Posted on 01/10/2025 9:11:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Pope Francis named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., this week, a leader with a reputation for taking a progressive stance on hot-topic issues within the Catholic Church.
The Vatican announced on Monday McElroy's appointment as the new archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to replace the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory.
As McElroy has made headlines over the years with his views on abortion, LGBT rights and immigration, the following pages highlight four things to know about Cardinal McElroy.
The election of Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020, the country's second Catholic president and a proponent of abortion access, only fueled the debate about political figures like Biden receiving the Holy Eucharist despite their position directly contradicting church teaching.
In May 2021, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone released a pastoral letter addressing whether Catholics in public life who help advance abortion legislation should receive communion. The archbishop noted that public figures help "shape the mores of society," and their advocacy for abortion "definitely leads others to do evil."
As Crux reported in May 2021, McElroy expressed opposition to denying communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, calling the action "very destructive."
"I do not see how depriving the President of other political leaders of Eucharist based on their public policy stance can be interpreted in our society as anything other than the weaponization of the Eucharist," he argued.
In a May 2021 op-ed for America, a Jesuit publication, McElroy argued that the "proposal to exclude pro-choice Catholic political leaders from the Eucharist is the wrong step." He argued that barring certain politicians from communion would "bring tremendously destructive consequences."
McElroy cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church to highlight the sacredness of the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the real presence of Jesus Christ. To receive communion, one must be in a state of grace, and their beliefs must be in union with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
According to McElroy, excluding Catholic leaders who contradict the Church's teachings on abortion weaponizes the Eucharist, using it as a "tool in political warfare."
"This must not happen," he wrote.
"A national policy of excluding pro-choice political leaders from the Eucharist will constitute an assault on that unity, on that charity," McElroy added. "Fully half the Catholics in the United States will see this action as partisan in nature, and it will bring the terrible partisan divisions that have plagued our nation into the very act of worship that is intended by God to cause and signify our oneness."
McElroy has expressed concern about President-elect Donald Trump and his immigration policies, particularly Trump's promise to initiate mass deportations of illegal migrants.
"The Catholic Church teaches that a country has the right to control its borders and our nation's desire to do that is a legitimate effort," McElroy told Crux during a press conference this week.
"At the same time, we are called always to have a sense of the dignity of every human person, and thus plans which have been talked about at some levels of having a wider, indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine," he added.
McElroy urged Catholics to pray for Trump, his administration and for politicians throughout the nation to work together for the sake of the country.
Throughout the 2024 presidential election, Trump criticized the Biden-Harris administration's immigration policies, promising to focus on border security during his second term.
Trump also focused on immigration during his first presidential campaign in 2016, promising to build a border wall to reduce illegal immigration. The Biden administration later halted construction of most of the wall in 2021.
After the 2016 presidential election, McElroy released a statement advocating for the maintenance of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy that provides deportation protection and specific benefits to immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
"If the new administration eliminates existing protections for these model citizens who will contribute so manifestly to building an America which is truly great, it will be an unmistakable sign that the new administration is embarking upon the pathway of massive deportation, and the Catholic community must move immediately to wide-scale opposition," McElroy wrote.
McElroy called for Catholics to advocate against the issue with "the same energy, commitment and immediacy" that they devote to abortion and religious liberty.
In 2023, McElroy wrote in an article for America that the Church should explore more ways to admit LGBT people and divorced Catholics to communion, an act of "radical inclusion."
He has also argued that the Church should not focus on the "distinction between orientation and activity" when offering pastoral care to LGBT individuals.
According to McElroy, this approach "inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not."
In an interview with America published in 2016, McElroy described the Catechism of the Catholic Church's characterization of homosexual acts as "intrinsically disordered" as "very destructive language that I think we should not use pastorally."
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, McElroy issued a statement acknowledging that "the Catholic Church, along with other faith traditions, teaches that the nature of marriage and the family cannot be redefined by society, as God is the author of marriage and its corresponding gift of co-creating human life."
McElroy has also referred to same-sex unions as "loving and familial relationships which enrich the lives of so many gay men and women who are our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, and ultimately our fellow pilgrims on this earthly journey of life."
McElroy's predecessor, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, took over at a time when the archdiocese was dealing with a clergy sexual abuse crisis.
Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Cardinal Donald Wuerl were caught up in the scandal, and the former was defrocked after a Vatican investigation found he abused adults and children.
Wuerl stepped down after he “lost the trust of his priests,” according to The AP.
“McElroy was indirectly tainted by the McCarrick scandal after revelations that a whistleblower had told him in 2016 that McCarrick slept with seminarians,” the outlet reported. “McElroy acknowledged having received the report but said the whistleblower refused to provide him with corroborating evidence.”
Robert “Globohomo Bob” McElroy, a bend-over buddy of the First Order.
Who cares? They are irrelevant in todays world. That’s a good thing because the Catholic church is corrupted (by satan) at the very top.
Yet the lay people REFUSE to do/say anything.
I imagine he likes young boys.
The cardinal (I refuse to use Cardinal when referring to him) should understand that DJT will give him the cold shoulder for the next four years. Of course it’s understandable that he was appointed...I’d wager that there are very,very few *true* Catholics living in the Diocese.
> Yet the lay people REFUSE to do/say anything. <
They are trying to stay faithful to what they were taught as children, and playing the waiting game. What they don’t get is that Francis appointed the great majority of the voting Cardinals. So the next pope will probably be just another Francis.
Time for a schism?
Precisely. “Pope” poofter has filled the Vatican with fellow travelers. The next “Pope” will be another communist queer only younger.
Revoke is Vatican Passport and ship his butt back to Rome.
And yet non-Catholics are regularly castigated here on FR for not putting themselves in subjection to that religious organization and presumes to call itself a church.
The 5yo future White Dudes for Harris are actually the ones bending over for youthful-thinking Bob McElroy.
Phooey!
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