Lagging Mass Attendance Solved - Archdiocese of Detroit Can Take a Lesson from St. Louis

In the Archdiocese of Detroit, restructuring is underway due to lagging Mass attendance. I've written about this before and suggested the solution is not combining parishes and continuing the modernization and secular accommodation, but a return to the mystery of the faith, which in one way is the Traditional (Tridentine) Latin Mass. 

Below is an article copied verbatim from Daily Mail that proves my point ... where attendance has tripled.

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The ornate Catholic church was on the brink of closing... until a priest came up with an extraordinary old-fashioned idea that made attendance boom

By NATASHA ANDERSON, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER 

PUBLISHED: 13:28 EDT, 6 July 2026 | UPDATED: 13:48 EDT, 6 July 2026

An ornate Catholic church was on the brink of closure but now sees hundreds of faithful flock to its pews for Mass each week thanks to a priest's extraordinary idea.

St Francis de Sales Oratory was founded in 1867 by a group of German immigrants who settled in St Louis.

The gorgeous cathedral became a landmark in the midwestern city and for decades served parishioners of more than a dozen nationalities.

But as families started moving out to the suburbs, the church, dubbed the Cathedral of South St Louis, saw a massive drop in parishioners, the church website states.

St Francis de Sales was closed by the Archdiocese of St Louis in June 2005, and the church was forced to merge with another local parish.

St Francis de Sales Oratory in St Louis, Missouri is one of roughly 450 Catholic churches in the US that celebrates the traditional Latin Mass

A typical Sunday will see more than 700 people fill the pews of the cathedral to partake in a nearly two-hour long service where almost no English is spoken.

 The choir leads Gregorian chants, the priest faces the altar as he performs the liturgy and communion is distributed at a rail

The priest delivers the homily, or sermon, in English, but the rest of the Mass resembles a traditional ancient service.

The congregation typically sits in silence and female parishioners often wear veils as a symbol of reverence. St Francis does not have air conditioning and gets stuffy in summer - but even that does not deter worshippers, who cool themselves down with fans instead.

Membership at the church has tripled in the last six years, with the majority of parishioners being young families and Gen Z adults. 

Parishioners interviewed by the newspaper said that worshipping in Latin has helped them become more connected to their faith. 

'When everything was in English, I never had to think twice about what was going on,' 23-year-old parishioner Natalie Spain told the Post-Dispatch. 

She claims the 'mystery' of Latin service forced her to be more reverent.

'A lot of us are hungry for something that feels older and more solid,' echoed Philomena Wallace, 26. 'You have a way of worship that extends past the language. The meanings are not changing.'

Membership at the 159-year-old church has tripled in the last six years, with the majority of parishioners being young families and Gen Z adults

St Francis de Sales was scheduled to be torn down and sold in 2005, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke saved the cathedral by erecting it as an Oratory where Mass is strictly administered in Latin

St Francis de Sales, however, also appeals to Gen X, with one 49-year-old parishioner saying the service was like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

He and his wife, who first visited the church 14 years ago while on vacation from Florida, said it is the best place for 'spiritual nourishment.'

The couple ultimately bought a house in nearby St Francois County and relocated to Missouri with their three young sons.

Rising membership at St Francis de Sales mirrors a global trend in which Catholicism is seeing a resurgence amongst Gen Z.

Older adults make up the majority of Mass-goers, but data collected by the Barna Group last year found that Gen Z frequent services more regularly. 

Harvard University’s Cooperative Election Study also showed that the number of Gen Z Americans who identify as Catholic increased from 15 percent in 2022 to 21 percent the following year.

Several Catholic churches have gone viral on social media after receiving praise from so-called Catholic influencers.

St Joseph's Church in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood was even dubbed one of NYC's Hottest New Clubs after it emerged that queues of more than 100 people wait outside the parish ahead of Sunday service.

Spiritual Alternatives to the Archdiocese of Detroit 2026-2027 Restructuring

Pam and I attend two different parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit, depending on our schedule and her voluntary parish responsibilities at both. In recent weeks, we've been inundated with requests to attend parish "Listening Sessions," ostensibly to have the curia listen to our concerns about how the AOD plans to restructure due to (1) shifting populations, (2) declining Mass attendance, and (3) the shortage of priests.

There are 209 parishes in the AOD, divided into 15 planning areas. The various proposed plans, 3 for each area, suggest eliminating certain weekend masses at under-populated parishes (who decides what is under-populated?) and require members to travel as far as 40 minutes from their local parish to another where the sacraments are offered. One plan for our area is shown in the image above, and our two parishes in Novi, MI (St. James and Holy Family), which are only a few miles apart, are both vibrant and unlikely to have their Masses eliminated during the restructuring.

The AOD's description of the problem displayed on their webpage (see image below) is described this way:

Over recent decades, we’ve seen significant shifts: fewer Catholics attending Mass, declining participation in the sacraments, and an ever-shrinking number of priests due to aging and retirement. Once serving 1.5 million Catholics, we now minister to approximately 900,000 — with fewer than half attending Mass regularly. At the same time, we’ve struggled to maintain buildings, structures and ministries designed for a much larger Church, and that’s left us stretched thin — making it harder to fully serve where people need us most.

While I understand the administrative issues surrounding finances and building upkeep, the shortage of priests and fewer people taking the sacraments, these problems will not be solved by demographic and geographic adjustments. The problems are spiritual, not numeric; they are quantum, not deterministic.

I cannot help be reminded of a similar problem faced years ago by the Lutheran church Missouri Synod, of which I had a connection before my conversion to Catholicism. The president of the LCMS declared that the solution to declining attendance was to establish new churches in upstate New York, where the population was historically Germanic and thus (supposedly) more psychologically aligned with Lutheranism. The red flag waving frantically called attention to the lack of the LCMS's attention to the fundamental evangelical nature of the Christian Church—The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20) and concern instead with adjusting the demographics and geography, for the purpose of increasing attendance. If Lutheranism (of the Missouri Synod nature) was so good and true, then why not evangelize where the churches were currently located? (The answer to that is book-length, and I'll not try to answer.)

I see in the AOD restructuring effort an embrace of similar blindness. I don't see the solution as physical restructuring but rather spiritual revival. Here are four considerations that, if implemented together, would eliminate the need for the AOD to restructure.

1. Do not restrict priests to only 1 or 2 Masses per day.

Canon Law 905 allows a priest to celebrate up to 1, 2 or 3, even 4 Masses per day, especially on weekends and festivals. Canon Law (905) is not infallible, dogmatic, or doctrinal. To rigidly hold to this restriction without considering the spiritual demands of a parish is to be pharisaical...holding rigidly to a law that harms the more important roles for a priest. 

2. Remove all administrative duties from the parish priest and give such duties to a full-time LAY administrator who is trained in or has demonstrated successful organizational leadership in the secular realm.

Acts 6:1-6 establishes the role of a deacon for the purpose of administering the parish, leaving prayer and teaching (and celebrating Mass and sacraments) to the priest (or ordained deacon). I do not think a parish administrator needs to be an ordained deacon, unless seminaries begin granting degrees in Organization Development and Leadership. This move alone would allow priests the time and energy to say more Masses, to pray and study the Word, and administer the sacraments. There are plenty of capable men who can be full-time LAY-administrators who are skilled in organizational development and administration. 

3. Remove ALL restrictions EVERYWHERE for celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass. 

This alone will attract more people to Mass. A simple census will reveal the GREAT attraction of young professionals and their families to the TLM. When I attend a TLM, I'm amazed by the deep reverence and the presence of young families with many children. They avoid the Novus Ordo for a variety of reasons, one being Vatican II's dismissive attitude toward reverence in the TLM. I believe that the invention of the Novus Ordo has resulted in fewer people taking the sacraments and fewer men considering the priesthood. The Novus Ordo has made common the worship of God.  (cf: https://www.youtube.com/c/MassoftheAges)

4. Attract young men to the Priesthood through the mystery of the TLM.

This will solve the shortage of priests. By opening the TLM everywhere and training priests to celebrate the TLM, you will attract more good and intelligent men to the priesthood. The priesthood is special and miraculous. Show young men how special and miraculous worship can be by celebrating the TLM. Avoid the common place of the Novus Ordo rubrics, reinstate ad orientem, chant, Latin hymns, organ, kneeling, communion on the tongue at the rail by ordained men, and the mystery that has been removed by the Novus Ordo (commonly referred to by many as simple "NO.")

5. Reinstate orthodox professors to the Seminary that the Archbishop fired without good cause.

Rejecting these holy men dissuades young men from the priesthood. Arbitrary and questionable decisions by an Archbishop are an offense to young men who want an orthodox faith. Intelligent, clear-minded men, who are called to the priesthood, do not want to pledge obedience to an Archbishop who blindly embraces Post-Vatican II ideology that punishes the centuries-old traditions of the church, and goes so far as to embrace Islam as a valid path to know God, and call Islamic places of worship "sacred." I could easily long to be a priest (although too old now), but I could never promise obedience to our current archbishop. I am sure his woke administrative decisions have turned young, faith-minded young men away from the priesthood in the AOD. Get the archbishop to confession and recant his sinful behavior. Young men will flock to the seminary. 

6. The Archbishop (Edward J. Weisenburger) needs to publicly recant and confess as "sin" his decisions that contradict the tradition of Catholic orthodoxy and worship. 

Weisenburger's accommodation to political liberalism and the LGBTQ trans community, his demeaning the importance of penance and post-Vatican II "reforms," his embrace of the Synod on Synodality with its shift toward modernism, and his championing of the ambiguous and inclusive pronouncements of Pope Francis (Todos, todos, todos), have turned many devout Catholics away from the church, the sacraments, and financial support of the AOD.  Conversion has been replaced by slogans, repentance has been replaced by (DEI) inclusion, and doctrine has been replaced by "lived experience." Weisenburger needs to repudiate all of this and shepherd the Church in Detroit back to the faith. If he does so, God guarantees there will be no need for restructuring. 

The Traditional Latin Mass vs the Novus Ordo ... in My Experience

Oct. 26, 2025 TLM at St. Joseph Shine, Detroit, MI. 
This was Christ the King Mass with Perrone
conducting a double-wind orchestra, choir
and five professional soloists. Amazing!

Granted my experience with the Catholic Mass is limited. I've been a Catholic since Easter 1998, after 50 years as a Protestant Evangelical. 

I also came into the Church because I started to attend Mass at nearby St. James C.C. (Novi, MI), where Fr. Jame Cronk celebrated the Novus Ordo (New Order) Mass (NO). It was in English and I understood what was going on. Pam came into the church 9 months later and years later we wrote a mostly humorous memoir about our Catholic journey: Growing Up Christian: Searching for a Reasonable Faith in the Heartland of America. 

A somewhat shorter version and reasons for my coming into the Church is found in this post: Corpus Christi - A commentary on John 6.

The last orchestra TLM Mass
at Assumption Grotto after the
bishop's prohibition. Perrone is
is conducting. 

My closest Catholic friends at the time where "Latin" Catholics who attended the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) at Assumption Grotto Catholic Church in Detroit, and I often attended their Masses, especially the orchestra Masses that their priest, Fr. Eduardo Perrone (a true composter and maestro) conducted with members of the Detroit Symphony and professional soloists.) 

Both my "Latin Catholic" friends have died, and I suspect they are praying for me, because since their deaths I've taken a more intense interest in the TLM, and have grown cold to the NO. In short, I have found the TLM liturgy and rubrics much more reverent than the NO. The TLM also requires a deeper intellectual and spiritual participation. The NO was developed to increase participation by the congregation, but just the opposite has happened. IN the TLM Mass I find myself concentrating on the words in the Missal in my hands, during the time the celebrant is praying quietly before the altar. The Latin responses also require study and practice (since it is new for me). 

Pam continues to attend the NO Masses at St. James and Holy Family where she is involved both a small group leadership, being a lector, and playing her flute in an ensemble for Mass. 

When I attend the NO Masses I miss the reverence that the TLM affords.

I'm also disappointed (and distracted) at the lack of reverence NO congregants demonstrate. At every NO Mass I attend here in Michigan, there is chatting among people before Mass, only the male ushers are wearing suit coats, most congregant men are in casual wear and even shorts and T-shirts in the winter months. Many of the women and girls are wearing slacks, shorts, short-skirts, no head-coverings, and spend their time visiting with friends. I've seen both men and women and kids in flip-flops. After communion in a NO Mass I witness about 10% of the congregants immediately leave the church. And after the recessional only 5% stay behind to pray. 

Teen girls waiting for daily Latin Mass at
St. Joseph C.C. in Jacksonville, FL.
October 4, 2025. 

The Latin Masses see the opposite behavior. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The picture at right does this. I took this during a speaking tour in Jacksonville, FL. I had just left an 8 AM Saturday morning NO Mass attended by the conference attendees that I was to speak to later in the day. These young ladies were waiting for the daily Latin Mass that was to start at 9 AM in the historic St. Joseph Church, a small building next to the massive new church across the parking lot. They are wearing dressy sandals NOT flip-flops. The skirts are long and modest. Their heads are covered.  My friends in Jacksonville told me that the Catholics there are very spiritually oriented, and indeed when I attended the NO Mass in the large church the next day, I witnessed a reverence that I do not experience in Michigan. BUT I took note that St. Joseph in Jacksonville had no trouble celebrating both the NO and TLM side by side. Perhaps the lesson is that the TLM imbues reverence in the Catholic Community that carries over into the NO. 

Lastly, yesterday, I attended the Low Mass at St. Joseph's Shrine, here in Detroit, MI. Gone was the orchestra, choir, and soloists of the previous Sunday's High Mass. Rather than 2+ hours long the Low Mass was only an hour. There was no  processional or recessional. No deacon or subdeacon. No sprinkling. The congregant responses were few and only one was loud enough to hear (Domine, non sum dignus....). The priest rarely turned around to face the people. The Kyrie and Sanctus were not sung. The organist was not the best. Except for the cries of babies (there were many babies and a few crying) the Mass was nearly silent. The only congregational singing was the closing hymn, and we sang all six verses. 

AND YET...

---The church was packed.

Bell Tower, St. Joseph, Detroit

---There was no chatting or visiting before, during, or after Mass

---All the men were dressed in suit jackets and good shoes.

---No one wore shorts, short skirts, T-shirts, or flip-flops.

---Nearly all of the women's heads were veiled and they wore long, floor-length dresses. 

---Children over the age of two (except for two) sat still, eyes front, and some very young ones held missals and pretended to read.  

---Most of the Mass we were on our knees, reading our missals, or heads bowed in prayer.

---NO ONE left after distribution of communion

---After the final hymn, 90% of the congregants stayed in their pews to pray.

---And most miraculous, during the consecration, (when even during a High Mass there is no music and no singing) and the only sound is the bells ringing continuously from the bell tower outside, EVEN THE CRYING BABIES WHERE SILENT.

AND YET, THE LAST TWO POPES (FRANCIS AND LEO) AND A GROWING NUMBER OF BISHOPS (INCLUDING THE LATEST INSTALLMENT IN DETROIT - Archbishop Edward Weisenburger) ARE REPRESSING OR PROHIBITING THE LATIN MASS. They have their reasons, but I wonder if they are aware of the unintended consequences. Pray the TLM is made available to everyone all the time. We need to return to the worship of God with all due reverence. Traditionis Custodes is a huge mistake being used by Satan.

For me, my intentions are never again to attend a NO Mass. Only Latin. I have much to learn.

A well-produced and eye-opening documentary about the origins of the NO Mass and the depth and beauty of the TLM is the trilogy MASS OF THE AGES. Watch it for free on Youtube.  

(L to R) Pam Williams, Fr. Eduardo Perrone, Stan Williams
following the Christ the King orchestra Mass at 
St. Joseph Shrine, Detroit, MI Oct. 26, 2025.

(See also: The Latin Mass My Story - Feb. 22, 2025)