Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the seventh archbishop of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington from 2019 until January 2025, is now the apostolic administrator of the archdiocese.
He will continue in that capacity until the March 11 installation of Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego as the new archbishop of Washington. After that, Cardinal Gregory will be an archbishop emeritus of Washington.
Wilton Daniel Gregory was born in Chicago on Dec. 7, 1947 to Wilton and Ethel Duncan Gregory. He has two sisters. While attending St. Carthage Catholic School, he converted to Catholicism. He attended the Quigley Preparatory Seminary South High School; Niles College Seminary of Loyola University; and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary.
He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1973, and three years later began graduate studies at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant’ Anselmo) in Rome. There, he earned his Doctorate in Sacred Liturgy in 1980.
Prior to being named an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1983, he held a variety of posts in that archdiocese, including associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Glenview, Illinois; faculty member at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois; and as a master of ceremonies for Cardinal John Cody and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
In 1994, he was named the seventh Bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, a post in which he served for 11 years. In 1998, then-Bishop Gregory was elected as vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 2001, he was elected president of the USCCB, the first African American prelate to hold that post.
During his tenure, he oversaw the USCCB’s issuing of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Sometimes referred to as the Dallas Charter, it pledged a zero tolerance for sexual abuse and established procedures for handling sex-abuse allegations.
In January 2005, then-Bishop Gregory was installed as the sixth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. In 2006, he was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta. That same year, the Catholic Common Ground Initiative awarded him the Cardinal Bernardin Award.
On April 4, 2019, Pope Francis appointed him to be the seventh Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. He was installed on May 21, 2019. As archbishop of Washington, he also served as chancellor of The Catholic University of America and chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
On Nov. 28, 2020, Pope Francis elevated then-Archbishop Gregory to the College of Cardinals. He became the first African American to be so honored.
In January 2021, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Cardinal Gregory offered the invocation at a memorial service to honor and remember the more than 400,000 Americans who had succumbed to COVID-19 by that point.
Cardinal Gregory has been awarded nine honorary doctoral degrees. He received the Great Preacher Award from Aquinas Institute of Theology; a Doctorate of Humanities from Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois; Sword of Loyola from Loyola University of Chicago; Doctorate of Humane Letters from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama; Doctorate of Humane Letters from Xavier University in Cincinnati; Doctorate of Humane Letters from McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois; Doctorate of Humanities from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri; an Honorary Law Degree from Notre Dame University; and the Chicago Catholic Theological Union Honorary Doctorate.
In April 2023, Cardinal Gregory received The Lincoln Academy of Illinois – Order of Lincoln Award, that state’s highest honor for public service and professional achievement.
Cardinal Gregory currently serves as a member of the Vatican Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life and on the Board of Trustees for The Papal Foundation. He is also the Catholic co-chair of the National Council of Synagogues consultation for the USCCB and in 2023 was appointed by Pope Francis as a member for the Synod of Bishops on Synodality.
He has written extensively on church issues, including pastoral statements on the death penalty, social justice, and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Cardinal Gregory has published numerous articles on the subject of liturgy, particularly in the African American community.
