Lory McGlinnen started at the Archdiocese of Detroit with a temporary gig, stayed to build a fulfilling career helping parishes
DETROIT — Lory McGlinnen didn’t intend to work for the Archdiocese of Detroit for three decades.
The Grand Blanc native was finishing her master’s degree in resource development and urban studies from Michigan State University when she landed a six-month contract job with the Archdiocese of Detroit helping the late Fr. Clarence Williams, CPPS, organize a Recovery from Racism project.
She figured she’d help Fr. Williams run the conference, and that would be that.
“So, I wasn’t Catholic at the time; I wasn’t really looking to do a full-time job,” McGlinnen told Detroit Catholic. “This was just something to do while I was finishing up my master’s. At the end of the conference, the archdiocese said they were looking for someone to be the director for parish life. I was hired after six months, and time has just flown by.”
The conference led to a 32-year career in the Church, working in the Office of Parish Life, the Office of Parish Renewal, the Office of Parish Care and the Office of Real Estate, aiding and assisting parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit in her role at the Chancery.
“What I had been doing before that was working with a nonprofit organization that went out and did a lot of leadership training and capacity building, so that people could organize around a nonprofit to benefit their communities,” McGlinnen said. “So that just evolved into the work I started doing for the diocese.”
McGlinnen, a parishioner at St. Paul on the Lake in Grosse Pointe Farms, spent the next 32 years working with pastors, parish councils and finance councils, helping them manage and improve practices so parishes could more effectively operate their ministries.
“I honestly didn’t have any type of opinion about the Catholic Church before I started working here, but once I became more engaged in the work, then I really began to appreciate the kind of work the Catholic Church does for communities, in particular in the city of Detroit,” McGlinnen said. “And when you begin to work with the Church, you can see how your own faith can flourish in ways you never would have imagined without the Church.”
McGlinnen’s family didn’t practice any faith growing up, but around the same time she began working for the Archdiocese of Detroit, she met the man who would be her husband, Mike, whose family was devout Catholics.
“His family was very strong Catholics and very active in the Church, so he asked, ‘Why don’t you think about it?’” McGlinnen said. “Fr. John West was the director of catechesis and religious education for the diocese, and so I would just start going and meeting him for an hour once a week, just talking about the faith. He led me through this discernment process, and it came to a point where I decided I wanted to be Catholic.”
McGlinnen was received into the Church the following Easter, while at the same time she was getting acclimated to working in the archdiocese, visiting priests and parishes and navigating the triumphs — and struggles — in church life.
McGlinnen began working full-time for the archdiocese in 1993, not too long after the late 1980s, when the Archdiocese of Detroit, under the leadership of Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, led a reorganization in which more than 30 within the City of Detroit parishes closed and were merged.
McGlinnen wasn’t involved in that restructuring, but she remembers those early days working in the Church, being on the phone with parishioners, working through challenges with parish councils and hearing the concerns of parish staff.
McGlinnen said it helped that she had just been welcomed into the Church when she started, and her faith was on fire.
“I was on fire with the Holy Spirit and what I could bring to the diocese in this new way,” McGlinnen said. “I came from really no faith tradition to embracing the Catholic Church, and there was, in a way, a separation between my faith and my work because I was just so new to it. But I was coming from a place of building relationships, so I worked to build trust and build relationships with people.”
It was in those one-on-one conversations, those small moments of accompaniment and solidarity, that McGlinnen built a rapport with parishioners across the archdiocese, even amidst difficult times.
“I’ve always tried to be honest with people, even if it is tough to sit down and go through tough discussions that have to happen,” McGlinnen said. “People know when somebody is being genuine, and so I respected all the people I worked with, even if we had differences of opinion. I think people can see that when they’re genuine in their intent to work together, and you get really hands-on with the decisions that are being made, people respond positively.”
McGlinnen said that in her 32 years working for the archdiocese, she has developed many friendships throughout the area — even when addressing issues that can cause tension in the Church.
“Over the past 32 years, I’ve become very good friends with a lot of priests and people from parish councils, finance councils and the leadership at parishes,” McGlinnen said. “Having those relationships, I still probably every day get phone calls from people that I’ve talked with or initially interacted with 20 or 30 years ago, but they know they can call me and I’ll point them in the right direction to get them the answer they need for whatever is happening at their parish.”
McGlinnen credits leaders in the Archdiocese of Detroit, such as Cardinal Adam J. Maida, Archbishop-emeritus Allen H. Vigneron, and current Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, for centering her work on leading others to Christ, including during the current restructuring process in the archdiocese.
“It really all starts with leadership and working through the Curia and down to the parishes,” McGlinnen said. “There’s an understanding that we do this work because we’re called to do it. We semi-jokingly say, ‘We’re from the Chancery, we’re here to help.’ People kind of laugh at it sometimes, but the people who work in the Curia really do believe in the mission. And when that happens, the parishes start to believe that we’re trying to help them with our services.”
McGlinnen sees most of her years in ministry as spent working behind the scenes to spread the Gospel message in southeast Michigan. It might not be as visible as being a director of religious education or a Catholic school teacher, but it's mission work, nonetheless.
“There are, I would say, very few that don’t believe in the mission of what the Catholic Church in Detroit is trying to do,” McGlinnen said. “I would say most, if not all, of the people that I have had the joy to work with are doing the work because they believe that they can make a difference. So, whether it’s working in Christian service or Catholic schools or athletics or evangelizations, you are doing what you're doing because you want to lead people to Christ.”
McGlinnen is retiring at the same time as her husband is retiring from his career as a full-time schoolteacher, going down to substituting two days a week. McGlinnen has no major plans just yet, outside of spending more time with her twin 21-year-old sons, Michael and Patrick.
She said she will miss the people and the hustle and bustle of working in downtown Detroit, but remains grateful for the blessings she’s received.
“It’s been a blessing to work for the diocese,” McGlinnen said. “I’ve been blessed to have this opportunity. I never went looking for it, and it just kind of happened, so I feel like I was called to do it. In many ways, I’ll miss this work and the people that I worked with, but I’m looking forward to figuring out what’s the next thing and how I can keep serving.”
