Late last night, multiple news sources confirmed what Catholic Vatican-watchers had been buzzing about for days: Pope Francis named a new archbishop for Washington, San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy.
From The Washington Post (gift article):
The Vatican announced the appointment in a statement Monday.
Francis has long had his eye on McElroy, making him bishop of San Diego in 2015 and then elevating him as a cardinal in 2022.
McElroy has been one of a minority of U.S. bishops harshly criticizing the campaign to exclude Catholic politicians who support abortion rights 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.
McElroy’s appointment to Washington comes just a few weeks after Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, nominated Brian Burch as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Burch, president and co-founder of the advocacy group CatholicVote, has criticized Francis and some of his policies on social media.
Francis made the appointment ahead of his final meeting with President Joe Biden, who is making a last foreign trip to Italy this week. Biden emerged from a 2021 meeting with Francis by saying the pope told him to continue receiving Communion despite his position on abortion.
OSV News notes his support for synodality:
The cardinal has championed Pope Francis’ call to embrace synodality in the Catholic Church. During his time in San Diego, the cardinal convened three synods — the most recent began a process to implement synodal decision-making in the local church. Cardinal McElroy was also a participant in the global Synod on Synodality, which produced a final document on synodality in October that Pope Francis promulgated as magisterial.
As a prelate, Cardinal McElroy has urged the healing of deep polarization in society and in the church. Pastorally, he has called for greater inclusion of those who are marginalized, among them African American and Native Americans, people suffering poverty, migrants lacking legal status, refugees, clergy abuse victims, the incarcerated, and persons who identify as LGBTQ+.
The cardinal has emphasized that a synodal style is key to renewing the church’s missionary spirit and overcoming its internal divisions.
Cardinal McElroy has also led the San Diego Diocese through a second bankruptcy, for which it filed in June to settle approximately 450 claims. In 2007, prior to his appointment, the diocese paid $198 million to settle claims.
In a June 13 letter announcing the Chapter 11 filing, Cardinal McElroy said, “It is essential that we all keep in mind that it was the moral failure of those who directly abused children and teenagers, and the equally great moral failure of those who reassigned them or were not vigilant, that led to the psychological and spiritual wounds that still crush the hearts and souls of so many men and women in our midst.”
He added, “May God never let this shame pass from our sight, and may God’s tenderness envelop the innocent children and teenagers who were victimized.”
During 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, “you must truly journey with God’s flock as Pope Francis has urged us: walking sometimes at the front to lead; walking sometimes in the middle of the flock to experience the realities of daily life; and walking sometimes at the rear to embrace and walk with those who are struggling to keep up.”
And CNA points out:
Outspokenly progressive, McElroy is now poised to take over the ecclesiastical territory of the nation’s capital just as Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term as president of the United States.
Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration for his first term in 2017, McElroy told a gathering of faith-based groups that if Trump was the candidate of “disruption,” then similar disruption is needed to build a better society.
“Well now, we must all become disruptors,” the bishop said, referencing the use of military force to deport undocumented migrants and the portrayal of refugees and Muslims as enemies.
In recent years, McElroy has also asserted that to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians is to weaponize the Eucharist for a political end.
In a May 5, 2021 essay, he decried what he called “a theology of unworthiness” to receive the Eucharist, whereby those who practice it focus too strongly, in his view, on discipline.
McElroy also supports women deacons for the Church and is a vocal supporter of LGBT-identified Catholics.
NCR’s Michael Sean Winters has this take:
The appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as the eighth archbishop of Washington, D.C., demonstrates the degree to which Pope Francis understands the situation of the church in the U.S. The pope found the man best suited to meet this moment both in the life of the church and the life of the nation.
To the capital of a deeply polarized nation, the pope has sent the only U.S. bishop who could be considered a scholar of American political history and its intersection with Catholic theology…
…At a time when no one knows what challenges to the constitutional order will be forthcoming from the second Trump administration, Pope Francis has selected the one bishop who can confront any such challenges without having to call an expert or group of experts for advice, and then evaluate the quality or biases of the advice he received. McElroy has thought deeply about issues of church and state his entire adult life. A deeply dialogical person, McElroy will undoubtedly consult many people as he continues to refine his ideas, but he brings as much expertise as anyone he might call
For more biographical background, check out the USCCB announcement.
Stay tuned.
