St John Vianney Church

I am very sad at the review that said that the staff is the type that rolls their eyes.
I was up there the other day, in the office, and a staff member kept on answering the phone, everyone else was gone. And three phone calls in a row were people needing stuff. I said” I bet it is hard, when you get the same people calling every month” Her response was ” Since we are following Jesus’s teachings, we don’t get to judge them and we have not walked in their shoes”. I guess I felt like that was so powerful because it is easy to get cynical and she was not that way, after so many years working with everyone.
Anyway the staff members are absolutely FABULOUS! So many wonderful programs, and then to boot, they do amazing things in their community, Tent City, Building homes in Mexico, Wells of water in Africa, and lots of other things.
I can’t say enough how trulely, humble, and kind and harding working, the staff at St. Johnny is!!!

We have spent the last week in the Seattle area and witnessed the strange and bizarre local church, decorated with a flying (Superman) Jesus, no tabernacle in the church (it’s in the side chapel), with women dressed as deacons, reading the Gospel, giving the homily and giving themselves communion (at the Eucharistic service), singing Happy Birthday at Sunday Mass, and applauding for the choir, greeting and chatting with each other in the church proper, etc. It was so ridiculous that the visitor I brought was laughing.
What a blessed relief to meet the administrator of St. John Vianney Church. A Catholic Church in Washington that is about the worship of God instead of each other! Wow!
The Catholic Church isn’t supposed to be a place to make friends. It’s supposed to an important and special place to learn about, spend time with and give honor and glory to God. That’s a pretty minor request from Someone who wants to spend an eternity of happiness with you and wants to give you His blessings and graces here on earth. God is not an egalitarian. Everything in heaven and earth reflects the hierarchy that is part of the truth of life and living. It’s only socialism and communism (which don’t believe in God) that promote this idea that we are all supposed to be the same, so God doesn’t deserve anymore than we would give each other. People are free to believe whatever they wish, but Mary at Fatima warned us in 1917, that people were falling into hell «like snowflakes». Being disrespectful of God in a place where heaven actually touches earth and God Himself comes down in the humble forms of bread and wine, borders on a kind of insanity. How wonderful that there are still some places in the world (and even in Washington) where truth is being taught and modeled.
Bravo to St. John Vianney parish in Kirkland!

Stuffy church that’s fairly conservative. For example, people here give you elevator eyes to see what you’re wearing. Definitely not my cup of tea.

When we first moved to the Eastside from Olympia, many, many years ago one of our first searches was a Catholic church to attend. We had been attend mass at a College and had gotten away from the traditional old stuffy parishes. The first two Sundays, we went to churches in Bothell and Kirkland. The third Sunday in town, my wife was sick and I went off by myself to St. John Vianney, which was using the old St. Thomas Seminary on Finn Hill, between Kenmore and Juanita. (Now the home of Bastyr University.) The congregation was actually friendly! What a change! This felt like mass at the college chapel. We found out later that a lot of this was due to the pastor who had taught at the seminary and had been raised protestant.
The friendliness of the congregation continues today, although the location has changed. And several pastors have come and gone, but we are still the same parish family as some 20+ years ago, with many new additions, of course.
We are in a fairly new facility, still on Finn Hill. We have a wonderful choir. (OK, I am biased — I have been singing with the adult choir since my now grown kids were in elementary school.) And we have some fantastically talented cantors (one of whom is a fellow Unilocaler), as well as a great choir conductor and extremely talented choir director. It is worth coming here at 8:30 on Sunday mornings just to hear the choir.