When the Rev. Daniel Ciucci stands before his Denver parish to deliver a homily, he looks out onto a congregation divided over whether he’s fit to lead.
A rift within the Most Precious Blood Catholic Church parish fueled a petition with more than 750 signatures calling for Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila to address Ciucci’s leadership, accusing the pastor of eroding a vibrant, welcoming faith community with “fire and brimstone,” dogmatic messaging and a refusal to listen to parishioners.
Former Most Precious Blood parishioners said the fracture within the church since Ciucci was installed four years ago — in part because of more progressive Catholics clashing with a traditionalist priest — represents a microcosm of what’s happening within the local archdiocese.
“There has been a liberal schism in the Denver Archdiocese,” said David Thomas, a former Most Precious Blood parishioner. “I really view this as a problem with Aquila and not a problem with Daniel. I think Daniel is a symptom. The bigger problem is the overreach or micromanagement of the parish from Aquila in order to reel it back into compliance with his personal philosophy about what a Catholic parish ought to be.”
After reading the online petition and dozens of accompanying testimonials, Ciucci delivered a homily earlier this month — titled “Why Hell Is Welcoming” — that he said was inspired by the conflict. He lectured about the dangers of putting anything or anyone above God and the sin of not attending Mass every Sunday.
“This petition has broken open now the real conversation, because the thing that is most argued against implicitly, although almost nobody is willing to do it, is the fact that people get offended that they need to be saved by Jesus,” Ciucci told his congregation, according to video of the Aug. 3 homily.
Neither Ciucci nor representatives of the Archdiocese of Denver replied to The Denver Post’s requests to discuss the controversy, but the priest has addressed it multiple times publicly, and Aquila responded in an Aug. 7 letter shared by the petitioners.
“While our parishes remain a center for community, they exist first for community with Christ,” Aquila wrote. “Therefore, the church — founded by Christ — provides guidance (some mandatory, some a ‘best practice’) for how churches are to be run. It is the responsibility of the pastor, as delegated by the archbishop, to follow this guidance, no matter how well-intentioned and heartfelt other ideas may seem.”
Aquila wrote that he had “full confidence” in Ciucci’s leadership and said the digital petition lacked the gravitas of a formal grievance.
‘Sharp and sustained decline’
A group identifying itself as Most Precious Blood community members launched the Change.org petition about a month ago. After The Post contacted the petitioners, an anonymous representative responded, saying the group included parents, employees and leaders within the church and its affiliated Catholic school who feared retribution from Ciucci and the archdiocese.
The petition, addressed to Aquila and archdiocesan leadership, lists concerns that include a “sharp and sustained decline” in morale at the parish and its school; dramatic turnover in faculty, staff and ministry leaders; a significant drop in school and parish enrollment; and “a growing lack of trust and transparency between parish leadership and the wider community.”
The petition and dozens of public comments supporting it describe a culture of retaliation and a loss of “psychological safety” under Ciucci’s leadership for the past four years.
In a video Ciucci posted earlier this month to address the petition, he said Most Precious Blood needed to change to better align with true Catholic teachings, such as ridding the parish of certain “unsuitable” songs, ensuring people were not taking the Eucharist home and abolishing “feminist art” in the Catholic school.
The priest acknowledged attendance at Most Precious Blood was 25% of what it was before the archbishop installed him as pastor in 2021.
“While change happens in dozens of parishes across the archdiocese every year and communities weather them relatively well, ours has been uniquely intense,” Ciucci said in the video.
Janet Dvorak, 88, is a lifelong Catholic who said she found peace at Most Precious Blood when she began attending in the late 1970s. Ciucci’s tenure caused her to find a new spiritual home shortly after he started.
“I love the church,” Dvorak said. “It is wonderful. It is community. It is understanding. It is patient. Tolerant.”
Although Dvorak said she and Ciucci had “communication problems” and even met to discuss their disagreements, she doesn’t think the pastor is the problem.
“I think the archdiocese is,” Dvorak said. “Father Daniel has been given power and authority that he does not know how to use.”
Thomas, 71, started attending Most Precious Blood in 2005. It was the kind of parish that made him proud to be a man of faith: “It was a welcoming environment,” he said.
Thomas said he believes Aquila, known for his conservative theology, wanted to change the tone of the church and brought in Ciucci, who was a few years out of Denver’s St. John Vianney Theological Seminary.
“It appeared he was going to try to wrest it away from its liberal stance back into this pre-Vatican II ideology,” Thomas said of the archbishop.
The Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, took place in 1959 as thousands of Catholics gathered to update church practices for a modernizing world, focusing on inclusivity and reconciliation.
“With Daniel, it was more about making us feel bad — regret and penance and guilt,” Thomas said. “He came in with all this hellfire and damnation stuff.”
Still, Thomas said he and his wife vowed to give Ciucci a chance. They lasted six weeks.
‘Hardship… is nothing new to me’
In a written communication to the congregation, Ciucci told parishioners the petition did not worry him, dismissing it as ” a culmination and a last attempt to have me removed or castigated as pastor.”
The negative comments that broke his heart came from families he helped connect to food, jobs and schooling, he wrote.
“Hardship in this parish is nothing new to me,” Ciucci wrote. “In fact, the suffering may actually be sowing seeds of a hitherto unseen fruitfulness.”
Ciucci and other church leaders are holding meetings for current parishioners — there are two more scheduled, on Aug. 27 and Sept. 4 — to discuss next steps for the parish.
The petition writers posted that Aquila’s response to their request was “unacceptable” and encouraged parishioners to write directly to the archbishop.
Michelle Vogt did just that, penning a letter to Aquila and Ciucci explaining why she signed the petition and hasn’t been back to Most Precious Blood since this year’s Easter homily, in which Ciucci said the church is a victim of “mooches” who use its resources without properly giving back.
The 56-year-old said she was a member of the Most Precious Blood community for about 50 years, attending the Catholic school as a girl, having her children baptized there and working as a teacher’s assistant at the school in 2019 and 2020.
“We were patient with all of the changes, with a new style of leadership, with the ‘bumps in the road,’ but after your Easter Vigil homily, I decided I could no longer attempt to worship with you and tolerate your public shaming, your infliction of guilt, and your accusatory style,” Vogt wrote.
Vogt described a once-loving, community-centered parish that brought her friendship and joy.
“Unfortunately, that has all been stripped away, piece by piece, and the church and the school are now in shambles,” Vogt wrote.
Now, she said, it feels as if Most Precious Blood and other churches in the Denver Archdiocese are reverting to pre-Vatican II days.
“It’s heartbreaking what’s happened,” Vogt said.
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