Cleveland's Rev. David J. Walkowiak named bishop of Grand Rapids MI
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,068
    http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/04/new_grand_rapids_bishop_1.html
    I don't know what the liturgy is like at St. Joan of Arc in Chagrin Falls, but I've heard that he's been very supportive of the RotR music program at Mary Queen of Peace, Cleveland. No comments that I've seen specifically about liturgy (except that, like, you have to show up for it). Does anyone have any further info, on him or on the liturgical situation in Grand Rapids? I'd like to see strong tradition Catholicism in the Calvinist side of the state.
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    I don't know about GR at large but our family assisted at the Latin Mass at Sacred Heart there two weeks ago. It was HEAVENLY! I thanked the priest afterward and he said they've been offering the Latin Mass there for 20 years. I also noticed a beautiful church along I-196 that looked Catholic, so we drove by and found it is St. Isidore and have a Latin weekday Mass. In our visits to GR over the past few years, we've also been to several parishes we will never return to. I do hope the new bishop will support traditional Catholicsm in GR as well.
  • WiesOrganista
    Posts: 128
    The music at Joan of Arc for the next few weeks is listed on their website.

    Grand Rapids has witnessed some of the worst liturgical destruction in the state. There are a few survivors, as Teachermom alluded to.

    Time will tell.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 977
    Grand Rapids -- home of the basilica that invited Buddhists to conduct a service inside at the altar.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,697
    My wife is from near Cleveland. I'll have to ask if she, or more likely her parents, know him. However, seeing his picture I must say he looks a lot like Tom Booth.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Grand Rapids needs some serious help. I'll be very interested to follow this. The music director at the Cathedral, however, is a graduate of the same high school as I! He attended there in the 70s, when it had a Gregorian chant schola.

    "Grand Rapids has witnessed some of the worst liturgical destruction in the state."

    I give the award to Saginaw, though that's quibbling. Grand Rapids does have a culture of musical quality, at least, even when it's bad music that's being done well.

    Like I said, VERY interesting. Also, was this a Benedict or Francis appointment?
    Thanked by 1WiesOrganista
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,697
    The website of the Grand Rapids Cathedral music program is very interesting. It definitely seems to be a very diverse program, but when describing the instruments of the Cathedral there is a very weird line... They have a very impressive piano of which it is said: "This beautiful instrument is featured in every liturgy."

    ???

    Is this to mean that there are no Low Masses at this Cathedral? No Masses with organ only? No a capella Masses or Hours? Could this quote really be true?
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,068
    Gavin, my family lives in the D. of Saginaw. I converted long after I left home, so I don't know "how things are there". With St. Denis in Lexington MI, it's hard to separate poverty of resources from poverty of taste, except that the new pastor there sings his stuff and preaches tolerably well, so there's hope.
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    I'm with Gavin...Saginaw hands down.

    Grand Rapids had a few places of refuge. In Saginaw the devastation was total. My daughter and her husband live in Saginaw now. They ended up going to the least awful parish they could find and my daughter still won't participate in the music. They try and go to the early Mass so they only have to suffer through the four hymn sandwich rather than what passes for choral music up there.
  • WiesOrganista
    Posts: 128
    I said SOME, not THE worst. LOL

    I grew up there.....
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