‘The whole thing is relational’: Archbishop Moth embraces ‘leadership of service’

‘There’s a word I always put with leadership, which is service,’ Richard Moth told The Tablet in an interview ahead of his installation as Archbishop of Westminster on Saturday.

Archbishop Richard Moth said the Church must continue to use her voice to “bring the light of the gospel and the light of Christ, into the world we are living in” at this point in history, in the context of contemporary national and international challenges.

He said, “This is what the Church has always been about. That never changes. What changes is the circumstance. The circumstance of this year is very different from the circumstance of ten years ago or even two.

“At any moment, the community of the Church – and I’m not just thinking about bishops and priests, but the whole community – needs to be attuned to and open to be able to bring that light into the situations that we face, whatever they may be.”

In particular, Archbishop Moth highlighted the issues of peace and conflict and of providing security to the poorest and most vulnerable in society: “How do we bring light into these situations? Not just to shine on it from a distance, but a light that transforms, so that people can start to see that there’s another way of looking at this, a way informed by the gospel.”

Sometimes shining this light will involve advocacy and lobbying in the secular sphere, he acknowledged. Referring to his experience as the lead bishop for prisons, he said, “We know that this country has the highest per capita prison population in Europe. The conditions of our prisons are in many cases very poor.

“I asked myself: how do we bring the gospel into that situation? How do we encourage governments, and those who are working at the coalface, to look at in a new way? We’ve written a succession of documents which bring the light of the gospel into that prison setting, reminding those involved in legislation of the issues that have been present in prisons for a long time.

“In the last several years I’ve had meetings with prisons ministers in and out of the HM Prison and Probation Service headquarters, and with the chief inspector of prisons. That’s where I’ve had a particular engagement in recent years, and that’s an indication that I’m willing to have those conversations.”

New Archbishop of Westminster Richard Moth talks to The Tablet – Tablet podcast The Wise and the Wherefores

Richard Moth takes the reins

These efforts are ecumenical and interfaith, he said: “It’s not just about Catholics doing things on their own track. We need to accompany others and be accompanied by them.”

“The prison work is one area where the Church is being impactful and working alongside other churches. Or in my work as bishop of the armed forces, the presence of chaplains in those contexts, working ecumenically, was very impactful in the most difficult of circumstances.

“I had close relationships with the other Christian communities in Arundel and Brighton. In Woking, where there is the oldest Muslim community in the country, we have a lot of very good social action projects going on with people of other faiths.”

Archbishop Moth was appointed Bishop of the Forces in 2009 and became Bishop of Arundel and Brighton in 2015.

From Arundel and Brighton, he will also draw lessons about “how to best do the Church’s mission in the setting in which we found ourselves” with regards to consulting and listening to the lay faithful.

“I did a lot of meetings around the diocese with lay faithful and priests, with three stages of listening and writing,” he said. “In the two parishes we inaugurated, the reception was extraordinary – the lay faithful saying it was a new opportunity for the Church. I think it worked that way because we’d had all these conversations.

“What’s important about the whole synodal way of doing things is that it’s about relationships. It’s about having that conversation, that relationship with somebody. And that reflects something deeply theological, which is the relationship we have with Christ. He calls us to relationship, and the whole thing becomes relational.”

It’s too early to say what direction this might take in Westminster, however: “I don’t know Westminster yet at all, so my first task is to get to know people. I’ve got seven Masses across the five areas in the two weeks after the installation. That will be the start of a series of conversations, building that relationship.”

He also foresees conversations with abuse survivors: “The tragedy of abuse has been part of the history of the Church and has been seen very clearly in recent times. We are now a Church that reports and works with statutory authorities at every step. As a bishop, I’m always going to meet with survivors, have done, and always will do. It’s part of our ministry now.”

In the face of decline in Mass attendance combined with a rise in conversions, the Church’s mission must focus on invitation, openness, and welcome, he suggested, focusing on “providing people with opportunities for a chat, with time for prayer”.  

Why be a Catholic? “I’m going to go back to that word ‘relationship’,” Archbishop Moth said. “It’s the awareness of the call Christ gives to you to a relationship with him. That is the most wonderful adventure. There will always be surprises along the way, there will always be new opportunities, bringing the light of the gospel into the new situations we face, is the most wonderful thing to be able to do.

“The Catholic Church, the teachings of the magisterium, holds together – there is a wholeness to it, a completeness. It doesn’t mean it’s easy always – sometimes it can be very difficult. There is a wholeness about it, and that makes the whole thing about it very exciting.”

However, he added, with a laugh, that his vocational journey was “a bit dull, actually”: “I began to think, what would it be like to be a priest? We had a wonderful priest, and when I was about 12, I began to wonder: what would it be like to do what he does? The thought never went away, and I started going on retreat as a teenager. I applied for seminary at 17, finished school in July, and started formation in August.

“I think this is often true with a vocational journey – the example of another is the first thing. Then one’s own experience of prayer – I was very blessed to have some wonderful retreat time as a teenager – the experience of finding God in the silence. But no bright lights or angels flying in the window or anything like that – everything rather simple and straightforward.”

Despite his own straight path directly into the priesthood, he affirmed Pope Francis’ criticism of clericalism as an exclusivist focus on the clerical vocation. “If we stay on the theme of service, we don’t clericalise. You’re always looking to the other, and if you look to the other, whoever that happens to be, you’re not going to think: what’s my position?

“This applies not just to clergy – depending on how laypeople take up roles of responsibility, there’s a risk that they can clericalise. If you have a priest – or a deacon or a teacher or anyone – who is focusing on service, asking how they can serve, the danger of clericalism begins to disappear, because you’re looking outwards, not inwards.

“There have been lots of instances in my time in priesthood where I’ve seen the Church reaching out in the most impactful way, but not necessarily on the grandest scale. This bringing of the gospel into the very concrete is something that happens on the local level pretty much all the time.

“On the grander scale, perhaps we are becoming more confident in looking outwards than we have in the past. This is going to be helped by synodal listening and the conversations that we have within the Church, bringing a renewed willingness to step out there.”

Archbishop Moth said he is open to becoming president of the bishops’ conference, but that it will be decided by election. The theme of leadership as service came up again several times in the discussion.

He said that among the most important of the books he has nearly finished unpacking at Archbishop’s House is The Rule of St Benedict, in which “the abbot looks at all the people in his community and thinks – how can I serve this person, with their unique gifts and talents?” He has been an Oblate of St Benedict for nearly 50 years.

Another is St Thérèse of Lisieux, whom Archbishop Moth said he has been devoted to since his childhood, especially appreciating “her imagery of doing the little things well and not trying to imagine that you can do everything, leaving things with the Lord who will help you along”.

But the one book Archbishop Moth would single out to take to a desert island is “only a little book”, The Prayer of Love and Silence, by a Carthusian monk.

It is possible that he will be spotted horse-riding in Hyde Park: “I used to ride in London, so we’ll see.” But he won’t be wearing his mitre: “You have to wear a hard hat these days.”

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