Detroit — Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron said he reacted to the news of Pope Benedict XVI’s impending resignation with surprise and sadness.

“Quickly after the surprise followed sadness, a sense of grief at losing his fatherly care for all us bishops, clergy and faithful. We have come to love him very much and will miss him,” the archbishop said in a statement released to the press early Monday.

Comparing it to the experience many have had of seeing their own parents grow old and experience a decline in their abilities, he said, “Our spiritual father has determined, by the best light given to him in prayer, that for the good of us all he must lay down his office.”

Just as Catholics have been praying for Pope Benedict during his papacy, the archbishop invited “all Catholics to pray all the more ardently for the Holy Father Pope Benedict, that God sustain him in these last weeks of his papacy and guide him through what lies ahead.”

Archbishop Vigneron continued, “And we look to the future with confidence, that the Lord who has given us this great pope and loving father, will give us a new shepherd of equal merit.”

Speaking with representatives of local media later in the morning at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, the archbishop was asked where he was when he received the news: “I was up working on a letter that needed to get out today, and my priest-secretary called and said, ‘You need to look at your email because the Holy Father has resigned.’”

Besides checking his email, Archbishop Vigneron said he also went to the Vatican’s website, www.vatican.va.

“And I have to say that one of the most affecting things was that the Vatican had posted the actual audio of the pope’s words. He spoke in Latin at a consistory this morning — a gathering of cardinals that had been planned to deal with other business, and hearing the Holy Father talk about, in his own words, his sense of his weakened health, of his declining ability to do what he knows needs to be done for the Church — that was very poignant to me,” he said.

Archbishop Vigneron said he believes Pope Benedict will always be remembered as “one of the very best teachers anyone could ever have,” expressing himself clearly in his books and other writings.

And Pope Benedict — before and during his papacy — has produced a body of work that will yield insights for those who study them well into the future. “I believe we’ll be able to mine, not just the long official documents, but his sermons,” the archbishop said, adding that he believes the pope to be a preacher of the caliber of St. Gregory the Great or St. John Chrysostom.

Both of Detroit’s retired cardinals also expressed admiration for the Holy Father and his decision.

“Over the past eight years, he has served God’s people with great charity and wisdom and has been a sterling example of holiness of life in the exercise of his ministry. The Church, indeed the whole world, has been blessed to have his presence and enlightened witness of God’s love for all God’s people,” Cardinal Adam J. Maida said.

“A certain sadness touches our hearts as we ponder the news of his resignation, but we cannot deny the reality of old age as it affects all of us,” said the cardinal, who himself will turn 83 next month. “We give thanks to God for the gift of his person and presence among us as the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ.”

Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, 85, praised Pope Benedict’s contributions as a papal theologian.

“Every pope has his own character, his own personality, and brings his own experience,” he said. “Pope Benedict XVI has brought to the papacy a certain intellectual level, and a very theological level. He has left us a storehouse of theological reflections, in expressing the beliefs of our faith in a theological setting, from which we all have learned.

“The main obligation for the faithful right now is to pray, to pray for Pope Benedict XVI that the Lord will give him more years of quiet life, and that the cardinals will select a worthy successor to him.”

As to a theme of his papacy, Archbishop Vigneron said Pope Benedict’s had “picked up a thread from the papacy of Blessed John Paul II, a thread we call the new evangelization that, especially in parts of the world that seem to have gotten tired of the faith — or maybe bored; they think they have heard it all; they need to find some other way to have meaning in their lives — the Holy Father has been urging all of us to be young again and to re-present the Good News of Jesus.”

Speaking of his own instances of being with the Holy Father, Archbishop Vigneron recounted his experience at last year’s =====ad limina===== visit, when he and the other bishops of Michigan dioceses went for their quinquennial (once every five years) visit to give an account of their dioceses.

“On all those occasions he’s most engaging; there’s a twinkle in his eye; he’s very witty, and most realistic about what it means to be a diocesan bishop. He himself did that in his years in Munich,” the archbishop said.

Summing up their relationship, he added, “We’re not buds, but I do a feel a bond with him, and I have always felt a lot of support from him when I’ve been in his presence.”

Asked what he was hoping for in the successor who will be chosen pontiff to succeed Pope Benedict, Archbishop Vigneron said, “He should be a really good priest. I would like to see the Holy Father’s successor be a man of really great faith and a great missionary zeal, and a lot of courage.”

And noting that a lot of seminarians had come into the room where the news conference was being held, he added, “I would like the next pope to really be an inspiration to them, for they’re our future.”

But when asked whether he thought a new pope might bring big changes in the Catholic Church’s teachings, the archbishop replied that the relationship of a pope to the teaching of the Church is one of stewardship, not ownership.

“He might bring new perspective, new emphasis, but he cannot change the moral or doctrinal norms of the Church,” he explained.

Read the full text of the archbishop’s statement here.