In a recent podcast episode, Fr. William Danaher joined Vanessa Denha Garmo to talk about the Faith in Detroit project, the partnership with Oakland University, and how the Detroit community can get involved.
This episode was originally published on Epiphany Radio’s Substack. You can read the full transcript below.
Full transcript from Fr. William Danaher’s interview
Vanessa: Oakland University partners with Christ Church Cranbrook and other community groups on a $5 million Faith in Detroit grant. And I was really intrigued by this because it ties right into our “Faith at Work Friday” segments where we bring different guests on to talk about how they take their faith to work with them. And then it also, of course, takes ties into my book coming up by Marian Press on “The Job with Jesus.” And I’m very excited—I interviewed people about taking their faith to work with them. And so we’re talking about bringing our faith to the community. And to talk with us about that is our next guest, our first-time guest of Epiphany: we’re talking with Reverend Bill Danaher.
William: Thank you so much.
Vanessa: Thank you so much. So why is this so significant, Reverend, to talk about Faith in Detroit?
William: Well, thank you so much for having me on, first and foremost. And I really am looking forward to reading your book—I know it’s going to be an important book. The reason why is for a couple of reasons. I moved here about 12, almost 13 years ago from Canada, and one of the things that attracted me was the beautiful power of resilience and faith in Detroit. And what I discovered is there was this kind of master narrative of “rise and ruin.” And that was reinforced constantly by larger narratives, that Detroit had this golden age and now it’s just kind of trying to survive in a post-industrial place. And that was so counter to the many different people I kept on meeting as part of my work. What I met were people who were focused on resilience and resurrection. And there was a spirituality in Detroit itself. And so we called our project “Faith in Detroit” because we wanted to talk about the people of faith in Detroit who are just remarkable human beings doing such good work all through the religious communities. And also we called it “Faith in Detroit” to focus on Detroit as the place where this transformation happens. Because missing from this grand narrative is the many, many stories of faithful people who are enduring, who are thriving, and who are making this city what it is.
Vanessa: I love that. In recent years, some people have felt almost nervous or embarrassed or scared to share their faith. I’ve had this conversation, Reverend Dr. Bill Danaher, with so many people in my life about, “Oh, you’ve got to really separate your professional life from your faith life. You might offend people. You may not get clients, or people may not work with you.” And I really struggle with that. I struggle with trying to separate, and Jesus teaches us that, you know, if you’re gonna deny me to others, I’ll deny you to the Father. You know, what do you make of that?
William: I I think it’s just impossible for us to kind of pull on some kind of perforated line in our soul to separate our public selves from our private selves. And it’s just ridiculous on every level to expect us to go through some kind of sieve to talk about our faith only in private terms and never to talk about it in public terms. Now, of course, when we talk about faith in public terms, we all have differences. Yeah. And one of the things that Faith in Detroit tries to do is it tries to create space for people to tell their stories because I believe when we learn each other’s stories of faith, we create a wider way of understanding how even though we might differ on many things, we are together working for the good—for the common good, as it says in the Catholic tradition. You know, one of the things I’m going to take a bit of a risk: I had the great, great privilege of serving on a faith leaders forum with Archbishop Vigneron, and he came over for tea and he spent two hours in my church. I took him on a tour—it was really wonderful—and I think very, very highly of him. And he and I probably don’t agree on a lot of things when it comes to politics, but I admired his faith. And I also knew that he, as my elder brother in Christ, was trying to lead a beautiful tradition and a beautiful institution forward in difficult, difficult times and in the midst of one of the the more trying times that he faced during his tenure. He and I were walking at Sacred Heart Seminary. We were going to a meeting in that beautiful seminary, and we’re walking down the hall, and I said, “You know, Bishop, I want to let you know that I’m praying for you. I’m lifting you up in prayer every day because I know that we all need people outside of our denomination to come alongside us and to say, ‘God is pleased with you. God’s doing a good thing in your life.'” And he got teary-eyed and he said, “You know, you just have to follow the light.” And his example to me was such a witness to how we need to support each other. And I think the world of him to this day, because he was available and he received that beautiful gesture that I offered, and also when he received it, it became larger between us. You know, I believe the Holy Spirit is present in places that we can never, ever know at first glance. We tend to underestimate what the Holy Spirit can do. And in that moment, I felt the Spirit, you know?
Vanessa: That is so true, Reverend. We underestimate the Holy Spirit. You said a couple of things that triggered some thoughts in my mind. One, you know, when you said that the stories that you’re telling, what this project is centered around, what I love about that is that Jesus tells us in Scripture we’re seeking to understand people first before trying to be understood, right? You know, our faith teaches, “seek to understand before trying to be understood.” And these the stories help us understand one each other. We all have our own journeys, we all have our own backstories, and so often we make assumptions about each other without knowing the other person’s story, and it’s through stories that we’re connected. We may not always agree, but at least we understand where the other person is coming from. What would you say to that? In terms of those stories, how they help us unite each other in such a divisive culture in which we live in today?
William: I think that the antidote to one big story that’s being told about us is the many stories that are being told. You know, none of us is one thing ever before God. God sees us all through and through. And I believe that there’s something beautiful that happens. Yesterday with our Oakland University project, we had a story fest of sorts in the church. And we had people from Detroit, we had people from Pontiac, we had people from all over get up and give flash memoirs. And one person from my church, who I became so proud of, talked about the moment when she experienced job insecurity and where she had very little disposable income, her husband got fired, she was struggling with breast cancer, and she was going to food banks. And she’s this elegant Bloomfield Hills looking kind of person, and all of the people that were telling their stories from Detroit, many of whom have had to deal on a more first-time basis with that kind of reality, saw her completely differently. And and that connection, that there was this common suffering. It’s not just about, I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s not just about understanding. It’s also about the kind of connection of struggle and movement through challenging, challenging experiences through trauma and through difficulty. And one of the things that I think I’m hoping to bring to this is not just to hear each other’s stories so that we can kind of understand each other better—not that that isn’t a good thing—but to actually create a deeper sense of connection and to kind of help flush us out as complex human beings that we are before God. You know, one of the—I was—as I was thinking about this interview, and I’m sorry to—I’m going to tell you about my two favorite Catholic churches. Okay? One is St. Florian’s in Hamtramck. Okay? And I love to go through there at different points in its, in its seasons because there are so many folk altars that are built by the people of the church who come in and do these great acts of devotion. And these are amateur artists. And when I go on the website, you can’t see that. They don’t get preserved, right? And they’re done with, you know, almost like model train-like quality, right? They’re just a little bit, you know, they’re going to Hobby Lobby or to other places to get their stuff and they’re putting it together as best they know how, but it’s a great work of devotion. I want to know the story of the people who build those altars. And a similar thing: there’s Our Lady of Albanians is my second favorite one, which is on Lasher. I love walking in there because you see all of this folk art dedicated to Mother Teresa and I love it. I mean, I know this, and none of it’s going to win art prize in Grand Rapids. None of this is going to be this is not like high art, but it’s beautiful art. And I know—I want to know the souls of the people through their stories of the people who make those altars because I think those are beautiful, those are beautiful stories, and how we come through that. Um, I hope that makes sense what I’m trying to know.
Vanessa: I love it. I mean, uh, and I would—I’m intrigued too. I want to know more about both those those churches and their stories behind the art. And we’re talking about Oakland University partners with Christ Church Cranbrook, other community groups on a five-million-dollar Faith in Detroit grant, and talking with us about that is our guest here today, the Reverend Dr. William Danaher Jr., who served as the eighth director of Christ Church Cranbrook, uh, since 2014. And you also said something about, you know, visiting different denominations and different faiths and how different faiths are involved. I remember, Reverend, post 9/11, I was a reporter at WJR and I had to cover 9/11 from different perspectives. And one of the perspectives was a week-long series I did. I mean, I’m sorry, I take that back. A two-hour special I did with my boss at the time, Dick Hafner, who was my news director, and how 9/11 affected the Arab and Keldean community here in Southeast Michigan. And at that time, it was the first time a Catholic religious leader was visiting a mosque. And Cardinal Maida visited a mosque in Dearborn, you know, during this time to show community, right, to show fellowship. And I covered that. And I remember I got a call from ABC News in New York and it was a producer of Peter Jennings, and wanting me to pull that interview and give it to Peter Jennings to do a special on that whole experience. And that was a way that Cardinal Maida reached out to the Islamic community to say, you know, we need to be in fellowship with each other. And just the what you’re doing here showing me—go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
William: Please. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—no, no. That just that kind of remind—what you’re doing here today with Oakland University, it’s reminding me how important it is that we reach out to one another. This—what you’re even sharing with me here today.
Vanessa: Yeah, and I know that mosque well. That’s the Islamic Center of America that you’re talking about, yeah? It’s a Shia mosque, and it’s and it’s I’ve uh—there’s a director of outreach that I’ve worked with. We’ve done refugee resettlement work together, Donna Jawad. And it’s an amazing mosque. And what’s amazing about these things, because I also operate a refugee dental clinic through the church. We have about 100 patients. And what I’ve learned by working ecumenically and in interfaith ways is that, you know, as great as the leaders are in our own tradition, there are great leaders everywhere. And oftentimes it means just crossing the street. That mosque you’re talking about, there’s a Syrian Orthodox church right next door. They share a parking space. Isn’t that funny? You know what I mean? What happens is when we only are focused on ourselves, we tend to get immersed in our own denomination—which is nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong—but—but but there’s something that’s really powerful when you walk across those domains of difference. You know, it’s I mean, just think about how beautiful it was for for for for your leader to go into that mosque and to and it you know what it is say it said it was about this world can be trusted. Yeah, at the end of the day, you know.
Vanessa: Yeah, and it was interesting—I’m not going to name a name—but there was a fellow reporter from a different denomination, and she refused to go in and she refused to cover her head because she said, “I’m not going to do that. I don’t believe in their faith.” And I said, “You realize you’re walking into their home. This is their home, this is their place of worship. And you may not agree with it, but we’re kind of invading their space—they invited us as reporters to come cover this between Cardinal Maida and their imam, and we have to respect them.” You’re not worshiping, you’re just respecting their wishes. And how they, you know, take off your shoes, you had to put on a hijab. She refused and she just stayed outside in the parking lot. And I was like, “Okay, this is why we’re—this isn’t exactly why we’re deficient.”
William: A hundred percent. And, and, um, you know, obviously I don’t want to put words in anybody’s mouth, but you know, you could almost assume why she did what she did, and you know, I want to be as compassionate as possible.
Vanessa: Yeah, me too. But I mean the thing—I want to translate that into another to stories. You know, I’ve had people come to me with stories about the Catholic Church’s reorganization in Detroit, and that to me is important news for others to report. What makes me, what I think that we’re about with Faith in Detroit is actually to somehow gather the stories of resilience of the Catholics that are in Detroit. This is the important thing, right?
Vanessa: That’s a great point. I think, you know, one of the things that we commissioned as a church when we—and was in the, just right at coming out of the pandemic—is we asked Keir Ward to do some service music for us. Keir Ward is the director of music at Sacred Heart Church in Detroit. And we wanted to modernize our liturgy, and we wanted to reflect the beautiful tradition of Black music. And really, for our church, which has got some inflections that are very Catholic, where else would we go but Sacred Heart? And Keir Ward and his family—he comes from an almost a dynasty of people in the Catholic Church writing music. There’s nobody better to go to. And so that story of resilience of his work that he does is so important. And there’s one community that I’m following that I’m hoping to get a chance to interview is a Hispanic congregation that’s kind of a congregation within a congregation that which has gone through some of the changes that have had to be made by the Archdiocese, and they are staying resilient. They are moving from place to place, but they have a powerful story to teach us because they know what it means to keep focused on a mission. They know what it means to be resilient. They know what it means to be itinerant. And as we as Christians together negotiate this new chapter in our lives, this is the time for us to learn these kinds of survival skills from each other, right? This is the time for us to really learn from each other. And the best way to learn, I think, is through sharing our stories.
Vanessa: I love that, Reverend. And what else are you hoping, you and the team at Oakland University are hoping, that people will take away from Faith in Detroit program? You know, what are you hoping the takeaways will be?
William: This is my plug, if you don’t mind. I would love to invite people to go to faithindetroit.org and just sign up and tell us ways that we can get involved to hear your story. With Oakland, we have something called the Faith in Detroit Journal, which is going to be publishing flash memoirs. These are very short memoirs, and we’re going to come out twice a year with that. We just completed a writing intensive where we had about 50 people come in to hear some brilliant, brilliant writers about the craft of writing. And what’s happening that’s powerful about the project with Oakland is it’s the Center for Public Humanities, and it’s being led so brilliantly by Kathy Pfeiffer, who’s a professor there. But also, I cannot say enough about the president of Oakland, Ora Peskowitz. She’s one of the great leaders of this area. She is. She is amazing. She is.
Vanessa: I really like her. I’ve met her a couple of times. She’s amazing. I’ve heard her talk. She’s great.
William: She is. And so what we want to build with our partners—and we’re working with Detroit PBS and Detroit Opera and others—we want to foster this ecosystem of storytellings. So as that builds up, so the Oakland Project is really about how you write your story, which is different than how you say your story. So one of our partners is the Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers. And that’s a wonderful nonprofit that’s in Detroit run by an artist and a brilliant, brilliant storyteller, Satori Shakur. And what we want to do is provide venues for people to tell their story orally, also in written form. We also want to find ways to archive the stories, and we also want to provide ways for people to map their stories through an app that’s going to be coming out in the fall. We’re going to be creating some higher, higher is maybe not the right word, but some great artistic projects—not only through documentary films, but also through opera. So we’re doing all of these things to kind of create this large funnel of stories about Detroit. And again, the thing that we need from people is to be real in their story. So this past week, we had such powerful stories. And there’s something funny about this. By doing it with Oakland and doing it that’s delivery faith-based and ecumenical, we get to hear stories that don’t necessarily find their way into church. Because people, when they go to church, tend to kind of, they’re careful about the stories they share, right? And these stories we’re hearing are so powerful, so visceral, some of it having to do with trauma. I’m going to be doing a story gathering later this month that will be broadcast on PBS later in the summer. And I’m doing it at Church of the Messiah, which is a brilliant church in Detroit, an Episcopal church. And I was talking to the pastor there, Barry Randolph, and he said, just by saying, “I want to hear your stories,” he’s heard stories he’s never heard before. So just by creating that space for story and creating that opportunity for people to tell their stories and not having it directly within a church service, people get very real about the stories that they’re dealing with. You know, Kevin Dietz had us on a little bit ago on WGR, and he opened the conversation and I wish I could have—it was a very brief spot—he talked about the fact that he was told this beautiful personal story by his goth partner when he just said he was doing this segment on storytelling and he had never heard this from his goth partner before. And so I think just by opening up that space and making sure that that space is both safe and has the ability for people to develop their skills in storytelling, it’s going to have an effect in Detroit. So our goal, just to summarize again, is to build this ecosystem and to have that in some ways bubble up in through wider culture so that people, when they see Detroit, they see it for the powerful place it is.
Vanessa: Amen. Reverend, thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you on and thank you for sharing with us this story about this partnership with Oakland University and Faith in Detroit. Reverend William Danaher with us here on Epiphany. Thank you for being with us.
William: You’re welcome. And can I just say thank you for your work, thank you for using all of your gifts to continue the work you’re doing, and I wish every blessing into the work you’re doing. It’s so powerful and it’s so important now more than ever.
Vanessa: Thank you, Reverend. Thank you for that. And God bless you in all that you do for the greater good and for the glory of God.
William: Thank you.
Vanessa: Welcome. Reverend Bill Danaher with us here on Epiphany talking with us about Faith in Detroit, a partnership with Oakland University.