Delivering a December 2023 talk at The Catholic University of America, Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory encouraged his listeners to “celebrate diversity,” and he reminded them that “we are directly challenged to show respect to those we encounter.”
“We have forgotten our interconnectedness,” he lamented. “We seem to have forgotten what our parents and grandparents taught us: to respect others.”
That was not the first time the cardinal urged students and faculty at that university – of which he served as chancellor in his role as archbishop of Washington – to embrace such diversity.
“Be open, listen, and encounter others in a spirit of humility and sincerity so you can learn from other cultures,” the cardinal said in a February 2022 CUA on Tap presentation. “Being present and genuinely listening to one another are all signs of Christ’s love and they inevitably build good relationship and genuine friendship.”
That call is one Cardinal Gregory has shared many times during his tenure as archbishop of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
During a May 2021 visit to Sacred Heart School in Washington, D.C., the cardinal shared his delight in the cultural diversity on display in the students who attend that school.
“The (Holy) Spirit helps us understand one another, and out of understanding one another, He helps us learn to love one another,” Cardinal Gregory said. “It is okay to come from a different group; it is okay to come from a different race; it is okay to come from a different culture.”
To foster that understanding and love among people of different backgrounds, the archdiocese has an Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach.
The office works in evangelizing the various racial, ethnic, and culturally diverse communities in the archdiocese by planning and coordinating ministry and outreach to those communities.
“We recognize Cardinal Gregory for his unwavering commitment to shepherd our archdiocese to truly reflect the universal embrace of Christ,” said Wendi Williams, the executive director of the Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach.
Through that office, Williams and her staff coordinate ethnic festivals and celebrations, conferences, workshops, special liturgies, pilgrimages and public devotions such as the annual Black Catholic History Month Mass, Living Stations of the Cross, El Señor de los Milagros procession, and the Walk with Mary procession and Mass honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas.
“The Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach’s mission to ‘welcome, serve, and accompany the multicultural diverse community of faith in the archdiocese’ has expanded multifold, is inspired by Cardinal Gregory’s vision, and strengthened by his encouragement,” Williams said.
To that end, Masses throughout the archdiocese are regularly offered in languages other than English, including Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, French, Polish, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Vietnamese and American Sign Language.
Cardinal Gregory himself has celebrated or presided at many Masses celebrating the different cultures represented in this archdiocese.
At an October 2024 Mass for Korean Catholics at St. Andrew Kim Parish in Olney, Maryland, the cardinal said, “I proudly and joyfully applaud our Korean Catholic community for your faith, your joy and your love for Christ,” and complimented them on the “strength of and pride in” their faith.
Speaking to Asian and Pacific Island Catholics during their 2023 pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Cardinal Gregory said their gathering reminded “the entire Church that God’s Spirit is present in every corner of our world. His divine glory is to be found in every part of our planet.”
“The Spirit of God receives the gifts that we bring… (and) fashions those differences into an ever-new and wonderful image of Christ fully alive and risen in the contemporary world,” the cardinal said.
“Our unity is never simply tolerance, but oneness in faith and in grace,” he said.
And at a September 2024 Mass at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Parish in Riverdale Park, Maryland, the cardinal – speaking in Spanish – complimented the parish for its diverse community.
“In a world marked by hostility and division, it is comforting to see that here the unity and love of Christ is evident,” Cardinal Gregory said. “It is a wonderful example of how different cultures can live together in peace and harmony” marked by a “spirit of unity” that comes from a “deep respect for diversity and variety.”
That “respect for diversity and variety,” Williams said, is espoused so readily by the faithful in this archdiocese because “through Cardinal Gregory’s leadership, the archdiocese is flourishing as a home that welcomes and serves our diverse communities.”
The cardinal’s enthusiasm for embracing diversity is something he has demonstrated from the very first moment he was introduced as the seventh archbishop of Washington.
Speaking April 4, 2019 to his new archdiocese, then-Archbishop Gregory said he looked forward “to encountering and listening to the people of this local Church as we ... continue to grow in the love of Christ that sustains us.”
“I seek to be a pastor for this entire family of faith,” he said that day. “The best time for any bishop is the time they spend with their people. I want to be in the midst of our people, listening to them (and) praying with them.”
From his first moments in Washington until now, Cardinal Gregory has had a consistent message that was summed up in his December 2023 talk at CUA: “Bring your complete self – family, culture, tradition – to the Church. The Church is simply incomplete without the presence of young Black people, young Hispanic people, young European people, young Asian people … Be open, listen, and encounter in the spirit of humility and sincerity.”
