Earl Boyea
Earl Alfred Boyea Jr. was born April 10, 1951, in Pontiac, Michigan, the eldest of ten children, and grew up in Waterford. He entered Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and studied in Rome at the Pontifical North American College and the Gregorian University, receiving a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1976. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit on May 20, 1978.
Boyea is a trained Church historian, with a Doctorate in Church History from the Catholic University of America (1987). From 1987 to 2000 he taught church history and Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, and in 2001 became rector-president of the Pontifical College Josephinum. Pope John Paul II named him auxiliary bishop of Detroit on July 22, 2002; he was consecrated September 13, 2002.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Boyea the fifth Bishop of Lansing on February 27, 2008; he was installed April 29, 2008. He chaired the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. On April 10, 2026, his 75th birthday, he submitted his required resignation to Pope Leo XIV, and continues to govern until his successor is named.
Bishop Earl Boyea's record on the Traditional Latin Mass is, on the deeds, notably favorable. When Pope Francis issued Traditionis Custodes on July 16, 2021, Boyea did not cancel, consolidate, or relocate the Extraordinary Form. On July 27, 2021 he authorized any priest already offering the Latin Mass to continue at the same times, and he later confirmed he had 'given dispensations for the Masses to continue' at all five TLM locations in the diocese, 'in accordance with Traditionis custodes.' Independent trackers record that no Traditional Latin Masses were suppressed in Lansing.
Boyea has also shown personal favor toward the older rite. He celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass himself roughly once a year when meeting with the communities, and in November 2019 he offered a Pontifical High Mass at Flint for that community's 30th anniversary at its own invitation. His broader liturgical catechesis stresses reverence, and he explicitly permits reception of Communion kneeling and on the tongue. The Lansing TLMs are served by diocesan priests rather than the FSSP or ICKSP, so their continuity has depended on his goodwill rather than a chartered institute.
The honest caveats: Boyea has framed his TLM permissions as obedient implementation of Traditionis Custodes, not as a defense of the older rite in principle, and he has not made the traditional posture a norm in the ordinary Roman Rite. He turned 75 on April 10, 2026 and has tendered his resignation, so the durable question for traditional Catholics in Lansing is now what his successor does. But measured by his own deeds over 2021-2026 -- preservation of every TLM site, personal celebration of the rite, and a consistent emphasis on reverence -- he lands as a friend of Tradition.