Preserving Catholic Sacred Spaces in the Archdiocese of Detroit
help our parishes unite in the truth of Christ
WE ARE NOT ALONE
Upwards 30 dioceses across the country from Buffalo to St. Louis are forcing mass closures of churches, despite the churches still serving people. The Catholic faithful in those dioceses have been actively defending their priests and parishes from unjust removal and closure. In 2026, it became Detroit's turn: our churches are now targeted by the Archdiocese for closure.
Archdiocese of Detroit Restructuring
As the Archdiocese of Detroit (AOD) moves forward with plans to merge and close our parishes, it is vital to know our rights as Catholics. We are a gathering of lay faithful who have come together and recognize the AOD may be overstepping Church laws and not acting in the best interests for the salvation of souls. To understand why, we need to know who is forcing the closures: the Archbishop.
How well do you know our Archbishop?
ABOUT ARCHBISHOP EDWARD J. WEISENBURGER
All Catholics assume the best of their bishops, yet Jesus warns often in the Gospels of false shepherds (Matthew 7, John 10). Sadly, many news articles and journalism reports detail a growing list of Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger's apparent injustices against those he is meant to shepherd as a Catholic priest and now bishop. Knowing all this, Catholics are confused, concerned, and feel cornered. The issues below are listed chronologically, with the latest findings at the top. If significant new findings come to light, they will be added, to help inform Catholics. Our purpose is not to spread misinformation, slander, or detract, but to inform and bring facts to light. We welcome the Archbishop to publicly provide clarification and information about these issues, and if any of the details here are proven false or inaccurate, it will be corrected or removed. Lastly, we want to help our Archbishop lead our Archdiocese well, and we pray for him always. We believe the Holy Spirit guides us in truth to do this for God's glory and His Church.
UNJUST CHURCH CLOSURES
1. To protect the Catholic faithful's rights from false shepherds, the Vatican directs that parish church mergers or suppression (extinguishing) must have the following(p.214-216):
a. "the principal motivation for modifying a parish is a concern for souls... when the good of the faithful requires it",
b. the merger or suppression "should be the last choice... insofar as other possible remedies should have been at least considered beforehand and ruled out",
c. the merger or suppression "must be relevant to that individual parish.... Generalized or diocesan motivations alone cannot justify the modification of a specific parish",
d. "Before rendering his decision, the Bishop must seek out the necessary information and, insofar as possible, hear those whose rights could be injured.... The consultation must be genuine and should consider relevant arguments both for and against the proposed modifications",
e. "When parishes are modified, the temporal goods are to follow the people."
2. And when closing a parish, "the following reasons in themselves do not constitute grave cause" needed for closure (p.216-218):
a. "a general plan of the diocese to reduce the number of churches",
b. "the church is no longer needed",
c. "the parish has been suppressed",
d. "the number of parishioners has decreased"...
e. "some potential future cause that has not actually happened yet".
f. And additionally that "it must be demonstrated that other reasonable sources of funding or assistance have been considered and found lacking or inadequate", and that the Bishop must also "verify that the good of souls will suffer no harm."
3. For those familiar with the Archdiocese of Detroit's Restructuring Plan led by Weisenburger and the Catholic Leadership Institute, it seems much of their plan conflicts with the Vatican directives:
a. Vague goals of "vibrant parishes, flourishing priests, and mission-readiness" do not seem to legitimate church closures.
b. Unspecific "re-imaginings of parish life, priestly ministry and our mission", and unclear calls "to build something that will last, something vibrant, sustainable, and full of hope," do not seem to legitimate church closures. Why not simply do those now? Why the need to close churches first?
c. A diocesan-wide lack of priests, vocations, and parishioners do not legitimate church closures.
d. No solid plans explain what will happen to the temporal goods of the closed churches: will the bank account funds, material wealth, investments, property value, etc. actually follow the people, and how?
4. The Restructuring Plan seems disinterested in the large percentage of parishioners who are statistically likely to stop attending Mass after a merger or closure (a 20-40% decrease statistically consistent from past closure/merger records). This unconcern directly contradicts bulletpoint f on p.219 of the Vatican directives.
a. The Plan does not seemingly allow the people to demonstrate reasonable sources of funding to keep their parishes open. Several solvent parishes at risk of closure have had benefactors come forward, with no process for them to follow-up on their offers.
b. No where in the Plan does it clarify how the restructuring is specifically "for the good of souls": in what concrete ways does the Plan benefit the salvation of the parishioners?
c. The Plan does not include true solutions to increase: outreach, Mass attendance, conversions, baptisms, marriages, and religious vocations. How do church closures assist these goals? Why must we decrease when Christ calls us to increase?
d. Massive lack of transparency with the Plan leads many to ask: why have Archdiocesan Finance Reports stopped being published and released, or remain difficult to locate? How much of the people's donations are/were spent on lawsuit payouts because of abusive clergy, on the Restructuring Plan, on the "Unleash the Gospel" program, on Catholic Leadership Institute services, and other failed or pet projects?
e. After parish listening sessions end, there seems to be no more opportunity for the people to voice their concerns and ideas directly, and there is no direct communication with the Archbishop. Why keep this deliberate distance from his people about the Restructuring Plan?
f. Since the problem is that the Archdiocese's infrastructure was designed to serve a much larger Church (now shrunken), then the solution must be to make the Church larger again, as Christ says to baptize all nations. But there is no plan for this in the Restructuring Plan.
g. Please pray for our Archdiocese and Archbishop Weisenburger.
h. Please see here for St. Louis' formal actions against their church closures.
i. Since the Vatican directive states that closed church buildings must remain available for Catholic use, and only sold or demolished as last and least favored options, how specifically does the Plan propose to handle the many anticipated closed church buildings?
UNJUST PRIEST REMOVALS
With such a lack of priests in parishes, it is inexplicable that decent and devout priests have been removed from active ministry and assigned to menial work removed from parishes and lay faithful. A growing list of priests have been identified by their past parishioners and other acquaintances, as having been denied parish assignments and having been prevented from living out their vocations as spiritual fathers. Without transparency and sufficient reasons and explanations, the removal of these priests have caused deep hurt, pain, suspicion, and distrust, which also causes the faithful to withhold their names out of fear they would be further unjustly disciplined. Please pray for these exiled priests, and for Archbishop Weisenburger.
UNJUST SEMINARY FIRINGS
1. Three world-renowned professors at Detroit's Sacred Heart Major Seminary: Dr. Ralph Martin, Dr. Eduardo Echeverria, and Dr. Edward Peters, were suddenly fired July 2025, without notice or explanation, each after 20+ years of serving there. Archbishop Weisenburger gave little to no reason for his firing decisions, only sharing with Dr. Martin that "he didn’t think it would be helpful to give any specifics but mentioned something about having concerns about my theological perspectives”. The harsh dismissals intimidated remaining faculty at the seminary, and leaked internal letters reveal that:
a. Weisenburger refused to explain because "he was afraid that anything he said could be held against him and he didn't want to provide fodder for possible lawsuits."
b. Weisenburger gave the fired professors each "a six-page letter offering them a year of severance pay conditioned upon signing a confidential non-disclosure agreement."
c. Weisenburger may have violated "at least three sections of the [Sacred Heart Major Seminary] Faculty Handbook" regarding faculty separation, academic freedom, and contracts.
d. Please pray for the exiled professors and all their students, and for Archbishop Weisenburger.
UNJUST BANNING FROM THE MASS
1. Setting aside supposed controversy about the Traditional Latin Mass, Archbishop Weisenburger's decree does indeed allow priests to seek permission to use the 1962 Missal for their daily Mass, but his decree also states that permitted priests must agree in writing to only say such Masses "when none of the faithful are able to be present" (section B.1.iii.b. of the decree).
2. Consider the dissonance of permitting priests to use their preferred liturgical book, but only if they promise to prevent people from joining their prayer to God. It is difficult to imagine any good explanation for keeping people away from worship, and directing priests to deny people from joining. Please pray for those deprived of the ancient Mass, and for Archbishop Weisenburger.
UNJUST BANNING AD ORIENTEM
1. During Mass, priests faced the same direction as the people, almost always since the ancient days of the Church. Only starting in 1970 did Catholic priests begin frequently facing the people instead. With this historical tradition and precedent, the Vatican clearly answered in the negative when asked if "the position of the priest versus absidem [facing towards the apse] is to be excluded. This means that priests cannot be forbidden to face the same direction as the people face during Mass, which is toward the apse of the church building (normally the space behind the altar). Besides the many rich and worthy reasons for this practice, the fact that Rome says this priestly posture is legitimate should mean that Archbishop Weisenburger cannot condemn it, but he has, in his July 2025 decree: "use of the ad orientem posture by the priest when using the ordinary form of the Mass is no longer permitted" (section H of the decree).
a. Note that permission was never necessary for a posture never able to be excluded.
b. Also note: ad orientem [facing towards the east] means essentially the same as versus absidem in this case.
c. Please pray for priests deprived of their freedom to face the way they choose, in solidarity with the people and in honor of our rich inheritance. Please also pray for Archbishop Weisenburger.
UNJUST FORCED SHOTS
1. Against the Vatican's own instructions, "that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary," Archbishop Weisenburger in 2021 (as bishop of Tuscon, AZ) forbade priests of his diocese from signing any Covid-19 vaccination exemption letters for Catholics who wanted or needed them for religious reasons. Although the Vatican and Weisenburger say that the common good is the top priority and must outweigh personal freedoms, the fact remains (and has only become clearer) that the grossly rushed Covid-19 vaccine's development meant that many people were pressured or threatened into taking the unproven vaccine against their will and conscience, during times of widespread panic, fear and unclear science.
2. Thankfully, the Catholic Church reiterated that vaccinations MUST BE VOLUNTARY, to justify people who did not want foreign objects injected permanently into their blood and bodies without consent and clarity. Please pray for all those who were coerced and bullied by this injustice, and for Archbishop Weisenburger.
UNJUST DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE
1. Our Church in America has been scandalized about the clergy-child-abuse evil continuously coming to light since the early 2000s. Dioceses across the USA have been bankrupted from paying out victim settlements, many mock the priesthood as a scam, and Catholics have left the Church in disgust. We who remained expected justice and better leadership, but Archbishop Weisenburger's work in destroying possible abuse evidence only worsens the injustice and Church credibility. In 2019, to its credit, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma retained the law firm McAfee & Taft to investigate its history of alleged clerical abuse cases. Weisenburger at that time served in Oklahoma, and the investigation found that he included, in at least one message, instructions for his archbishop to "not retain this document; rather, please dispose of it after reading it" (p. 7-8 of the full investigative report). Further, the investigation reveals in its conclusions Weisenburger's pattern of untransparent behavior:
a. When we forensically imaged the Archdiocese’s network drives and devices, we were only able to locate a very small number of Msgr. Weisenburger’s e-mails, and far fewer than what we have reason to believe once existed. During his tenure, Msgr. Weisenburger, V.G. was heavily involved in many of the allegations of child sexual abuse reported to the Archdiocese. In limited instances, copies of email correspondence involving Msgr. Weisenburger, V.G. were printed and placed into paper files, but we believe that there were numerous emails that were never printed and that are now unavailable to us and the Archdiocese because of their deletion. (p. 52 of report)
b. In a status report, Fr. Weisenburger, V.G. directed the recipients that “Memos should be destroyed after reading.” Our concern is that to the extent that a “destroy after reading” practice was employed by anyone at the Archdiocese, we cannot be certain that there were not other instances in which this procedure was used and the records were destroyed after being reviewed. Neither the Archdiocese nor our firm can review any destroyed documents as part of a complete compilation of information previously available to the Archdiocese. (p. 55-56 of report)
c. For more analysis on this report and Weisenburger's possible violations against civil and Church laws, see the Lepanto Institute's article here. Please pray for all survivors of abuse and unjust actions, and for Archbishop Weisenburger.
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