It has been five years since the police-involved killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In a May 25, 2020, incident captured on police body cameras and other videos, a white officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, who was being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. No officer provided medical aid, despite Floyd saying he could not breathe and calls from a gathered crowd to help him. Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2021; the other officers were convicted of lesser charges. Many interpreted the officers’ actions and inactions as racially motivated, and the incident sparked protests as well as looting, rioting and violence in the Twin Cities and across the country.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and other faith leaders including Pope Francis called for prayer, peace and racial healing. Archbishop Hebda agreed to talk May 27 with The Catholic Spirit about the incident and its aftermath. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Q) Archbishop Hebda, thank you for being with us today. How has our local Church responded to the death of George Floyd five years ago?

A) Thank you for this opportunity to talk about this important topic. It’s shocking to me that it’s been five years. There’s a lot that’s happened in that time. Certainly, we as a Church have had a good opportunity to reflect; I think it has been a time of growth for us, really. You’ll remember that it was at the height of COVID(-19). We did a few things online with listening sessions, and then we had a wonderful organization spring up, the Catholic Racial Justice Coalition, that’s sponsored by a number of Catholic entities in our archdiocese. They, too, headed up a wonderful listening opportunity. One of the things that I had not been sensitive to before the killing of George Floyd was just the amount of pain that our Black Catholics carry from experiences that they’ve had in their lives.

You always hope that it was something in the distant past, or that it was something that happened elsewhere. But as we listened to people tell their stories — and that’s really what those events were for — we realized how much pain there was even from more recent events. I guess that was the shocking part of it. To listen as they shared experiences of racism in the Church was very painful.

And yet I felt that the Holy Spirit was certainly moving in those events and that, just by listening to the stories, we have an opportunity to think about how it is that we respond in the present, preparing for the future, but based on those experiences in the past.

Q) The Church at that time called for prayer, peace, racial healing and unity. That encouragement continues to this day. Divisions can be found not only in the Black experience, but among Native American, Latino, Vietnamese and other minority populations as well. Families, schools and parishes also experience division. How can we walk with one another to deepen our common bonds and bridge our differences?

A) I think about the call for peace. Isn’t it interesting, that was the first expression of our new pope, Pope Leo, when he spoke about the peace that Jesus offers to the world. In all the different circumstances that you spoke about, I think we as a Church have that opportunity to infuse the peace of Christ, knowing that there is real pain in the world. Jesus came to offer peace; the hope is that we’re able to address that.

You know, in the course of this Jubilee Year, Pope Francis called for us to be Pilgrims of Hope. I think that hope is so significant, even as we look at these questions of racism, war; when we think about the healing that’s needed; or when we begin to pray for peace; when we consider how prejudice has been part of the human experience for thousands of years, always people drawing distinctions between us and them, regardless of how those lines are drawn; that it’s only that peace of Jesus (that is possible) and the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Jesus. Through Jesus, we have the opportunity to move beyond (those divisions).

LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST HERE

Q) I think about the efficacy of prayer. I wonder, Archbishop Hebda, if you might outline some of the benefits of drawing closer to Christ in prayer, and what, then, we can do to help others?

A) I think it’s when we have that encounter with Jesus, and when we dedicate time and energy to doing that, that we come to know Jesus all the more. It’s easier for us, then, to see Jesus in our brothers and sisters who might at some level seem different from us. As we come to know Jesus, we’re going to see how it is that his love is in the hearts of those who might look different than we do, or it’s his strength that’s within them, or his hope. As we come to see Jesus in one another, it’s easier for us to see the bonds that we share.

Q) We mark this tragic anniversary as we approach our second Archdiocesan Synod Assembly. Nearly 500 people will gather at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul on June 7 to help you discern through the Holy Spirit a pastoral direction for the next several years in our archdiocese. A consistent effort on your part, Archbishop Hebda, has been a call for unity and evangelization in our parishes, so that we might better know one another and reach out to people who might not fully know the Church. How might this call through the assembly foster unity and understanding in our broader community?

A) You might remember that the impulse here — for us (in the archdiocese) to engage in that kind of listening — even preceded Pope Francis’ frequent discussions about synodality. It was an impulse, I think, that many people were feeling around the globe. It called us to recognize that the Holy Spirit speaks in all of us, and to recognize the priesthood that we all share by virtue of our baptism, and that everybody has something to say. It has really helped the Church, I think, to be better at listening.

And certainly, here in the archdiocese, when we engaged in the prayer and listening sessions before our last Synod (2022) and then at the Synod itself, the hope was that we would be able to develop, with the help of the Holy Spirit, a real sensitivity to the needs of our brothers and sisters. There was a wonderful quote from Pope Francis, who was speaking about what he was looking for in bishops and pastors, saying that we had to have spiritual stethoscopes, so that we’re able to listen to what’s going on in the lives of one another. Even those basic listening sessions that we had in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, I think really helped us to develop some skills as listeners, even when the topic is painful.

We saw that modeled beautifully in the different sessions that Pope Francis called for the universal Church. He talked about them as conversations in the Spirit. And it’s a fascinating process. It seems like sometimes that it’s a little bit on the slow side and doesn’t quickly come to resolution, but it really is aimed at helping us to hear what our brothers and sisters are saying, and trying to be attuned to their experience, where the Holy Spirit is moving them.

Now, we always need to grow and go deeper. We already have a sense of how important it is to strive to listen to one another in a spiritual way. It’s also a way in which we’re able to listen to the Holy Spirit — that the Holy Spirit uses us to bring to bear the light that the Spirit knows the Church needs.

So even in difficult times, even in contemplating racism or prejudice, the Holy Spirit has something to say.

PRAYERS FOR ARCHDIOCESAN SYNOD 2025

All the faithful of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are invited to a 7-8 p.m. June 6 Holy Hour of Adoration at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Auxiliary Bishops Michael Izen and Kevin Kenney and many delegates to the June 7 Archdiocesan Synod Assembly will be there, seeking a posture of prayer heading into the assembly.

The daylong assembly at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul will conclude with all the faithful of the archdiocese invited to join the Synod delegates for a 7-8:30 p.m. Archdiocesan Pentecost Vigil Mass followed by a prayer service, also at the Cathedral.

“The readings are all aimed at helping us see what’s the work of the Holy Spirit,” Archbishop Hebda said of the vigil Mass. “We’re also going to be doing a classic prayer meeting afterward, invoking the gifts of the Holy Spirit and asking that we be open to those gifts.

“We’re blessed that there are a number of organizations in our archdiocese that are deeply involved in the renewal of the Church through the Holy Spirit,” the archbishop said. “We’re hoping that they will come out and help us with that.”