La Conner priest member of famed Seattle class of '68

 

September 28, 2022

Father Paul Magnano has ministered in the Skagit Valley and the Puget Sound for 55 years.

He is well known to longtime readers of the Seattle Times and regional publications.

Magnano, pastor at La Conner’s historic Sacred Heart Catholic Church and neighboring Skagit County parishes, has appeared in print numerous times in the past five decades, most prominently in a 1993 Seattle Times article featuring members of the largest class of priests ordained in the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Hailing from an esteemed Italian-immigrant Queen Anne family, Magnano is one of 16 priests from the archdiocese’s class of 1968. Twenty-five years after ordination, their respective spiritual journeys were profiled by Seattle Times religion writer Lee Moriwaki.

Moriwaki, who was one of the first Asian-American news writers, producers and assignment editors in the San Francisco Bay Area, led and closed his 1993 piece by quoting Magnano, one of classmates still in the priesthood.

Magnano toured Moriwaki to his Skagit parishes and the area’s tulip, corn and cabbage fields.

“I think I have a pretty nice job up here as a priest, don’t you think?” Magnano asked the journalist.

His perspective hasn’t wavered in the nearly three decades since that article. Magnano still sees each day as another opportunity to do his part to help the church “connect to the real world.”

Consider that after the 1993 Times article Magnano became the founding pastor of Christ Our Hope Church in Seattle, doing so in the name of social justice. He remains a tireless advocate on behalf of the homeless.

When interviewed by Moriwaki, Magnano and his classmates had come through a period of global turmoil and civil strife quite unlike the cloistered atmosphere of seminary life.

Magnano and classmate Kirby Brown were unique in seeing the world changing in real time while spending their final four years of theological studies in Rome.

“I went to Rome,” Magnano recalled, “and I saw protesters demonstrate against the Vietnam War at the U.S. Embassy. Being in Rome between 1964 and 1968 is part of the reason that I’m a priest today.”

Magnano, 80, went on to develop a doctoral dissertation on Hope as a graduate student at the University of Washington.

“Hope,” he stressed, “is something that’s long-term.”

Perhaps that is a defining factor in Magnano’s choice to remain in the priesthood for more than a half-century, long after many of his classmates left the clergy.

In the lengthy Moriwaki article, those who opted out cited numerous reasons for their decisions, including disillusion with treatment received from senior priests, burn-out and the desire to marry.

Moriwaki wrote, “many began their journey in the 1950s when priests were placed on pedestals and youngsters were able to enter the seminary in their early teens.”

Magnano was a junior at Seattle Prep Academy when he felt called to the priesthood. Initially he was drawn to the Jesuit Order, noted for its engagement in education, but ultimately chose a diocesan path.

“I felt there was a greater need for priests in parishes than in schools,” he explained.

Still, Magnano didn’t detach completely from the academic world. When ministering to Western Washington University students, many were concerned with being drafted to serve in Vietnam.

Magnano still expresses a great satisfaction with his calling. It’s a daily charge to help others, serve God and enjoy the important moments in the lives of parishioners whom he often exhorts to “go out and live God’s word in the world.”

That’s not likely to change as the words he shared with Moriwaki and the Times 29 years ago ring just as true to him today.

“I feel good about the parishes in the valley,” Magnano told Moriwaki. “The church is very alive.”

 

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