Cardinal McElroy chosen to succeed Cardinal Gregory as Shepherd of Washington

Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego has been named the next archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, following Pope Francis’ acceptance of the resignation of Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, the first African-American cardinal, the Vatican announced on January 6.

The city is home to the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and a host of embassies, nonprofits, think tanks, and lobbying groups seeking to influence the levers of American power.

Canon law required Cardinal Gregory, 77, to submit his resignation to the pope when the cardinal turned 75, on December 7, 2022. The Vatican announced the news of Cardinal Gregory’s retirement and the appointment of Cardinal McElroy two weeks before the president’s second inauguration. -elect Donald Trump in Washington.

Cardinal McElroy, 70, a San Francisco native who graduated from Harvard and Stanford before his ordination to the priesthood in 1980, was named bishop of the Diocese of San Diego in 2015. Pope Francis named him a cardinal in 2022. He is also a member of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life and the Dicastery for Integral Human Development of the Vatican.

The cardinal defended Pope Francis’ call to embrace synodality in the Catholic Church. While in San Diego, the cardinal convened three synods – the most recent launched a process to implement synodal decision-making in the local Church. Cardinal McElroy also participated in the World Synod on Synodality, which produced a final document on synodality in October that Pope Francis promulgated as magisterial.

As prelate, Cardinal McElroy called for healing from deep polarization within society and the Church. Pastorally, he called for greater inclusion of those who are marginalized, including African Americans and Native Americans, people suffering from poverty, migrants without legal status, refugees, victims of child abuse. clergy, the incarcerated, and people who identify as LGBTQ+.

The cardinal stressed that a synodal style is essential to renew the missionary spirit of the Church and overcome its internal divisions.

“A culture of synodality is the most promising path available today to lead us out of this polarization in our Church,” Cardinal McElroy wrote in a Jan. 24, 2023 column for America Magazine. “Such a culture can help put these divisions and ideological prisms into perspective by emphasizing God’s call to seek above all the path to which we are called in unity and grace. »

At the last annual fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in November, Cardinal McElroy proposed the creation of a task force to help implement synodality within the conference. The American bishops approved his proposal by voice vote.

Cardinal McElroy also led the Diocese of San Diego into a second bankruptcy, for which he filed in June to settle about 450 claims. In 2007, before his appointment, the diocese paid $198 million to settle claims.

In a June 13 letter announcing the filing of Chapter 11, Cardinal McElroy said: “It is essential that we all keep in mind that this is the moral failure of those who have directly abused children and adolescents, and the equally great moral failure of those who reassigned children and adolescents. or were not vigilant, leading to the psychological and spiritual wounds that still crush the hearts and souls of so many men and women among us.

He added: “May God never let this shame depart from our eyes, and may God’s tenderness envelope the innocent children and adolescents who were victims. »

At the 2023 ordination of two auxiliary bishops for his diocese, Cardinal McElroy shared his thoughts on what makes a good bishop. “To be a good bishop,” he said, “one must truly walk with the flock of God, as Pope Francis has exhorted us: sometimes walking on the front line to lead; sometimes walk among the herd to experience the realities of everyday life; and sometimes walking in the back to hug and walk with those who are having trouble keeping up.

Cardinal McElroy also succeeds a prelate in Washington who leaves an impressive legacy marked by many “firsts.”

Throughout his decades of service to the Catholic Church, Cardinal Gregory was a pioneering prelate. He converted to the Catholic faith in sixth grade while attending St. Carthage Catholic School in his hometown of Chicago, and was ordained a priest of that archdiocese in 1973.

He became the youngest Catholic bishop in the United States at age 34 when he was ordained auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1983. In 1994, he was ordained bishop of Belleville, Illinois.

In 2005, he became the third African American to serve as archbishop of Atlanta, an archdiocese that during his tenure had some 1.2 million Catholics in 69 counties.

In 2019, he was named Washington’s first African-American archbishop. Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal in 2020.

During his time in Washington, Cardinal Gregory navigated difficult situations, particularly where faith and politics intersected. The cardinal rejected calls to deny communion to President Joe Biden, the second Catholic to hold the office, despite Biden’s support for abortion, a position at odds with Church teaching. He stressed the importance of effective dialogue and finding common ground.

But he also clearly highlighted the president’s shortcomings. In April, on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Cardinal Gregory said that while he believed Biden was sincere about Catholicism, “like a number of Catholics, he chooses the dimensions of faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parties. .” He added: “I would say there are things, especially when it comes to life’s issues, that he chooses to ignore. »

At the same time, Cardinal Gregory – who has consistently spoken out against capital punishment and euthanasia – praised Biden’s recent commutation of most federal death sentences. In a Dec. 23 statement, the cardinal called the death penalty “another link in the terrible loss of public respect for human life itself.”

Cardinal Gregory was also the first African American elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, from 2001 to 2004. Previously, he was elected vice president of the conference (known from 1966 to 2001 as of National Conference of Catholic Bishops) in 1998.

His tenure as president of the USCCB coincided with the explosive clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. The crisis – although not the first known sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in the United States – provided the impetus, along with other emerging diocesan abuse scandals to the time, to the American bishops to develop and adopt their “Charter for the Protection of Children”. and young people. »

The landmark document that then-Bishop Gregory helped guide the U.S. bishops to develop in Dallas on June 13-15, 2002 – commonly referred to as the Dallas Charter – lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for responding to allegations of sexual abuse on minors by the Catholic clergy. The charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and abuse prevention.

As the charter approached its 20th anniversary, Cardinal Gregory told Catholic News Service in a June 2022 interview that the charter marked a “pivotal moment” in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. “is not complete.”

“We went through difficult areas,” admitted the cardinal. “With each sordid revelation (of sexual abuse or inappropriate response from a bishop), the task becomes more difficult, the climb becomes steeper.”

The cardinal told CNS that the impact of the Dallas Charter has at times been weakened by ongoing discoveries about the scale of the decades-long crisis.

“Certainly 20 years ago, when the charter was first promulgated and ratified, I think the people of God breathed a sigh of relief to finally see the bishops acting together to solve the problem,” he said. -he declared. “But… with each revelation that a bishop had failed to take appropriate action, with each revelation that a bishop himself was involved in this terrible criminal behavior, the progress made over months and years was undermined . »

During the Mass for his 2019 installation as archbishop of the nation’s capital, he alluded to another crucial inflection point in the abuse crisis: the abuse scandal and cover-up surrounding Theodore McCarrick, former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, who was laicized by the Vatican in February 2019 – saying: “We find ourselves at a defining moment for this local religious community. »

Frankness, mixed with hope, has been characteristic of Cardinal Gregory’s approach to a range of issues within the Church.

As a liturgical expert – having received his doctorate in liturgy from the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm in Rome in 1980 – the cardinal has written extensively over the years on the liturgical challenges and opportunities for growth in the worthy celebration of the liturgy.

In a 2016 newspaper article, then-Archbishop Gregory noted that “Catholic preaching often lags far behind its counterparts in other Christian denominations.” He stressed that the Catholic faithful “seek true inspiration, edification and good pastoral direction in the homily of the Eucharistic celebration.”

Writing as auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1988, he also asserted that “cultural accommodation…between the Roman Rite and black American cultural heritage” is not “an impossible task” in achieving an authentic Black Catholic liturgical tradition.

In 1999, Bishop Gregory, then vice president of the American bishops’ conference, also publicly apologized to Eastern Catholics, who had historically suffered discrimination from some North American Roman Catholics because of their traditions. , like the ordination of married people. men to the priesthood.

At the start of the Jubilee Year 2025, Cardinal Gregory expressed the need for both contemplation and hope.

Celebrating a Jan. 1 Mass for the Haitian Catholic community – with a liturgy celebrating the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, while also commemorating Haiti’s Independence Day – the cardinal pointed to Mary as a model for the faithful in the journey ahead, especially as she meditated deeply on the mysteries of Christ.

“Reflection helps us all prepare ourselves to grasp the truly important events of life and see their deepest meaning,” Cardinal Gregory said. “We should all think more deeply and more frequently in the new year. »

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