“How I would like a church which is poor and for the poor.”
Pope Francis
In Tacoma, Washington, the historic Our Lady of the Holy Rosary building sits empty and in a state of disrepair. A chain-link fence surrounds the building and plywood covers some of the windows to keep trespassers out and protect the century-old stained glass. A homeless encampment is growing in the parking lot week by week. The Archbishop of Seattle has decreed that the building should be deconsecrated and torn down.
Catholics everywhere, not just in Tacoma, should be concerned. I’ll explain why later. But first, a little history about the Holy Rosary:
Holy Rosary parish was founded in 1891 by German immigrants who wished to hear sermons in their own language. The original building became insufficient for their needs, so in 1921, they built an impressive structure using Gothic Revival architecture. The Holy Rosary still boasts a 200-foot high steeple which lifts up the cross of our Lord for all to see. It is one of the relatively few prominent reminders in Tacoma of our Christian heritage.
In 1975, Holy Rosary gained historic landmark status for its “architectural merit.” According to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, the status was conferred in part due to “its prominent place in the Tacoma skyline, thanks to its location at the terminus of Tacoma Avenue, a major north/south corridor in Tacoma, and its visibility from I-5.”
The Demise of Holy Rosary
In October of 2018, a large chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling into the choir loft, revealing the need for extensive repairs. The Archdiocese of Seattle, at that time under the leadership of Archbishop Peter Sartain, paid for a study to determine what was needed to repair the building. The results were not good.
As Sartain said in a letter to the congregation, “The roof, which is 25 years old, overlays an even older roof, resulting in significant water damage. Furthermore, unreinforced brick masonry used in construction a century ago has also incurred significant water damage and does not meet today’s seismic standards.” All told, “a minimum cost to re-occupy the building would be $2.25 million dollars, the cost of necessary other repairs in the near future would cost an additional $6.7 million dollars, and the total cost to repair the church interior and exterior would be approximately $17.7 million dollars.” 1
Ultimately, in 2019 Sartain decreed that the building should be deconsecrated for profane but not sordid use.
The Holy Rosary congregation had been experiencing financial hardships and had net operating losses between $47,000 and $100,000 per year for the previous five years. By early 2019, the church had a budget shortfall of $56,667. Like many other local parishes, Mass attendance had been in steep decline. Then, Covid hit.
The already beleaguered congregation was unable to recover, and after much deliberation, Archbishop Paul Etienne–who took office in September of 2019 after Sartain requested retirement due to back trouble–decided that the parish would be merged with St. Anne’s Parish. Eventually, two other parishes were merged to form a new Parish called St. John XXIII. The ownership and stewardship of the Holy Rosary building was transferred to this new parish under the leadership of Father Tuan Nguyen.
The fight to save Holy Rosary
Ever since the first announcement that the Holy Rosary building would be demolished, a group calling themselves Save Tacoma’s Landmark Church (STLC) has been fighting to save the building. They challenge the finding that Holy Rosary is in such dire condition. Contrary to the Archbishop’s report, a representative of STLC told me, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the roof now or previously. It does not need to be replaced. The plaster that fell was not a ‘large chuck’ and it was due to a clogged downspout, which was cleared. The parish deficits that they have quoted are also not accurate. It was not a rich parish, but was not bankrupt. When the school was moved to Fife, (at the command of the AD) they took a million dollars of Holy Rosary funds.”
STLC has enlisted the help of a well respected law firm and has the backing of the Washington Trust for Historical Preservation, which lists Holy Rosary as a “Most Endangered” building. Their efforts have raised awareness and $1.6 million, a good “chunk” of what is arguably needed to make the church occupiable once again.
However, STLC has so far been unsuccessful in changing the Archbishop’s mind. In June of 2023, Archbishop Etienne issued another decree stating that “the pastor of Pope St. John XXIII has petitioned me, with the consent of his finance council and pastoral council, to relegate the church to profane use…”
STLC appealed this decree. In a letter by Elizabeth Boylan-Nims, STLC claimed that the decree is invalid because according to Canon Law “when a church is being relegated to profane but not sordid use on account of the financial condition of the juridic person which owns it (a parish or another juridic person,) all other sources of possible funding which would allow the church to continue to exist as a Roman Catholic place of even occasional worship must be found lacking or inadequate.”
Boylan-Nims claimed that the decree from Etienne did not sufficiently address alternative sources of funding that are available and possible. She also challenged the notion that Pope St. Paul XXIII Parish is “the sole entity which would or could undertake the restoration of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in order that it can remain a Catholic sacred space.”
On June 23, 2023, Archbishop Etienne issued a response to Ms. Boylan-Nims in which he declined to withdraw his decree:
The historic building’s day of execution is drawing closer.
STLC’s strategy now is “to enforce the rights offered under canon law to the fullest extent, while maintaining a campaign to pressure and, if necessary, shame the archdiocese into doing the right thing by Tacoma.”
Closing churches to save the environment?
In Northwest Catholic, Archbishop Etienne wrote an article titled “We need porches and kitchens to be churches”, a very Protestant sentiment indeed. And when he first arrived in Seattle from Anchorage, Etienne promised to sell the long-established residence of the former Bishops in Seattle known as Connolly House. That he did. In 2022, Connolly house and three other church properties were sold for $13.5 million “to create a carbon-neutral community in Seattle’s First Hill district.”
“It’s clearly a piece of real estate that, if we divest of it, can help us advance the ministries of the church,” Eitienne said of Connolly House. Is it possible that the ministry the Catholic Church has changed from saving souls to saving the planet? Pressure for the church to comply with ESG rules is certainly growing.
Yahoo Finance refers to the Catholic Church as the world’s largest land owner and a “massive player” in climate change. “The Catholic Church owns the most land, far more than McDonald’s and billionaire Bill Gates. If you are concerned about environmental change, global warming and climate change, this massive player has been flying under the radar.”
In an article titled, “The Catholic Church’s vast land holdings could help protect the climate,” Yale Climate Connections discusses how an organization called Goodlands has recently created “a geographical database and maps of the church’s landholdings.” Before Goodlands, the Catholic church apparently didn’t know how land rich it was. Molly Burhans, executive director of Goodlands, is quoted as saying, “They hadn’t really had a map update since the Holy Roman Empire.” With permission from the Vatican, Burhans and her team “began the painstaking process of locating and digitizing property records and deeds” of the Catholic church in 2016.
According to its website, Goodlands partners with the Cadasta Foundation to “help your community [aka the Catholic Church] to manage land use and rights as well as to work towards government recognition of land claims.”
Who funds Cadasta? Here’s a short list:
The World Bank, Omidyar Network — “a social change venture that reimagines critical systems, and the ideas that govern them, to build more inclusive and equitable societies—for the benefit of the many, not just the few—across the globe. Lantmateriat — “an authority whose mission is to secure the ownership of real estate, make geodata available in society and lay the foundation for a functioning social economy. We are also responsible for leading the digitization of the community building process.”
…and here’s the long list of Cadasta funders…if you have the stomach for that sort of thing.
It is worth asking what Goodlands is really up to. Why did the Vatican hire a third party organization that is partnered with a who’s who list of globalist WEF entities to compile a database of all the Catholic Church’s real estate holdings? Is anyone watching Goodlands and the influence it is exerting on the Catholic Church?
An article in Aletia asks, “Is the Vatican’s financial reform moving the Catholic Church into greater conformity with new environment, social and governance objectives?” The article states that the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have recently “articulated principles of investing that aim to couple financial returns with the achievement of non-pecuniary objectives. With the release of its Investment Policy Statement (IPS) in July, the Vatican has committed itself to use environmental, social and governance criteria to steer its future investment decisions.”
Tearing down Catholic Churches touches a nerve
Even if the push to tear down Holy Rosary has nothing to do with ESG, STLC makes a good point: Selling off a church building to better “advance the ministries of the church” parallels the story of Mary anointing Jesus with expensive oil (John 12: 1-8). Judas Iscariot said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” Jesus responded, “…the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
The sale of Connolly House and possibly Holy Rosary diminishes the physical presence of the Catholic church. Surely we can defend the poor and the environment and still maintain the beautiful buildings that our forefathers consecrated for the propagation of the faith.
In a recent episode of The Chair, Archbishop Etienne shares his admiration of the building that is St. James Cathedral, and he explains what the structure means to the city of Seattle. When the dome of St. James collapsed in 1916, there was no question about rebuilding. And over the years, St. James Cathedral has undergone numerous costly renovations. The latest was overseen by Father Michael Ryan, who explains the reason they took a long time to decide on the renovations: “When you touch people’s worship space, you touch a nerve center for sure.”
Though Holy Rosary is not a cathedral, like St. James, it holds a similar place of significance for Tacoma. Her steeple is even higher than the bell towers of St. James. By decreeing to tear down Holy Rosary, Archbishop Eiteinne has touched a nerve.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “visible churches are not simply gathering places but signify and make visible the Church living in this place, the dwelling of God with men reconciled and united in Christ” (1180). A church building like Holy Rosary “serves as a house of God that looks to the past, serves the present, and informs the future.”1
The church building, representing Christ’s presence in a particular place, is also necessarily a permanent structure (“Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” [Heb. 13:8]) conceived in theory and practice “with a firm foundation.” So, too, is the Catholic Church enduring and permanent, transcending space and time.https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/a-gospel-in-stone
If the steeple comes down and room is made for some new carbon-neutral development, if the grounds are deconsecrated and a couple thousand people are fed for a year from the money saved, we will still have the poor with us. Only now, we ourselves will be much poorer because there’s one less tabernacle containing the true presence of our Lord. “You will not always have me….”
The visible church on the busy I-5 freeway will no longer be there to inspire or remind Tacoma’s citizens of God’s love for them and His desire to dwell among them. At a time when there is so much poverty of the knowledge of the treasures of the Church founded by Jesus, we need to restore the riches of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary so that she can be there to “serve the present and inform the future” for generations to come.
We must maintain to the best of our ability the churches we already have, especially the old ones. Our old culture and our old religion are under attack. Do not give in any more ground! In this battle, we need all the consecrated ground we can get.
Tell Archbishop Eitienne not to deconsecrate Holy Rosary. Give her a stay of execution. And give STLC a chance to keep the bells ringing for future generations.
If you would like to help the fight to save Holy Rosary, please visit their donations page.
RL Martin 