How Cardinal McElroy came to Washington
The Holy See announced Monday Cardinal Robert McElroy as the next Archbishop of Washington, bringing to an end months of speculation about the appointment and a contentious behind the scenes process to name a successor for Cardinal Wilton Gregory.
While McElroy was long known to be the preferred candidate of some senior American prelates, most notably Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Pope Francis supposedly made a firm decision against the Californian native as recently as October.
So how did McElroy end up getting the capital city see, and what does his appointment say about the ecclesiastical-political landscape in America and Rome?
For some time, it has been widely known in episcopal circles that Washington’s now-outgoing archbishop, the 77-year old Cardinal Wilton Gregory, hoped to retire, having served since he was appointed in 2019, after the pope reluctantly accepted Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s resignation in the fallout of the McCarrick scandal.
The Archdiocese of Washington is always one of the most sensitive appointments in the U.S. Church. While it may not have the size of New York or Chicago, or the historical cultural significance of Boston, its proximity to political power puts it center of the national ecclesiastical stage.
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