Dwindling worshippers, low attendance: behind the Archdiocese of Seattle's consolidation plans

The Archdiocese of Seattle, which covers Western Washington from the Canadian to Oregon border, announced last week a plan to consolidate churches into parish families that share a priest and buildings. A number of factors, including low mass attendance, are driving the decision.

Rosa Luna attends Pope Pius X in Mountlake Terrace. She said she was shocked to learn the news.

"I just wasn't expecting it. Although, after you consider it, it makes complete sense and it seems like the right thing to do," she said.

While Luna was surprised to learn about the "Partners in the Gospel" consolidation effort, she said she plans to attend whatever church her parish ends up at.

"What matters here isn't the building. You can go to any church, in any country on a given day, and the mass readings and the mass is the same," Luna said. "I think what we should be mourning more right now is the things that do matter, which is people are falling away from the church."

The consolidation plan is a response to a number of factors, including low church attendance and a priest shortage, which are not unique to Western Washington.

"It's not just the Archdiocese of Seattle, it's the Catholic Church across the country and across the world," said Seattle Times reporter Nina Shapiro.

Shapiro laid out the myriad of factors behind the decision to consolidate churches. In the Seattle Archdiocese, there are currently 136 parishes and 80 priests.

"They make up the difference with visiting priests from various places, but there are already priests who are taking on more than one parish," Shapiro said. "And then, in 15 years, they project they'll have 65 priests to serve all those 136 parishes. So they need a way for all these parishes to be served."

Shapiro pointed out that mass attendance has been declining for years. Increased secularization of society and people's disinclination to attend church help explain the attendance drop, she said, and those factors were exacerbated by the pandemic.

"The Catholic Church has also been dealing with some distinct issues," Shapiro added. "There's obviously been the priest sexual abuse crisis, which has had huge, huge ramifications across the world."

The Archdiocese of Seattle closed some churches last year, including three in Seattle: Our Lady of Mount Virgin in Mt. Baker, St. Patrick's in Capitol Hill, and St. Mary's in the Central Area.

Shapiro said some parishioners at those churches were upset by that decision and appealed to the Vatican.

The Partner's in the Gospel rollout is just the initial step in the consolidation effort, and leaders of the plan told Shapiro this would be a more participatory process than previous closings.

"The parishioners I talked to seem receptive to that message," Shapiro said. "They know that there's a problem — some were nervous and wondering what that means for their own church and whether it might close, but they also felt like this was something that wasn't going to be forced in the same way that last time was."