Detroit, MI

Looming Archdiocese of Detroit restructuring plan weighs on region’s Catholics

Published

1 month ago

January 23, 2026

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

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Detroit, MI

Rex Satterfield’s 1956 Bel Air takes 2026 Ridler Award in Detroit

Published

11 hours ago

March 2, 2026

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Rex Satterfield’s 1956 Bel Air takes 2026 Ridler Award in Detroit

Rex Satterfield hoped to see his 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible snag one of the BASF Great 8 finalist spots at this year’s Detroit Autorama. But winning the Ridler Award — one of the highest honors in the custom car business — was something he didn’t foresee.

“It’s just overwhelming right now,” said the man from Russellville, Tennessee, as he left a ballroom at downtown’s Huntington Place and made his way back to the show floor on Sunday, March 1. “We weren’t expecting this.”

Getting a car recognized as one of the BASF Great 8 vehicles is a win in and of itself as they are considered the “absolute pinnacle of custom automotive craftsmanship worldwide,” according to the show. The cars undergo an intensive judging process.

And this effort had an unexpected and emotional complication with the passing in December 2024 of the original builder, Jeff Wolfenbarger, who was battling cancer even as he continued working on the car named “Elegant Lady.”

Kevin Riffey of Kevin Riffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations in Knoxville stepped in to finish the work Wolfenbarger started. He’d had two other cars in the past make the Great 8. He said the goal with this vehicle was straightforward, calling it a “purpose-built show car.”

From its prominent spot at the front of the show floor, “Elegant Lady” sported a creamy exterior, dubbed Light Coffee. The car carries a 1,000 horsepower Don Hardy race engine. The gauges, wheels and gas tank are custom, and the dash is from a 1956 Pontiac.

Satterfield plans to show the car around some and enjoy the moment with it. He said he’s been a car guy since he was a little kid.

The Ridler Award, named in honor of Detroit Autorama’s first publicist, Don Ridler, comes with a $10,000 prize. It was awarded on the final day of this year’s Detroit Autorama, which ran Friday, Feb. 27-Sunday, March 1. This was the event’s 73rd year.

Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.

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Detroit, MI

Detroit’s Sloppy Chops restaurateur Mike Brown fatally shot, 2 injured

Published

23 hours ago

March 1, 2026

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Detroit’s Sloppy Chops restaurateur Mike Brown fatally shot, 2 injured

Detroit restaurateur Michael “Mike B.” Brown was fatally shot early Saturday morning in a triple shooting.
The incident occurred outside a cocktail bar on the city’s west side, and police are seeking information.
Brown was a prominent figure in Detroit’s hospitality scene, known for his “Sloppy” brand restaurants.
His establishments were seen as significant in the rise of new Black-owned businesses in the city.

Detroit restaurateur and nightlife mainstay Michael “Mike B.” Brown was fatally shot early Saturday morning on the city’s west side, a violent incident that also left two other people injured and sent shockwaves through Detroit’s hospitality and entertainment communities.

According to Detroit police, the shooting occurred outside Suite 100, a cocktail bar on Schaefer Highway near Puritan Avenue. Investigators are urging anyone with information to come forward. As of Sunday afternoon, authorities had not announced any suspects or arrests.

“At approximately 4:30 a.m., Saturday, there was a triple shooting that occurred at 15789 Schaefer,” Detroit Police Department (DPD) media relations manager Jasmin Barmore wrote in an official statement Sunday afternoon. “Two of the vicims were found in front of the location and the third across the street from the location. Unfortunately, the victim found across the street from the location, Mikey Brown, succumbed to his injuries.

“The Detroit Police Department extends their condolences to the family and is asking the community for assistance with this incident. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to please contact DPD’s homicide unit or, they can submit an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers or Detroit Rewards TV.”

Brown, 52, had spent decades building a name for himself across Detroit’s club and restaurant circuits, evolving from party promoter to business owner and, in recent years, a culinary entrepreneur with expanding ambitions. His death comes at a moment when he had been working to grow his “Sloppy” restaurant brand – a move that aligned with the rise of new Black-owned establishments reshaping the city’s dining landscape.

His first major restaurant venture, Sloppy Chops, opened in 2020 on West McNichols just off the Lodge Freeway. The steakhouse featured high-end cuts like ribeyes and tomahawks, but it quickly drew wide attention for its low-cost lamb chop specials – a dish with a fervent local following and long-standing ties to the city’s food culture.

A year later, Brown launched Sloppy Crab, later renamed the Crab Sports Bar, on East Jefferson Avenue near the Renaissance Center. The seafood spot mixed Detroiters’ love for crab dishes with the energetic, nightlife-forward atmosphere Brown had refined during his years in the entertainment scene. Occasional cover charges, signature strong cocktails and celebrity drop-ins helped make the venue one of downtown’s most animated destinations, placing it alongside longstanding nightlife pillars such as Floods Bar & Grille and Sweetwater Tavern.

Both restaurants emerged during a period when Detroiters were increasingly vocal about who new development served. Sloppy Crab’s proximity to the riverfront offered an answer to residents who wondered where Black diners fit into the city’s transforming downtown, while Sloppy Chops demonstrated that restaurants with the energy and polish of downtown destinations could thrive in the neighborhoods as well.

As of Sunday afternoon, more than 1,000 comments expressing sadness and shock had flooded a pinned post on Brown’s Instagram page, along with a number of posts on his Facebook profile.

On her own page, Darralynn Hutson, an award-winning journalist, author, documentarian and media strategist who has provided content to a host of media outlets including the Detroit Free Press, shared photos of herself with Brown.

“I had the opportunity to interview Mike a few years ago for a feature in Food & Wine and I remember how reluctant he was about sitting down to talk,” Hutson recalled. “Interviews weren’t his thing – he was much more comfortable building than explaining. I had to call him more than 20 times to set up the interview. He didn’t care about Food & Wine. But once we ate and got into conversation, what came out was his commitment to creating something for his Detroit.”

Brown’s influence stretched far beyond his menus. His establishments became recognizable gathering places, and his presence – familiar from downtown corridors to Dexter Avenue – made him a significant cultural figure in Detroit’s nightlife and, later, its dining renaissance.

His death leaves both industries mourning a personality whose ambitions were still growing, and whose imprint on the city’s social fabric remains unmistakable.

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Detroit, MI

RECAP: Detroit’s lack of execution results in 5-2 loss at Carolina | Detroit Red Wings

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1 day ago

March 1, 2026

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RECAP: Detroit’s lack of execution results in 5-2 loss at Carolina | Detroit Red Wings

RALEIGH, N.C. – Wrapping up the February portion of their 2025-26 regular-season schedule, the Detroit Red Wings unfortunately spent most of their Saturday night playing catch-up in an eventual 5-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center.

“They’re a heck of a team,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. “This is a hard building to play in…They’re the class of the East, and you got to come in here at some point and get points. I just didn’t think we executed. We allowed them to be on top of us and come back in waves on Talbs.”

Goalie Cam Talbot made 30 saves in his first start since Jan. 22 for the Red Wings (34-20-6; 74 points), who moved to 11-5-2 on the road since Dec. 6. Meanwhile, turning aside 27 shots netminder Frederik Andersen helped the Hurricanes (38-15-6; 82 points) win their fifth straight game and extend their point streak to 12.

“We’re leaving without points, so that’s real disappointing,” Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought that the game was real fast to begin with. There was a lot of pace going both ways. It was a good game for us to play in. A lot of their offensive opportunities came off of basically our tape…[Carolina] really took advantage of our mistakes.”

Detroit held steady against Carolina’s characteristically heavy, initial 10-minute push in the opening frame, but the leaders of the Metropolitan Division went up 1-0 when Taylor Hall blocked Simon Edvinsson’s shot attempt in their defensive zone and proceeded to score on a breakaway at 14:05. Then with eight seconds left in the period, while the hosts were on the man advantage, Sebastian Aho’s shot from the left face-off circle deflected off Edvinsson’s stick down low and into the back of the net to extend their lead to 2-0.

“They come out flying and shoot a lot of pucks,” Larkin said. “You can’t really pay attention to the shot clock because they fire it from everywhere, but I liked our start. It’s just that we had some times where we didn’t execute, and they score with eight seconds left. That’s a tough one, but we responded well. We won the second period.”

The Hurricanes struck again just 2:52 into that second period, as Eric Robinson jammed a wrist shot from the top of the crease to push ahead 3-0. But in a span of just 47 seconds late in the stanza, the Red Wings beat Andersen twice to put the hosts on their heels and make it a one-goal game going into the second intermission.

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