Pope Francis on Monday tapped Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego to become the archbishop of Washington, D.C., selecting one of his most progressive allies to head the Catholic Church in the U.S. capital before President-elect Trump’s new administration begins.
The Vatican announced the appointment in its daily bulletin on Monday. McElroy, 70, replaces Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who at 77 is two years beyond the normal retirement age for bishops.
Francis has long had his eye on McElroy, making him bishop of San Diego in 2015 and then elevating him to a cardinal in 2022.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the Catholic community in our nation’s capital and for the confidence His Holiness has placed in me, but I have truly loved the last ten years I’ve spent as bishop of San Diego,” McElroy said in a statement, according to the Washington Post. “I have never in my life felt more welcomed, more supported or more rewarded.”
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Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy attends a reception for relatives and friends in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
McElroy was an open critic of Trump during his first administration regarding immigration and the border wall, among other issues.
Just a month into Trump’s first presidency, McElroy, a bishop at the time, notably said in a speech before a February 2017 conference of faith groups in California that “well now, we all must become disruptors.”
“We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need. We must disrupt those who train us to see Muslim men, women and children as forces of fear rather than as children of God,” McElroy said at the time, according to Catholic News Agency.
McElroy’s criticism of Trump continued. In a statement released by the Diocese of San Diego reacting to a 2018 Trump border visit, McElroy said, “It is a sad day for our country when we trade the majestic, hope-filled symbolism of the Statue of Liberty for an ineffective and grotesque wall which both displays and inflames the ethnic and cultural divisions that have long been the underside of our national history,” according to Millennial Journal.
McElroy has been one of a minority of U.S. bishops harshly criticizing the campaign to exclude Catholic politicians who support abortion from Communion, a campaign Francis has publicly criticized by insisting that bishops must be pastors, not politicians.
He has also questioned why the U.S. bishops’ conference, which has leaned conservative in its leadership, consistently insists on identifying abortion as its “preeminent” priority. He has questioned why greater prominence was not given to issues such as racism, poverty, immigration and climate change. He has also expressed support for LGBTQ youth and denounced the bullying often directed at them, further aligning himself with Francis’ priorities as pope.
Newly named Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy during a press conference at the Vatican, Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
McElroy’s appointment to Washington comes just a few weeks after Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, nominated Brian Burch as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.
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Burch, president and co-founder of the advocacy group CatholicVote, has criticized Francis and some of his policies on social media. He also questioned leadership in the Catholic Church regarding FBI investigations into several parishes.
The FBI’s relationship with the Catholic Church has also been under fire after the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee said in December 2023 that it received documents supporting how the bureau allegedly “singled out Americans who are pro-life, pro-family, and support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.”
Local and federal law enforcement have been involved in the Catholic Church’s reckoning of alleged sexual abuse of minors going back decades. In 2018, the Archdiocese of Washington, which McElroy will now lead, posted the names of 28 archdiocesan priests “who were credibly accused of child sex abuse going back to the archdiocese’s founding in 1948 onward,” following a D.C. attorney general investigation.
Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy speaks, during a press conference at the Vatican, Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
However, the diocese said, “there had not been an incident of abuse of a minor by an archdiocesan clergy member for almost 20 years.”
Francis made the appointment ahead of his final meeting with President Biden, who is making a last foreign trip to Italy this week. The two are expected to meet on Friday.
Biden emerged from a 2021 meeting with Francis by saying the pope told him to continue receiving Communion despite his position on abortion. He later received the sacrament at a Rome church.
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The Archdiocese of Washington includes the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties of Montgomery, Prince George’s, St. Mary’s, Calvert and Charles. The area has a total population of 3,050,847, of which 671,187 are Catholic.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
