Spanish–American War, boyhood chum of San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, later governor of California.

Gleason's closest friends at St. Francis de Sales were Joseph R. Knowland, former US Congressman and Owner of the Oakland Tribune and Herbert Eugene Bolton, historian and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

After the changes of Vatican II, the structure underwent extensive renovations, which included painting the red brick white and removing the altar rail.

Bishop John Cummins was installed at the Oakland Auditorium on June 30, 1977, not St. Francis de Sales Cathedral.

One year later, Bishop Cummins announced that the structure would have to be torn down because the diocese could not afford the repairs, and in 1993 the cathedral was demolished.

The estimated cost of repairing and performing seismic upgrades of both St. Frances de Sales and the Sacred Heart Church, also damaged in the earthquake, was $8 million.