The Very Rev. Gary F. Lazzeroni is the vicar general and vicar for strategic planning for the Archdiocese of Seattle (pictured right). Sarah Perichich-Lopez, IPJC's director of community organizing (pictured left), sat down with him to speak about Partners in the Gospel and his vision for a flourishing church in Seattle.
SARAH PERICICH-LOPEZ: Even though people understand the parish merger process as necessary and important, many of them still feel like they are losing their space and their culture. What would you say to these people who are currently mourning the loss of their parish homes?
THE VERY REV. GARY F. LAZZERONI: That loss is real. The culture of a parish is so fundamental to parish life and deep in people’s experiences. As this process unfolds over the next several years, we do need to attend to that grief. That is going to take time and careful listening not only to what people say but also to what they have experienced over the years.
Regardless of whether or not people lose their physical worship space, this process will be difficult. There will be a sense of loss, because new identities will emerge in each new parish, and that means letting go of what was. Hopefully, this threeyear process will allow each new parish to integrate the old parishes’ culture and history. But we cannot effectively move forward until we have been able to grieve what we’ve lost.
The synodal process has really taught the church that we need to take the time to be attentive and listen to people’s experiences and do this in a way that is nonjudgmental and allows people to feel what they’re feeling. Grief work has always involved listening
to hurt and pain in a way that acknowledges that the person listening may be in a different place. It makes space for people’s varied experiences of what this process is like for them.
PERICICH-LOPEZ: As the archdiocese goes through this process, what are we looking toward? What is your vision for a flourishing Catholic community?
LAZZERONI: Partners in the Gospel is all about confronting a reality that’s been before us for a very long time: declining celebration of the sacraments, Mass attendance, giving, and both priestly and lay vocations. How do we confront that in a way that creates not a closing in on ourselves but an opening up of a wider vision?
Pope Francis has articulated a vision of evangelization that is a going outward to meet the needs of the modern world. This, the pope has made clear, is different than proselytizing. The vision for Partners in the Gospel isn’t that we all become great apologists for the faith; it’s that we become great evangelists. Archbishop Etienne has made this clear; we are doing this because of mission, not because we have a priest shortage or money’s going down.
The whole reason we’re reorganizing is to create communities that go out from themselves and bring the Good News to the world in a variety of ways, particularly to people who are marginalized. We can be more effective at being the presence of Christ to both the people in our parishes and out in the world.
We have a very intentional process for how to do this. The first step is giving parishioners an opportunity to name their grief and sense of loss. The second step is to discern who we are:
To articulate that we are all part of the same community of faith and to talk about who we want to become in the future. Part of that involves integrating everything we’ve learned and defined about each community. For example, some parishes might now have a Spanish-speaking Mass and include a whole culture that is new to some members. How do we include that in our vision of who we are and what we can accomplish?
To accomplish this new community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and that incorporates everyone’s point of view, we have to listen to one another, not just in a passive way, but really allow the experience of others to shape us. We sometimes think that believing in the faith will lead to belonging. But it’s actually the other way around.
Faith is not primarily an intellectual exercise. It is meeting God in relationships. I think this focus on community and relationships leads to deeper faith—it’s so Catholic. Our theology is all about incarnational life. We don’t primarily come to God with our heads, but with our hearts. We need earthy things like bread, wine, and water, but we also need earthy things like love and care for one another.
Once we got through this diocesan listening process, over half of the parish families underwent changes based on what we heard from parishioners. If we can implement that same level of honest consultation and careful listening going forward, then I’m very, very hopeful about what the future looks like. It is all about synodality, all about walking together.
The overall vision of Partners in the Gospel is that evangelization and working for justice are not two separate things, or even two parallel things; they are the same thing. To evangelize is to be a people who seeks justice. To evangelize is to be a people who always pay attention to the margins and to people who are marginalized.
To be part of this kind of community is a dream come true for the church. God’s dream for the church is that we be a people that reflects the outward vision shown in Jesus’ ministry.
PERICICH-LOPEZ: How do we get from where we’re at in this current moment to the vision you just articulated?
LAZZERONI: We get there by going through the entire process over the next several years as we have over the previous year and a half. The process we used to discern parish family configurations was the most collaborative, widespread consultation that has happened in the Catholic Church in western Washington over its almost 175-year history. It gives me great hope that going forward, if we use that same process and really trust synodality, what we end up with will be the work of the Spirit.
It began with a leadership team that developed drafts of parish families. The team went through several drafts itself, then these drafts went to a larger leadership group and then to all priests in the archdiocese. In the spirit of the Synod on Synodality, we very carefully listened to people’s reactions to what was presented. We encouraged each parish to have their own in-person listening sessions. We also gave people the ability to respond online.
Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still people who feel as if they haven’t been included. And I want to attend to them in any way I can. I want to listen to them, and I want to hear how we could do it better moving forward.
PERICICH-LOPEZ: Do you have any advice for parishioners and leaders on how to stay engaged in the process and be really committed to struggling in solidarity with one another as we cocreate this new way of being church?
LAZZERONI: I think the most important thing is just a willingness to trust the Lord. How that manifests itself in a time of transition and change is through the willingness to live into the tension that things aren’t settled yet.
We need to trust God the way Abraham and Sarah and Moses trusted. It’s easy to become comfortable with parish life the way it is, even though resources are stretched, and we can’t sustain what we had. But what this future offers us is so much better. We just need to be willing to live in the unsettledness of it for a while, and that’s never easy.
Change is hard. But I’m excited that it’s not comfortable, because in our salvation history we have a tradition as a people of moving from what is comfortable to what is better, even though it feels uncomfortable for a while.