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By Eric Sammons, Crisis Magazine, January 6, 2025
Cardinal Robert McElroy, the bishop of San Diego who has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the hierarchy under Pope Francis, has been named the Archbishop of Washington, DC, succeeding Cardinal Wilton Gregory, whose resignation was accepted by the pope.
While any faithful Catholic will be dismayed by this news, it should come as no surprise. McElroy was always destined to leave San Diego for a more influential diocese. The very fact that the bishop of a suffragan diocese was made a Cardinal—while being under a metropolitan archbishop (Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez) who wasn’t himself a Cardinal—was unprecedented. He was clearly being groomed for greater pastures. The irony, however, is that McElroy’s appointment doesn’t increase McElroy’s influence as much as it diminishes the importance of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.
Recall the recent history of this archdiocese. This century began with Theodore McCarrick being named the archbishop of Washington, DC in November 2000, swiftly followed by his being added to the College of Cardinals a few months later. McCarrick was only archbishop in DC for five years, but his reign established the pattern for the archdiocese. He was particularly talented in two important roles of a bishop: raising money and recruiting priestly vocations. I lived in the DC archdiocese throughout McCarrick’s tenure, and I can confirm that, for all his significant faults, he was a genius at raising money and he did attract many priestly vocations (including many good men). It was these two talents, in fact, that made him one of the most influential men in the Church throughout his career, and that influence continues to permeate the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.
