UPDATE 16 APRIL:
The Archbishop of Detroit has responded to the firestorm. I was sent this from Detroit.
My emphases and comments. If I’ve put my foot wrong here, I want to know how and why.
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Unbelievable.
I am told that there are TLMs in some 30 locations. Is this accurate? I bow to local wisdom.
I am informed by a priest that at the meeting with priests the Archbp. told them what was on the parish website, not anything about his “intended” (see above) plans. He told them everything was going to be cancelled in parishes, and didn’t say that he was considering other options. To have included that on the diocesan website… he would have had to have told them.
It’s everyone else’s fault! Not mine! I didn’t want to do it before Easter (but I did) and they are immature and adolescent and they didn’t tell you what they didn’t know and let’s pray that THEY aren’t angry and creating disunity!
The Archbishop was in … OK City and Salina and Tucson before he went to Detroit.
Didn’t he in a meeting of the USCCB call for the excommunication of US Border Patrol agents who tried to do their jobs and enforce the law? I may be wrong about that. Please correct me if I am.
O Lord, I hate this. Please please wash us all with your Most Precious Blood and, with the help of Angel Guardians, bring this to a healthy result.
Originally published on: Apr 15, 2025 at 18:30
The more I see things like this, the more I am persuaded that these bishops loathe the people who desire the Traditional Latin Mass. They dislike the people even more than the form of Mass itself, which they don’t know. They don’t know the people, either.
But they know what both of them stand for.
He has been Archbishop of Detroit for less than a month. He was installed on 18 March.
It’s like he couldn’t wait.
And… wait until just before Easter.
A link to that parish. HERE
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Now we know why the new Bishop was selected.
Akin to a hired hit man ( hireling ) , sent in to scatter the sheep.
We have been so blessed in the AoD in regards to the oppression of the Tridentine Mass under Archbishop Vigneron. Now, under our new archbishop, we will share in the cross and persecution the rest of the church carries until God grants us merciful relief.
“Blessed be God in all His designs.”
-Bl. Solanum Casey
St. Anne pray for us.
I’d agree this looks quite mean-spirited…perhaps someone “on the ground” will provide a bit more background. As I recall there were several parishes with regularly-scheduled TLM in the city itself, including one at least one dating to before Summorum Pontificum and a parish manned by the ICRSP… and Assumption Grotto is nearby. It may well be that this one is the “sacrificial lamb” being offered so that the bishop can play for time and report to the nuncio (who is reportedly “encouraging” newly-appointed bishops to prioritize the implementation of Traditionis Perditores) that he’s suppressed one TLM and is “studying further action”… even (if) so, the optics are definitely not so good. “Hi, I’m your new bishop, and I’m needlessly cancelling your Mass!” All that is missing is: “it’s for your own good!”
A true injustice. Praying for the people of the parish and for the priests who offer(ed) it.
To do this at all is vile.
To do this just before Easter is evil. Absolutely evil.
Be not afraid. We know that the Church must be crucified in the End Times. God’s got this. We must keep going to confession, praying your rosary and preaching Truth.
Let them think they are destroying the Church.
Our God is an awesome God. Archbishop LeFebvre preserved The Church in the SSPX.
In 2020, when the Catholic Church could have shown the world that God is bigger than any fear, that we are here to know, love and serve God in this world in order to be happy with Him in the next, that we believe in a God who is the Almighty, it did not! Instead, in 2020, the year whose numbers represent perfect vision, we saw clearly that is New Church, afraid of this world, bowing to this world, started after 1964.
The Holy Spirit will protect the Church. The one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Ask Our Lady of Fatima to help us.
Pray for the poor souls in purgatory. Their release from purgatory is like Aragorn going to seek the help of the dead Kings. (Lord of the Rings) How sweet is that? But also pray because they are in great pain.
Keep the Faith! Viva Christo Rey!
What are the faithful to do about these continuing atrocities? Surely prayer, but this always reminds me of the saying that God doesn’t want us to lean on the shovel and pray for a hole, but we must actually do the work. It seems that there may be something sinister going on, and it’s happening more and more. There must be something that can be done to stop this.
Since the implementation of TC and the unveiling of the disdain, hatred, indifference, and scorn of the bishops towards faithful Catholics of all ages and backgrounds who have a devotion to the liturgical traditions of the Church . . . I have gone from having no interest in the SSPX to tremendous sympathy for the SSPX to believing everyone in these abused diocese should direct all of their donations to the SSPX (but make copies of the receipt and send them to the bishop in the envelope he mails you asking for your help with his Lenten Appeal).
I will not mention any names, but when I left the episcopal church in 1998 I dragged my family to a TLM over an hour’s drive away. It was the best decision I ever made although the group was schismatic. When I met with the Abbot of the small Abbey that was offering the Mass, he wanted to make sure I understood they were in schism. In response to my questions he told me that the local Bishop often visits him (the Bishop was well known as a Latinist and offered the TLM often after he retired). Father Abbot told me the purpose of the Bishop’s visits was to ask him to come under his authority. The Bishop asked him why he kept saying no, didn’t the Abbot trust him? The reply from Father Abbot was, “I trust you but don’t trust the system.”
Under pressure from our nation’s Bishops, it was only a few weeks after I began going to this Mass that this particular Bishop banned ad orientem Masses throughout the diocese including those on a well-known Catholic cable TV network. I am sure he regretted this. His tomb reads “Pray for me.” This ban was overturned sub rosa but not for televised masses.
A few years after Summorum Pontificum, with the Abbot dying this group reconciled with the diocese with approval from Rome and the promise that Rome would eventually approve the ordination of the priests there who had been illicitly ordained. Of course this never occurred and they all left, but the TLM is still held there as far as I know and we have two strong parishes that offer the VO.
On Trinity Sunday in 2011 I went to Mass at the Abbey in part because the retired Bishop was often the celebrant there. When I spoke to the last monk (who was on his way to Chicago) about things, I told him he should not have turned over the place to the diocese until Rome had fulfilled its commitment. My only basis for this was Father Abbot’s line, I do not trust the system.
Until Traditionis Custodes I had set aside my lack of trust in the system. Now I find it very difficult to trust any Bishop. If it is true that Stalin could not destroy a Church the bishops have been trying to destroy for 2,000 years, it seems,perhaps from hell, Stalin may be watching them redouble their efforts.
There are some who question whether the Church even has the authority to ban the traditional Mass. I think of it in the same way as Pope John Paul II stated that the Church does not have the authority to ordain women (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis). I wonder if a number of priests just ignored these rulings and continued to offer the Vetus Ordo what would happen.
Be prepared to see this in other places: New bishops crushing traditional Masses at what may seems to be random. These bishops operate in lock step. This is our cross.
Solar Doug, Fr Z had a story many years ago about wagon wheels. Maybe he will link to it for us. Here is what I am doing: I am going to the SSPX chapel. I am helping “put wheels on wagons.”
I saw a video of the faithful renovating the newly bought chapel building in the late 90’s. Many of them have passed on, but the congregation has grown. They have bought a bigger building. I want to be a part that renovation.
It is not only the TLM. It is the silence in Church, the modesty, the discipline of prayer, bringing God and Mary into everything in life, solid homilies based on Faith. They pray the Angelus, they show up for public prayer.
Remember the rosary is our most powerful prayer after the holy Mass. Don’t let the enemy tell you your rosaries don’t matter. They are more powerful than we realize. Ask our Lady to help you discern what you must do.
Souls are being lost. I had to act.
Time for underground Masses- my son reported to me that the archdiocese of Washington DC has banned all TLM for Easter Sunday-no surprise there. Very grateful that the Shrine in Raritan has been supported by the bishop, who shows a great deal of courage visiting us every year and sitting in choir at the TLM.
Recently I came across the “Off the Menu” podcasts of Charles Coulombe and Vincent Frankini. Coulombe said, in the past Catholic monarchy guaranteed diverse people’s local rights, because all subjects were simply loyal to the monarch. A republic can’t do that, he said, without explaining further. I suppose he meant, a republic has to impose itself as the sole condition of life. So, perhaps it fits that a monarch like Pope Benedict XVI could grant the TLM to local communities as they wished, while a revolutionary, free republic/Church cannot. Of course Pope Francis acting as monarch took the TLM away, too, so perhaps here is where monarchists stub a collective toe.
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And yet this Archbishop is offering one of the Easter Sunday Low Masses at the ICKSP’s St. Joseph’s Shrine! Then the same day that is announced he turns around and does this as well.
My father noted how every year we see major restrictions of the Latin Mass around Holy Week, only highlighting how diabolical these unjust restrictions are.
And what does this accomplish? Let’s look at a few thing:
~Families (Myself included) often drive to the AoD (Archdiocese of Detroit) to attend the Latin Mass on feast days due to restrictions in our own dioceses. That is gone.
~One of the parishes we go to on those occasions has a priest who has privately said he will become an SSPX priest if he’s forbidden to offer the Latin Mass. Well done AoD, you’ve lost (at least) one good and holy priest.
~AoD has been nicknamed as “Latin Mass Central”, with 28(!) locations that offer the Latin Mass, the most Latin Mases in a singular diocese worldwide! And now it seems all but 1 or 2(!!!) will be gone!
~Are all these people expected to go to the ICKSP? If so they may need to start a fourth or potentially even fifth Sunday Mass, and send a third canon to help run the parish. Is that even possible, the ICKSP already seems to be being stretched very thin?
~AoD is known for helping and training priests across the nation learn the Latin Mass, and has even sent priests to the other side of the nation to fill in at Latin Masses when the main celebrant was unavailable. What becomes of all this?
We must pray, fast, and do penance. Kyrie Eleison.
Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! Ad majorem Dei gloriam!
How very Soviet of Archbishop Weisenburger. I remember when my good friend, the late Rev. Dr. Malachi Martin, predicted all of this over 30 years ago. He was called a ‘wingnut,’ paranoid, a conspiracy monger…(and worse).
Now we have the Underground Church taking shape as he predicted, and the Modernists have only themselves to blame.
Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us!
I will have to look and see if Lansing offers a TLM. I attended a conference a few years ago where Bishop Boyea celebrated a daily Mass and I was impressed by him. I know some of the suburbs of Detroit (western side) are actually in the Diocese of Lansing (Ann Arbor is one).
It all started with the crummy coat of arms “update”…the first step away from good tradition..
Sadly this really is not a surprise.
Abp Vigneron tolerated the TLM publicly to maintain his image. He knew his time was ending and basically found a way to push the TLM shutdown on the next Archbishop.
The current playbook for the Archdiocese of Detroit is in the document from Abp Vigneron titled “No Second Tunic.” It was released in early February, days before Abp Weisenberger was introduced as the next Archbishop of Detroit. One cannot help but wonder how much of a hand Abp Weisenberger had in that document given its timing.
The TLM shutdown is just the start. “No Second Tunic” is basically an admission that Detroit’s “Family of Parishes” consolidation effort failed and they are going to be more aggressive. I would not be surprised to see many of the historic parishes within the city itself being shut down and sold. All of this will happen under the cover of “No Second Tunic.”
Nowhere in “No Second Tunic” is there talk of the vocations crisis in Detroit or any efforts to support families. It really reduces everything to dollars, not souls.
Meanwhile, there is a contrast right on the western boundary of the Archdiocese of Detroit…the Diocese of Lansing. For those not familiar with the geography, Detroit and Ann Arbor are effectively one large metro area. However, Ann Arbor is in the Diocese of Lansing. The boundary is a few miles east of US Highway 23 running north and south (Ohio to roughly the Flint area).
Bishop Boyea actively supports all forms of schooling (diocesan, classical, and home), and has allowed the Latin Mass to continue as it was before Traditionis Custodes. The Diocese of Lansing is doing far better with all religious vocations than Detroit and parishes generally hit their “Diocesan Services [tax] Appeal” goals. The people generally support Bishop Boyea.
There is one specific TLM in Ann Arbor that draws at least as many as the main Novus Ordo Mass at the parish, and at times draws more. There is enough of a community (and priests trained in the TLM) in Ann Arbor to comfortably support another TLM. I fully expect people at least in the western part of the Archdiocese of Detroit to shift to Latin Masses in the eastern part of the Diocese of Lansing.
Lansing is generally doing well, Detroit is not.
Bp Boyea turns 75 in April 2026, so people in Lansing are closely watching Detroit.
https://www.aod.org/announcements-newsroom/newsroom/2025/april/update-on-traditionis-custodes-in-the-archdiocese-of-detroit
Maybe we’ll get the TLM once a month in a school gym. Sigh. Pray for our priests who are affected by this. They love the TLM and offer reverent NOs. I fear the next step will be requiring EMHCs and altar girls.
Unfortunately, this underscores why SSPX must maintain their “Catholic but non-canonical” status indefinitely. Fortunately, there are 4 SSPX chapels in the Detroit area and more elsewhere in Michigan. https://sspx.org/en/list-sspx-chapels And they have no shortage of vocations: https://stas.org/en/eternal-priesthood-jesus-christ-30243
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Does this hireling not realize that he has given an Easter GIFT to the SSPX chapel there??? If the Bishops do not want people to go to the SSPX, they MUST stop making the faithful feel trapped.
Wow. The bishop really made things much, much worse by throwing an immature hissy fit in the form of a letter. Nothing but buck-passing and insults in Grima Wormtongue form. Somehow it was the Latin Mass Catholics who are pawns of the Devil for distracting people during Holy Week and NOT him for literally making this announcement during Holy Week – the mind boggles. And if he thinks the liturgy is so great a treasure . . . surely this means every Novus Ordo Mass in his diocese is reverent and formed according to the rubrics? Or is that just lip-flapping service?
It seems that one of the many curses a Jesuit Pope has foisted upon the Church is that now everyone seems to think and talk like a forked-tongue Jesuit.
God grant that I never meet a toad like this face to face. Such temptations I do not need in my life. God grant that, someday soon, actual Men might ascend to the office of bishop.
I got some more information for you Fr. Z:
Here is a statement posted by the Archdiocese of Detroit. Doesn’t say much that we don’t already know and that wasn’t covered in the Archbishop’s letter: https://www.aod.org/announcements-newsroom/newsroom/2025/april/update-on-traditionis-custodes-in-the-archdiocese-of-detroit
You, Fr. Z, mention that “he should do it himself.” I was informed that Archbishop Wiesenberger is offering the 9 AM Low Mass on Easter Sunday at St. Joseph’s Shrine (ICKSP): https://www.institute-christ-king.org/images/detroit/bulletins/2025-04-13a.pdf
I think it’s also worth noting that if you go to the Tridentine Community News and scroll back to the 2023 dates, you can find their PDFs with 18 non-parish church locations where the Mass can be held. All of the locations are “TLM suitable”. I imagine they will make use of these, and knowing the Detroit TLM community, there will probably be numerous Clandestine Masses. Apparently northern Wisconsin does them already. Clandestine Masses are quickly becoming the future for those who want the Latin Mass.
Here’s those non parish church locations for those who want:
http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/wtnews/230305.pdf
http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/wtnews/230312.pdf
http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/wtnews/230319.pdf
http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/wtnews/230326.pdf
http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/wtnews/230402.pdf
@hwriggles4: Yes, the Diocese of Lansing has TLMs. They have: St. Mary, Star of the Sea (Jackson), St. Thomas the Apostle (Ann Arbor), Old St. Patrick’s (Brighton (2nd Sunday only)), St. Matthew’s (Flint), and St. Gregory the Great (Lansing). For AoD “refugees”, St. Matthew’s and St. Thomas the Apostle are going to be the closest two, depending on where you live.
Something for the Archbishop to consider;
As Christ said to Saul: “Saul. Saul. Why do you persecute Me ?”.
Let’s wait for the answer.
Bishop Weisenheimer is a sock puppet for Jorge Bergoglio. Why did he not visit some of the many thriving Latin Mass parishes like Assumption Grotto or St. Edwards up in Lakeport to see what an important place the Latin Mass community plays in the AOD??? He came here with a predetermined planned.
What is telling is that he kept Vigneron’s crooked episcopal vicar, Msgr. Bugs Bugarin in place. Yes, the same wicked guy who fabricated rape charges with his crooked cop parishioner against one of the most holy and orthodox priests in the AOD. Birds of a feather flock together as the old saying goes.
Sadly, the AOD had declined tremendously in terms of the number of open parishes under Alan Vigneron’s ham handed management. This move by his successor will only hasten the decline of the parishes that are left open. St. Joesph’s Shrine will be jammed packed on Sundays, and attendance at parishes where the Mass of the ages is banned will fall off.
For many, the better option may be to start going Mass with the SSPX, as they have a number of chapels around metro Detroit. I have had it with Bergoglio and his clown cardinals and bumbling bishops and am coming to the realization Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was right. There are more options for the Tridentine Mass around Detroit than St. Joseph’s:
https://sspx.org/en/list-sspx-chapels
@OneTradMale
Correction – Archbishop Wiesenberger is NOT offering the 9 AM Low Mass on Easter Sunday – rather, the Mass is being offered for his intentions (the bolded names next to the listed Masses indicate who the Mass is being offered for).
Regarding Clandestine Masses – the problem in my Diocese is finding priests willing to do this. Heck, we can’t even find priests to offer Clandestine Baptisms, which has been extremely disappointing. I know several families that had to drive several hours away to get their newborn baby baptized in the Rite of the Vetus Ordo, which is a heavy burden to place on the still recovering mother.
I even bought a portable altar from St. Joseph’s Apprentice and a Missal, and I know folks who built private altars in their home. But finding priests who would even consider using them – no luck so far. There’s only so much the laity can do – Blessed Miguel Pro please pray for our priests.
Just a guess, but I am going to speculate that supporters of the TLM are also large supporters of various programs in the diocese through their contributions. Can’t help but wonder how well the Bishop’s Annual Collection will fare this year.
Since The Astronomer mentioned him, I will repeat what Malachi Martin told me.
In my comment already made I mentioned the schismatic Abbey where I first began going to the TLM. Malachi Martin recommended that I visit this Abbey and said because of necessity their sacraments were valid. He assured me that the SSPX excommunications were invalid and that traditionally there were only a few papal commands that one has to obey. Implicitly (or explicitly, I don’t remember) he was saying that one could ignore a prohibition on TLM, although the result would be a Bishop, in his immense charity, treating the priest like a bucket of horse manure. And this is exactly what bishops who obey TC are doing. They are willing to walk along with active homosexuals and those who want to dismiss the teachings of the apostles, but they have no ability or desire to act charitably toward anyone who actually believes the historic faith.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t think there was any attempt to justify this decision, other than a fairly hand-wavy appeal to TC and unity? If you are doing something you know many people will strongly disagree with, it seems like you should provide some reasoning for why it is in the interests of those to whom it applies. It just seems inappropriate not to do so. This is something that gets to me about these declarations. It shows a lack of respect that he can’t be bothered to give any reason for it other than (paraphrasing) “the pope said so” and “Masses should be the same everywhere” which are not very persuasive. And it would seem to suggest that those making these decisions are not really interested in the relative merits of the two forms of the Mass if they can’t provide even one reason why the new Mass is, in itself (apart from legalism and unity), objectively better.
This almost reads like the new archbishop wasn’t planning on having TLM in regional locations until the social media firestorm.
cathgrl: This almost reads like…
It does, doesn’t it?
First, he himself wrote that it was “a very brief reference to this at last week’s priest gathering”. So, not much information was given at that time. It is hard to blame one parish which put what they had heard in the bulletin. Walking together, after all.
Also, I have it from a priest of the Archd. D that he did NOT tell them about subsequent plans at that time.
Hence, if he was, in fact, thinking about it all along, he didn’t tell the priests, which seems to me to be seriously flawed tactics and strategy, along with a lack of respect for their work. If he wasn’t thinking about it all along, then something happened to alter his view.
Either way, it is a disappointment that anxiety had to be multiplied because of the deficit of communication… and at this time of year! At Easter!
He himself said in his statement that he didn’t want to get into this so soon… BUT HE DID. He then mentions that the Devil likes to stir division before Christmas and Easter… WHY HELP?
Let us pray and hope. We can ask everyone’s Guardian Angels to help them sort it out for the best outcome and that some semblance of peace will emerge with the fewest number of hearts broken and disillusioned by this callously cruel “legislation” from High Atop The Thing™.