Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy, a vocal defender of migrants and critic of Donald Trump’s first administration, as the next archbishop of Washington, DC.
Cardinal McElroy, 70, is a strong supporter of Francis’ priorities on refugees, the environment and welcoming LGBTQ Catholics. He will succeed Cardinal Wilton Gregory, 77, who was the first African-American Archbishop of Washington, DC.
Francis also appointed on Monday the first female leader of a Vatican department. Sister Simona Brambilla will become prefect of the Holy See’s religious life office, which has responsibility for nuns, monks and friars.
Early in Trump’s first term, then-Bishop McElroy gave a speech in Modesto, California, specifically referencing Trump and urging Catholics to become “disruptors” of the anti-immigrant agenda.
“We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need,” he said.
And after Trump’s first election victory in 2016, McElroy lamented “a profound sickness in the soul in American political life” and that it would be “unthinkable” for Catholics to “stand by while more than ten percent of our flock is ripped from our midst and deported.”
The appointment of McElroy sends a signal about how Pope Francis and the Vatican plan to navigate a second Trump administration and follows Trump’s decision to nominate a critic of Francis as his Vatican ambassador. The pope also is due to have a farewell meeting with President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic who had a warm rapport with Francis, on Friday.
McElroy, who holds a doctorate in political science from Stanford University along with a doctorate in theology from a Roman university, can be relied on by the pope to articulate Catholic teaching on matters such as migration and protection of the most vulnerable in society.
More female leaders
Brambilla, who is from Monza, northern Italy, qualified as a nurse before entering her religious community, has a doctorate in psychology and has worked as a missionary in Mozambique. She has until now been serving as the number two at the Vatican office that she will now lead. The pope also appointed a cardinal, Ángel Fernández Artime, as “pro-prefect” of the department, who will work with Brambilla.
During his pontificate, Francis has sought to appoint more female leaders inside the church’s central administration, although there have been calls for him to go further with the role of women in the church becoming an urgent topic of discussion.
According to the Vatican, from 2013 to 2023 the percentage of women working for the Holy See and Vatican City State rose from 19.2% to 23.4%.