Foremost, thank you for your patience with my lateness in posting this follow-up to the weekend announcement at all parishes about these changes. “If you want to make God smile, tell Him your plans” continues to prove true!

If you haven’t heard already, I announced at all Masses this weekend that I have decided on changes that will take effect on the first weekend of next month (August 3rd and 4th). The short version is that after consulting with Father Ed and Father Gali – particularly in light of our experiences in these first weeks here on the Olympic Peninsula – we will be splitting residences and implementing what we believe will be a more stable regional pastoral ministry model. Father Gali will be moving to the rectory at Saint Mary Star of the Sea, Father Ed will go to the rectory at Saint Anne, and I will remain at the rectory in Queen of Angels. We will be using this week and next to make those moves and will implement the corresponding schedule changes the first week of August.

For the immediate future, those scheduling changes will only be for daily Mass (Monday through Saturday morning) – the vigil and Sunday Mass schedule is not (yet) changing. Those changes will be relatively minor, as our current daily Mass schedule is already founded in regional ministry by each priest. In fact, this change allows us to add Masses at the west & east ends of the parish family.

How did we get here?

After the announcements this weekend at coffee hour, one parishioner remarked ‘I was waiting to see when you’d realize this.’ Fair enough – let me say it straight up to all who felt similarly: you were right! The arrangement as it currently stands, while technically doable (especially on paper), is exhausting to carry out and not feasible in the long term – holding to this course is a surefire way to burn-out of our priests (to say nothing of pastoral care & presence to the people we’re here to serve).

So, why’d we go this route in the first place? The short answer is that my original plan was based on the understanding that we would at some point be moving from three priests to two – something I had serious reason to believe was in the cards for us. If that change was required, the original plan would only require minimal further changes down the road, albeit with major stretching of the remaining two priests.

It took me all of two weeks to realize that that was totally unreasonable and on the third Monday of my time here, I started making phone calls to raise the alarm: anything less than three priests was going to drive us to an early grave! I was immensely relieved to find that every person I called – and I called a couple of fairly heavy hitters! – wholeheartedly agreed, encouraging me in my intention to change course.

What is this new course?

There are two major shifts happening: residency of priests and regional focus on ministry. Effective the first week of August, the vicars will take residence at the ends of the parish family – Father Ed to Saint Anne in Forks and Father Gali to Saint Mary Star of the Sea in Port Townsend. I will remain in the rectory at Queen of Angels in Port Angeles. Barring any extraordinary changes, this will be a long-term – hopefully permanent – arrangement of our priests.

These residential arrangements allow each priest to take nearly exclusive responsibility for the day-to-day priestly ministry of their region AND frees me up to do that work which is exclusive to the pastor – without having to drive every which way in between. Father Ed will primarily serve Saint Anne parish and its mission, Saint Thomas the Apostle. Father Gali will primarily serve Saint Mary Star of the Sea. Each of them will cover the corresponding daily Masses & confessions of those communities – I will do the same for Queen of Angels & Saint Joseph. Because each priest is nearly exclusively in his region, we will be able to offer more Masses across the parish family, albeit without daily Mass rotation.

This also allows for longer periods of stability on the weekends – Father Ed and Father Gali will each spend three weekends a month in their region. On the first weekend of the month, Father Ed will come into the central region so I can visit with and be present to the west region. On the second weekend of the month, Father Gali will come into the central region so I can do the same in the east region.

	1st weekend	2nd weekend	3rd weekend	4th weekend	5th weekend (if applicable)
West (Saint Anne)	Father Maurer	Father Ed	Father Ed	Father Ed	Father Ed
Central (QA & SJ)	Father Ed	Father Gali	Father Maurer	Father Maurer	Father Maurer
East (Saint Mary)	Father Gali	Father Maurer	Father Gali	Father Gali	Father Gali

With the only weekday driving being Thursday evenings for prayer & dinner together in Port Angeles – and Mass offered by all three priests together with the students on Fridays – our daily Mass schedule has room to actually grow. We’ll have that settled by the end of this week: look for it in the upcoming Sunday bulletin.

Finally, with Father Ed in Forks and Father Gali in Port Townsend, we can offer vigil Masses at both locations without fear for their safety due to winding roads, rain, ice, snow, or darkness. This is of particular help to the people of Jefferson county (Port Townsend) who rely on public transportation – which does not run on Sunday. The eventual restoration of their vigil Mass (and confessions beforehand) is a major consideration on that front.

Some challenging implications

There’s a canon law point that is especially relevant here: Canon 905. Article one clearly restricts priests to one Mass a day, except where the law allows additional celebration of the Mass. Article two names that allowance:  “If there is a shortage of priests, the local ordinary can allow priests to celebrate twice a day for a just cause, or if pastoral necessity requires it, even three times on Sundays and holy days of obligation.”¹

Did you catch it? With the permission of their ordinary (our archbishop), priests are permitted only two Masses on a weekday (including Saturdays) and a maximum of three Masses on Sundays & holy days of obligation. In the Archdiocese of Seattle, our archbishop has given the necessary permission to celebrate two daily Masses and three Sunday/holy day Masses.²

Despite vigil Masses fulfilling one’s Sunday obligation, the limit for any Masses on Saturday is two – and at least one of those must always be kept available for the needs of parish life (for example, weddings and quinceañeras).

And so, we reach the challenge of this switching of gears: one of the vigil Masses in the central region must be cancelled. As we’ve just explored, two vigil Masses is not an option (moreover, experience with late evening vigil Masses proves that the timing is attractive to no one). Having one of the vicars drive in to the central region not only requires cancelling the vigil in their region (one of which has especially serious ramifications on the east side due to public transportation), but re-introduces the very problem we’re working to solve by requiring a priest to always be driving a windy road in the dark, with the added difficulty of whatever weather conditions are in play.

Considering the best way to implement a plan for success

There is a way to square this circle: cancelling a vigil Mass at one of our central locations and adding a Sunday Mass in its place. And make no mistake, we need a total of four Masses between the two parishes of the central region – the attendance numbers we currently have simply won’t fit into anything less!

There are three questions that need to be answered for the central region:

• which vigil Mass (with confessions beforehand) do we retain?
• when and where do we add a third Sunday Mass?
• what adjustments (if any) do we need to make to the other Sunday Masses?

For example, we could have a 5 pm vigil (with confessions beforehand) at location X, a 7 am & 9 am Mass at location Y, and end the Sunday with an 11:30 am Mass at location X (the extra 30 minutes is to allow for driving between churches).

It is for this reason that I have given until January – the same time originally (and still!) being used to discern changes at Saint Anne in Forks around Mass times & language slots – for discernment & discussion. If discernment bears fruit sooner, we’ll implement it before then, but we’ll hold off on changing the weekend schedule while we enter into that dialogue with each other and the Lord.

For those wondering, this means that the weekend schedule will remain the same for the time being.

Next steps – discernment, discussion, and consultation

Since we’re not changing the weekend schedule immediately, we have time to prayerfully consider our options, the needs of the parishes, and what the best course of action might be. I will be meeting with the councils of both Queen of Angels and Saint Joseph to begin those conversations. This may also be a good time to remind you of our parish family townhall meetings – the first of which will be held at Saint Mary Star of the Sea in Port Townsend this Friday at 6 pm. Come with your questions, concerns, and idea – I want to hear, answer, and discuss them with you!

And of course, we need to invite the Lord into all of this! Mass times & locations, priest residences & schedules, and other important details do matter – but all of these serve a singular purpose: that we and all those of our community might draw closer to Christ. Our communities exist not to retain what we’ve always had but to go out to those who lack what we have been given: friendship with the Lord! The work we do is ultimately not inward but outward-facing.

Rest assured of my prayers for you. Please pray for me, our vicars, and for all of our communities. May God bless us, that we may know His will, responding to His call and go forward according to His plan for us & all those He desires us to serve.

1. Code of Canon Law, 905 §1 & §2 ↩︎
2. Many Gifts, One Spirit: Priestly Ministry, Appendix A, Section I ↩︎