'Tacoma's Notre Dame' was set to be demolished. Now its fate rests in Rome

For more than 100 years, the Tacoma skyline has had a familiar mainstay: the Holy Rosary Church.

The church’s 200-foot steeple is crowned with a cross and stands above a patchwork of red brick, punctuated by dramatic Gothic windows.

But citing expensive repairs and declining numbers, the church has spent four years under the threat of demolition. It may take the Vatican to decide its future.

A century ago, Holy Rosary was built by Catholic German immigrants who wanted a place where they could worship. Since then, Holy Rosary has become an iconic part of the city — some even call it "Tacoma's Notre Dame."

"It's gothic architecture, very beautiful," said Carmen Palmer, who attended Holy Rosary on and off for around 10 years. "[The interior is] very bright blue, the color of our Lady of the Holy Rosary. A little too bright blue for my taste, but other than that, beautiful stained glass windows."

In 2018, the building started to show its age. In November of that year, a five by five-foot chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling.

Parishioner Jonathan Carp remembers it started out as a small construction issue.

"Upon further inspection, there was water damage to the plaster. The water damage was from a blocked downspout that was causing water to pool on the roof," Carp said. " Just the choir loft and some of the back pews were closed. And then the entire church was closed a few weeks later and we were told to start having mass in the school gym."

The local parish and the Archdiocese of Seattle began assessing the full extent of disrepair at Holy Rosary, and the costs quickly ballooned.

Their initial assessment was that a $2.5 million repair could make the interior safe enough to open the doors, erect scaffolding, and address the leak. But their assessment of the entire building was more dire. The electrical and plumbing needed an overhaul. The roof needed to be reworked. Most significantly, the old brick structure needed seismic retrofitting to match modern building standards. All of that brought the total repair estimates to around $18 million dollars.

Then-Archbishop J. Peter Sartain announced the church would close, saying there weren't realistic avenues to get that much funding. He also cited the difficulty of sustaining the church in the long term, and in an unconventional step, announced the building would be demolished and the land sold ahead of more formal catholic proceedings required to do so.

In 2020, Seattle's new archbishop, Paul Etienne, decreed the Holy Rosary parish, which oversaw the Holy Rosary church, was unviable. This consolidated Holy Rosary parishioners into Pope St. John XXIII parish, and placed any decisions on the church in their hands.

In June 2020, the archbishop, at the recommendation of parish leadership, relegated the church to "profane but not sordid use," a designation that strips the church of its status as a sacred space and opens the pathway for a potential sale and demolition.

The building is listed as a historical landmark with the city of Tacoma, and in order to sell the land, the archdiocese would have to demolish the building to avoid preservation laws. In an email, the city of Tacoma said it has not received any applications for development permits, which would include demolition; nor has it received any applications related to historic review.

Saving Holy Rosary

Many parishioners question the Archdiocese's decisions over the past four years.

"It's an old building and old buildings need care," Palmer said. "Attendance probably was not right where it could have been. Probably the dollars were not where the Archdiocese would want to see, because these were people of lower income. But new immigrants, people of lower income deserve beautiful places to worship."

Several of those parishioners, including Jonathan Carp, created Save Tacoma Landmark Church to coordinate support for preserving the church. Their determination was to raise the $2 million to address the initial leak, and from there, explore ways to financially sustain the church.

Carp said that even though saving the church is an uphill battle, parishioners aren’t being given a realistic chance to try. Save Tacoma Landmark Church has organized its own assessments of the building's condition and drawn lower numbers for repair. They've also received pledges for $1.7 million in funding, just shy of the $1.8 million they've assessed as truly necessary to reopen the building.

Carp agrees with parish and Archdiocese leadership that this is a money issue, but not in the same way they see it.

"The land Holy Rosary sits on is very valuable land," Carp said. "If you've been to the church, you know that there are magnificent views of downtown Tacoma and Commencement Bay. We've estimated $20 to $25 million talking to commercial real estate agents in Tacoma, and that is why they want to tear the church down."

Leadership at the local parish and the Archdiocese of Seattle strongly disagree with how Save Tacoma Landmark Church has framed its decision to sell the church.

Helen McClenahan, the chief communications officer for the Archdiocese, said that the decisions around the church have been made by the local parish after months of debate and consultation with parishioners, and their decision is based on what they feel is best for the health of parishes in Tacoma.

"The way it works in the Catholic Church is that each parish is its own entity and is responsible for its buildings, its parishioners, its community, and the Archdiocese is here to support that. But the parish itself did not have the money for this, nor did they have the people," McClenahan said.

She pointed to the size of the recently formed Pope St. John XXIII parish, which was consolidated from five former parishes and includes five campuses and a catholic school.

"If they had that much money, should they spend it on fixing one building? Or should they spend that money on carrying out the mission that we have as a Catholic church?" McClenahan said. "Is that how we would really want to spend the money when we have other worship spaces that actually can fit more people and can bring us together as a community? They really believe this is what's right for the Pope St. John XXIII community."

McClenahan disagreed with the accusation that the Archdiocese is looking to sell the land for a profit. While it's typical across the country for an Archdiocese to have deeds and titles in their name, Catholic canon law dictates that assets within a parish belong to that parish. McClenahan said that means any earnings from a sale would go to the local parish, and the Archdiocese's involvement is to support and carry out the decisions made by parish leadership.

"This is people's faith we're talking about, so this is highly emotional," McClenahan said. "And this is an area that's really hard for us who work for the church. We don't come to work every day saying, 'Oh, I can't wait to close a church,' right? This is a sign of something greater, which is trends that are not pointed in the right direction right now."

All roads lead to Rome

To further preserve the church, Save Tacoma Landmark Church is appealing the church's relegation to "profane but not sordid use."

Under Catholic canon law, the guiding legal code for all church issues, parishioners can appeal the decision of a parish or Archdiocese. By doing so, the issue is kicked up to catholic officials at the Vatican, who will look into the merits of the decree.

Parishioners have been consulting with Brody Hale, a civic lawyer who works in church preservation, on the available avenues to save the church. He said the legal battle over Holy Rosary is part of a larger trend nationwide.

"We’re seeing this on account of...changing amounts of catholic populations in certain areas. But we’re also seeing it ranging from shortages of priests — which is not, by the way, a valid reason to close a catholic church, or potentially a parish — to just a desire on the part of some bishops to get rid of what they consider to be unnecessary buildings."

If the appeal is taken up by the Vatican, it will be heard in what's called the Dicastery for the Clergy. Further appeals can be made by either side until the case reaches the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, whose decision on matters is final. The legal process for a final decision in Rome could take years.

Hale's opinion is that parishioners have shown the ability to raise funds to repair the church, and he believes that according to catholic canon law, that means Holy Rosary should remain a sacred — and not profane — space.

Parishioners with Save Tacoma Landmark Church said they’re prepared to explore their options to keep the church financially stable over the long run, if the church is ruled to remain sacred. That includes an outright purchase of the church, something that is their right under canon law.

Helen McClenahan, from the Archdiocese, is skeptical. She said parish leadership has followed protocol and points out the Archdiocese's track record with recent decrees holding up to the appeals process.

Hale said that in many of the cases he’s worked on, parishioners aren’t aware of their canonical right to save churches. As catholicism faces dwindling numbers and lower funds in many places, this kind of conflict could become more common.

"If this is how the Holy Rosary case is being treated, what will be done with those other churches? What is being done now with those other churches? Are parishioners at those other churches being made aware that they have the right to put forward such funds as they wish, to maintain these churches as catholic sacred spaces and not have them sold off?"

"I don’t see any evidence that they are, and that is profoundly disturbing to me," Hale added.