Decision #0 - A Whatcom County Family
Problem to be Solved
In the process of Partners in the Gospel, how should the parishes and missions of Whatcom County be paired so that we are best equipped to preach the Gospel in the coming decades?
Background
In January 2023, the Archdiocese of Seattle announced a strategic and pastoral planning effort, called “Partners in the Gospel”, aimed at addressing the vocational, financial, and demographic difficulties faced by our archdiocesan parishes. (Links to the original explainer, full Q&A, and current reality report.)
Beginning in April, the Archdiocese began consulting larger and larger groups of the faithful about how to combine our parishes into a number of workable partnerships, called “Families”, equal to the number of available pastors we were projected to have in 2032 (between 50 - 60). The Presbyteral Council and Oversight Committees were consulted first, followed by the priests, the deacons, and the parish staffs - all resulting in ever-improving drafts. These drafts were then presented to the laity of the Archdiocese in September, after which nearly half of the proposed families experienced a change based on lay feedback.
The final recommended families were presented to Archbishop Etienne in November and he published his final decisions in February 2024.
Multiple Options
At the consultation phase involving the parish staffs and laity, the drafts suggested that Whatcom County be organized into two Parish Families: (1) Assumption, Sacred Heart, and Viking Catholic (WWU); and (2) Blaine, Ferndale, Lummi, Lynden, and Deming. This pairing was not surprising to residents of Whatcom County, as everything in the county seems to be divided between Bellingham and “North County”.
However, after the parish staffs were consulted, but before the input sessions with the laity, the Ferndale/Blaine/Lummi and Lynden/Deming parish staffs held a discussion meeting, and asked Fr. Moore to facilitate as the Dean of the Northern Deanery. At that meeting, various concerns were raised about this pairing and especially about how large and spread-out Family #2 (North County) was relative to Family #3 (Bellingham). The unequal distribution of resources between North County and Bellingham was also discussed.
Out of this discussion came the possibility of three different options, which parishes were encouraged (though not required) to share during their lay input sessions. These were:
Option #1 (Original)
Family #2 - Blaine, Ferndale, Lummi, Lynden, Deming
Family #3 - Assumption, Sacred Heart, Viking Catholic
Option #2 (Move Deming)
Family #2 - Blaine, Ferndale, Lummi, Lynden
Family #3 - Assumption, Sacred Heart, Viking Catholic, Deming
Option #3 (All-County)
Family #2 - Blaine, Ferndale, Lummi, Lynden, Deming, Assumption, Sacred Heart, Viking Catholic
Family #3 - Ceases to exist
Feedback Received
Not every parish presented the multiple options at their input sessions, so it was impossible to obtain hard data on exactly which option each parish would prefer. At those parishes which did discuss the options, people seemed comfortable with Option #1 (again, it was what most people expected), generally fine with Option #2, and intrigued by Option #3. As Fr. Moore put it, having attended all the Assumption input sessions, many people had a general worry about the scale of Option #3, but those people who liked it really liked it.
The Archdiocese synthesized the input given at these input sessions in a well-written document, which can be found here.
At the Deanery meeting in October, Fr. Moore (as Dean) asked the priests and parish staff of their Deanery for their input for what should be recommended to the Archbishop based on the input sessions. Fr. Moore would then carry these recommendations into the November Presbyteral Council meeting where the final recommendations would be made. At that time, the Deanery recommended Option #2 (move Deming).
A Doubt Remains
Possibly as early as July, some of the Archdiocesan officials in charge of data related to Partners in the Gospel discussed with Fr. Moore (as Dean of the Northern Deanery) their concern that Family #2 (North County) was not going to thrive financially or demographically on its own. The unequal distribution of resources was also discussed by North County staff in the meeting before the lay input sessions when the three options were developed. Unfortunately, this doubt was not resolved by any of the input sessions, so the possibility of combining the entire county into one family was brought up again at the final recommendation meeting.
Weekend Mass Attendance (May 2023)
FY23 Ordinary Income
A final recommendation
In November, the Presbyteral Council, the Partners Oversight Committee, and Priest Placement Board all assembled at the Palisades retreat center to process the input from the laity and make final family recommendations to Archbishop Etienne. In preparation for the meeting, the Archdiocese sent out potential changes to be discussed, and one of those changes was to combine all of Whatcom County into one Parish Family. The fact that this change was even on the table came partly from the fact that it was discussed in the lay input sessions and partly from the continued worry about the long-term viability of the North County family.
As Dean for the Northern Deanery, Fr. Moore knew he would be the first one asked for his opinion on this possibility; so after prayer and discernment he recommended combining the county, reasoning that if North County were not combined with Bellingham now, the Archdiocese may very well have to combine them within a decade, making it is better to do it now. Of course, there were 40 other priests in the room, including multiple pastors who had previously served in Whatcom County, so one recommendation does not necessarily carry the day. However, no one in the room argued against combining Whatcom County, so it became the official recommendation to Archbishop Etienne, which he ultimately accepted.