Throughout his adult life, Bishop Gary R. Studniewski has been a man on a mission, serving in the Army, becoming a parish priest, returning to the Army as a chaplain, and then serving as a pastor at two Washington, D.C., parishes. Now after his ordination on July 7 as an auxiliary bishop of Washington, he begins a new mission.
“God has a plan,” said Bishop Studniewski in an interview before his episcopal ordination. He said that since he followed the call to the priesthood, his prayer to the Holy Spirit every day is, “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
That prayer to the Holy Spirit on the back of the new bishop’s prayer card reads in part, “Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders… Let me only know Your will.”
Bishop Studniewski – a native of Toledo, Ohio, who will turn 69 on Aug. 5 – grew up in a devout Catholic home, attending a Polish-American parish, St. Hedwig, and its elementary school. His late parents, Richard and Alfreda Studniewski, were very faithful, steadfast Catholics, he said, adding that the daily virtues lived in their home of honesty, hard work, kindness and compassion, “helped form me into the man of character that I am.”
His father worked in an oil refinery, and his mother was a homemaker. Bishop Studniewski had a younger sister, Karen Szczublewski, who died last year, the same year his mother died.
Attending a public high school in Toledo “turned out to be a real blessing,” he said, adding that he was able to make friends with students from different cultures, backgrounds and races, “kids I found out were just like me.”
That experience of being with a diverse group of people “has been a constancy in my life,” he said, adding that would mirror his experience in the Army and as a parish priest.
Inspired by the witness of Army ROTC students at the University of Toledo, he joined that program and received an Army commission in 1979.
“I absolutely fell in love with the Army, its discipline, its good training, and the people of such character and values,” he said.
Over the next decade, he served in various artillery assignments, including with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 3rd Infantry Division, and also in assignments in Europe and in Virginia.
A transformative experience for him came when he attended a Cursillo weekend in the Annapolis area with people from throughout the Archdiocese of Washington.
“I had encountered Christ and I had encountered the Holy Spirit in a very personal way… God’s love was pouring out of that community into my heart, and it changed me,” Bishop Studniewski said, adding that, “Once God’s love touches you that way… You can’t keep it in. You’ve got to share that.”
That experience and weekly faith sharing gatherings with men from that Catholic movement helped him “fall in love with the Church of Washington,” he said, adding that those discussions on how they were encountering Christ and what were they doing about it helped the participants “keep each other on task for a mission, the mission of the Church, which is forming disciples.”
The new bishop said that is why he is so excited about one of the goals for pastoral action that came out of Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy’s consultations with lay leaders and priests, “the formation of the laity as missionary disciples,” to deepen their faith in Christ and share that with others.
Those experiences with Cursillo helped lead him to eventually seek the priesthood, and he contacted the new director of priestly vocations for the Archdiocese of Washington, then-Father Mark Brennan, who served in that role from 1988-98 and later became an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore and recently retired as the bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia.
“I was the first call he received as vocations director,” said Bishop Studniewski, noting how that priest and Cardinal James Hickey, then the archbishop of Washington, supported him as he entered the seminary for the Archdiocese of Washington in a co-sponsorship with the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.
In 1989, the future bishop left active duty in the Army and studied for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, and in 1995, he was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington. Thirty-one years later when Bishop Studniewski was ordained as an auxiliary bishop of Washington, Bishop Brennan served as a co-consecrator at the ordination.
During his first three years as a priest, then-Father Studniewski served as a parochial vicar at St. John Francis Regis Parish in Hollywood, Maryland, and worked with a team of adults to form a youth ministry program there.
In 1998, then-Father Studniewski re-entered active Army service as a chaplain. Transitioning from being a parish priest to being a military chaplain involved a learning curve, he said, adding that with his prior service, he entered with the rank of major and was assigned as a supervisory chaplain. He said at a point when he was feeling a bit overwhelmed, a Catholic commander emphasized to him how much his presence as the unit chaplain meant to them.
Those consoling words helped him realize that “I just need to be Christ present amongst these soldiers and their families… My presence there was all they really wanted… that someone was there trying to bring the soldier to God and God to the soldier.”
As an Army chaplain, his duties included serving with the 82nd Airborne Division, with the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, Egypt, and at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. From 2005 to 2008, he served in personnel at the Office of the Chief of Chaplains at the Pentagon.
Then he was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as the chaplain with the 555th Engineer Brigade. He noted how soldiers in that combat engineer unit would head out every morning on a dangerous mission, to clear the roads of mines, and sometimes explosions went off during their convoys.
“They were now more interested in my (morning) prayer in a much more amplified way. I was able to be there and give them the comfort of faith, to help them know God was with them, God was protecting them, (letting them know) maybe you’re not religious, but I am, and I’m praying for you,” he said.
Sometimes he would move in convoys to serve different outposts, including in a helicopter.
Later Chaplain Studniewski served as the garrison chaplain at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, and as the command chaplain for U.S. Army North (5th Army) at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. His last Army assignment was as a command chaplain for the Joint Forces Headquarters-National Capitol Region/Military District of Washington, before he retired from the Army with the rank of colonel in 2016.
Returning to the Archdiocese of Washington, he served as a temporary administrator at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Newtowne, Maryland, before being assigned as the administrator of St. Peter’s Parish on Capitol Hill and becoming the pastor there in 2018.
His military experiences, he said, helped him as a pastor.
“Coming to the parish, I knew how to be disciplined, I knew how to work hard, and I knew something about leadership and teamwork,” Bishop Studniewski said.
He added, “As a pastor, you’re a leader, but you’re forming a team. You need to bring people around you that you can depend on, and help perform the mission… Jesus Christ gave us a mission, that’s what the Church is about.”
Reflecting on that mission, he said, “Forming disciples is making a difference. It’s building the kingdom (of God). It’s changing the world.”
His five and one-half years of leading St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill included the parish’s celebration of its bicentennial, St. Peter’s School being named a National Blue Ribbon School, and the parish launching a capital campaign.
“That’s where I learned how to be a pastor,” Bishop Studniewski said.
For the past four years before becoming a bishop, he served as the pastor of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, where he fostered faith sharing groups.
“You bring people together in small groups, and you guide them to open their hearts to one another, and get to know Christ in one another,” he said.
During his years at Blessed Sacrament, the parish’s social outreach included supporting the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, assisting with that parish’s food program and providing financial support to their Mother Cabrini Ministry for immigrant families impacted by the federal government’s mass deportation policy.
After Pope Leo appointed him as a new auxiliary bishop of Washington, Bishop Studniewski chose “My Grace Is Enough for You” from 2 Corinthians 12:9 for his episcopal motto, which was also the Bible passage he chose for his prayer card when he was ordained as a priest.
Those words, he said, are an acknowledgement to God, “that I can’t do this without you, without your grace.” He said God’s grace gives you strength in your weakness. Relying on God’s grace, he said, “is enough for me. That’s been my recipe for success throughout my priesthood.”
In recent years, he has served as the spiritual advisor to the Cursillo Movement in the Archdiocese of Washington. In his free time, he likes to ride his bicycle during the week at areas including north Potomac, the National Mall, Hains Point and around the U.S. Capitol. During the summer, he trains for the Ride for Vocations in September and has done the 100-mile century ride to promote vocations at that event.
Cardinal McElroy has appointed Bishop Studniewski to serve as the vicar for clergy for the Archdiocese of Washington, where his duties will include helping to appoint priests to local parishes and other ministries, and coordinating the diaconate community here.
In the interview, Bishop Studniewski pointed out that he worked at the Pentagon as the priest personnel manager for Catholic chaplains serving around the world, including in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he drew on priests serving in the Army National Guard and Army Reserves to help fill shortages.
“One of the beautiful parts of that chapter (in my life) is that sometimes you ask priests to do hard things. I never had one priest say ‘no,’” he said.
Expressing his admiration for the dedication and faithfulness of the priests in the archdiocese, he noted that they come from diverse backgrounds, but they are a cohesive presbyterate. The new bishop said he’s looking forward to working and serving with them, and supporting the permanent deacons and their families.
“I want to serve to my utmost, those who serve, those who give so much of themselves, day in and day out,” Bishop Studniewski said.
The new bishop about to begin a new mission of service to God and to the people of the archdiocese smiled and added, “I can’t ask for a better job.”
