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Father J.J. Mech, rector of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, stands next to the life-sized statues of the apostles that have now been installed in the cathedral’s worship space, along with first-class relics of each apostle. The “Journey with the Saints” pilgrimage, which will be dedicated Feb. 8, 2024, in a special ceremony with Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, is part of the cathedral’s ongoing transformation into an “apostolic center for the arts and culture.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament and Detroit Catholic

Detroit, Mich., Jan 29, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

At the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, the band is getting back together. The band of Christ’s 12 apostles, that is. 

On Feb. 8, Detroit’s mother church will publicly unveil its long-awaited “Journey with the Saints” project, a permanent installation of 14 “larger than life” statues accompanied by first-class relics of each apostle, the latest accomplishment in the cathedral’s ongoing mission to turn itself into an apostolic center in the city of Detroit.

Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron will join Father J.J. Mech, rector of the cathedral, to dedicate the new installation during a special event at 7 p.m.

From its central perch on Woodward Avenue, the looming gothic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Detroit stands out in its neighborhood. Following Vigneron’s instruction to turn the church into a “cathedral of the arts,” Mech has spent the last several years converting the cathedral into a hub of missionary activity and beauty, drawing people to the faith via “shallow entry points.”

“Our goal is that we are going to be more accessible to people off of Woodward,” Mech told Detroit Catholic. “We want this to be a flexible public space, maybe even a community hub for not only spiritual enrichment but cultural enrichment, and it will be a safe place, and we will have security and all of that.”

The name “Cathedral of the Arts,” Mech explained, is a reminder that the proof of God is beauty — a principle that guides each of the new initiatives he and his team have undertaken on the cathedral’s campus. 

The latest project, the installation of the seven-and-a-half-foot-tall statues and relics encircling the cathedral’s interior worship space, is the crowning jewel of those efforts, transforming the cathedral into a permanent pilgrimage site, guided by the men who knew Christ most intimately during his time on earth.

Complete with first-class relics, the new installation is among the first of its kind in North America bringing together all 12 of Christ’s apostles for veneration, and the only exhibit in the world with the relics accessible in this way. 

The 14 statues — including two eight-foot angels — each were carved from a single tree trunk in St. Ulrich Groeden, in modern-day Italy, in 1927. The statues were rescued from St. Benedict Church in Highland Park, which closed in 2014. After undergoing extensive restoration, the statues were installed in the cathedral’s nave in December.

The statues include two angels, 10 of the original 12 apostles, St. Paul, and St. Matthias, the apostle who replaced Judas. Mech discovered that he had relics corresponding to the 12 saints, part of a collection of nearly 200 relics owned by the cathedral, all of which he hopes to be able to one day put on display.

The relics and the signage were installed beneath each statue beginning on Jan. 8, in time for the dedication and blessing of the new reliquary pilgrimage on Feb. 8.

“I am so excited about the transformation that is happening,” Mech said. “When you come in, there will be three main signs that tell you how to go on a pilgrimage, what the goal of a pilgrimage is, and how to interact with these relics. [Pilgrims] are going to walk away transformed, different, and they are going to enter through prayer.”

“Journey with the Saints” is much more than a museum of Church history, Mech said, but a rare opportunity to invoke the help of Catholicism’s greatest saints.

“It’s not just about looking at a pretty statue and touching some bones. [Pilgrims] are going to have a purpose when they walk away,” Mech said. “People can decide what they want intercession for, what they are hoping for when they pray to a particular saint, and when they walk away, they’ll keep praying for that.”

Mech said those whose prayers have been answered through the intercession of the saints will be invited to return to the cathedral and contribute a tile to a mosaic art piece that will be installed to show how God is answering prayers through the project. 

While the saints and relics are the culmination of a long-sought project, it’s all part of a greater vision for Detroit’s cathedral, Mech said.

Another piece of the puzzle will be dedicated on May 12, when Archbishop Vigneron will unveil a new outdoor grotto at the cathedral in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, as the archbishop emotionally addressed the faithful during a livestreamed Mass from the cathedral, he entrusted the archdiocese to the protection of Our Lady of Lourdes and pledged to build the grotto “as a perpetual reminder” of her care and in memory of the lives lost to COVID-19.

Under the guidance of the archbishop, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament finished a majority of the work on the grotto this fall, including statues of St. Bernadette Soubirous and Our Lady, whose face will reflect the one St. Bernadette saw in Lourdes, France, in 1858.

“People are already presently coming to pray [at] the grotto with the Blessed Mother,” Mech said. “We put some beautiful landscaping in this fall so people would feel welcomed, and in fact, we have used the site in a couple of ways for prayer services already.”

The grotto will also connect seamlessly with a garden walk that is being created around the cathedral’s plaza lawn, which will include art, benches, solar charging stations, a dog park, a bird sanctuary and pollination habitat. 

Working alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the cathedral’s co-director of family ministries, Christine Broses, is spearheading the transformation of two previously empty lots on the corner of Trowbridge and John R Streets into green space for wildlife to thrive. 

“We learned that the city of Detroit is a north, south, east, and west crossing for bird migration,” Broses said. “So a lot of birds fly over the city of Detroit, but they don’t have anywhere to stop and rest because there isn’t a lot of green space. Creating green space is really important for the city and for wildlife in general, and research shows hearing birds and having green space in neighborhoods helps improve people’s mental health.”

Last spring, Broses oversaw the planting of native flowers in the area, and the next step is to let the space grow wild, which will inevitably attract birds and bees over the coming years. Broses said the final step will be to add educational plaques and pathways to make the spot accessible to schools and families. 

Mech wants the garden spaces and pathways to be welcoming and intends to build benches — something the neighborhood is currently lacking.

“We did a study of our neighborhood and found there is not a single park bench in any of the parks in our area,” Mech said. “We want to have park benches so people can come and rest and enjoy themselves. This will be a place where community can be built, and people will realize that the cathedral is not a fortress; we are actually unleashing the Gospel.”

And there is more. 

In June, construction began on the Cathedral Arts Apartments, which will include four stories and 53 two-bedroom housing units for low-income Detroiters. The $19.7 million project is the joint effort of the Archdiocese of Detroit; MHT Housing, Inc.; and the city of Detroit and will include a community space and workforce training center.

The next big construction project will be to convert the cathedral’s dormant gymnasium into a community center, Mech said — he hopes to host beehives on the roof to harvest honey that can be sold to raise money for the community.

At the end of the day, the vision of a “Cathedral of the Arts” — like the cathedrals of old — is about listening to the Holy Spirit and making a difference from the very small to the large scale, so that everyone who steps onto the property is transformed, Mech said.

“When we get people onto the campus, they start to see what we are doing, and they get involved,” he said. “Then, the Holy Spirit does the rest and helps them to get to know Our Lord in new and wonderful ways.”

[…]

Austin, Texas, Mar 1, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has suggested churches in Texas sever ties with pro-life group Texas Right to Life, encouraging Catholic to volunteer with other pro-life groups in the state.

The TCCB’s advisory was read after Masses and printed in church bulletins in the Diocese of Fort Worth last Sunday. Texas Right to Life is the state affiliate of National Right to Life.

The TCCB urged in a parish advisory notice that Catholics not be involved with Texas Right to Life’s activities and that parishes not allow the organization to use their sites for events.

The TCCB cited Texas Right to Life’s opposition to incremental pro-life reforms, such as laws that restrict certain types of abortion rather than outlaw the act entirely, and mentioned “conflicts on end-of-life reform” and issues with the organization’s voter guide among their concerns about the organization.

“The bishops have been compelled to publicly correct Texas Right to Life’s misstatements on end-of-life care and advance directives,” the bishops stated.

“Texas Right to Life implied that the legislation the bishops were supporting allowed euthanasia and death panels rather than the reality that the legislation reflected the long-standing Church teaching requiring a balance of patient autonomy and the physician conscience protection.”

The TCCB claimed that Texas Right to Life’s voter guide excluded pro-life members of the Texas legislature, and “was not based on a fair analysis of a legislator’s work.”

“Unfortunately, a number of legislators who have consistently voted for pro-life and end of life legislation have been opposed by Texas Right to Life,” said the bishops.

The TCCB encouraged people to volunteer their time with other pro-life organizations as well as Church-sponsored pro-life ministries.

On its website, Texas Right to Life issued a statement defending themselves from the TCCB’s claims, saying they were “disappointed but not surprised.” Texas Right to Life stated that the bishops were being “uncharitable” in their description of the group, and that they had in fact worked hard to secure wins in the legislature.

“Uncharitable mischaracterizations of our political and policy goals serve only to dissolve the spirit of collaboration that yielded recent legislative victories to protect the most vulnerable in our state—victories that were hard-fought against the leadership of the Texas House,” they said.

Texas Right to Life also defended their voter’s guide, saying that they were seeking to endorse candidates who would commit to new legislative leadership in the state.

Joe Pojman of the Texas Alliance for Life in Austin told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that “some of [Texas Right to Life’s] goals are not well-founded in law.”

The group has come under criticism from others who claim that even pro-life legislators face reprisal from Texas Right to Life if they vote contrary to the group’s recommendations.

Republican Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life, told the Star-Telegram, “I thought our pro-life lawmakers would need protection from abortion-minded people. But no — we have to protect them from Texas Right to Life saying they’re not pro-life enough.”

[…]

Houston, Texas, Nov 17, 2019 / 03:05 am (CNA).- It took a Catholic evangelist just three days to raise the funds online for an apologetics and faith formation curriculum to distribute to prisons— a place where he says Biblical apologetics are sorely needed.

Michael Gormley, host of the podcast “Catching Foxes” and adult faith formation director for St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in the Houston area, told CNA that the goal of the curriculum is to weave the Gospel message with apologetics and Catechesis.

“There’s such a need for Biblical apologetics [in prison],” he said.

“The majority of people are leaving the Catholic faith either for an anti-Catholic fundamentalist Christian faith, or for Islam. Islam is mostly big in the jails…and we have almost zero presence in jails. And it’s shocking, it’s just shocking.”

Gormley said the goal is to adapt a faith formation series that he originally created for Ascension Press.

He said he hopes to adapt the series to be more relevant to men and women in prison, offering instruction for those who want to learn more about Catholicism about how to frame their lives around Christian discipleship. He said he hopes to reach inmates who have already been inspired by prison ministry volunteers to say, “I’m interested in this Catholic thing, what’s next?”

“My hope is to be able to pull out a coherent curriculum from beginning to end, chopping the videos up and maybe adding new things into the mix as we go,” he said.

Gormley said the opportunity recently came “out of nowhere” to buy the rights to the series from Ascension, so he launched a GoFundMe page to raise the $10,000 necessary— and it took him only three days to reach the initial goal.

In fact, it only took one minute of the fundraiser being live for one donor to offer $5,000— half the funds needed.

Gormley stressed that although the campaign had reached its initial funding goal, the GoFundMe is still accepting donations because more is still needed to allow the project to continue.

Any additional funds beyond those used to buy the rights to the series, he said, will go directly to printing DVDs— Internet-based videos aren’t an option for prisons— as well as for workbooks and other production costs.

“On top of your donation dollars to all your different nonprofits, and churches, and charities, really keep an eye to prison ministries,” he said.

He said there are around 110 prison units in Texas, but only one full-time Catholic chaplain.

Gormley said he goes with a group to a prison every Monday, offering a few hours of instruction and Catechesis as well as a Communion service for the Catholic inmates. He said working with inmates has changed the way that he, an educator in the faith and an evangelist, goes about sharing his faith.

“It totally changed how I do everything in my life. From being a dad, to teaching my faith, living as a witness, evangelization, it turbocharged everything, because you see grace working right in front of your eyes.”

Gormley told CNA last month that the first time he went on a retreat at a prison, through a group called Kolbe Prison Ministries, he went to a maximum security unit in Texas.

The Jim Ferguson Unit, located in Midway, Texas, has a maximum capacity of 2,100 men and mainly houses violent and gang-affiliated prisoners.

Gormley said he remembers showing up for his first retreat at 5:00 in the morning, and he and his fellow participants prayed the prayer to St. Michael before going inside because they had heard that a group of “Satanist” inmates were cursing them and their ministry.

“When you walk into these prisons, you realize you’re going in to serve, at least in my case, violent offenders, many of whom are of the population where there’s a high recidivism rate,” he said.

“The beautiful thing about prison ministry, at least from my limited experience, is that 2 hours into the actual retreat, I was shocked at how mundane everything was,” he continued.

“There were guys that were super talkative, guys that were disengaged, guys who were listening and quiet, guys that were dominating the conversation, and everything in between, just like a normal men’s retreat. And it was that…the men quickly became very normal in my eyes from the labels that they were beforehand.”

The vast majority of the inmates participating in the retreats, he said, are non-Catholic, and he said a significant majority of those non-Catholics are “fiercely anti-Catholic.”

A large number of Latino inmates that Gormley has encountered, who may have grown up Catholic, are now “extremely anti-Catholic,” he said.

The retreats are based on testimonies that are tied to larger themes, he said. In his role as a table facilitator at the retreats, Gormley leads discussions and often fields questions and challenges from inmates about aspects of the Catholic faith.

“Every single story is insane, amazing, sad, heartrending,” he commented.

Every single man he met in the unit, with one exception, had inadequate fathers, whether by neglect, abandonment, abuse, or a combination. Almost every one of the men joined gangs, because “if they didn’t have fathers, they needed brothers.” Most of the men were abandoned by the gangs they joined, too, he said.

Gormley related the story of a man in the Ferguson Unit who had joined a white supremacist gang before being locked up.

At one of the prison retreats, the inmate stood up and told the other men at the prison that he was sorry for getting into fights with his black and Latino prison mates, because he realized on a prison retreat a year ago that he didn’t hate people of different races— he hated his father, who had abandoned him years earlier.

He said he forgave his father a year ago, and then asked the other prisoners to forgive him. An African-American inmate then stood up and gave the man a hug, amid tears and applause from the other inmates.

“The whole rest of the retreat was like that, stories like that,” Gormley said.

[…]