Two different visions of the Catholic Church’s future will be on “display” in metro Detroit this weekend with separate conferences — one liberal, the other conservative. Both are expected to draw thousands.
The liberal conference is sponsored by the American Catholic Council and is expected to be one of the biggest gatherings of left-leaning Catholics in years.
The three-day event that will attract high-profile critics of the church and about 2,000 Catholics from around the world to Detroit.
Archdiocese of Detroit is supporting a more conservative conference in Livonia, which will feature speakers who will critique the American Catholic Council’s vision and explain the church’s views.
Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron urged Catholics to stay away from the liberal conference and in a letter to priests and deacons, threatening “defrocking” may be a consequence.
Vigneron said he made “attempts to engage in a dialogue with (the American Catholic Council) about this planned event,” but “the organizers of this conference have not replied to me directly.”
American Catholic Council, an organization of 30 Catholic reform groups across the U.S., comes on the 35th anniversary of a gathering in Detroit to talk about church reforms led by then-Cardinal John Dearden, the former archbishop of Detroit.
The conference is expected to call for more democratic decision-making in the church and the possibility of allowing women into the priesthood, as well as married priests.
The competing conferences come at a time of growing concern about people leaving the Catholic Church. Almost one of three people raised as Catholic in the U.S. have left the church, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Catholics have experienced the greatest percentage-point loss of members of any major religion or denomination.
Both sides agree there’s a problem, but they disagree on the solution. At the heart of the conflict is this question: What does it mean to be Catholic in the 21st century?
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