New archbishop of Krakow tells faithful that without them he ‘doesn’t make sense’

KRAKOW, Poland (OSV News) — Entering the centuries-old Royal Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on Dec. 20, Cardinal Grzegorz Rys opened a new chapter of one of the oldest archdioceses in Catholic Poland, telling the faithful that without them he “doesn’t make sense.”

He pledged a more listening, synodal church and signaled openness to an independent diocesan commission on past abuse cases.

Archbishop Antonio Guido Filipazzi, apostolic nuncio to Poland, presented the papal bull of appointment to the faithful during the Mass of installation, attended by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and dozens of bishops.

Poland’s deputy prime minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, was also in attendance, as well as thousands of the faithful, most of whom did not fit into the 14th-century cathedral that witnessed coronations of Polish kings.

In the appointment document, Pope Leo XIV emphasized Cardinal Rys’s zeal in his previous home, the Archdiocese of Lódz, was “evangelical concern for the most vulnerable,” and entrusting him with an archdiocese shaped by saints — “St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, and St. John Paul II, pope.”

Pope Leo also encouraged the faithful to accept the new shepherd “as a father to be honored and obeyed,” and asked the new metropolitan to serve “as a brother among brothers and a servant among servants of God.”

In his first homily as Krakow’s archbishop, Cardinal Rys in fact did just that — telling the faithful he “doesn’t make any sense” without them, announcing that in the first months of the new year, he will start the diocean synod “because that’s what the universal church is living” until 2028, he said.

He emphasized that “the church’s mission is not to transmit doctrine, but to transmit life, to transmit the love that Jesus bestowed upon us, to transmit grace.”

Like the apostles, “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. We cannot keep it to ourselves.”

It’s evangelization that is “leading people to an encounter with God and leading all of humanity to unity,” he said.

Asked by OSV News during the press conference a day before the installation, Dec. 19, Cardinal Rys said what the church needs most today is “Jesus Christ.”

“If there is no encounter with Jesus, who is the living Lord, then everything we do in the church is some form of entertainment.”

The church needs to “lead people to an encounter with Jesus, but also to an experience of unity, that is, to building community among people,” he said.

Unity is much needed in the Archdiocese of Kraków.

Listening as part of internal archdiocesan communications is something that Kraków lacked the most for the last nine years under Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski, church observers say.

Priests especially reported lack of contact with their pastor, and the faithful were tired of a “very formal, very professional, very ceremonial and not immersed in today’s times” style of communications, Edward Augustyn of Tygodnik Powszechny, (Universal Weekly), told OSV News upon Cardinal Rys’s appointment.

Cardinal Rys signaled the style would be different now in Kraków telling journalists during the press conference he learned “great openness, great availability” from Pope Francis who “taught us priests and bishops to be available,” and that if you can’t answer someone’s call — “you have to call them back.”

A few days ahead of his installation, Cardinal Rys invited all priests of the diocese to start his mission “together” and asked them to join him for the Dec. 16-18 retreat.

As he opened the retreat, Cardinal Rys said the appointment was for him a call for personal conversion: “I invite you to this conversion as well. You can’t be alone in an event like this,” he said — a statement the priests present read as an invitation for an open dialogue.

“He said you can’t build anything without the relationship,” one of the priests in the archdiocese told OSV News. “Conversion, listening, prayer and almsgiving — that’s basically what he told us is the foundation,” he said, adding “he told us that if you don’t accept God’s words first, you don’t have anything to say.”

Cardinal Rys, even if born in Kraków, said during his installation that Lódz “shaped him” as a bishop and that in fact he “comes from Lódz.”

He left his former archdiocese with a final decision to establish on Nov. 14 the second independent diocesan commission to investigate past cases of sexual abuse in Poland.

“If a commission of that kind was established in Lódz, I have a lot of determination that it is established in Kraków,” he said, adding that in his opinion such commissions should be established in all Polish dioceses as the commission on a national level has an impossible task “without local commissions.”

Underlining his pastoral priorities, he started the first Sunday in the Kraków Archdiocese blessing hundreds of homeless and people in need gathered at the Wigilia, or Christmas vigil meal, organized by restaurateur Jan Kosciuszko where Center for Doctors Charity also treats those often without insurance — in several medical tents.

“I thought I’m moving south from Lódz,” the cardinal said, referring to Kraków, “but it turns out I’ve arrived in Bethlehem, which makes me very happy.”

Bethlehem is important for two reasons, he said. “First, it’s the House of Bread. That’s how the name Bethlehem translates. … It’s a tremendous joy to see the Krakow Market Square becoming a House of Bread for many, many people.”

“And the second reason … is that Bethlehem was the city of King David, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that everyone could see his royal dignity, which wasn’t really visible from the outside,” as he was born in a stable, “in fact, as homeless.”

“Hidden in this is the great truth that every person, regardless of their external circumstances, regardless of their appearance, carries within themselves a royal dignity and greatness.”

“I sincerely hope that you all continue to discover it within yourselves this holiday season,” he told the needy crowd. “And I hope that everyone discovers this great royal dignity in you, too. And that no one lacks bread this Christmas season.”

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