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CNA Staff, Apr 16, 2025 / 16:48 pm
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit announced Wednesday that parish churches in the archdiocese that offer the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) will be unable to do so after July 1, citing the Vatican’s 2023 clarification that diocesan bishops do not possess the authority to allow the TLM to be celebrated in an existing parish church.
A prominent Detroit shrine will still be able to offer the TLM, however, and Weisenburger said he intends to identify at least four non-parish locations in the archdiocese where the TLM can be celebrated.
In an April 16 announcement, the archdiocese said Weisenburger, who was appointed in February and newly installed as archbishop last month, recently told his priests that he is unable to renew the prior permissions given to parish churches to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, and thus those permissions will expire on July 1.
At issue is Pope Francis’ consequential apostolic letter Traditionis Custodes, issued in July 2021. Among other provisions, the letter directed bishops to designate one or more locations in which priests can celebrate the TLM but specified that those locations could not be within an existing parish church.
Following Traditionis Custodes, bishops in some dioceses that already had thriving Latin Mass communities within parish churches — in places like Denver; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and Springfield, Illinois — granted broad dispensations that allowed parishes to continue offering the Latin Mass as before.
In February 2023, however, the Vatican issued a clarification to Traditionis Custodes to halt this approach, stating that bishops alone cannot dispense these parishes and that such an action is reserved “to the Apostolic See.” Bishops in other dioceses who received Vatican approval to dispense certain parishes from Traditionis Custodes were only granted that permission for a temporary period.
“The Holy See has reserved for itself the ability to allow the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated in parish churches. Local bishops no longer possess the ability to permit this particular liturgy in a parish church,” the announcement from the Detroit Archdiocese reads.
“With this in mind, the prior permissions to celebrate this liturgy in archdiocesan parish churches — which expire on July 1, 2025 — cannot be renewed.”
The ministry of St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit, which offers daily Traditional Latin Masses under the care of the canons of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP), will continue, Weisenburger said. ICKSP, an institute whose priests celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass and live according to the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, has been offering the TLM at the St. Joseph Shrine since 2016.
“In addition to the exception referenced above, the Traditional Latin Mass may be permitted by the local bishop to be celebrated in non-parish settings (typically chapels, shrines, etc.),” the archdiocesan announcement continues.
“It is the archbishop’s intention to identify a non-parish setting where the Traditional Latin Mass may be celebrated in each of the archdiocese’s four regions. As noted above, and in accordance with recent decisions by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, these locations will not be parish churches. Once these locations are determined, they will be shared with the faithful.”
Former Detroit archbishop Allen Vigneron, who led the archdiocese from 2009 until his resignation at the customary age of 75 in February, issued guidelines following Traditionis Custodes allowing parishes to request permission to continue to offer the TLM within certain limits. Those guidelines came into force on July 1, 2022.
Detroit is not the first diocese to have announced an end to the TLM in parish churches as a result of the Vatican’s clarification. In 2022, Bishop Stephen Parkes of Savannah, Georgia, announced his diocese’s cessation of Traditional Latin Masses by May 2023, saying the permission he had sought and received from the Vatican to allow two parish churches to continue offering the TLM had expired.
Other dioceses, such as Albany, New York, in 2023, revoked the permission it had previously given for two parishes to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in order to comply with the Vatican’s February 2023 clarification.
Jonah McKeown is a staff writer and podcast producer for Catholic News Agency. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has worked as a writer, as a producer for public radio, and as a videographer. He is based in St. Louis.
