A generational shift in the leadership of the Catholic Church in Poland acclerated Monday with the appointment of a new Archbishop of Warsaw.
Archbishop Adrian Galbas, the 56-year-old head of the Katowice archdiocese, succeeds the 74-year-old Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, who has led the Warsaw archdiocese since 2007.
Galbas’ appointment follows another major leadership change in the Polish Church: the election in March of a new bishops’ conference president.
Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, the 67-year-old Archbishop of Gdańsk, took over from Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, who had led the conference since 2014. (Coincidentally, both Galbas and Wojda are Pallottines.)
Other big changes are imminent. Gądecki, the Archbishop of Poznań, turned 75 in October. He will remain in post until a successor is announced.
Kraków’s Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski, meanwhile, celebrated his 75th birthday in July. He too will stay in office until a replacement is named.
Pope Francis is therefore about to appoint new leaders to three more prominent archdioceses (Katowice, Poznań, and Kraków), potentially reshaping the Polish Catholic Church for decades to come.
What does the Galbas appointment say about how he’s approaching the task?
The metropolitan template
Since January 2023, Pope Francis has made a succession of appointments to major metropolitan archdioceses worldwide.
The appointments have followed a broad pattern: the new metropolitan archbishops are men in their 50s with relatively low profiles and little episcopal experience.
Countries that have experienced “metropolitan makeovers” along these lines include Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Honduras, the Philippines, Spain, and the U.S.
Examples include:
Archbishop José Vicente Nácher, 58 years of age when he was named Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in January 2023.
Archbishop Frank Leo, 51 when he was appointed Archbishop of Toronto, Canada, in February 2023.
Archbishop Jorge Ignacio Garcia Cuerva, 55 when he was named Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in May 2023.
Cardinal José Cobo Cano, 57 when he was appointed Archbishop of Madrid, Spain, in June 2023.
Archbishop Luc Terlinden, 54 when he was named Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium, in June 2023.
Archbishop Richard Henning, 59 when he was named Archbishop of Boston Aug. 5.
Now that it’s Poland’s turn for a metropolitan makeover, Pope Francis is sticking to the playbook. Galbas is 56, so in the right age bracket. He’s been a bishop for less than five years, so he’s also suitably inexperienced.
The gifts of Galbas
There are, of course, other less quantifiable factors involved in major appointments. In most cases, the new metropolitans are described as “Pope Francis bishops” — a rather elastic but still useful term.
What is a Pope Francis bishop? A shepherd who “smells of the sheep,” who is close to his flock and sensitive to its needs. A leader who embraces the pope’s conviction that synodality is the path “which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”
Many Polish Catholics have testified to Galbas’ sheep-like odor and synodal style.
Journalist Tomasz Krzyżak has described him as “a straightforward, open-minded man who speaks a language that the faithful understand, and sees the future of the Church in the laity, with whom he is not afraid to cooperate.”
Galbas oversaw the synodal process in Poland and was a member of the Polish delegation to the 2023 synod on synodality in Rome (but not, mysteriously, in 2024).
The archbishop has also developed a reputation as a troubleshooter. Pope Francis named him apostolic administrator of the deeply troubled Diocese of Sosnowiec in October 2023, a post he held until the installation of a new diocesan bishop in May.
Galbas’ down-to-earth style is evident in his video messages to his flock in Katowice. In one, he stands beside a dumpster. In another, he is dressed in hiking gear, walking breathlessly across a beach.
(As a curious aside, the Polish journalist Paulina Guzik has noted that Galbas seems to have remarkably long hands.)
Galbas has spoken candidly about experiencing crises of faith. In an August 2023 address to pilgrims in Piekary Śląskie, southern Poland, he recounted crises in his youth, shortly after his priestly ordination in 1994, and around the age of 40.
During that midlife crisis, he said, “nothing tasted good to me: neither the Word of God, nor Communion, nor absolution.”
“The seventh station of the Way of the Cross. The painful middle. You are far away from everywhere. Close only to what is dark,” he said.
Galbas recalled St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ saying that it is “more important to purify yourself for God” than to talk about God.
“And I think that the Lord God led me through these crises, as well as everyone who experiences them, to such purification,” the archbishop said.
What’s next
Polish Catholics are bracing for appointments of new archbishops in Poznań and, especially, Kraków.
