Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Many of you have asked how I am doing after being fired from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. I spoke about this in a recent YouTube video but want to share my response with our readers of our newsletter and blog as well.
First, I am overwhelmed by the love, support, and prayers I have received. My statement received over four-hundred responses on the day we posted it. Many people said they have benefited from the work we are doing at Renewal Ministries through our writing, speaking, media, mission trips, and all the other ways in which we’re trying to strengthen the Church. You can read just some of the messages we received here.
However, this isn’t the first time that I’ve been fired. Years ago, I was fired from working in the Cursillo Movement and then from working at Catholic Campus Ministry at Michigan State University. At that time, the issue was the Charismatic Renewal. It was new, and people didn’t know what to do with it. The third time I was fired, I was working at St. Mary’s Student Chapel in Ann Arbor, and things were going well. Hundreds and hundreds of students were coming to the student center and a lot of people were getting converted, but they began feeling like it was overwhelming the student center and asked us to go someplace else. Out of that came the Word of God Community and the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office, which started here, moved to Belgium, and is now in Rome. Many different things came from that, including Renewal Ministries and Christ the King Catholic Parish in Ann Arbor, where we have had about forty people ordained as priests since the parish’s beginning. As this door closes, other doors are going to open.
People are asking how I feel, and I am feeling a lot of different things. It was a shock; it happened suddenly and without any notice. I remember calling my wife and saying, “I’ve just been fired, but I feel like the hand of the Lord is with me and with us, and that this is all under his providence. He’s got a plan.” I felt a certain kind of joy, even elation. Later, when I ran into complications and had to make decisions about how to respond, I felt anger. After twenty-three years at the seminary, it happened like this?
I also felt sadness, because I had just finished teaching my last class for a group of priests in our Sacred Theology Licentiate Program. My students were wonderful priests from around the world, and I love them. It was one of our best classes. I felt the same thing last fall when I did my last class with the transitional deacons, a group of more than twenty men about to be ordained priests. The Lord was doing a lot in the classroom and with these seminarians and priests, and it is sad to think that I won’t be able to continue doing that.
But there will continue to be many other opportunities to help strengthen the Church, build up priests and seminarians, and carry out missions around the world, like we’ve been doing at Renewal Ministries for so many years.
A couple of days after this happened, I left for Cameroon and did a retreat with Bishop Scott McCaig, the bishop of Canada’s military ordinariate, who is on our Canadian Catholic Renewal Ministries Board of Directors. We did a multi-day retreat for two-hundred priests and nuns who were very grateful for the input and encouragement. Bishop Scott and I also each gave seven talks to one-thousand lay leaders who were gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Cameroon. In addition to giving talks, we prayed for many participants and took numerous “selfies” with the wonderful people there. We also met with a number of the Cameroonian bishops and spent a wonderful and informative evening with the papal nuncio to Cameroon, who is Bishop Scott’s friend.
Around that time, Renewal Ministries also had two other ongoing major missions. Country Coordinator Tom Edwards was in Tanzania with a large team that included Dr. André Villeneuve, a colleague from the seminary. And senior Country Coordinators Lloyd and Nancy Greenhaw were in Papua New Guinea with Country Coordinator Anthony Feola and his wife, Anna. The Feolas belong to Christ the King Parish in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Amazing and wonderful missions, all.
Upon returning from Cameroon, it was time to get ready for our annual taping of twenty-six new programs for The Choices We Face, the longest-running program in Catholic television. We spent most of September filming, and we have one more program to tape this month with a bishop who couldn’t make our September recording dates.
And as the summer ended, we had another amazing summer camp for junior high girls, a complement to the camp we had for boys earlier in the summer. The Lord has a lot for us to do, and we’re going to continue doing it.
The Lord is in this. As painful as it is, and even though it makes me feel angry sometimes and sad at others, I predominantly feel tremendous encouragement and hope in the Lord. He’s got a plan. The first three times I was fired, doors closed, but other doors—wonderful doors—opened. I believe that will be the case this time as well.
This is an invitation from the Lord to come even closer to Him and to be even more united and obedient to Him. It is an invitation to join Mary with her pure heart, who loves Jesus more than anybody ever loved Him, who obeyed the Father more deeply than anybody ever obeyed Him, and who received the Holy Spirit more than anybody ever received Him. Let’s ask Mary to help us love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit even more, as she does.
Interestingly, our team asked me to do a live YouTube video just before this happened, and the topic I chose was trusting God in difficult circumstances. You can see it here. More than one person has told me that this situation will give me a chance to live my own teaching. I love living my own teaching; I believe it! God is with us at every stage of life, and I’m confident that He’s going to do with me exactly what He wants. Nothing happens without his permission or purpose, and I’m happy to trust the Lord for what comes. I hope you are too in your own lives.
I know all of you have difficult circumstances. All of you face disappointments. All of you have doors that have closed and other doors perhaps that haven’t opened yet—but they will. Be inspired—we are! We’re also grateful for your support and prayers, which make all these outreaches possible.
In Christ,
Ralph
This letter originally appeared in the Renewal Ministries October 2025 newsletter.
rmartin@renewalministries.net
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Praying for you Ralph from Malta. Thank you for work and mission for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.