Detroit's new archbishop-elect praises Archbishop Vigneron, says he's received 'a very warm welcome' from Detroit's faithful
DETROIT — In Scripture, St. John the Baptist is described as the voice of one “crying out in the desert” to make straight the paths of the Lord.
On Feb. 11, Pope Francis called a new shepherd from the desert to serve as the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, charged with a similar mission: to proclaim Jesus in all things.
The pope’s appointment of Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger, 64, the current bishop of Tucson, Arizona, to be Detroit’s next chief shepherd came as somewhat of a surprise — even to him.
“Those who know me know that I am very, very seldom speechless,” Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said during an introductory press conference Tuesday morning at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. “But when the nuncio called me, I tried to stammer twice, and then he began laughing. As I eventually was able to talk, he said, ‘Just say yes.’
"I have been doing my best now for 37 years to say 'yes,' and it's been a wonderful journey thus far, and I think it will be a wonderful journey ahead," Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said. "This is home, and I am blessed to be here."
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger joked about the cold Michigan winter, quipping that “I left weather in the 80s to come here,” but noted “it has been a very, very warm welcome from the hearts of those who’ve greeted me from the time I arrived.”
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger will succeed current Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, 76, whose resignation was accepted by the pope. Diocesan bishops are required by canon law to offer their resignation upon the age of 75, which Archbishop Vigneron did on Oct. 21, 2023.
Archbishop Vigneron, who will serve as apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Detroit until Archbishop-elect Weisenburger’s installation Mass on March 18 at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, introduced his successor Tuesday morning.
“It is my great honor, my blessing, to be able to welcome Archbishop Weisenburger to his new home,” Archbishop Vigneron said during the livestreamed media event from Sacred Heart’s Cardinal Mooney Parlor. “I’m so happy that he has agreed to come to serve this local Church, especially, Archbishop, that you come in the middle of our jubilee year as a pilgrim of hope to help all of us on our pilgrimage of hope — you are most welcome.”
Archbishop Vigneron said the entire Archdiocese of Detroit has “been praying for you, even though we didn’t know who you would be.”
After opening the press conference in prayer, Archbishop Vigneron gave Archbishop-elect Weisenburger a gift — a Pewabic tile depicting Blessed Solanus Casey, Detroit’s native saint — on behalf of the archdiocese, saying it “is a pledge that you come to a Church that has produced great holiness.”
Archbishop Vigneron noted that Archbishop-elect Weisenburger is “a son of the same Church (in Oklahoma) that produced Blessed Stanley Rother, the great martyr who gave up his life in Latin America rather than desert his flock,” referencing the new Detroit archbishop’s time as pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Okarche, Oklahoma, Blessed Rother’s home parish.
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger also served as promoter of justice for Blessed Rother's canonization cause, and as pastor in Oklahoma, got to know the Rother family, including his sister, Adorers of the Blood of Christ Sr. Marita Rother.
“And so we know the stuff you come from, and we’re very grateful that you bring that same apostolic courage to our community,” Archbishop Vigneron said.
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger returned Archbishop Vigneron’s praise, saying he’s humbled to follow in the longtime Detroit archbishop’s footsteps.
“I really can’t say anything of credibility without beginning by saying how wonderfully this local Church has been led in these years under such a faithful shepherd,” Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said.
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger noted the Archdiocese of Detroit under Archbishop Vigneron’s leadership, especially Sacred Heart Major Seminary, “seems to specialize in the new evangelization,” adding, “I’m deeply, deeply committed to new forms of evangelization.”
The press conference kicked off a whirlwind day of introductions and welcome for the new archbishop-elect, which included a meet-and-greet with Detroit’s seminarians in Sacred Heart’s chapel, an introduction via Zoom with priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit, meetings with curia and archdiocesan leaders, and brief tours of the archdiocesan Chancery building and the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
As the sixth archbishop and 10th ordinary of Detroit, Archbishop-elect Weisenburger will assume pastoral responsibility for more than 900,000 Catholics over 3,903 square miles in six counties of southeast Michigan.
At the press conference, Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said that growing up, “priests were my heroes.”
“Priests were friends of my family. Priests were in my home. I admired what they did, and I wanted to join them, and I never looked back,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful journey.”
Reflecting upon his experience as a priest in Oklahoma City, then as a bishop in Salina, Kansas, from 2012-17, where his mother is from and where he had lived as a child, Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said he thought “that’s where I would end my days,” adding, “I own a cemetery plot there.”
Getting the call to go to Tucson in 2017, however, “was just marvelous,” and “seven years there have really been joyful for me.”
Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said he’ll miss Tucson, and “contrary to my opening statement, it won’t really be about the weather. It will be the wonderful, wonderful people I’ve gotten to know there.” The Spanish-speaking archbishop-elect said the Hispanic community in Arizona “especially has lifted me up in wonderful ways.”
After being asked a question about the state of immigration in the United States, and his message for immigrant families, Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said the Church in Tucson has managed “an immense amount” of documented asylum seekers, with the government bringing “about 1,400 people per day” to the Church for help.
“When you actually go and encounter these people, and you talk to them and what they’ve been through, (you hear about) the incredible suffering — sometimes having witnessed murders, people desperately struggling just to keep their children alive, trying to hope for employment.”
“The truth is, when you really study it, most people want to stay home, but they’re driven to migrate,” Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said, noting many die in the desert while attempting to migrate.
“They’re struggling, and we have to be able to see Christ in those people,” the archbishop-elect continued. "
While acknowledging “every nation has a right to monitor its borders” and regulate it immigration processes, he said if programs that seek to aid migrants are dismantled, “millions will starve and die, and hundreds of millions will be plunged into abject poverty in our culture.”
The archbishop-elect acknowledged the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' statements on immigration, adding that the U.S. immigration system is "profoundly broken."
“When we don’t have to see that person — when we don’t have to see that crisis — we can kind of close our minds to it, but I don’t think a Christian can do that,” Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said. “I think we have to keep it in our minds.”
Fittingly, Archbishop-elect Weisenburger’s episcopal motto is “Behold the Lamb of God,” taken from the Baptist’s prophetic words about the savior of the world.
“John is clearly recognizing in Jesus that this is the Lamb; this is the messiah,” Archbishop-elect Weisenburger said. “Spiritually, I chose that motto because I feel that’s really our task. Our task, much like the Baptist, is to look at every human being created in the image of God and say, ‘Ecce Agnus Dei’ — ‘Behold the Lamb.’
“When we do that, we really reverence the people we meet. And it’s important that we also reverence those we will never meet,” he continued. “It makes us look at humanity in a different way.”
While the Diocese of Detroit was established in 1833 by Pope Gregory XVI, its history goes back much further than that. The city’s oldest parish, the Basilica of Ste. Anne, was founded on July 26, 1701, two days after French explorers arrived via waterway to establish the “city by the straits.”
In 1937, Pope Pius XI elevated Detroit to an archdiocese, with Archbishop (later Cardinal) Edward A. Mooney as its first archbishop.
Today, the Archdiocese of Detroit is home to 213 parishes, 81 Catholic schools, two Catholic colleges, a seminary, and countless ministries and apostolates spanning Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, St. Clair and Lapeer counties. Detroit is the metropolitan see of the Catholic Church’s province of Michigan, which also includes the dioceses of Lansing, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Gaylord and Marquette.
