He joined the Roman Curia in 1972 and served from 1999 until 2015 as Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

[3] On 21 December 1982 he was appointed titular bishop of Acropolis,[4] and he received his episcopal consecration on the following 6 January from Pope John Paul II, with Archbishops Eduardo Martínez Somalo and Duraisamy Lourdusamy serving as co-consecrators.

[14] On 31 March 2015, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi to succeed Grocholewski as Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

[17] In March 2011 at a press conference to present the newly published Decree on the Reform of Ecclesiastical Studies of Philosophy, Cardinal Grocholewski explained how the normative documents concerning ecclesiastical studies comprehended John Paul II's 1979 Apostolic Constitution "Sapientia christiana" and its norms of application, issued in the same year by the Congregation for Catholic Education.

"Nonetheless", he said, "'Ecclesia semper est reformanda' in order to respond to the new demands of ecclesial life in changing historical-cultural circumstances and this also (perhaps especially) involves the academic world".

The reasons for the reform, the cardinal explained, are "on the one hand, the shortcomings in philosophical formation at many ecclesiastical institutions, where precise points of reference are lacking especially as regards the subjects to be taught and the quality of teachers.... On the other hand there is the conviction – expressed in John Paul II's 1998 Encyclical Fides et ratio of the importance of the metaphysical component of philosophy, ... and the awareness that philosophy is indispensable for theological formation".