The Holy Spirit is still at work in the Church: An interview with Cardinal Wilton Gregory

By Christopher Wells

Synodality, says Cardinal Wilton Gregory, “is the effort of people listening to one another and believing that the Holy Spirit is prompting those conversations, that the Holy Spirit is the one who plants the hopes, the dreams, the fears… And in the midst of those conversations, I think synodality means that out of those conversations will come a vision and a wisdom that will open up the horizons for tomorrow.”

Speaking with Vatican News on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the Synod, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., highlighted both the diversity and the atmosphere of the ecclesial gathering.

“I find the Synod an amazing moment of encounter,” the Cardinal told Christopher Wells.

After noting the wide variety of Synod participants, even within his small group, Cardinal Gregory said the climate at this year’s meeting “is such that we can talk to each other about our experience of Church in our own culture and our own region, and share both our concerns but also our triumphs.”

He also expressed his hopes for the outcome of the Synod’s deliberations. “I would hope that one of the things that would come out of the Synod is an enthusiasm for the mission of the Church” – a mission that involves “the enthusiastic proclamation of the gospel, the revitalization of our sacramental life.”

Cardinal Gregory said, “I think Pope Francis, as he as he has set up this Synod, believes that as the Holy Spirit guided that early Church in its deliberation and its plans, the Holy Spirit is still working.”

“And I like to say,” he continued, “that if we get out of His way, He will lead us to a level of increased faith and evangelization efforts that will allow us to pass on the faith to a new generation.”

Read the full text of Cardinal Wilton Gregory’s conversation with Christopher Wells:

Vatican Radio: I’m going to ask you about the Synod… I’ve got just a couple of questions.

So, you’re here for this [synod], and now we’re about halfway through, right around the halfway point of the second session of the General Assembly. And you participated in the session last year, as well as most of the synod fathers did.

Can you tell us a little bit about your personal experience and what you’ve gained from the Synod so far?

Cardinal Wilton Gregory: Well, Chris, I hope I said this to you last time when we talked about this, I found the Synod or I find the Synod an amazing moment of encounter.

That is, I’m at a table. I’m – as far as I know, I’m the only American at my table. Okay. So, the other members come from Europe, come from Asia, come from Oceania. We’ve got a woman religious who is a provincial in her own community. So, it’s a diverse gathering.

But as last year, it’s also… the climate is such that we can talk to each other about our experience of Church in our own culture and our own region, and share both our concerns but also our triumphs. There are things that that the members of the Synod share with each other that they feel pretty good about. The church may be a distinct minority, as it is in a number of cultural environments, but, you know, as a couple of them have said, we’ve learned how to make sure that our faith is well represented and is respected, even though it’s a distinct minority within this cultural environment. So that’s good.

They also talk about things that are challenging for them. Under some of those circumstances, they cannot be as publicly open about their Catholicism as they might want to be.

And then there are the challenges that modern world brings the challenges of social media, the manipulation of the truth, facts. But the bottom line is, when the day and the conversation is concluded, no one feels as though they have been dismissed or belittled. Opinions are offered. Observations are made. And there’s a certain… veneer, I would like to say more than veneer, but a certain experience of charity.

Q: Some of the fathers and mothers of the Synod that I’ve talked to have commented on the atmosphere at the Synod and the experience of being together. But it’s kind of a unique experience where you have 400 people gathered from around the world. You’re all in one place. You’re able to dedicate yourselves entirely to the experience of synodality here. How do you translate that back when you go back to your local church in D.C.? How will you be able to translate it to the lived experience of the faithful there?

Well, one of the first things that I’m going to do, at the request of our deacon community, the permanent deacons and their wives, I will have Mass with them. There’s an annual mass that invites all of the permanent deacons and their wives for a get together, a confab, and they’ve decided they want me to talk about the Synod and give a little presentation, but a Q&A mostly.

Because many of the many people who are wonderfully faithful Catholics don’t have the foggiest idea of what a Synod is. What do you do? What’s the end of it? What’s the purpose?

Some of them may have heard of a synod, but then it was primarily a gathering of bishops. And Pope Francis has said, it’s still [the case that] the majority of participants are bishops, the vast majority.

But of the – and I would throw this number out because I don’t have any specific number – of the 350 participants, about 100 are priests, religious lay men and women who have full voting rights and full rights to voice their opinions. In other words, they’re a part of the mix.

And, in my humble opinion, it’s really the Church of the 21st century, although at times it may read like the Church, or it may seem like the Church of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, because it was in those days, as the Church was evolving from its foundation, that many of the people who were engaged in leadership were the clergy, the faithful, you know, addressing the challenges that that world presented to them.

And I think Pope Francis, as he as he has set up this Synod, believes that as the Holy Spirit guided that early Church in its deliberation and its plans, the Holy Spirit is still working. And, I like to say, if we get out of his way, He’ll lead us to a level of increased faith and evangelization efforts that will allow us to pass on the faith to a new generation.

Q: I think you’re right when you say that maybe a lot of people don’t have a real clear idea of what the Synod is and what Synodality is. Can you give us a preview? And for people, when people come up and ask you, you’re at this big synod, it’s about synodality. What in the world is Synodality?

Synodality I think, if I could be so bold, is the effort of people listening to one another and believing that the Holy Spirit is prompting those conversations, that the Holy Spirit is the one who plants the hopes, the dreams, the fears. And you know, the Holy Spirit doesn’t deal in fears, but He allows us to raise issues of importance. And in the midst of those conversations, I think synodality means that out of those conversations will come a vision and a wisdom that will open up the horizons for tomorrow.

Q. One of the things that I’ve noticed in following the news and speaking with some participants, but also people who are invested in the Synod, even if they’re not here, is perhaps something that might be called synodal fatigue. We’ve been at this process for several years. Three years, two sessions of the General Assembly, and people are maybe wondering what’s the point? Or where are we headed?

I believe that the process will end up presenting the Holy Father with the recommendations that come from the Synod discussions, and then he, as the pontiffs before him, will take all of that and put it together in some vehicle. That will be either an apostolic exhortation or maybe even an encyclical, but he’ll be able to crystallize what took place in the auditorium and use that as an incentive for the Church facing tomorrow.

Some of the apostolic exhortations that have come from synods in the past have done just that. The synod that that treated priestly vocations; when there have been Synod continental synods that have served as a as a jumping off point for evangelization in a cultural environment. There have been two synods on Africa, and I was a participant in the second one.

And so, the work that comes out of the Synod, it’s not an “add water and stir kind of solution”, but it does give a perspective on the challenges – sacramental life, religious life, a cultural situation – that we face and can guide us in responding to the issues that that have surfaced.

Q. And in a week or two, when you do come up with the final document for this session of the General Assembly, it’s certainly going to be a collective effort where you have all the voices coming together. Do you personally have some ideas of what you’d like to see come out of the Synod?

Well, I’m one voice among 300 plus, but I would hope that one of the things that would come out of the Synod is an enthusiasm for the mission of the Church. That is, it will take us to another level of excitement about being a Catholic in the various situations that we find ourselves upset. Pope Francis has been very, very good at allowing his writings to energize the Church. He gives us that boost that I think helps us respond, in a much more enthusiastic way to the challenges that the Church faces in the modern world.

Q. In a word – because we’ve heard it said often enough, you spoke about revitalizing Christians and Catholics for the mission of the Church – in a word, what is the mission of the church that we need to be revitalized towards?

The enthusiastic proclamation of the gospel, the revitalization of our sacramental life.

Let’s face it, the Church, throughout the world, the whole world, the whole human community is recovering from Covid, which has had its own unfortunate influence. We’ve been isolated from each other. People have not been able to gather. Certainly not for worship, but have not been able to gather for the ordinary things that used to energize us.

I watch – I don’t watch a lot of television – I think I watch basically two things, news and sports. And I can recall when the when Covid first hit, one of the things that it – did not the only thing – but when it shut down the sporting world.

And now we’ve got people who are gathering again, whether it’s soccer or baseball or football or tennis or golf or whatever, there’s a certain joy in being able to engage in those kinds of activities that were denied to us during Covid. And as a pastor, I’m still grappling with how we get people back in church.

Our church numbers have not recovered, Chris. They really haven’t. Now, there’s reasons that are given. People are still leery, especially if there are people whose health is frail or their age; but we haven’t been able to restore the sacramental vitality that is Catholicism, to the same degree that it was prior to Covid.

Now, I also have to say that even prior to Covid, the numbers were not what they should be, but they’ve been depressed since then and we had to figure out how do we… It’s not just a matter of getting people back in church, but how do we make them enthused about being together again in worship and in prayer together?

Q: I’ll ask one final question… In your own diocese, in Washington Archdiocese, how have you been implementing or beginning to implement Synodality? How have you taken what you’ve gathered from these three years now of the experience of Synodality and started to apply it in your local Church?

Well, we’ve introduced the themes of the Synod in our consultative bodies, the presbyteral council, pastoral council. We’ve had a lot of, small group gatherings., and hopefully we’ve tried to listen.

One of the things that, that has emerged from some of those small deanery gatherings or regional gatherings, is that our people say, “We want to see you guys more often.” They want to connect with their bishops, and not just for confirmation or the parish’s 50th jubilee. And I like to go to a parish just for an ordinary Sunday Mass. I tell people, look, I’m coming. This is a Mass without chrism and in green [that is, an ordinary Sunday Mass].

Q.You ever go incognito to Masses in your archdiocese?

I don’t think that works anymore.

Although I do, I have to tell you, sometimes I go, you know, in the public, I shop and sometimes I just shop as an ordinary guy buying bananas, you know? And I think people like that. Yeah, absolutely. They like to say, “That looks like the Cardinal, and he’s getting a five-pound bag of potatoes. I wonder what he’s making tonight.” It allows me to identify with them in a way that validates the way they live.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

CWG: I think, Chris, we touched every base. I’ve run around the bases a couple of times.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.