And so, Monsignor Earl Boyea, Rector of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio, became an Auxiliary Bishop of Detroit and then, six years later, the new Bishop of Lansing. “I didn’t know a whole lot about this diocese at that time,” he says, “but I did know it had a great presbyterate, something that has been confirmed many, many, many times since.”

Bishop-designate Boyea arrived in Michigan’s capital city in late February 2008. The weather was frigid. The roads were treacherous—so much so that he rear-ended another car while en route to his inaugural press conference. A helpful local deacon had to come rescue him. Two months later he returned for his episcopal installation. The night prior he took possession of his cold and empty residence. “And, basically, I was wondering: What on earth am I doing here? Why is this happening? So, I unloaded my books and got them all on the shelves.

I figured that gave me some peace of mind.” By his own admission, Bishop Boyea brought “no particular agenda” to his new role beyond the lofty and laudable goal of “helping everybody to get to heaven.” The prayer and persuasion of others across the diocese, however, won him round to the desirability of a blueprint for a new evangelization. The result was a pastoral letter published on Holy Thursday 2012. It runs to a hefty 40 pages, but its key theme is readily summed up in its eight-word title: Go and Announce the Gospel of the Lord.

“I worked very hard to put together what is, admittedly, a rather long letter which draws upon Pope Benedict’s threefold vision for evangelization: How do we build up the ‘household of faith’ meaning practicing Catholics? How do we reach out to ‘the lost sheep,’ those Catholics who, sadly, have left our Church? And thirdly, how do we engage and evangelize contemporary society, the modern-day ‘Court of the Gentiles’?”

“Those three things were very important to me. If we’re going to be evangelizers, that’s where we have got to look. And so that letter has really been at the heart of everything we’ve been doing since 2012.”

By the grace of God, much of what Bishop Boyea’s pastoral letter aspired to foster has, indeed, come to fruition in the subsequent years. The number of Easter converts and adult baptisms across the Diocese of Lansing is at a 20-year high. Sunday Mass attendance has been up year-on-year since 2020. Meanwhile, the diocese is blessed with 29 young men studying for the priesthood, with last year’s ordination class being the largest in nearly half a century. Elsewhere, Catholic school enrollment is up by approximately 600 students over the past six years. As one of Bishop Boyea’s closest collaborators commented to him recently: “Aslan is on the move.”

“I put most of these things down to God,” says Bishop Boyea, “and to our parishes which, frankly, have been in good shape for many, many years because we’ve got such great priests. I am so incredibly proud of our presbyterate.

Despite the vagaries of episcopal life, the foundation of Bishop Boyea’s day has remained unaltered during his 18 years at the helm of the Diocese of Lansing.

“I get up and say Mass each morning and then, after that, I have an hour of prayer. During that time, I meditate upon the readings of the day, I also try to read a chapter of Sacred Scripture and then spend some quiet time giving thanks for all the things that took place theprevious day.”

And, as he prepares to write his letter of resignation to Pope Leo XIV, what exactly will Earl Alfred Boyea do next when the Holy Father finally appoints his successor as Bishop of Lansing?

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he laughs. “I know I will be going from 90 miles-an-hour to zero in one day—and then we’ll see where God leads me in all of this.”