TRANSCRIPT
It’s becoming a common sight throughout the West — the demolition of a church. And Detroit is no exception.
Church Militant’s Martina Moyski tells about the archdiocese’s latest target — All Saints Church, a once-proud structure and vibrant Catholic community in southwest Detroit.
Anonymous priest: “To bulldoze a church desecrates the very ground the church sat upon for over a century as if the ground itself over which the altar sat was never made holy by the many Masses offered.”
Abp. Allen Vigneron is soliciting hundreds of millions of dollars from parishioners for his “Unleash the Gospel” campaign — all while emptying pews and bulldozing churches.
The latest casualty is historic All Saints Church, founded in 1896. Over the decades it provided a haven for thousands of families in the middle of encroaching industrialization and secular values. It closed in 2017, lacking $160,000 for repairs. Today, a bulldozer sits at its doorstep.
Anonymous priest: “The real travesty of the bulldozing of historic churches in Detroit is that they do not have to be bulldozed at all if the archdiocese had not had to spend millions because of priest predators.”
Like so many churches, it was ravaged in the 1960s by modernist zealots, wreaking havoc on its Liturgy and the once-beautiful interior.
Anonymous priest: “Fifty years ago, Cdl. Dearden, by his establishment of ‘Call to Action,’ ensured this outcome for Detroit, depleted of the Faith and the faithful — not even a brick left upon a brick!”
Southwest Detroit is in sore need of the good news of Christ as another parish bites the dust. Many who remember the beloved parish are heartbroken, some are resigned and a few remain determined to resist.
The dwindling number of priests is often cited as a key reason for church closings, but critics say the so-called shortage is manufactured.
The reality is oftentimes that traditional Catholic men are screened out during the seminaries’ application process and then demoralized into leaving if they manage to get accepted.
