The diocesan council meeting of July 8th, 2024 recommends that the boundaries of our diocese be redrawn to reflect the current situation. We have discovered over the past several years that having a diocese that is too widespread is not feasible. The Cascade Range has proven to be stumbling block for the unity of west and east in the Pacific Northwest region. The costs of crossing that barrier have prevented us from coming together and getting to know each other as we should.
Bishop Kedda can easily travel up and down the I-5 corridor seeing to the needs of the people on the west side of the mountains, but travel to the east is costly. There is a reluctance for our members to travel over the mountains to come together. We really only had one occasion when we were able to gather in person and that was for a retreat in Spokane, but only a few of those living on the west side attended. Other attempts to find a central meeting place occurred at the retreat center called Rainbow Lodge in North Bend, but these met with disappointing results.
Discernment also tells us that the spirit and flavor of the cultures of east and west are different from one another. Therefore, it was resolved that the boundaries of the diocese will be redrawn. We anticipate that the new boundaries will be from the Cascade Range to the ocean, and from Canada to California. We acknowledge that if we had been the ones to draw the boundaries in the first place, this would have been our choice. Our assumption is that those who drew the first boundaries of this region were looking at a flat map!