Detroit, MI
Looming Archdiocese of Detroit restructuring plan weighs on region’s Catholics
As the Archdiocese of Detroit prepares for a two-year restructuring, many local Catholics are bracing for the changes ahead, with some fearful their parishes could close and contemplating where they may go next, while others are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger, who took the helm of the archdiocese last year, announced in November that the archdiocese cannot maintain its around 200 parish buildings and is working to “right-size and reallocate personal and financial resources. He said listening sessions are set to begin this spring at every parish.
For the region’s Catholics who have already experienced church closures or mergers, especially in Detroit and inner-ring suburbs such as Warren, Roseville and Dearborn Heights, some worry their church could be the next to shut its doors. Others are concerned about how the restructuring could affect the existing shortage of priests and nuns. And some worry about how the closures, especially in Detroit, could impact the city’s Black Catholic population.
Shirley Slaughter of Oak Park said her parish, Presentation Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Detroit, doesn’t have its own building and held Masses in the chapel of St. Scholastica Parish in Detroit until last October. At that point, the archdiocese began holding only one Sunday Mass time for both St. Scholastica and Presentation Our Lady of Victory, meaning the two parishes attend the same Mass.
St. Scholastica is a large church building, but it’s “not filled up every Sunday,” Slaughter said. Fewer than 100 people are parishioners of the two parishes, combined, she estimated.
“If anybody’s going to be restructured, they’ll probably restructure us again,” Slaughter said.
But the restructuring is “a necessary thing that has to happen,” said Hannah Kolpasky, a 30-year-old parishioner at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Grosse Pointe Woods. She said she is “cautiously optimistic,” now that Weisenburger is leading the archdiocese.
“I think that he has come out from the beginning of his tenure as archbishop with a more clear message of why these things need to happen and what kind of process it’s going to be,” Kolpasky said.
The debate comes as more than 170 of the Archdiocese of Detroit’s 224 priests last week attended a three-day meeting related to the restructuring, brainstorming what churches could potentially be grouped together as part of a “pastorate” model, in which a cluster of one or more parishes is led by one pastor. The new model will replace the archdiocese’s current “families of parishes” approach, in which a grouping of parishes has a team of priests.
While the details of the restructuring are still being worked out, the Rev. Mario Amore, executive director of parish renewal for the archdiocese, said no one “wants to go through a process like this.”
“Especially in our churches, because they’re such a part of the fabric of our lives,” Amore said.
So many of the archdiocese’s parish communities are “limited in what they’re able to do,” he said, because they’re trying to preserve buildings.
“But the Church … and even our buildings are not meant to be museums,” Amore said. “Yes, they are first and foremost places of worship. But if all of our resources are going to preserve a building, then it’s limiting our ministry as a Church and the very reason which we exist, which is to make disciples.”
Still, he acknowledged the anxiety some may be feeling about what could happen to their own parishes.
Amore said “we need to honor” people’s grief and “honor the angst that a process like this brings about.”
Decline in Catholic population
At one point, 1.5 million Catholics called the Archdiocese of Detroit home. The Catholic census is closer to 900,000 today, with around 150,000 regularly attending Mass.
Weisenburger said in November that many of the archdiocese’s churches were built “during a time of tremendous growth.”
The archbishop said the archdiocese doesn’t know how many parishes might merge or how many buildings may close.
What many Detroit-area Catholics may be bracing for is a reminder that their parishes are fighting for survival once again, said Brett Hoover, a theology professor who studies trends in U.S. Catholicism.
“It’s just a lot of grief,” said Hoover, who teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Closing or merging local parishes has been happening nationally since the late 1990s due to a confluence of events: parishioners moving to the suburbs, religious disaffiliation and aging membership. There is also a declining number of clergy, Hoover said.
Areas in the Midwest and Northeast have been particularly hard hit by declining and changing populations. Many parishes were built around communities that moved out decades ago, the Loyola Marymount scholar said.
The archdiocese’s two-year plan is likely based on lessons learned in other cities where Catholic populations protested closings and at times appealed to the pope to save their parishes, Hoover said.
“I’m sure there is genuine sincerity” behind the two-year plan, Hoover said, though he hasn’t been following the situation.
In the U.S., 19% of adults identified as Catholic in 2025, compared with 24% in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center.
Pew said the share of Americans who are Christian appears to be leveling off, at least temporarily, after years of decline, according to a 2023-2024 study. A report on the study said the Protestant share of the population has been fairly level since 2019 and the Catholic share has been stable since 2014, “with only small fluctuations in our annual surveys.”
The Archdiocese of Detroit conducted a downsizing in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Cardinal Edmund Szoka, and there were a few iterations of parishes clustering or merging in the 2000s and 2010s. The diocese then moved to the “Families of Parishes” model around five years ago under then Archbishop Allen Vigneron.
Past restructurings didn’t include as much feedback from parishioners as the current one, Amore said, adding that the archdiocese hasn’t restructured on this scale before with “this kind of process.”
“That’s part of telling the story of why the priests are so on board with what we’re doing right now, because they don’t want to do another one of those … processes in five years from now,” he said.
‘Very sentimental’
At a recent Communion Service at St. Margaret of Scotland in St. Clair Shores, more than a dozen people filled the pews. A deacon presided over the service in the church’s chapel, a smaller space with colorful stained glass windows. Mainly older adults attended the service, including Lawrence D’Agonstino of Fraser.
D’Agostino, a parishioner of St. Pio of Pietrelcina Parish in Roseville for 53 years, said the restructuring process is “concerning.”
“It’s very sentimental, because everyone … wants to have their own parish stay open, which is common sense,” he said.
One issue is that men are not becoming priests, D’Agostino said. Another issue is the financing of the parishes.
“It’s a shame that the younger generation doesn’t fulfill their obligation as we did when we were younger … and so therefore the amount of people going to the parishes is limited,” he said. ” And due to the fact that it’s limited, it makes it that much (more) difficult … for the parishes to stay open financially.”
D’Agostino, 79, said he doesn’t know where St. Pio of Pietrelcina Parish “is standing financially.” He thinks the archdiocese will be considering whether parishes are “in the red” or “in the green,” with those in the red likely to be a concern.
Paul Padyiasek, a parishioner at St. Louise de Marillac in Warren, said the restructuring has “got to be done.” He said priests are retiring and parishioners have been dying.
He added that some people who used to attend Mass at his church now go to churches farther north in Macomb County. Padyiasek, who is an usher at St. Louise, estimated that a total of 200 to 250 people attend one of two weekend Masses at the church, which is down from around 300 people three or four years ago.
Padyiasek, 81, said he is part of a group of around 20 people who get breakfast together every Sunday after Mass. They’ve already been talking about what church they might attend if St. Louise closes.
“I know a lot of people are going to be going probably to St Anne’s,” Padyiasek said.
St. Anne Parish on Mound Road in Warren will stay open because it has a school, he said.
“I think a lot of the churches that don’t have schools will close,” Padyiasek said.
Experience with closures
St. Christopher Church in Detroit, which was renamed St. Juan Diego Parish in 2019, held its final Mass on Jan. 11, drawing longtime and former parishioners and neighbors. The church had served Detroit’s community since 1941, but in recent years drew as few as 20 worshippers to Sunday Mass.
Slaughter, 80, said her parish in Detroit, Our Lady of Victory, closed in the 1980s and merged with Presentation church. The merged church, which is called Presentation Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church, lost its building in 2014, but it continued holding Masses in the chapel of St. Scholastica Parish in Detroit until recently.
Slaughter, who wrote a book about the history of Our Lady of Victory, said the Black Catholic Church in Detroit has lost “so many Catholics” over the decades because of archdiocese policies that “didn’t serve us.” She said her priest has changed frequently over the years, sometimes every two to three years, and the longest she has ever had a pastor is eight years. She argued that white Catholics have priests for longer periods of time.
Slaughter said Our Lady of Victory will “probably be hit again” because of the low numbers of parishioners.
“And then I’ll make a decision on what I’m going to do after that hit takes place,” she said.
The archdiocese’s Amore said the frequent changing of priests is “really the case across the archdiocese.” He said six to 12 years is a normal term for a priest to be at a parish community.
Amore said the Archdiocesan Restructuring Commission includes Detroiters and people from Black Catholic parishes. He noted that “we are the Archdiocese of Detroit.”
“And so the city of Detroit needs to be a definite focus for us,” Amore said. “And the archbishop has committed to that through this process.”
A Catholic church in Detroit known for its mural of a Black Jesus, St. Charles Lwanga, was at risk of closure late last year, but those plans were reversed thanks to a coalition of parishioners who fought to keep the church open. St. Charles Lwagna is still a place of worship, but now as the newly combined parish, Christ the King.
The biggest lesson that Steve Wasko, a leader in the Anti-Racism coalition, said should be applied to the restructuring process is asking the question, “What does it take to have a flourishing church?,’ as opposed to asking the question ‘What are we going to do with fewer parishioners, less money and less priests?”
Wasko, a longtime member of St. Suzanne Lady/Our Lady Gate of Heaven, said when the Archdiocese of Detroit closes parishes in the city, it disproportionately affects Black Catholics.
“There’s no evidence nationally that these restructuring processes lead to anything other than further retrenchment, usually impacting communities of color the most and usually resulting in the eventual continued loss of Black Catholics from their faith, organized religion and local parishes,” Wasko said.
Some parishioners moved to the suburbs
Southwest Detroiter Walter Glinka, 71, became a parishioner at St. Francis D’Assisi as a child, when his neighborhood was an enclave of residents of Polish heritage. He was baptized there, confirmed there, attended grade school and got married at the parish that is over 100 years old.
In 2004, his parish was merged with nearby St. Hedwig, less than one mile away. He described St. Francis as the oldest Polish-speaking parish in the city. But St. Francis and St. Hedwig have relied on Spanish-speaking immigrants and other Latinos for decades, he said.
Glinka became a lay minister at St. Francis years ago to help with services. But many of his peers have not been as loyal to the parish.
“They got married here, moved to the suburbs. We never had a plan to try to recruit people from the suburbs,” Glinka said.
He’s taking a wait-and-see approach on the latest plan.
“We only know the storyline that it is a two-year process. We don’t know the actual plan yet,” Glinka said.
Pastorate model
Amore said the archdiocese is still in the first phase of the restructuring process, which runs until March. He said the archdiocese has been collecting information from and sharing information with its priests during this phase.
Last week, the archdiocese gathered over 175 priests for a three-day meeting at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
“It was an opportunity for them to come together in the areas in which they work, in the different parts of the diocese, and really have … some conversations and ask questions about what the future of the diocese could look like, and then just come together to pray about and propose some different models for our parishes,” Amore said.
Though the exact restructuring plan is still being determined, parishes will become part of a “pastorate,” which is a grouping of one or more parishes led by a pastor, according to the Archdiocese of Detroit. The new model will replace the current “families of parishes” model, in which a grouping of parishes has a team of priests, Amore said. In a “pastorate” model, there will be one designated pastor, and other priests might serve as associate pastors.
In 2025, the archdiocese had 224 priests, a number that is projected to decline 40% to 134 by 2034.
“As all organizations ― secular, religious ― we need to be planning ahead for what our reality will look like, and so … forming these pastorates will help us to align the number of priests with the number of pastorates,” Amore said.
Listening sessions
Priests formed models, or groupings of parishes, during last week’s meeting, Amore said. Three models for each parish will be presented at the listening sessions, which will run from the week of April 13 to the beginning of June.
“There’ll be over 400 listening sessions, two in each of our parish communities, where parishioners can come, see the models for their particular area and then give some feedback,” Amore said.
In similar restructuring processes conducted in dioceses across the country, between 20% and 40% of the models changed based on the feedback from parishioners, Amore said. The plan will then go to the Archdiocesan Restructuring Commission and then an advisory body of priests, which will have to sign off on it. It will then go to Weisenburger for his final approval, Amore said.
A “pastorate” could take a few different forms, he said. One form is one parish, with one building. Another model is one parish, but several buildings. And another model is one pastor who oversees a few parishes.
Amore said there is “no set timeline” for deciding when church buildings in the archdiocese would close.
“Really, at this point, there’s no plan to have set dates for closures of specific church buildings,” he said. “We first are looking at the models and then how things play out from there.”
Some churches are already discussing closing because “they simply don’t have the resources to continue,” Amore said.
At this point, he said, closure is a possibility for all of the archdiocese’s parish communities.
“We don’t want to say that certain places are safe and certain places aren’t. … It’s the reality of where we’re at in the process right now that we just don’t know, and that it’s a possibility for everyone, for every parish,” he said.
Weisenburger will announce the new “pastorates” in early 2027. Amore said it’s possible that some announcements regarding closings could be made then.
asnabes@detroitnews.com
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger and Fr. Mario Amore on restructuring
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger and Fr. Mario Amore on the archdiocese restructuring on Nov. 17, 2025 in Detroit
The list of Catholic parishes targeted for the possible stoppage of weekend Masses has grown to about 90 parishes across southeast Michigan, according to the latest proposed models the Archdiocese of Detroit has released as part of its major restructuring process.
The archdiocese released on Thursday the models for potential parish groupings for the six remaining planning areas in the archdiocese, and 32 parishes wouldn’t have weekend Mass under at least one of the models. Previously released models showed that 58 other parishes could stop holding weekend Mass.
The Archdiocese of Detroit recently completed listening sessions meant to garner feedback on the models, but parishioners can still share input through a survey that is open until July 31.
The archdiocese has been divided into 15 planning areas, or geographic areas, and three or four models are being proposed for each planning area, said the Rev. Mario Amore, executive director of parish renewal for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
The models have different proposed groupings of parishes ― called pastorates ― in which a grouping would share a pastor and potentially other priests. In some cases, selected churches in the grouping would no longer hold Saturday Vigil or Sunday Mass.
The models released on Thursday are for planning areas 6, 7, 8, 11, 14 and 15, which include parts of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and parishes in St. Clair and Lapeer counties.
Sixteen of the parishes wouldn’t have weekend Mass under any of the models, including St. Alphonsus-Clement Parish in Dearborn, Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Redford Township and Our Lady of Hope Parish in St. Clair Shores.
The models are part of the archdiocese’s biggest restructuring plan in years. Announced last fall, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger said the archdiocese can’t maintain the roughly 200 existing parish buildings and is working to “right-size” the archdiocese, along with its personnel and financial resources.
Holly Fournier, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Detroit, emphasized that the models are just draft proposals “intended to solicit feedback from parishioners.” She said no decisions have been made regarding pastorate groupings, weekend Mass schedules or any other aspect of the restructuring process.
The Rev. Mario Amore, executive director of parish renewal for the Archdiocese of Detroit, said in May that parishioners understand that the archdiocese “needs to do something” about its challenges. But when it becomes personal for people, it’s “very difficult,” he said.
“And there’s a lot of human emotions, and … we need to honor that,” Amore said. “We need to be attentive to that, and no one’s saying that it’s an easy process, and it’s not a process that … we’re happy that we need to undertake, but it is one that we do need to undertake.”
What the latest Wayne County models show
Planning Area 6, which is in the southern section of Wayne County, excluding the Downriver area, includes 16 parishes. Eight of them would stop holding Saturday Vigil or Sunday Mass under at least one of the models for the planning area.
They include St. Mary, Cause of Our Joy in Westland, St. Richard in Westland, St. Aloysius in Romulus, St. Sabina in Dearborn Heights, St. Linus in Dearborn Heights, Divine Child in Dearborn, St. Alphonsus -St. Clement in Dearborn and St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Dearborn.
Planning Area 7, which includes the northwest portion of Wayne County, has 15 parishes, four of which wouldn’t hold weekend Mass under at least one model. They include Our Lady of Loretto in Redford Township, St. John XXIII in Redford Township, St. Priscilla in Livonia and Resurrection in Canton Township.
What the latest Oakland and Macomb Co. models show
Planning Area 8, which is in southern Oakland County, has 13 parishes, six of which wouldn’t have weekend Mass under at least one of the models. They include St. William in Walled Lake, St. Gerald in Farmington, Prince of Peace in West Bloomfield, St. Joseph in South Lyon, Church of the Transfiguration in Southfield and Our Lady of Albanians in Southfield.
Planning Area 11, which includes the southeastern section of Macomb County, the Grosse Pointe communities and one parish in Detroit, has 14 parishes. Seven of them wouldn’t have weekend Mass under at least one model. They include Our Lady of Hope in St. Clair Shores, St. Lucy in St. Clair Shores, St. Basil the Great in Eastpointe, St. Margaret of Scotland in St. Clair Shores, Holy Innocents-St. Barnabas in Roseville, St. Matthew in Detroit and St. Clare of Montefalco in Grosse Pointe Park.
What the models in St. Clair, Lapeer counties show
Planning Area 14, which is in St. Clair County, has 12 parishes, five of which wouldn’t have Saturday Vigil or Sunday Mass in at least one model. They include Sacred Heart in Yale, St. Edward on the Lake in Lakeport, Holy Trinity in Port Huron, St. Christopher in Marysville and Immaculate Conception in Ira Township.
Planning Area 15, which is in Lapeer County and part of northern Macomb County, includes ten parishes. Two wouldn’t hold weekend Mass under at least one model. They include St. Mary Burnside in North Branch and St. Cornelius in Dryden.
asnabes@detroitnews.com
Carl’s Chop House, 3020 Grand River in Detroit, 1923-2008
It was one of the most prominent restaurants in Detroit throughout the 20th century. Carl’s Chop House served Detroit for decades, from the Great Depression through the new Millennium.
Founder Carl Rosenfield first opened as the Grand River Chophouse in the early 1920s and he moved the business across the street and renamed it Carl’s in the 1930s. The often-repeated story goes that he won the full ownership of a bar from his partner in a poker game and turned it into Carl’s Chop House.
Prior to his restaurant success, Rosenfield was a well-known tire merchant. At one point, Rosenfield also owned a lighthouse near Port Sanilac.
As a restaurateur, Rosenfield persevered through many trials, including the Great Depression and a beef shortage during World War II, which left the steakhouse to serve chicken, lobster, sturgeon and “a lot of fish I never heard of,” he was quoted as saying.
A sirloin steak dinner was $1 when Carl’s Chop House opened.
By the 1960s, business was booming, and the restaurant was serving thousands of customers daily and had plans to expand the 850-seat dining room to 1,200. By then, steak dinners were up to $6.
They bounced up to $10 in the 1970s when longtime Detroit News restaurant reporter and critic Molly Abraham included Carl’s in a column, pointing out that even though the restaurant was a bit out of fashion — it had been open for more than 50 years by then — she describes the place as having “an infectiously festive, informal atmosphere.”
Along with the steaks, convivial atmosphere and firm handshakes, Carl’s Chop House was known for always being open, even on Sundays. The only day of the year it was closed was Christmas Day, Dec. 25, which was also Rosenfield’s birthday.
Rosenfield, who would support local farmers by purchasing cattle and other livestock from the Michigan State Fair, was still working at the restaurant in the 1980s when he was in his 90s. He died in 1991 at age 95.
The new owners of Carl’s Chop House ushered it into the next century for another generation to enjoy.
It wasn’t the same without its namesake proprietor, who was known for an absolutely crushing handshake, however. In 2008, owner Frank Passalacqua filed an application with the state for a topless permit, hoping to turn the property, which was now a neighbor of MotorCity Casino, from a steakhouse to a strip club.
Passalacqua, who was more successful at Mario’s Italian restaurant in the Cass Corridor, said he was losing $1 million a year on Carl’s. The gentleman’s club idea never materialized. Carl’s closed in 2008 and the building was demolished in 2010.
mbaetens@detroitnews.com
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