Cardinal Robert McElroy steps onto Washington 'tightrope' as new archbishop

He called on the church in Washington to reject seeing those we disagree with as enemies and offer the world the vision God offers: to see others as "beloved children, brothers and sisters."

The local church in Washington is like the battlefield Pope Francis describes in his analogy of a field hospital, one where "all of us are wounded, all of us are in pain, all of us sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness," McElroy said, adding "that the church sins, and is in need of healing, especially in failure of protecting the young from sexual abuse."

It's an experience the archdiocese knows well as its former archbishop, Theodore McCarrick, was laicized in 2019 following credible accusations that he sexually abused minors and engaged in sexual misconduct with male seminarians before arriving in Washington. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, McElroy's predecessor, participated in the creation of a set of norms to help the church handle sexual abuse allegations, known as the Dallas Charter, but McCarrick's shadow still looms.

Outside the basilica, a group of about 12 women and men, who have voiced opposition to McElroy and others in the church, protested. Most Mass-goers walked past them quietly.

McElroy, 71,  steps into an angst-filled archdiocese of more than 667,000, where Catholics have been among the estimated 100,000 federal workers who have taken a buyout or been fired since President Donald Trump allowed billionaire Elon Musk to slash the government's workforce in February. More cuts are expected. 

Parish halls in the archdiocese have been filled with those trying to help some of the unemployed revamp their resumes or cope with the anxiety and stress that job and income loss has produced. But they've also welcomed migrants and their families, scared of the government's deportation threats, trying to find out information about their rights. 

Many of the archdiocese's Catholic communities "are worried about their parishioners," said Darlene Jackson after Mass March 9 at St. Augustine Catholic Church, billed as the "Mother Church of Black Catholics" in Washington. 

"Challenges around federal employment and immigration are two big issues" the archdiocesan population is facing, Jackson told the National Catholic Reporter. Referring to Washington's new archbishop, two days before his installation, she said: "I know he has a great background in working with immigrants and just [in] church inclusivity as a whole. So, I hope that remains the case here in Washington."

It may prove to be a challenge with a president who, in his first day in office, said inclusion programs were "discriminatory," and whose U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia recently threatened Georgetown University Law School, a private Catholic institution, saying it would not hire its students unless the school ditched its inclusion programs. 

On a good day, anyone who takes up the mantle of archbishop of Washington, close to the seat of world power, walks "a tightrope," said Jackson. 

But perhaps one of his last acts as San Diego archbishop, McElroy's last post, may provide a glimpse of what's to expect from the cardinal. 

St. Joseph Sr. Suzanne Jabro, who works with migrants and refugees in Southern California through her Border Compassion ministry, told NCR she won't forget how the cardinal rallied and lifted the spirits of the Catholic community Feb. 9 in San Diego. As about 1,200 gathered at St. Joseph Cathedral, some feeling fear, sadness or helplessness over deportation threats, McElroy made his message to Catholics clear: "We cannot stand silent."

"It was so moving," she said. "You go to something and your soul is fed with real food. I said 'this is where I need to be.' " 

McElroy carries with him labels that can be taken as good or bad, depending on the personal political prism Catholics use: progressive, defender, smart, vocal, provocative. 

But there's a simpler word for him, said Fr. Bernardo Lara, who worked with the prelate during his 10 years in San Diego. 

"He's very sincere," he told NCR on March 7. "And it's founded in the Gospel. It's against human injustice and in the support of humanity based on the Gospel. He has to preach the Gospel, no?" 

McElroy doesn't preach the word of God by quoting biblical verses but by Christianity's trademark custom of leaving no one behind, expanding the circle of the community by bringing in those at the margins of society and trying to integrate them, Lara said. 

Besides migrants and the poor, he's also known for his defense of LGBTQ+ communities, but he also has criticized the "poison" of division that has "entered destructively into the life of the church." A "false divide" separates pro-life communities from justice and peace communities, "Pope Francis Catholics" and "St. John Paul II Catholics," he has written. 

Lara said McElroy has been like a father, an example for pastors for how to tend to increasingly diverse flocks, but his new post is one that goes beyond the boundaries of a diocese, Lara said.

"It's bittersweet," Lara said. "It always was a blessing to have had him [in San Diego] and obviously, it hurts. … But, at the same time, we know he will have a voice that will resound a little stronger and one we want to resound in favor of building a more fraternal world, where there's a seat at the table for the poor, and for those on the margins."