MAJOR REFORM ALLEGEDLY Coming to Detroit...
...Allegedly the Archbishop is shaking things up in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
For those who have read my previous articles detailing things happening in the Archdiocese of Detroit, this headline is probably NOT that shocking, but for anyone who hasn’t been reading my Substack articles, please consider subscribing!
Now everything in this article is UNCONFIRMED, so DO NOT take it as a fact out of the gate, but I cannot stay silent hearing things like what I am about to report out on. There have been murmurs of a meeting in the Archdiocese of Detroit amongst the clergy and Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger that occurred sometime within the last week or two from the time of me writing this article.
My source for this information is not a member of the clergy and did not identify anyone within the clergy or in the employment of the Archdiocese of Detroit as the source for this information, so again, take this all as it is, a rumor of what could be the truth or could turn out to be entirely untrue.
RUMOR #1: Sacred Heart Major Seminary is going to drastically change course…
According to the source, Archbishop Weisenburger wants to clean out the house and install his own set of professors aligned with his own personal ideology.
Some alleged filters he will use to evaluate the current staff includes their age, their background, their political affiliation (for or against the Archbishop’s policies) and their willingness to bend to his will for the formation of seminarians.
As far as age is concerned, he allegedly plans to reevaluate the employment of anyone over the age of 62 (this is probably illegal, so it would not be officially worded this way when he would implement this plan). This is allegedly due to the fact that anyone above that age will not easily bend or change their philosophy to suit the Archbishop’s ideology for the seminary.
This would drastically change the formation of seminarians in the Archdiocese of Detroit just from the change in professors, let alone the changes he is attempting to implement in the ideology (undisclosed) he wishes to impart on them.
RUMOR #2: Retired Priests will be banned from celebrating Mass in the Archdiocese of Detroit, or even living in Parish Rectories…
The Archbishop allegedly views retired Priests as a threat or an issue for his reform of the Archdiocese, as he plans to implement a policy preventing retired Priests from living in Parish Rectories (which many currently do throughout the Archdiocese) and to ban parishes from using them for Masses when the Parish Priest has vacation or other activities that prevent him from celebrating Mass on a particular weekend.
This would be detrimental to the retired Priests as well as an unnecessary burden placed on Parish Priests. Retired Priests live off a very modest salary, sometimes as low as hundreds of dollars a month, and so making a little bit of extra money filling in for a Mass here or there is the difference between the Priest having money for groceries or having to wait till next month to replenish their groceries.
Parish Priests already have enough difficulty when they need to go out of town on a weekend, whether it is a much needed retreat to a monastery or the death of a loved one, so adding onto this the burden of finding a substitute priest for a weekend Mass is made even harder when they have to source a currently active Priest (within the Archdiocese) who likely has their own Parish to attend to on any given weekend.
RUMOR #3: The Family of Parishes Structure will end, and Parishes will close…
The final rumor I have heard is that the Family of Parishes structure is allegedly going to end abruptly, followed by the Archbishop pursuing an audit of all parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit to determine which parishes will remain open and which parishes will close their doors.
The Family of Parishes structure was already kind of a haphazard implementation and did not do many priests or parishes any favors. It was a carryover from the failed Vicariate Structure which had preceded it.
Try as he might, the former Archbishop of Detroit, Archbishop Emeritus Allen H. Vigneron, could not quite find a good structure for the various regional parish structures within the Archdiocese and now his last effort to provide such a structure, The Family of Parishes, will come to an end as well.
It seems likely that the Archbishop will be especially interested to see the financial information for parishes which formerly had a Traditional Latin Mass and how they are doing financially following the implementation of Traditionis Custodes within the Archdiocese.
IN SUMMARY:
If all these rumors are true, there are major changes coming to the Archdiocese of Detroit, and I am very concerned with what the direction forward following all of this will look like.
Pray for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Pray for the Archbishop of Detroit.
Sincerely,
Your Brother in Spirit, Frater Spiritus
Follow me on Twitter / X: @FraterSpiritus
Seems uncharitable to speculate and spread rumors rather than waiting for the facts. While I did not always agree with then Bishop Wiesenburger, I believe that his decisions were based on what was best for the faithful. I truly believe he takes that philosophy to Detroit.
The curious thing to me is what the archbishop would think he is achieving by banning retired priests from saying mass and otherwise serving at parishes. In the life of my parish (which has since been handed over to a religious order not governed by the archdiocese), it was the retired priest who was the nuisance trying to undermine our traditional style of worship and make us convert to the swingin' suburban model. One of them told me, "There are a lot of troublemakers at this parish," without acknowledging that he was one of the biggest troublemakers. Complete disrespect for the traditions and worship style of the parish even before the traditional Latin mass was to return. So my image of a retired priest is a baby boomer still rebelling against his parents' generation and maliciously trying to undermine the parish he serves.