SEATTLE — Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a job or normal life due to the pandemic, grief ministry outreach at parishes is needed more than ever, said Deacon Carl Chilo.
“This ministry is so important right now,” said Deacon Chilo, the archdiocese’s director of multicultural ministries and a member of St. Stephen the Martyr Parish in Renton. “It’s the pastoral care of the church to be with those who are grieving. We want to … help people be able to journey through this new normal.”
But only 10 of the archdiocese’s 170 parishes and missions have grief ministry programs that bring parishioners together in a peer group to share their experiences, prayer and support, he said.
So the archdiocese is launching a grief ministry program to provide resources and support for parishes interested in starting their own programs. Pastors are being invited to consider registering teams of people to become grief ministry facilitators in their parishes, with training sessions starting via Zoom in January.
“We’ll train them how to start a grief ministry program,” Deacon Chilo said.
“We invite people to use a model that is best suited for their parish and community,” added Erica Cohen Moore, the archdiocese’s director of pastoral ministries.
Identifying unmet needs
The new program has its roots in an assignment Deacon Chilo was given during his last year of deacon formation — identifying unmet needs in his parish (then St. John the Baptist in Covington) and the broader community.
“I interviewed 22 people in my parish and community,” from teenagers to senior citizens, Deacon Chilo said. On the resulting list of 28 needs, grief ministry was number two.
He and another parishioner explored existing programs, including one at neighboring St. Stephen the Martyr Parish in Renton. Mirroring that model, St. John the Baptist established its own grief ministry program within a year.
From those beginnings in 2012, Deacon Chilo became part of an archdiocesan team focused on starting grief programs throughout Western Washington. When he joined the chancery as an employee in 2018, “the project landed on my desk,” he said.
Deacon Chilo asked Sharon Rasmussen to join the team. She had helped establish the ministry at St. Stephen the Martyr in 2003, 13 years after her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Rasmussen joined the parish’s widows and widowers’ social group, which evolved into the grief ministry program.
“We had a strong core group of 15 people,” she said, including people serving as facilitators. “We shared our personal experiences and those of others who have come through the program,” Rasmussen explained.
The archdiocese is using St. Stephen’s program as a model for parish grief support because it is flexible, can be customized to a parish’s needs and requires little funding, Rasmussen said.
“It’s not counseling,” Deacon Chilo explained. “It’s a peer group going through similar experiences.”
Resources available
People who participate in the training will receive materials beforehand so they can prepare for the sessions. The documents (which also will be available in Spanish) include a summary of a model grief ministry program, including a suggested meeting format and confidentiality protocols. Other topics include how parish staff can support the ministry, funding and “dos and don’ts.”
For those unable to participate in the Zoom training, a team of seven people is available to walk with people until they are ready to launch a grief ministry program in their parishes, Deacon Chilo said.
“We’re here to be a resource,” Cohen Moore said.
Resources will include a grief ministry website and mental health resources; both outreach ministries are encompassed in Cohen Moore’s department.
“There’s a lot of overlap between grief ministry and mental health,” she said. “It’s just been nice to have those paired in the same office.”
Grief ministry information
Online registration for the archdiocese’s January 25 grief ministry training will be available by January. Until then, contact Deacon Carl Chilo for more information by calling 206-382-4828 or sending him an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968 = 'Carl.Chilo' + '@'; addy878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968 = addy878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968 + 'seattlearch' + '.' + 'org'; var addy_text878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968 = 'Carl.Chilo' + '@' + 'seattlearch' + '.' + 'org';document.getElementById('cloak878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968').innerHTML += ''+addy_text878664de2103d3049710ea688022a968+''; .