When the newly elected Pope Francis decided in 2013 to live in different quarters than his immediate predecessors, it made for news headlines, but in Catholic Church history, popes, bishops, parish priests and members of religious communities sometimes choose to live in different residences than those whom they succeed in ministry.
That has certainly been true for the six archbishops of Washington during its 76-year history in the nation’s capital.
When Archbishop Michael Curley was named by Pope Pius XII as the first archbishop of the new Archdiocese of Washington in 1939, he continued to live in Baltimore, where he simultaneously continued to serve as archbishop of the nation’s first Catholic diocese, which had been founded in 1789. The Archdiocese of Washington at first only included the 64-square miles of the city of Washington.
After Archbishop Curley died in 1947, Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle was installed early the next year as Washington’s first resident archbishop, and the archdiocese was expanded to include the five surrounding Maryland counties. Archbishop O’Boyle – who immediately moved to integrate local Catholic parishes and schools and presided over a post-World War II building boom in the archdiocese – lived at the rectory of St. Patrick Parish in Washington until 1957. Named a cardinal in 1967, Cardinal O’Boyle resided in a donated home near St. Ann Parish in Washington until shortly before his death in 1987.
In 1973, Cardinal O’Boyle retired and was succeeded by as archbishop of Washington by Archbishop William Baum, a national leader in ecumenical and interfaith relations. Archbishop Baum initially lived at the rectory of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. After a controversy over the cost of a proposed residence in 1974, Archbishop Baum continued living at the cathedral, and later moved to a house in a neighborhood near Our Lady of Victory Parish in Washington. Named a cardinal in 1976, Cardinal Baum hosted Pope John Paul II’s visit to Washington in 1979, and one year later, he was named to head the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education. He later headed the Vatican office that deals with matters of conscience involving the sacraments. Cardinal Baum retired in 2001 and lived the last years of his life at the Jeanne Jugan Residence of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington, and he died on July 23 of this year.
After being installed as the archbishop of Washington in 1980, succeeding Cardinal Baum, Archbishop James Hickey initially lived in his predecessor’s former residence in Washington. Then in 1982, Archbishop Hickey moved the archdiocese’s administrative offices – and his own residence – to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Hyattsville, which had been the former seminary of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. Named a cardinal in 1988, Cardinal Hickey served as the archbishop of Washington for 20 years, and for nearly all of that time, he lived on the top floor of the Pastoral Center, and his residence included a small chapel adjoining his bedroom. Cardinal Hickey greatly expanded the archdiocese’s educational outreach and its service to the poor. Before his retirement in 2000, he moved to the former residence of Cardinal O’Boyle in Washington. In the last years of his life, Cardinal Hickey lived at the Jeanne Jugan Residence of the Little Sisters of the Poor, where he died in 2004.
Weeks after his installation as the new archbishop of Washington in 2001, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II. Known for championing the rights of the poor, immigrants and those who lack religious freedom, Cardinal McCarrick initially lived at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center, where he welcomed President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for dinner shortly after the new archbishop and the new president began their service in Washington. In 2002, Cardinal McCarrick moved to the top floor of the building in Washington that houses Our Lady, Queen of the Americas Parish, which serves Spanish-speaking Catholics in the nation’s capital. As archbishop of Washington, Cardinal McCarrick opened a new seminary, Redemptoris Mater, to educate diocesan missionary priests, and he launched the Forward in Faith capital campaign to help support the archdiocese’s future educational, vocations, parish and social service needs. Cardinal McCarrick retired in 2006 and moved to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. The archbishop emeritus of Washington now lives in a house with the priests of the Institute of the Incarnate Word at St. John Baptist de la Salle Parish in Chillum.
Since becoming the archbishop of Washington in 2006, Cardinal Donald Wuerl – who was named a cardinal in 2010 – has lived in the archbishop’s apartment established by Cardinal McCarrick in the former attic/storage space on the top floor of the building that since 1989 has served as the church and parish offices for Our Lady, Queen of the Americas Parish in the Kalorama section of Washington.
That building, constructed in 1908, served as an industrial school operated by the Daughters of Charity until 1946, when it housed St. Ann’s Infant Home until about 1960. The building then became the home of Cathedral Latin School, a high school seminary, for 10 years. From 1974-89, the building housed Mackin Catholic High School, which was later consolidated along with other high schools into the coeducational Archbishop Carroll High School. Since 1989, the building has primarily served as the church, offices and meeting rooms for educational and social service programs for Our Lady, Queen of the Americas Parish, with Cardinal Wuerl’s residence and chapel on the top floor.
Cardinal Wuerl, who hosted Pope Francis’s visit to Washington this fall and Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the nation’s capital in 2008, convoked the Archdiocesan Synod in 2014, which marked the archdiocese’s 75th anniversary with a broad-based consultative effort to chart a blueprint for the local Church’s future outreach. In 2011, Cardinal Wuerl opened a new archdiocesan seminary in Washington, named after St. John Paul II, who ordained him as a bishop in 1986 and whose priestly example continues to inspire the men training to be the next generation of the archdiocese’s priests.
