Grace Abounds - Episode 11: Most Rev John Wilson, Archbishop of Southwark (UK)

I came with a little bit of trepidation.

I understand and love the priesthood.

This is a long way from home for me.

It's a long journey.

So to come to a different part of the English-speaking world, but nonetheless a different part of the world, I wasn't quite sure what I would find.

The kind of nature of the priests, the diversity of them.

I found a presbyterate very much like my own.

a presbyter that is beautifully fraternal, so welcoming and warm, and real men of faith who really love the Lord and who are committed to serving his people.

So it's been like a kind of tonic for me, like a shot in the arm to boost me, to kind of encourage me to love my own priests more.

Speaking of shots in the arm, you have been a shot in the arm for your own archdiocese in terms of Southwark.

You came to Southwark with an intention not to manage decline.

You said you didn't come to Southwark to manage decline.

What did you mean by that? And what was the moment you knew renewal had to be a priority rather than an aspiration?

I think I've had a sense of the importance of renewal, of mission, of evangelization being a priority for a long time, probably from being a seminarian.

You know, when Pope St. Paul VI said the church exists to evangelize, I think I took that to heart as a priest and I thought, well, actually, as a priest, I exist to evangelize.

That takes many forms, of course, in word and in action.

So getting to a point in my life where I had, as it were, the capacity to have a more directive approach encouragement to other people, to make evangelization a priority.

We use this phrase that we're becoming an ever more missionary archdiocese.

And so I began to try and establish things with a missionary intentionality so that everything we do is focused on mission from those who work in our curia, in our chancery, those who work more explicitly in formation, education, evangelization, and in our parishes and chaplaincies.

I think it's about taking the Great Commission seriously.

It's about really believing when Jesus said, go, go, go and baptize and teach, that he meant all of us, all the baptized.

And it's so important that we do this together, that every baptized person realize that they are an evangelist, that every baptized person who is an ordained person as well realizes that they are an evangelist with our consecrated men and women as well.

It's a real corporate entity.

Pope Benedict often used to speak about the co-essentiality of charisms in the church.

I think more and more we've discovered, especially in a renewed way since the Second Vatican Council, the importance of the collaborative, respectful coherence of mission in the church.