Catholics in West Michigan lamented to LifeSiteNews that Bishop David Walkowiak has remained silent instead of defending the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and denouncing blasphemous images at Grand Valley State University.
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (LifeSiteNews) -- Bishop David Walkowiak is under fire for failing to publicly condemn a blasphemous display that was installed at a university in his diocese.
Lay Catholics who live in West Michigan told LifeSite today that not only has Walkowiak “shamefully" remained silent instead of defending the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary but that he has failed in his solemn duty to provide leadership for his flock.
“Does the Bishop love Our Lady? Does he know or care about the First Saturday devotion and how she explicitly asked, at Fatima, that we should make reparation for sins committed against her sacred images?” Meredith Burl, a mother of four, told LifeSite. “Why do we lay people always seem to fight alone?”
Walkowiak, who is originally from Cleveland, was tapped by Pope Francis to oversee the Diocese of Grand Rapids in 2013. Grand Rapids is the state’s second largest city in terms of population, behind Detroit.
LifeSite first reported on the sacrilegious display on February 3. It was installed at Grand Valley State University's Kirkhof Student Center on its campus in Allendale, which is about 12 miles west of Grand Rapids. The school receives nearly $100 million in taxpayer dollars per year and had bought the image from alumna Irlanda Beltran.
Two Republican state representatives as well as Grand Valley student Noah Mullins were furious with the image. Mullins had been in touch with the school for several months calling on them to take it down, as one part of the image includes two men kissing. Other woke, pro-LGBT slogans are also visible. The Catholic Church teaches that the misuse or tampering with sacred images is a grave offense to God and rejects homosexuality and gender ideology as grave evils.
Fr. Rob Mulderink of St. Luke’s University parish was in touch with school officials about the display. The details of their conversations are not really known. LifeSite called Mulderink’s office earlier this month to learn what was talked about but was told he was not in at the time. LifeSite has not received a call back.
On February 8, over 100 Catholics attended a protest on Grand Valley’s campus to make reparation for the image. Burl was the organizer of the event.
Attendees at the rally prayed 15 decades of the Rosary as well as the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The diocese was not involved.
Burl drew attention to the diocese’s silence in her comments to LifeSite today.
“100 souls in freezing temperatures came to defend our Blessed Mother and pray a public rosary of reparation. The bishop can't even be bothered to make a statement?” she said via text message. “I find myself questioning the bishop’s faith. To me, it seems like he is more concerned about political correctness than supernatural realities. We need him to be our leader in the supernatural fight we are up against. We need him to use his crosier to fight off the devils prowling around us. It's unbelievable, really that he hasn’t done that, but it is the crisis in the Church.”
Another person who attended the protest spoke to LifeSite about Walkowiak’s silence.
“As a Catholic I pledge fidelity to the magisterium and the successors of the apostles, but this is really disappointing,” the person said on condition of anonymity.
Grand Valley announced just days before the protest was to be held that they were going to remove the image. But communication official Chris Knape clarified that it would only be temporarily taking it down because the Grand Valley art museum was going to find a location for it where its “context” could be better understood.
Mullins told LifeSite journalist Stephen Kokx via a video interview this month that there isn’t a place where the “context” of the image can be better understood. He also said he will continue to defend Our Lady’s honor and ensure the image does not see the light of day again.
LifeSite has reached out to the Grand Rapids diocese on multiple occasions. On February 10, an email was sent to Walkowiak’s director of communications, Annalise Laumeyer. The email asked for a statement on his behalf to know if he would be calling on Grand Valley to remove the display for good and to learn what he thinks about the image itself. LifeSite emailed Laumeyer again, with Walkowiak copied on the message, on February 12 requesting any information at all about the diocese’s response, as LifeSite had hoped it was working behind the scenes with the school to have the image taken down. The diocese did not reply to either email.
LifeSite then called Laumeyer’s office phone – twice – on Friday, February 21. She did not pick up on either attempt. LifeSite left a voicemail and then called her cell phone, which she also did not answer. LifeSite will update this story if and when the diocese replies to any of the messages it has sent to Laumeyer and Walkowiak.
To respectfully urge Bishop Walkowiak to publicly condemn the sacrilegious display and to ask him to call on Grand Valley to remove it permanently, you can email him at [email protected]. Communications Director Annalise Laumeyer can also be reached via phone at (616) 551-5629 or email [email protected].
To contact Grand Valley directly, consider reaching out to school president Dr. Philomena Mantella, (616) 331-2100, [email protected]; communication official Chris Knape, (616) 331-2953, [email protected]; or Director of Art Galleries, Mr. Nathan Kemler, (616) 331-3638 or (616) 331-8122, [email protected].
