Archbishop Weisenburger and the episcopal double standard

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 25, 2025

Is there are a double standard for judging the behavior of Catholic bishops? Can liberal bishops push their own controversial ideas without fear of public rebuke, while their more conservative colleagues are shunned as “uncollegial” if they break with the general consensus?

For an answer to those rhetorical questions, consider the case of Detroit’s Archbishop Edward Weisenburger. Ordinarily a newly installed prelate is advised to spend some time listening to his people before making any major policy decisions. But Weisenburger waited only a few weeks after his installation before announcing that the Traditional Latin Mass could no longer be celebrated his the parishes of the Detroit archdiocese. Now, several weeks later, he has raised eyebrows again by firing two prominent professors at his archdiocesan seminary.

The abrupt dismissal of Ralph Martin and Eduardo Echeverria was shocking in itself. Both are highly respected scholars, widely published authors, and popular public speakers. Both had taught at Sacred Heart seminary for more than 20 years. Since both had reached ordinary retirement age, the archbishop might have quietly persuaded them to resign, offering them testimonial farewells and gold watches and generous severance. Instead he fired them without warning.

We expect this sort of behavior from a politician who ousts an incumbent, after a heated campaign. He won the election, so he has every right to put “his” people on his staff, and purge his rival’s supporters. But shouldn’t there be different standards of a diocesan bishop? The authority he holds is not simply “his” authority, and while his views may not match those of his predecessor, they both serve the same universal Church.

Apparently Archbishop Weisenburger is uncomfortable with the theological approaches that Martin and Echeverria take—in particular, with their past public criticisms of Pope Francis. Fair enough. He is certainly entitled to his opinions, and in time we would expect him to shape a seminary faculty more in line with his thinking. But a purge of influential seminary faculty members is a very different thing—especially when the (unspoken) charge against them is that they have been too zealous in their defense of perennial Church teaching.

If Archbishop Weisenburger dislikes the approach that these two theologians take, many other bishops, both in the US and around the world, value their work highly. Martin—who was named by Pope Benedict XVI as a consultant to a pontifical council and a peritus at a Synod of Bishops—made the point gently in a statement issued after his firing:

I just came back from a National Deacons Conference in St. Louis, leaving tomorrow for a conference in Birmingham, Alabama and then, along with Bishop Scott McCaig from Canada, leaving on Monday for a priests’ retreat for hundreds of priests in the African nation of Cameroon.

No doubt both Martin and Echeverria will have plenty of opportunities to make themselves heard, despite their absence from the Detroit seminary. Other bishops will welcome them as speakers; Catholic editors will welcome their written work; friendly prelates in Rome will solicit their advice. But their dismissal demonstrates how a liberal bishop, with an arbitrary decision, can transform the landscape of a diocese. Every other faculty member at Sacred Heart seminary is now on notice: hew to the archbishop’s line or risk sudden unemployment.

Can you, dear reader, recall or even imagine a parallel case, in which a conservative prelate has sacked a liberal theologian—not for rejecting Church teachings but for defending them? I certainly cannot. Moreover I predict that while many bishops will quietly disapprove of the firings, few if any will make their disapproval public. For years, even during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, liberal prelates have felt free to promote their own ideas aggressively, while more conservative bishops have acted cautiously, sensitive to any charge of being divisive. Under Pope Francis, of course, liberal prelates were more emboldened; tradition-minded bishops more fearful of potential reprisals.

In the early weeks of his pontificate, Pope Leo has given every indication that he wants to ease tensions within the Church, avoiding invitations to take sides on neuralgic issues. The peremptory decisions that Archbishop Weisenburger has made, so early in his own archdiocesan leadership, raises an important question: Is he acting quickly, to present the Catholic world with faits accomplis before Pope Leo weighs in with what might be moderating directives? Or is he acting in full confidence that the new Pope will approve his moves?