(This story has been updated with the date of the installation Mass for Cardinal Robert McElroy as the new archbishop of Washington.)
Pope Francis on Jan. 6, 2025 named Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Diego, as the new archbishop of Washington. As the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal McElroy succeeds Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who has served in that role since 2019. On Jan. 6, Pope Francis also accepted the resignation of Cardinal Gregory as the archbishop of Washington. As required by Church law, Cardinal Gregory had submitted his resignation to the pope two years ago after he turned 75 on Dec. 7, 2022.
The appointment and resignation were announced in Washington, D.C., by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. Cardinal McElroy will be installed as the eighth archbishop of Washington at an installation Mass on March 11 at 2 p.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Until his installation, Cardinal McElroy is the archbishop-elect of Washington, and Cardinal Gregory, who is now 77, will serve as the apostolic administrator of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, which includes 655,000 Catholics, 140 parishes and 90 Catholic schools located in Washington, D.C., and the five Maryland counties of Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.
Cardinal McElroy, a native of San Francisco who turns 71 on Feb. 5, 2025, was appointed as the sixth bishop of San Diego in 2015 by Pope Francis and was elevated to the College of Cardinals in 2022. Washington’s newly named archbishop is a scholar of American history, political science, and moral and pastoral theology. He is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. The Diocese of San Diego runs the length of California’s border with Mexico and includes 1,381,968 Catholics, 96 parishes and 48 schools in Imperial and San Diego counties.
Known as a progressive voice in the Catholic Church in the United States, Cardinal McElroy has spoken out on social justice issues including respecting the human dignity of the unborn and immigrants, and he has said nonviolence needs to be emphasized in the Church’s teaching on war and peace. He has stressed the importance of pastoral outreach to people with same-sex attraction and to divorced and remarried Catholics.
Cardinal McElroy was born in San Francisco on February 5, 1954, to Walter and Roberta McElroy. A fifth generation San Franciscan, Cardinal McElroy lived until he was 10 years old in Daly City, attending Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School. His family then moved to Burlingame, where he and his three sisters and brother attended and graduated from Our Lady of Angels School.
During his youth, Cardinal McElroy felt called to the Catholic priesthood. Subsequently, after eighth grade, he entered St. Joseph High School in Mountain View, which was the high school seminary of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Upon graduating, Robert McElroy was still committed to seeking a life in the priesthood but concluded that it would be best to pursue his vocation in a college outside the seminary system. Therefore in 1972, he entered Harvard College and graduated three years later with a bachelor’s degree in American history. He attended graduate school at Stanford University, and in 1976 he received a master’s degree in American history and in 1989 a doctorate in political science.
Reentering the seminary in the fall of 1976, he attended St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where he earned a master’s degree in Divinity in 1979. Father Robert McElroy was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco on April 12, 1980. His first assignment was St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco, which was the parish where both of his parents had grown up, attended grammar school, and were later married.
Then-Father McElroy earned a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley in 1985, and he went on to earn a doctorate in Moral Theology from The Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1987.
Cardinal McElroy has always regarded parish work as his first love. In 1989, he served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius Parish in Redwood City.
In 1995, San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn appointed then-Father McElroy as a vicar general of that archdiocese, a post he continued to hold under Cardinal William Levada, who succeeded Archbishop Quinn.
The following year, then-Father McElroy was made a prelate of honor by St. John Paul II, and Cardinal Levada appointed him as the pastor of St. Gregory Parish in San Mateo, where he served for more than 15 years.
Then-Msgr. McElroy was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of San Francisco by Pope Benedict XVI on July 6, 2010, and was ordained by Archbishop George Niederauer at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Sept. 7, 2010. He became the Archdiocesan Vicar for Parish Life and Development and served in that role until his appointment to be the sixth bishop of San Diego in March 2015.
Pope Francis appointed then-Bishop McElroy to the College of Cardinals on May 29, 2022. He was installed in a Consistory on Aug. 27 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy as the eighth archbishop of Washington on Jan. 6, 2025. Cardinal McElroy is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
Cardinal McElroy was chosen by Pope Francis to be among the bishops participating in the recent Synod on Synodality. As he ordained two new auxiliary bishops for San Diego in 2023, Cardinal McElroy said, “The whole of the Catholic community throughout the world is being called to a fundamental renewal. We are called to deepen our communion with one another, to broaden participation in the life of the Church, and to reclaim and reimagine that same mission which Christ gave to the disciples when he walked the earth.”
Cardinal Wilton Gregory served as the seventh archbishop of Washington from 2019-2025. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 9, 1973, and three years after his ordination, he began graduate studies at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant’ Anselmo) in Rome, where he earned his doctorate in Sacred Liturgy in 1980.
After having served as an associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Glenview, Illinois, as a member of the faculty of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein and as a master of ceremonies to Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin, then-Bishop Gregory was ordained as an auxiliary bishop of Chicago on Dec. 13, 1983. On Feb. 10, 1994, he was installed as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, where he served for the next 11 years.
On Dec. 9, 2004, Pope Saint John Paul II appointed then-Bishop Gregory as the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and he was installed on Jan. 17, 2005. Pope Francis appointed him as the seventh archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington on April 4, 2019. He was installed on May 21, 2019.
Cardinal Gregory was elevated by Pope Francis to the College of Cardinals in a Nov. 28, 2020 Consistory in Rome, making him the first African American cardinal in the Catholic Church.
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 the Catholic co-chair of the National Council of Synagogues consultation for The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and in July 2023, he was appointed by Pope Francis as a member for the Synod of Bishops on Synodality.
Cardinal Gregory has served in many leading roles in the Catholic Church in the United States. In November 2001, he was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops following three years as vice President under Bishop Joseph Fiorenza of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston. During his tenure in office, the crisis of sex abuse by Catholic clergy escalated; and under his leadership, the bishops implemented the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”
Cardinal Gregory has been awarded nine honorary doctoral degrees. He received the Great Preacher Award from Aquinas Institute of Theology in 2002; a Doctorate of Humanities from Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois (2002-2003); the Sword of Loyola from Loyola University of Chicago (2004); a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama (2005); a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio; a Doctorate of Humane Letters from McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois; a Doctorate of Humanities from Fontbonne University in St. Louis; an Honorary Law Degree from Notre Dame University (2012); and the Chicago Catholic Theological Union Honorary Doctorate (2013). In April 2023, Cardinal Gregory received The Lincoln Academy of Illinois – Order of Lincoln Award, the state’s highest honor for public service and professional achievement.
In 2006, Cardinal Gregory joined an illustrious group of preachers with his induction into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College, Atlanta. At the National Pastoral Life Center in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Gregory was honored with the Cardinal Bernardin Award given by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative (2006).
He has written extensively on church issues, including pastoral statements on the death penalty, social justice, and euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide. Cardinal Gregory has published numerous articles on the subject of liturgy, particularly in the African American community.
After Cardinal McElroy is installed as the new archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Gregory will be an archbishop emeritus of Washington. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who served as the sixth archbishop of Washington from 2006-2018, will remain as an archbishop emeritus of Washington.
