Gary Studniewski
Gary Richard Studniewski was born on May 8, 1957, in Toledo, Ohio, into a devout Polish-American family, and grew up attending St. Hedwig parish and its elementary school, where his parents Richard and Alfreda lived the honesty, hard work, kindness, and compassion he credits with forming him. He earned a biology education degree from the University of Toledo through ROTC, then served as an artillery officer with the 82nd Airborne, the 3rd Infantry Division in Germany, and the Army Personnel Command in Alexandria, Virginia.
In 1989, after a decade in uniform, Studniewski left active duty to study for the priesthood, co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington and the Archdiocese for the Military Services. He formed at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, 1990-1995, earning a Bachelor and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum, and was ordained a priest of Washington on June 24, 1995. After a brief assignment at St. John in Hollywood, Maryland, he returned to the Army as a chaplain for eighteen years, ministering to the 82nd Airborne, the Multinational Force and Observers, Fort Belvoir, the Pentagon, and the 555th Engineer Brigade in Iraq, retiring in 2016 as a colonel.
Back in the archdiocese, he administered St. Francis Xavier, Newtowne, then led St. Peter's on Capitol Hill, 2017-2022, and the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament from 2022. On May 1, 2026, Pope Leo XIV appointed him, with Father Robert Boxie, an auxiliary bishop of Washington, and Cardinal Robert McElroy ordained both men on July 7, 2026, at the National Shrine. He now serves as Vicar for Clergy. His motto is Sufficit tibi gratia mea: My grace is sufficient for you.
Bishop Studniewski has held his auxiliary tenure for only a few months, from his episcopal ordination on July 7, 2026, to the as_of date, and no governing act of his own on the 1962 Missal has been found in that window. Searches of his name against Traditionis custodes, the Latin Mass, the 1962 Missal, and the extraordinary form returned his appointment and ordination coverage, his chaplaincy and parish history, and his motto, but no decree, authorization, dispensation request, appointment sustaining a 1962 Mass, or statement of his on the old rite. That absence is recorded as a searched-for absence, not as a judgment about his private views, which this dossier does not presume to know.
What he inherited is the ordinary's regime, and it must not be mistaken for his own record. Cardinal Wilton Gregory's norms, promulgated July 22, 2022, and effective September 21, 2022, designated three non-parochial churches for Sunday Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal: the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist in Forest Glen, Maryland; the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington; and the mission church of St. Dominic in Aquasco, Maryland, with written archiepiscopal permission required for any other 1962 celebration. An archdiocesan statement in January 2024, after an unauthorized Capitol Mass using the 1962 Missal, still described those same three designated churches, and no change to the three-site regime under Cardinal McElroy has been located. The regime is therefore carried as inherited context in this tenure, and its sites are counted at three before and three now, at medium confidence, because a 2026 re-verification of the three sites was not located.
Two cautions keep this dossier honest. First, Studniewski's eighteen years as an Army chaplain under the Archdiocese for the Military Services do not supply a Washington 1962 record: chaplaincy service is not a governing act on the Missal, and no 1962 act of his from those years was found in any case. Second, his present office, Vicar for Clergy, concerns the archdiocese's priests generally, and no document ties that office to a 1962 permission, refusal, or appointment by him. His posture is accordingly no_record, with the same open debts as his fellow 2026 auxiliary: a 2026 re-verification of the three designated sites, and any future 1962 act of his own.