Detroit Full Of Saints Waiting To Be ‘Unleashed’: Archbishop's Church Roadmap

DETROIT, MI — If area Catholics take seriously a new challenge issued by Archbishop Allen Henry Vigneron of the Detroit Archdiocese, there will be so many beatifications and canonizations of men and women, children and adults, and priests and nuns that there won’t be enough days on the calendar for their feast days.

Years in the works, his “Unleash the Gospel” is a 40-page roadmap for the future of the Detroit Diocese that calls on Catholics to help stem a tide of parishioners away from the church. The plan embraces the “new evangelism” and asks parishioners to ask themselves, “What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?” and follow through with action.

Noting that “every one of us is called to, and capable of sainthood,” Vigneron said at unveiling ceremony for the document at Sunday evening Mass at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Detroit that Catholics must ensure that “they have not stalled in their discipleship, and thus become unable to give credible witness to the power of the gospel.”

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“Evangelization is, very simply, proclaiming the good news of Jesus to those around us,” the archbishop wrote. “This proclamation is to be both in word and in deed.”

Commitment must be in both word and deed, the archbishop wrote. If words aren’t backed with action, “people will rightly suspect us of hypocrisy,” which “may even give Christianity a bad name,” Vigneron wrote.

Deeds without words also are not sufficient because “people will not learn of the one who is the source of the joy and divine love we carry within us...how can we fail to share generously what we have freely received?”
Membership in Catholic parishes in Detroit and elsewhere have been in a freefall for years, and widespread but disparate challenges in the urban and rural parishes served by the diocese have fueled “a widespread pessimism regarding the possibility of authentic renewal,” Vigneron wrote.

“For several decades the number of practicing Catholics has been in steady decline, a significant factor leading to many painful closings and mergings of parishes and schools, which has in turn caused more people to drift away in discouragement or frustration,” Vigneron wrote. “The number of active priests has also dropped considerably. In the last half century our metro area has suffered from urban blight, economic decline, racial tensions, family breakdown, substance abuse, and crime.”

The Archdiocese of Detroit may not seem a likely setting for a large-scale revitalization of the Church, he conceded, then continued:

“But is it not in the most unlikely settings that the Lord loves to show forth his divine power? Our acknowledgement of our own spiritual poverty is precisely what can lead us to rely wholly on God. Then it becomes clear that success belongs to him alone and not to any human ingenuity. If we have become spiritually dry, we need not fear. Dry wood is perfect for being set on fire!”

According to the findings of America’s Changing Religious Landscape, a Pew Forum survey released in 2015 by the Pew Research Center, Catholicism loses more members than it converts, a rate higher than for any other religion. More than 3 million Catholics have left the church since 2007, according to the study. Additionally, for every Catholic convert, more than six exit the church, the survey found.

Some steps have been taken to address the exit of the faithful, including a 2016 Mass of Pardon in which diocese leaders and others repented for pedophilia “committed over the generations by our bishops, priests, lay ministers, institutions and all the faithful — sins that all too often had become embedded in our church culture,” Vigneron wrote.

The roadmap is based on the recommendations of Synod 16, a three-day archdiocesan-wide gathering in November 2016 in which about 400 clergy, religious and lay people examined four central themes — personal life, family life, parish life and central services — that Vigneron said “will make the Church in southeast Michigan a joyful band of missionary disciples.”

“The synod was the ignition spark that is to set the archdiocese ablaze,” Vigneron wrote in his letter. “Its goal was nothing less than a radical overhaul of the church in Detroit, a complete reversal of our focus from an inward, maintenance-focused church, to an outward, mission-focused church.”

You can read the full letter here.

Feature Image: U.S. Archbishop of Detroit, Allen Henry Vigneron, right, greets Pope Benedict XVI after receiving the pallium, a woolen shawl symbolizing their bond to the Pope, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)