Editor’s Note: In the days leading up to the Mass of Welcome for the Most Reverend Joseph A. Williams, the Catholic Star Herald sat down with the Diocese of Camden’s coadjutor bishop to discuss faith, evangelization, vocation, joy and more.
Catholic Star Herald: What would you like the Diocese of Camden to know about you?
Coadjutor Bishop Joseph Williams: I love our Lord. I love the Church. I love the people I get to serve, and I’m excited to be here. Getting the call from the papal nuncio that the Holy Father has assigned you to Camden, you realize, ‘Wow, those are going to be my people. It feels like such a privilege when you’re a pastor – whether at a parish or a diocese – to have a people to love.
CSH: How can the faithful of the Diocese of Camden be there for you?
Bishop Williams: They already have been. There has been an overwhelming sense of welcome, of hospitality, from day one. I can’t wait to continue to venture out, to meet the people and discover the different areas and parishes of the Diocese.
CSH: You have a long history of outreach to Latino and Spanish-speaking Catholics. How did you develop a passion for Latino ministry?
Bishop Williams: I studied German in high school, so I wasn’t thinking about Latino ministry when I was a young seminarian. The late Archbishop [Harry] Flynn, who ordained me to the priesthood, visited my seminary and shared with all of us about having been a bishop in Lafayette, Louisiana. He shared how people would tell him, ‘Bishop, we really missed a moment here to evangelize African Americans.’ To us seminarians, the archbishop said, ‘We don’t want to miss our moment here, this Latino moment in our Diocese.’ At that point, our Spanish-speaking demographic was blossoming. His words put a little fire in my heart. And this made me ask the question, ‘Why not me?’
So I brought that to the Lord, specifically to Our Lady of Guadalupe. I did a novena before her, her beautiful feast on December 12, when I was in the first year of theology at The Saint Paul Seminary. I was at this parish named Our Lady of Guadalupe, on the west side of Saint Paul. It was five in the morning, and the church was packed with these beautiful faces looking at Our Lady with such love. I was moved, and my prayer was answered with what I think was a sign from God – the true sign of the people themselves.
CSH: Talk about your door-to-door ministry and evangelization at Saint Stephen Parish in Minneapolis [now Saint-Stephen Holy Rosary].
Bishop Williams: At that time, we were in a very difficult transition. A lot of people had left the church. We were at a point where the church either grows or the doors will close. We had in our hearts that the words of Jesus were also true for South Minneapolis, when he said, ‘The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers for his harvest.’ So we did just that.
We called laypersons, and we taught them, and we called it the School of Saint Paul. Like Saint Paul, we have to encounter Jesus as alive. He’s looking at us; He loves us; He has hopes for us. That [mentality] changed Saul’s life. It can change our lives. … So for like six months, we had a weekly evening school of mission. Then we would go out. Door-to-door evangelization, it’s an adventure, and because it’s done so rarely, it gets a lot of press. But I think it’s important we have that experience – a kind of radical public evangelization – because there are people waiting to be invited.
What Archbishop Flynn would have called the ‘Come and get it Catholicism’ doesn’t exists anymore. That idea of, ‘We [the Church] have what you need: the sacraments. You know where to find us. Come and get it.’ Fifty years ago, 100 years ago, that worked – that sense of obligation, people saying, “If I am baptized, I must receive my First Communion.’
Therefore, we must go and make disciples, and it’s not preaching at people. It’s the encounter. It’s listening. Also, there is trepidation when you’re just knocking on doors – even for a priest! It’s always easier to just stay behind a desk, right?
Incidentally, as important as door-to-door evangelization is, it is not the essence of going forth. The going forth is really in the heart. It’s each of us being convinced that Jesus is alive and that he loves you. You have a treasure that has enriched your life and it’s one that can enrich other people’s lives. The reality is, there are a lot of lost sheep around us. Daring to invite others into that same experience of life in the Lord … with family members, neighbors, coworkers, classmates.
The Catholic Church, in one aspect, is a Sleeping Beauty. She’s beautiful because the Lord has made her beautiful. He’s beautified her, as Saint Paul says, with His Body and Blood. But she’s asleep with respect to her fundamental vocation, which is to evangelize, to make Jesus known and loved. We’re all responsible for growing the Church, not just the bishops and the priests and the deacons and the religious. But if we’re sleeping, if we are asleep to our vocation, we don’t know why we exist, and we lose joy.
One of my deepest convictions as a priest is that the Church is meant to grow – healthy things grow. But if we’re working really hard as a Church – with our programs, our meetings, our administration, our finance councils, and the priests in particular, who are working so hard – but then don’t see the growth, it’s discouraging. And I think there are broad swaths of the Church who are discouraged. I think deep down inside, we are all saying, ‘What do we do? How do we change that?’ These are questions I’ve asked myself a lot over the years. By God’s grace, when you ask those questions, the Holy Spirit gives you the answer.
CSH: How do you keep joy in your life?
Bishop Williams: It’s God. A deep prayer life. We know that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a gift that I can give myself, but it’s a gift that I can ask for. I think the more we stay in an intimate relationship with Jesus through prayer and take time during the day to pray, we can have joy.
A very simple way for everybody to do that, I learned when I was a young priest. I met a Father Francis when on retreat. I was very young priest. He was a very old priest. … I said to myself, ‘You know, I want to speak with him, because that’s the kind of priest I want to be when I’m 50 years ordained, someone who has a light that emanates an obvious joy.’ So I said, ‘Father Francis, I see so much light and joy in your priesthood. I’m newly ordained, and I would just love to know what your secret is for joy.’ Without hesitating, he said, ‘Attitude of gratitude, number one.’ It was so authentic!
He said, ‘The first thing I do when I wake up and make my morning coffee is sit in my prayer chair. I make a gratitude list and walk with God through the day prior.’ He told me he asks himself, ‘Where did God move me? Where did God show up? What were the prayers that were answered? What were the blessings received from God through others? I write all those answers down.’ For me, that was a game changer. I asked him that question in 2006, and I’ve done that just about every day since. When you walk through your day to see where God was during those hours, you realize God is close. He loves you. He’s active in your life.
Most of us wake up in the morning and think, ‘What didn’t I get done yesterday? What do I have to do today?’ The mind starts to race. But if you stop, God enters. Peace and joy come out of that. You’ll say, ‘Wow, He was close to me yesterday. He’s going to be close to me again today, and he’s going to be active in my life.’ For bishops and priests, that should be our number one task: to help the people be close to God and to have a relationship with Him.
CSH: Is there any pope or saint of which you like to read?
Bishop Williams: I have so many influences, but Pope Benedict XVI is probably my favorite theologian.
Very few things are more delightful for me than taking some time in the morning to do reading, studying and some writing, and that’s after morning prayer. One of the things I learned the hard way early in my priesthood from Saint Pope John Paul II is that you can’t just keep giving, giving, giving – living these long 13-hour days. In Pope John Paul’s biography, ‘Witness to Hope,’ there is a page that talks about the pope’s daily routine … [in the mornings], he did some reading and some writing. When I do that, the priestly ministry flows out. I can give more joyfully that way.
I think Pope Benedict XVI is like that, too. His theology is very God-focused. God is active. God has revealed something to us, and at the end of the day, the Church is the Lord’s and He is going to care for her. In his inauguration [to the pontificate], Pope Benedict said, ‘I don’t have my own program. I’m not here to do my own will or to have my own ideas present, but to listen to the voice of the Lord together with the whole Church, so that we can do what God wants us to do.’ That is what I feel like coming to the Diocese of Camden.
CSH: What are among your hopes for your ministry in the Diocese of Camden?
Bishop Williams: I feel like my first job is to fall in love with the people, to support the priests and to walk with them, and to listen, all of us together, just like Pope Benedict said in his inauguration homily.
I feel so grateful to be following Bishop Sullivan. I admire him greatly. He is a man of the Lord and of great faith, and I think he has tried to find unity in this Church. It is going to make it a lot easier for me, following a bishop like Bishop Sullivan. He really cares for the people and wants them to know that they are loved by their bishop, and they are loved by the Lord. If I could leave here saying the same thing, I’d be very happy.
CSH: What led you to discern a priestly vocation?
Bishop Williams: I didn’t want to be a priest growing up. My goal, since I was a little boy, was to be a doctor, which had a lot to do with admiring my dad as a good husband, father and doctor. That was my model for being a good human being, for being a man. I’ve always wanted to care for people, to help others. I want them to get well. I want them to be happy. That healing instinct is part of me. … Studying pre-med at the University of Minnesota, Morris, I got invited to a Catholic Bible study. What I realized through the Bible study is that I had passion, a fire for God’s Word. It was enkindled in my heart. When I was doing my science studies, I realized I didn’t feel the same as when I was reading the Scriptures. So that was a discernment of spirits.
My prayer also changed. When you realize that God is real, that Jesus is alive, you have to ask, ‘Lord, what would you have me do?’ Prior to that, I was, ‘OK God, here’s my plan. Please help me.’ When my prayer changed, my life changed. If we listen, vocations are created. They’re discovered. It’s not that suddenly I wanted to be a priest and not a doctor. It’s that I heard the Lord saying, ‘Follow me.’
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