Alternative #1

Based on feedback received after the Sunday Mass proposal was published to Sacred Heart, the following alternative was developed.

Summary

Keep the 8:30 am Mass at Sacred Heart, and pair it with the Ferndale Mass on Sunday morning.
Move the Ferndale Mass to 11:00 am, so that the priest has sufficient time to socialize at the Sacred Heart 8:30 am before driving to Ferndale.
Move the 11:00 am Mass at Sacred Heart to 12:00 pm, so that it can be paired with the morning Masses at Assumption.

By Date / Time

Saturday

4:00 pm – Blaine
4:00 pm – Lynden
5:00 pm – Assumption
6:00 pm – Lynden (Spanish)

Sunday – Bellingham

8:00 am – Assumption
8:30 am – Sacred Heart
10:00 am – Assumption
12:00 pm – Sacred Heart
12:30 pm – Assumption (Spanish)
5:00 pm – Sacred Heart (w/ WWU)

Sunday – North / East County

8:15 am – Deming
8:30 am – Lummi
11:00 am – Ferndale
11:15 am – Lynden

By Priest Rotation

Priest #1

(Sat.) 5:00 pm – Assumption
8:00 am – Assumption
10:00 am – Assumption
12:00 pm – Sacred Heart

Priest #2

(Sat.) 4:00 pm – Blaine
8:30 am – Sacred Heart
11:00 am – Ferndale

Priest #3

(Sat.) 4:00 pm – Lynden
8:15 am – Deming
11:15 am – Lynden

Priest #4 (Spanish)

(Sat.) 6:00 pm – Lynden (Spanish)
8:30 am – Lummi
12:30 pm – Assumption (Spanish)

Floating

Ideally Fr. Tyler during the school year, except when Fr. Tyler is Priest #1.

5:00 pm – Sacred Heart (w/ WWU)

Potential Priest Rotation

Pros/Cons

Pros

Preserves a well-attended Mass at Sacred Heart.
Prevents potential capacity issues at Sacred Heart. The average attendance at 8:30 am is 170 and at 11:00 is 201, for a total of 371. If every attendee of the 8:30 am Mass moved to the 11:00 am Mass at Sacred Heart (instead of moving to Assumption), that would exceed the church’s capacity of 277. If even only half moved to the 11:00 am, that would still be 286, which is more than capacity.

Cons

1/3 of the time, Fr. Tyler will not be able to say the Viking Catholic Mass. This may not seem like a big deal, but that is equivalent to an entire academic quarter of the students’ Sundays lost to him each year. Fr. Tyler’s ability to consistently walk with students has already begun to bear significant fruit in only the one year he has been at Viking Catholic, and we do not want to undercut that.

Is a Priest Rotation Necessary?

The listening sessions at Sacred Heart on June 14/15, 2025 convinced Fr. Moore to think harder about whether a priest rotation is really necessary, or whether he, as Pastor, can connect with parishioners at the different locations in a way other than rotating through the Sunday Masses. He is going to explore whether a very limited priest rotation is possible and what that might look like.

If a very limited priest rotation is possible, then the above alternative becomes much more viable because Fr. Tyler’s presence at Viking Catholic is not as affected.

However, there are two areas of concern Fr. Moore needs to address before he can consider scaling back the rotation of priests:

How might the Pastor connect with parishioners apart from Sunday Mass? Will this connection be sufficient for them to still look to him for ultimate leadership?
The present reality of the Archdiocese of Seattle is that we will likely be relying on foreign missionaries as parochial vicars for decades. Parishioners sometimes struggle with these vicars due to accents and cultural mismatch. The vicars often struggle for the same reason. If priests do not rotate, how do we set up a community to succeed if a foreign vicar is the only priest they normally see? How do we set up the vicar to succeed? And how do we determine which communities get Archdiocesan priests versus the foreign missionaries?

Parishioner feedback on these questions would be helpful.

Decision #8.2 - Sunday Mass Alternative #1