Pope Francis on Monday appointed Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, bishop of San Diego, as the next Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, moving one of his most vocal allies on immigration to one of the most prominent positions in the American church.
The move, announced in the Vatican's daily bulletin, comes at a critical juncture two weeks before President-elect Donald J. Trump's inauguration and sends a signal about Pope Francis' priorities. Many powerful American Catholics, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have identified with Mr. Trump's efforts against immigration and abortion.
Cardinal McElroy, 70, has long been a supporter of the pope's pastoral agenda and is known for speaking regularly on the inclusion of migrants, women and LGBTQ people in the Catholic Church and the United States.
He will succeed Cardinal Wilton Gregory, 77, the first African-American to become a cardinal. a member of the supreme governing body of the church.
In December, as Mr. Trump promised to tighten immigration once again, Cardinal McElroy and 11 other bishops from California issued a statement in support of our “migrant brothers and sisters”.
“We want to assure you that we and our mother Church are with you in these days of concern,” they wrote, pledging to “defend your dignity and family unity.”
His presence in Washington will be different from that of Mr. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and developed his religion. hardline anti-immigrant agenda in the election campaign last year. Along with Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance has called for mass deportations, promised to end legal immigration programs and they spread baseless rumours Haitians in Springfield, Ohio stole and ate their pets.
Mr. Vance represents the traditional wing of the churchhas gained strength in Republican circles as it pushes against the rise of secularism.
As Bishop of the Diocese of San Diego, On the border with Mexico, Cardinal McElroy has a history of standing with immigrants, who represent an important constituency for the Catholic Church both globally and in the United States.
As an undergraduate at Harvard University, Oscar Handlin, a eminent scientist One that changed public opinion about the role of immigration in American history.
Cardinal McElroy, who was then appointed the new bishop of San Diego by Pope Francis shortly after Mr. Trump won the 2016 presidential election, He said at a Catholic immigration conference said it was “unwise” for Mr. Trump to hold off on his promise to deport millions of immigrants.
He described He called Mr. Trump's policy “an act of injustice that will tarnish our national honor in the same way that the United States dispossessed Native American peoples of progressive property and buried the Japanese.”
He too made a speech As President Trump seeks to end the protectionist program deportation About 700,000 immigrants, known as Dreamers, entered the country as children.
As other Catholic bishops sought to make abortion a top issue, Cardinal McElroy often argued that abortion was only one of several critical priorities of Catholic moral teaching. When conservative bishops targeted President Biden, America's second Catholic president, in 2021 with a proposal to reject the union of politicians for supporting abortion rights, he pushed backUnder such a proposal, “a sacrament that seeks to unite us will be a sign of division for millions of Catholics,” he said.
Cardinal McElroy”radical inclusion” of women and LGBTQ people in church life and leadership, to the ire of conservatives. Pope Francis in 2022 made him a cardinaland therefore has the right to vote for the pope's successor.
Former leaders of the Archdiocese of Washington handled the essentially political nature of the post in their own way. A scholar of American history by training, Cardinal McElroy is the rare prelate with a doctorate in political science from Stanford University who has not shied away from contemporary controversies, whether in church or nation.
“Our political society has been poisoned by tribalism that saps our energy as a people and threatens our democracy,” he writes. American magazineJesuit edition, in 2023. “And this poison entered the life of the church in a destructive way.”
Although the Archdiocese of Washington is home to about half as many Catholics as the Diocese of San Diego, it is one of the most prominent in the country. The archdiocese includes the nation's capital, as well as major institutions such as the Catholic University of America and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in North America.
Cardinal Gregory moved from Atlanta, where he was archbishop, to Washington in 2019 after a tumultuous period in which church leaders in Washington were at the center of America's sex abuse crisis. Pope Francis elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 2020, amid widespread calls for racial justice across the country and within the Church.
Elisabetta Povoledo contributed to the report.