an interview with a priest
it's about time
If you attended Saint Francis Xavier School with me, you probably remember Fr. Peter. He was the smart, new priest at the parish from 2008 to 2012. He visited our classrooms, greeted us as we arrived at school in the mornings, and regularly led our weekly school masses. His homilies were never dry or contrived, instead encouraging genuine reflection beyond the words of the Bible.
It was a strange moment for me to hop on a video call with a priest whose presence underscored some of my formative (and probably most awkward) years. I felt apprehensive in the Microsoft Teams waiting room, like I was awaiting a verdict or test results. But as we eased into conversation, I steadied myself in my lapsed Catholicism and the spiritual curiosity that stems from it. Telling your former priest you no longer identify as Catholic feels like a nasal rinse: slightly discomforting, but ultimately cleansing and refreshing.
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
I live in Lincoln Park, Chicago, but I grew up in Poland. I moved here when I was 23. I went to the seminary here in Mundelein, in the suburbs of Chicago. I spent a few years in Wilmette, and at the same time I learned how to be both the chaplain and ethicist in a hospital. I spent 13 years at Lurie Children’s. Then I spent seven years supporting the structure of the Church. In 2020, I was appointed a pastor at Saint Clement.
What was your religious upbringing like, or just your upbringing in general, in Poland?
My grandmother was very religious and I always admired the peace that she had and what was a strong relationship with God. I don't think my parents had that way. In the summers, I went to church every day because I stayed with my grandmother.
I was there every morning for 7:00 AM mass. I think I will get one extra point in heaven just for that. I didn't enjoy getting up, but I did enjoy the routine of going to the church and seeing people pray.
What really attracted me to become serious about faith was seeing the depth and level of contentment that my grandmother had that I’d seen very few people around her have. I couldn't attribute it to anything else because nothing else was checking out. Everything else in her life was exactly the same as it was in the lives of other people, except for her very serious faith. And so I thought, that's what I would like to have.
Did your grandmother's faith and dedication contribute to your decision to become a priest?
That probably was the biggest driver of it. This whole idea of longing for something deeper and more peaceful. When I was growing up there was a lot of change in Poland, after communism and all that. In the world everything changes almost instantly. Our hearts crave something that is much more eternal or that is lasting. I think that probably was attractive to me in the whole idea of the Church when you look at the societies and cultures and everything else changing. The Church stood the same for 2,000 years.
Joining the seminary, you have six years to make up your mind whether this is where God is calling you and it's not only you, it's the seminary that has to make up their mind too. On both sides you can say, well, we don't think it's working, or, I don't think it's working. And you can step away from it.
I was talking with a coworker who asked about priests and he was like, “Can someone be a priest for three years and then go and work in marketing or something?” I have never known or heard of anyone who does that. I was curious if you had a perspective on that.
Once you get ordained, you always will be a priest whether you want it or not. To some extent just as you get married. You are always in that situation. But the bishop who oversees you could decide what would be good for you to do in order to get better.
After I graduated from Northwestern, I did consulting because the cardinal said, we want him to have experience of working with other industries so he brings that experience back and can enrich the Church.
What is your goal or vision for Saint Clement? I've noticed you're incredibly active on social media and you have a podcast.
It really doesn't matter what vision you have as a pastor. What really matters is God's dream for that specific place because every place is different. And God has a heart for his people, right? In the scripture, there's clear evidence that Jesus has a heart for people who surrounded him.
God has a vision and we have to discern it. Here at Saint Clement, we did a fair amount of discernment with a small group of people. We engaged in a 12-week process of understanding.
We did one big survey and then said, what is God revealing to us? We landed on our purpose is to build a kingdom of God. In the end, everything that we do—our mission, vision, values—might change. What doesn't change is your purpose, why you are in this part of the world and why God put you there. We are here to build a kingdom of God and everything that we do really informs that.
Right now, our parishioners are split. Half are school families, people who are in their fifties, some who are in their sixties and older. And then half of the people are in their twenties. That's the fastest growing group that we have are Gen Zs.
Why do you think that is?
One side of the coin is Gen Zs are the least religious social group we ever had in this country. And yet there is a flip side of it which says the Gen Zs are the fastest growing Christian group and actually the fastest growing Catholic group.
Barna is going to release a new study in the next few weeks that actually says that out of any Christian church in the United States, the fastest growing group is the Catholic group of young. Especially driven by young men. And the reason is that young people look at the world and they say, okay, in the last 40 years in United States, we try to substitute God with a lot of things. Thomas Aquinas talks about four substitutes of God: power, money, pleasure, and selfishness. And we tried to substitute God and it doesn't work. We are the most depressed, the most isolated, and the loneliest generation we ever had in this country. Therefore, substituting probably doesn't work.
In this year, we welcomed 70 new people into the church. I would say 80% of them are in their early twenties. We would call it a revival of young people having another look at faith and at church.
That's so interesting to hear that younger people are coming to the Church. Because I feel like myself, and a lot of people who are my age, who were raised in the Church have become disaffected with it.
It comes with being born Catholic and there's nothing bad about it. But Catholicism, especially in the areas like Chicago, is so culture, right? There's 44%1 of people in Chicago are Catholic. What happens is, we know a lot of things about God or about Jesus. But a lot of Catholics—people will crucify me for it—they have a great knowledge of Jesus, but they don't have relationship with him. You won't stay in any relationship unless you're in love. It becomes dysfunctional. If you want to be Catholic, if you want to be Christian, you need to be in love with Jesus.
This disillusionment seems to be very specific to young people who were raised Catholic. My partner is Jewish and they went to Jewish day school. They aren’t religious, but they do have this personal relationship with their faith and with spirituality that I feel like I don't have. That’s just an observation.
Do you have any thoughts about the new pope?
I'm excited that we have a pope who is a missionary. You don't become a missionary to shrink the Church. You have a mindset of growth, of sharing the message of Jesus with people who don't know it.
How do you think the Church could adapt to meet our current cultural, social, political moment?
We have to know the culture and understand how to accompany people in the culture because the culture changes from generation to generation. But in the end, the goal of the Church is not to be affected by the culture. If the Church’s stance or teachings or ideas would be the ideas of the city square, why would you go to the Church? I don't think the Church is going to adapt or change based on the culture of the day because the culture of the day came and went.
Even just religion in general continues to survive across the world for thousands and thousands of years in a way nothing else does.
Has your faith ever wavered or have you ever had a crisis of faith?
Everybody does. The whole idea behind the saints is that every saint had a past and every sinner has a future.
There are moments where my faith is really strong and there's moments where my faith is really weak. I can clearly point out strong and weak moments of my faith or my doubt. Good news is, it doesn't stop God from loving us. The dryness of faith is something that I experienced many times. I probably will again.
Is there a specific moment you could speak to?
Last year losing my dad, I was like, well, where is God? Why is it now? I have so much stuff going on, why is this happening now? But then that's where I find scripture and tradition helpful because it's like, well, maybe the whole world is not actually about you. I'm part of this whole experience of humanity in which there's love and there's suffering, there's peace and there's lack of peace, and I just keep moving.
But surely those moments of loss are probably the times when I struggle the most.
Fr. Peter Wojcik is the pastor of Saint Clement Parish and Pastoral Strategy Leader for the Archdiocese of Chicago. He also teaches negotiation and change management at Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University and is a member of the board of Alpha USA as well as the Vatican’s Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation.
He was ordained a Catholic deacon by Cardinal Francis George in 2007 and then a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2008. Fr. Peter holds an undergraduate degree in human behavior and philosophy from the Catholic University of Lublin, an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, an MA in Theology, and post-master certifications in medical ethics, spirituality, and preaching.
It’s slightly lower at 33% according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.