Archdiocese of Detroit
The Archdiocese of Detroit is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church covering the south-east portion of Michigan in the United States. It consists counties of Lapeer, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, and Wayne counties. It is the metropolitan archdiocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Detroit, which includes all the dioceses in the state of Michigan. It was erected on March 8, 1833, and elevated to an archdiocese on May 22, 1937. The Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament has served as the mother church since 1938. The Basilica of Sainte Anne de Détroit is the second oldest continuously operating Catholic parish in the United States, dating to 1701. In 2000, the archdiocese accepted pastoral responsibility for the Catholic Church in the Cayman Islands.
History
1600 to 1700
The first Catholic presence in present-day Michigan was that of the French Jesuit missionaries, Charles Raymbaut and Isaac Jogues. The two priests stopped near what is now Sault Ste. Marie in 1641 to visit the Chippewa Nation.In 1670, Claude Dablon established the first Catholic mission in the region on Mackinac Island. Jacques Marquette moved the mission off the island in 1671 to the mainland by the Straits of Mackinac. By the late 1600s, Jesuit priests were setting up missions throughout the region.
1700 to 1800
In 1701, the Diocese of Quebec took jurisdiction over missionary activity in Michigan, now part of the French colony of New France. In July of that year, a group of French-Canadian settlers, led by the explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, arrived at the mouth of the Detroit River. They immediately started building the first Sainte-Anne-de-Détroit Church, a small wooden structure.When the British took control of New France after the French and Indian War ended in 1763, the Diocese of Quebec retained its jurisdiction there. After the end of the American Revolution, the British transferred control of Michigan to the new United States. In 1789, Pope Pius VI erected the Diocese of Baltimore, with jurisdiction over Catholics in the entire United States.
1800 to 1850
The new Michigan Territory was transferred in 1808 from the Diocese of Baltimore to the Diocese of Bardstown. It was reassigned in 1821 to the Diocese of Cincinnati.Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of Detroit on March 8, 1833, taking its territory from the Diocese of Cincinnati. He named Frederick Rese from Cincinnati as its first bishop. Ste. Anne became the cathedral for the diocese. At the time, the new diocese covered a vast area in the American Midwest and Great Plains, extending through Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas to the Missouri River.
By 1837, Rese was incapable of administering the diocese due to mental health problems. Gregory XVI recalled him to Rome and appointed Peter Paul Lefevere as coadjutor bishop to assume its operation. When Lefevere arrived in Detroit, the city had only two parishes, with the rest of the diocese having only 25; the diocese was served by only 18 priests.
To improve the administration of the diocese, Lefevere established its first set of policies in 1843. That same year, the Vatican reduced the Diocese of Detroit to the State of Michigan, transferring the out-of-state territories to the newly-formed Diocese of Milwaukee. He won a dispute with some of the laity over the ownership of church property. Lefevere bought property throughout the diocese for future churches.
Lefevere and the Four Sisters of Charity established four orphanages, a medical hospital and a mental hospital. The Daughters of Charity became the first religious order of teaching sisters to come to Detroit. The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary came to the diocese in 1845. In 1846, Lefevere established St. Thomas Seminary in Detroit, a minor seminary that closed in 1854.
1850 to 1880
In 1853, Pope Pius IX formed the Vicarate Apostolic of Upper Michigan, taking the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from the Diocese of Detroit. Lefevere in 1854 dedicated Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Detroit, which replaced Ste. Anne de Detroit. He presided over the first diocesan synod in 1859.Lefevere died in 1869. He never became bishop of Detroit because Rese was still alive, living in a sanitarium in Europe. During Lefevere's time as coadjutor bishop, the number of parishes in Detroit increased to 11 and 160 in the rest of the diocese, with 80 priests.
To replace Lefevere as coadjutor bishop of Detroit, Pope Pius IX in 1870 named Caspar Borgess of Cincinnati. When Rese died the next year, Borgess succeeded him as bishop of Detroit.
In 1877, he invited Jesuits to establish the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in Detroit.
1880 to 1900
In 1882, the Vatican erected the Diocese of Grand Rapids in west central Michigan, taking its territory from the Diocese of Detroit. Borgess suspended the pastor of St. Albertus Parish in Detroit in 1885; when the congregation refused to accept their new pastor, Borgess placed the parish under interdict. These controversies and his poor relationship with his priests led Borgess to submit his resignation to the Vatican as bishop of Detroit as early as 1879. However, the Vatican would not let him resign his post until 1887.The next bishop of Detroit was John Samuel Foley from Baltimore, named by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. During his tenure, Foley established a seminary for Polish Americans, and later healed a long schism among them. In 1889, John A. Lemke was ordained to the priesthood at St. Casimir Church in Detroit. He became the first American of Polish descent to become a priest.
1900 to 1930
In 1907, St. Francis's Home for Orphan Boys opened in Detroit, built at a cost of $250,000. Foley established the first parish for African Americans, St. Peter Claver, in Detroit, in 1911, although chapels and missions for African-American Catholics had existed since the late 1870s. The development of the automobile industry in Detroit led to a massive increase in population, and the number of Catholics in the diocese more than tripled during Foley's tenure. Although the number of diocesan priests nearly doubled, there still insufficient to minister to the growing population. Despite his popularity and personal charm, Foley was generally regarded as an ineffective bishop with an unsuccessful administration. Foley died in 1918, after 30 years as bishop of Detroit.The last bishop of Detroit was Bishop Michael Gallagher from Grand Rapids, appointed in 1918. In 1921, the archdiocese published a poster prohibiting sterilization and abortion services in its hospitals. This became the basis of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, published by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1971. In 1919, Gallagher opened Sacred Heart Major Seminary in a temporary structure in Detroit to alleviate the priest shortage. In 1924, after a $4 million fundraising effort, the diocese constructed a permanent facility with a capacity for 500 seminarians.
In 1926, Gallagher appointed Charles Coughlin as pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower Parish in Royal Oak, Michigan. Coughlin soon started a radio ministry, with Gallagher's approval. As Coughlin started gaining a large national audience for his program, his incendiary comments against Jews and capitalists became more pronounced.
1930 to 1940
In 1930, the apostolic delegate for the United States, Cardinal Pietro Fumasoni Biondi, asked Gallagher to curb Coughlin, but Gallagher refused. "I made no mistake and have never doubted my judgment in putting him before the microphone," Gallagher said about Coughlin in 1933.Again in 1935, Cardinal Amleto Cigognani, the new apostolic delegate, tried to stop Coughlin, but Gallagher still protected him. It was rumored that Pope Pius XI refused to raise Detroit to an archdiocese due to his displeasure over Coughlin. In August 1936, Gallagher travelled to Rome. While he was en route, Coughlin denounced US President Franklin Roosevelt as a liar. Gallagher forced Coughlin to apologize. While meeting with Pius XI, Coughlin's activities arose in the discussion. Gallagher convinced the pope not to censure Coughlin or force him to cease broadcasting. Some months later, Gallagher died in January 1937.
In May 1937, Detroit Diocese was made an Archdiocese. The Diocese of Lansing was established in south central Michigan with territory taken from Detroit. Bishop Edward Mooney from the Diocese of Rochester became Detroit's first archbishop.
In October 1937, Mooney publicly rebuked Coughlin for calling Roosevelt "stupid" over his nomination of Senator Hugo Black to the U.S. Supreme Court. This reprimand from Mooney led Coughlin to cancel his contract for 26 radio broadcasts, though he resumed broadcasting in 1938.
In February 1938, the Vatican erected the Diocese of Saginaw, taking territory in northeastern Michigan from the Archdiocese of Detroit and the Diocese of Grand Rapids. The Vatican also transferred three more counties from the archdiocese to the Diocese of Lansing. In April 1938, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit became the mother church of the new archdiocese.
In a 1939 meeting of all the archdiocesan priests, Mooney proposed the establishment of labor schools in the parishes to help "Christian workers to train themselves in principle and technique to assume the leadership in the unions which their numbers justify". An avid golf player, Mooney once remarked to his priests "If your score is over 100, you are neglecting your golf—if it falls below 90, you're neglecting your parish". Every year, he would take a group of altar boys to the opening game of the Detroit Tigers major league baseball team.
1940 to 1950
In 1942, the US Department of Justice informed Mooney that it was planning to indict Coughlin on charges of sedition, based on his espousal of Nazi doctrines. As part of a deal to avoid Coughlin's prosecution, Mooney ordered him to end his political activities and work solely as a parish priest. Mooney stated, "My understanding with him is sufficiently broad and firm to exclude effectively the recurrence of any such unpleasant situation." Pope Pius XII created Mooney as cardinal priest of the Church of Santa Susanna in Rome in 1946.As the northern suburbs of Detroit grew after World War II ended in 1945, Mooney added parishes in Oakland County. In 1948, he appointed Frederick Delaney to begin opening additional parishes in the rural areas of the county. That same year, Pope Pius XII named Bishop John Dearden from the Diocese of Pittsburgh as coadjutor archbishop to assist Mooney.