September 17, 2026 – Pastor’s Note

Listen to this note instead: https://morefrmoore.podbean.com/e/september-17-2026-pastors-note/

Bellingham Churches

You may or may not have noticed, but I and our staff have recently begun referring to Assumption and Sacred Heart as a singular unit in many of our communications, usually with the moniker “Bellingham Churches”.

For me, this shift began about a year ago when two things happened. First, we combined the two churches’ faith formation programs under a shared director, something we had already done with youth ministry years before. Second, we held a bunch of town halls about weekend Masses, which resulted in a schedule in which Assumption and Sacred Heart intentionally spaced their Masses so that they were never competing for times; and which saw them sharing the same two priests in an every-other-week pattern. By October 2025, Sacred Heart and Assumption were acting far more unified than I had intended or expected by that point in the Partners process. Now that the high school is approved and the gears are in motion to have only one church office in Bellingham, they really are one singular administrative unit with two churches.

I think this is a healthy development for our county, since it causes the ecclesial reality to match the civil and social reality, namely, that Bellingham really is a singular community. It may be a city with interesting and distinct neighborhoods, but no one really thinks of north Bellingham and south Bellingham as alien entities, the way Ferndale and Blaine and Lynden are all obviously different cities and communities from each other and from Bellingham.

It also allows me and the staff a more solid basis for planning, because we can think of the county as three distinct “corners” – Bellingham, North West Corner (Lummi, Ferndale, Blaine), and North East Corner (Lynden, Kendall). When we are coordinating ministries or scheduling Masses, we are now thinking in terms of “Is each corner properly balanced with the others? Are we creating competing times or services within each corner?”

None of this is to say that I expect the two Bellingham churches to become homogeneous and lose their distinct flavors. That never happened at our other five churches, despite the fact that they were administered together in their own corners for decades. But it does mean that these two churches have very quickly and effectively begun to work together within their shared Bellingham context, and that makes me very thankful.

Planned Parenthood Fundraiser

At the end of August, a group of local businesses ran a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood that raised $65,000 (CDN article). In a particularly heinous irony, it was called “Love Thy Neighbor”. You can find a full list of the participating businesses here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcjtZZxEjQS/

I do not have sufficient space in the Pastor’s Note to detail every terrible thing about Planned Parenthood and to engage with the different arguments I often hear defending it. Suffice it to say, when a business chooses to support that organization, I am going to try hard not to support that business. Which makes me particularly upset, given how much I have personally enjoyed Fiamma Burger, Mallard’s Ice Cream, AB Crepes, and Aegis Games.

Three further points:

1. Catholics are not morally obligated to boycott these businesses. The Church knows that we live in a fallen world in which it is impossible to completely avoid evil. Over the centuries, moral theologians have developed categories to describe different levels of participation in evil. “Formal Participation” means desiring or working to bring about the evil, and it is never morally justified. “Material Participation” means providing the means to carry out the evil without desiring the evil: “Proximate Material Participation” means being a direct contributor to the evil, while “Remote Material Participation” means providing some help or funding for the evil without direct participation. The former can only be morally justified in the most extreme cases (think gun to your head), whereas the latter is allowed (though it may be heroic to avoid it).
   
   In the case of abortion, Formal Participation in that evil would be pressuring someone to have an abortion, choosing to undergo an abortion, performing an abortion, or specifically voting to expand abortion access. Proximate Material Participation would be opposing the abortion but still paying for it or driving someone to it. Remote Material Participation would be paying taxes to a government that funds abortions or patronizing a business that gives money to Planned Parenthood. The Church understands that this last category is very hard to avoid, even with the best of intentions, and so does not say that Catholics are morally obliged to avoid those situations.
2. Boycotts only work with sufficient numbers, and usually only work once. Whatcom County is only 7.8% Catholic, and only 17% of those Catholics go to Mass on the weekend. Maybe if we teamed up with the Evangelicals we could make a dent, except that most of the participating businesses were in Bellingham and most of the Evangelicals live in Lynden. Boycotts are also hard to sustain – they have to be focused on a very specific industry or business and that focus needs to be maintained over many months. That type of energy can usually only be harnessed once, so it needs to count.
   
   Which is to say, in Western Washington, I do not encourage Catholics to organize formal boycotts for the sake of changing business practices – it spends a lot of social capital for very little gain. Instead, I encourage Catholics to do personal boycotts for their own integrity. Being deliberate with our choices – even if that deliberation will only ever be known in the secret of our heart – helps us offer every moment and every choice to the Lord. I, for example, stopped shopping on Amazon in 2021 after it stopped selling the book “When Harry Became Sally”, a decision it only reversed after 4 years (likely due to the Great Vibe Shift). I will never make a dent in Amazon’s business practices, but it was important to me that I not participate in their censorship of Catholic ideas.
3. The best thing we can do is support alternatives. Rather than focus on punishing businesses in a very pro-abortion town for being pro-abortion, it is far more effective for us to guarantee there is an alternative to Planned Parenthood for those women who choose life. In this area, that is the Whatcom Pregnancy Clinic (https://www.whatcomclinic.com/). You can always make a donation or volunteer your time, but would you consider going a step further and attending their annual fundraiser on October 30? You can find details here: https://www.whatcomclinic.com/events/.
   
   We are also very proud of our parish PREPARES groups in Lynden and Bellingham who support mothers with young children, making it much easier for women in the area to choose life.