“What happened was the laity stopped being interested in it,” Kelly said.

“Bishop Gumbleton was a faithful son of the Archdiocese of Detroit, loved and respected by his brother priests and the laity for his integrity and devotion to the people he served,” said Archbishop Allen Vigneron.

Eric Sammons, editor of Crisis Magazine, which says it is an online publication for “faithful Catholic laity,” decried the move as “creating scandal and confusion.”

It’s a crisis that could be avoided if the archbishop would reverse course and engage the laity in the staffing and governance of parishes.

It’s also possible the capsule dates to 1913, when the Polish clergy and laity of the United States donated a statue of Kosciuszko to sit atop the column.