Tacoma Catholic parish whose iconic church is slated for demolition declared unviable

TACOMA, Wash. — The Catholic parish at the heart of a movement to save its 100-year-old landmark church from demolition is no longer able to exist on its own, the Archbishop of Seattle announced to its congregation Thursday night.

That means Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Tacoma must merge with another congregation. The future of its building, with an iconic steeple towering over Interstate 5, remains in limbo.

“This is a very sad reality,” Archbishop Paul Etienne said in a letter to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parishioners. “It is also one that is not unique to Holy Rosary. Several other parishes across the archdiocese are in similar fragile states, and we can no longer ignore this painful reality.”

Etienne first met with Holy Rosary Parish leaders in late 2019 to discuss their future.

“The pastoral and finance councils then spent the next few months discerning their future,” said archdiocese spokeswoman Helen McClenahan. “While a few people were solely focused on saving the building, ultimately most came to the conclusion that Holy Rosary parish isn’t viable on its own.”

Church leader Thom Ryng said Holy Rosary suffered a series of blows, some swift and others slow moving, that ultimately proved too much for the parish.

A lack of Catholic priests has led to high turnover at the parish, Ryng said.

“We were having the situation where, by the time somebody was brought up to speed, they were leaving,” Ryng said.

Holy Rosary has had six pastors since 2000, Ryng said. That number includes the Rev. Michael Wagner who collapsed from a cerebral aneurysm while celebrating Mass in April 2018. He died three weeks later.

“That was really when things started unraveling,” Ryng said.

When the parish’s church, with its robin egg blue interior, closed in November 2018, parishioners were forced to hold Mass in the school’s gymnasium. Holy Rosary’s congregation began declining after that, he said.

“We did our very best to make those masses in the gymnasium reverent and joyful, but you can’t get past the fact that you’re in a gymnasium,” Ryng said.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the final blow, he said.

“So, this has been a really rapid decline,” Ryng said.

The decision to declare the parish unviable wasn’t unanimous, he said. A slight majority of the pastoral council thought it was viable while the finance council did not.

Holy Rosary was known for its English-Spanish bilingual school which employed 25 people. That school moved to St. Martin of Tours in Fife earlier this year.

Now, neighboring parishes will decide together how to merge Holy Rosary’s parish with theirs, McClenahan said. The process could take up to two years, Ryng said.

“When parishes merge all the assets (finances, artwork, records, buildings, etc.) become part of the new parish,” McClenahan said.

In Holy Rosary’s case, that would include its threatened church building.

“It would be up to the new parish leadership to make decisions about the building,” McClenahan said.

Trouble began for the church building at 424 S. 30th St. in November 2018 when a 5-by-5 foot piece of plaster ceiling fell into the choir loft. After an inspection revealed numerous dangerous aspects inside and outside the building, a fence was erected around the church and its 210-foot-tall steeple. The building has since been unoccupied.

The church got a stay of execution from the Archbishop in October. The non-profit citizen’s group, Save Tacoma’s Landmark Church, has been working to save the the building from the wrecking ball.

The Save group has raised funds through awareness campaigns and a variety of events. It currently has $1.5 million in pledges.

A member of the group, Jon Carp, said Etienne’s decision shouldn’t affect the effort to save the church building.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the archdiocese to find a solution to preserve Holy Rosary as a Catholic church, whether it’s as a shrine, an oratory or any of the other many ways that a Catholic church can be employed, other than as a parish church,” Carp said.

The Save group says $2.249 million is needed to erect scaffolding and conduct repairs necessary to reoccupy the church. If $6.691 million more is raised the group could repair the roof and make structural repairs. A total of $17.6 million is needed to completely restore the church and replace aging electrical and heating systems.

Ryng said Etienne has been gracious during the difficult period of reckoning.

“He was mindful of the fact that there are a lot of people who are grieving,” Ryng said. “Most of us have seen this coming for months and it doesn’t make it any easier.”

In his letter, Etienne said Mass and other services will no longer be conducted at Holy Rosary beyond August.

“A future date will be identified for parishioners to gather at Mass one last time,” he said.

Cox Media Group