Only 2 1/2 years after being named a cardinal, a top San Diego spiritual leader is headed to Washington, D.C., as archbishop, the Vatican announced early Monday.
Robert McElroy, 70, will be installed in the high-profile Roman Catholic post in the nation’s capital — news first posted Sunday night by the National Catholic Reporter.
McElroy in March will succeed retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory at the Washington Archdiocese. A diocesan administrator will then be appointed to oversee the San Diego diocese until a new bishop is appointed.
“The news was expected to come as soon as noon in Rome, 3 a.m. Pacific time,” said the National Catholic Reporter, led by former San Diego Tribune reporter James Grimaldi.
Indeed, that was the case.
“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 10 years I’ve spent as bishop of San Diego,” McElroy said in a statement.
McElroy is “one of the American church’s most forceful defenders of migrants and a sharp critic of Donald Trump’s first administration just days before Trump takes office a second time,” said the Reporter, credited to “NCR staff.”
The Pillar — a conservative Catholic outlet that began as a Substack newsletter — and The Washington Post also reported that McElroy was chosen by Pope Francis.
In a news release, McElroy said: “I have never in my life felt more welcomed, more supported or more rewarded than I felt sharing my ministry with the priests, the women religious and the faithful parishioners of our diocese. I cannot thank you enough.
“As I transition to my next assignment, know that I feel deeply blessed to have been part of this community and that the San Diego diocese will always have a special place in my heart.”
McElroy will replace Gregory, the first African American cardinal. At age 77, Gregory is considered two years past the standard retirement age for bishops.
The archdiocese of Washington includes the Catholic University of America and Georgetown University as is home to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The only suffragan diocese of the archdiocese is the Diocese of Saint Thomas.
McElroy is thought by some Catholics to be a leading intellectual aligned with Pope Francis, the Post noted.
“Just after Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration in 2017, McElroy said ‘we must all become disrupters,’ citing the use of the military to deport undocumented people, the portrayal of refugees as enemies and Muslims ‘as forces of fear rather than as children of God,’” the Post said.
Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University was quoted as calling McElroy “the most progressive Catholic bishop and cardinal at this time in the United States.”
His appointment would be “a statement and a response to the political direction the country has taken,” Faggioli told the Post.
In Washington, the announcement was made by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States. A news conference was set for 7 a.m. Monday, live-streamed on YouTube.
Date of installation for McElroy as the eighth archbishop of Washington has not yet been set.
Until his installation, McElroy is the archbishop-elect of Washington, and Cardinal Gregory will serve as the apostolic administrator of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, which includes 655,000 Catholics, 140 parishes and 90 Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., and the five Maryland counties of Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.
San Diego, a diocese serving 1.4 million Catholics currently has three auxiliary bishops: Ramón Bejarano, Michael Pham and Felipe Pulido.
A former San Diego auxiliary bishop, John Dolan, was named bishop of Phoenix in June 2022.
Two months later, McElroy became the first cardinal of San Diego, receiving his scarlet skullcap, ring and silk hat as he knelt before Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
McElroy was inducted along with 19 cardinals from around the world in a ceremony, known as a consistory.
As cardinal, McElroy became an elector of the pope after the passing of Francis.
A thread on the Reddit message board was overwhelmingly critical of the appointment — described as “utterly disgraceful” and “absolutely terrible.”
“Once again,” said one comment, “Francis shows what he really thinks of the United States and Americans by appointing the most obnoxious and abrasive left wing prelate he can find to the nation’s capital.”
In late May 2022, at a Bay Park news conference discussing his surprise elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals, McElroy was asked about the prospect of his becoming pope.
He immediately replied: “I don’t think an American should be pope.” The United States has so much power “in so many levels,” he said, that having an American pope would be a “counterpoint to the witness that the church has to continue to be giving.”
Updated at 6 a.m. Jan. 6, 2025
