By Niraj Warikoo and Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press
January 6, 2009
http://www.freep.com/article/20090106/NEWS05/901060305/1008
[with video]
 |
| Bishop Allen Vigneron, 60, right, and Cardinal Adam Maida share a moment Monday in Detroit. Vigneron, a Michigan native who has been serving in Oakland, Calif., is to become Detroit's next archbishop. |
As Archbishop-elect Allen Vigneron prepares to move back from California to take over one of the biggest Catholic dioceses in the United States, he faces challenges that might make his tenure a difficult one.
The Archdiocese of Detroit -- where he grew up and was educated -- faces a crumbling economy coupled with demographic changes that have shrunk the Catholic Church's presence in southeastern Michigan.
Appointed Monday by Pope Benedict XVI, Vigneron, 60, also must tread the ideological divides of the region's 1.4 million Catholics by making sure he adheres to traditional church doctrine while not alienating a Catholic population that doesn't always hew to the faith's teachings. The racial and religious makeup of the region -- which has sizable African-American and Muslim communities -- is another challenge.
But supporters say he's more than up to the task, an intellectual who knows how to work effectively in real life across ethnic boundaries.
"He's a brilliant man, extraordinarily capable," said Cardinal Edmund Szoka, who led the Detroit archdiocese through the 1980s and appointed Vigneron as dean of Sacred Heart in 1988.
Catholics will eagerly watch where Vigneron takes the church as it faces problems with people leaving the faith as they grow older. His past may offer a hint, say observers. While president of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in the 1990s, he pushed the Catholic center toward a more conservative direction. Traditionalists hope he will maintain those views as archbishop. But liberals say he should focus more on helping needy people, especially given metro Detroit's increasing problems with unemployment and poverty.
Both sides agree, though, that it's good to have a native son in charge of the biggest religious denomination in metro Detroit -- and the sixth-largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States. It's rare to have the head of an archdiocese be born and raised in the same area.
 |
| Bishop Allen Vigneron at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Detroit on Monday. The Mt. Clemens native is to become Detroit's new archbishop, replacing Cardinal Adam Maida, on Jan. 28. |
"There seems to have been a conscious decision to have a local boy make good in Detroit," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University who's a longtime commentator on Catholicism.
Vigneron currently heads the Diocese of Oakland in northern California and is to start in Detroit on Jan. 28. His selection comes after the 18-year tenure of Cardinal Adam Maida, one of the longest-serving heads of the archdiocese in Michigan history. Maida said he will continue to live in the Detroit area.
Reese said the selection "indicates that Cardinal Szoka and Cardinal Maida were both supportive of him."
"He's the typical kind of bishop that Benedict has been looking for," he added. "Somebody who is smart, pastoral, and conservative ... and follows the lead of the pope and the Vatican."
In his introductory remarks Monday, Vigneron indicated that the region's economy will be a key issue.
"The unfolding of the church's history always occurs within the context of the history of the age," he said. "Today, here, that means southeast Michigan's struggle to find a new way to establish a vibrant economy, so that families have sufficient resources to obtain not only the material goods, but the spiritual as well."
He offered no specific plans but said that metro Detroit can rise again because it has "human creativity and intelligence ... resources which count the most."
In Oakland, Vigneron was know for helping build an expensive cathedral to replace one damaged in an earthquake.
Vigneron also has been praised for how he handled the priest abuse scandal. He visited many of the parishes in his Oakland diocese to apologize to families affected by abuse, and the cathedral has a prayer garden in memory of victims. But one activist group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said Vigneron hasn't adequately disclosed the names of priests involved.
Leaders of other faiths said they looked forward to working with Vigneron. Metro Detroit has become increasingly known for its large Muslim community, a group that Maida developed relationships with in recent years. As extremism becomes a hot-button issue, Vigneron's possible efforts to forge a Muslim-Catholic partnership may become a model given Pope Benedict's stated interest in the topic.
Imam Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, said he hopes to work with Vigneron on promoting a local Catholic-Muslim dialogue.
Within the church, some Catholics say they hope Vigneron will invigorate parishioners by maintaining tradition.
Many want "a courageous leader who will 'be not afraid' to fight the enemies of truth, both within and outside the church," said Michael Voris, a Catholic traditionalist who heads the Ferndale-based news media outlet Real Catholic TV. "Dwindling parishes and shrinking congregations make things appear as though getting out of bed on Sunday morning isn't worth it."
Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or warikoo@freepress.com. Staff writers Emilia Askari and Christy Arboscello contributed to this report.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.