CNA Staff, Feb 5, 2024 / 13:40 pm
The Archdiocese of Seattle has announced its official list of 170 parishes and worship sites it will be combining into 60 “parish families” as part of its major diocesan renewal plan.
Archdiocesan Vicar General Father Gary Lazzeroni said last year that the archdiocese was facing an “urgent need for change in how we are approaching parish life.” The archdiocese will have only “around 60 pastors in the next 15 years,” while “many parishes are operating with a deficit,” he said at the time.
Archbishop Paul Etienne on Friday promulgated the final list of what the archdiocese calls “parish families,” according to a press release. The finalized rundown came “after significant prayer and discernment,” the announcement said.
A “parish family” is “two or more parishes under the leadership of one pastor,” the archdiocese said. Over time, an individual parish family “will determine how it will share resources such as staff, ministries, and outreach and grow into one canonical parish,” a process the archdiocese said will occur “over a period of about three years.”