Pope names like-minded ally Cardinal McElroy as Washington archbishop

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Pope names like-minded ally Cardinal McElroy as Washington archbishop

2025-01-07 03:50 Last Updated At：04:02

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego as the archbishop of Washington, tapping one of his most progressively like-minded allies to head the Catholic Church in the U.S. capital at the start of Donald Trump's second administration.

At a press conference, McElroy said he prayed the incoming administration would work to make America a better place. But he also identified Trump's threats of mass deportations of immigrants as a point of potential conflict, saying such policies were “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

McElroy, 70, replaces the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who steps down after having navigated the archdiocese through the fallout of the 2018 eruption of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

The Vatican announced McElroy's new job on Monday, the Catholic feast of the Epiphany, in a bulletin that flagged another important appointment in Francis' reform agenda. The pope named Italian Sister Simona Brambilla the first-ever woman to head a Vatican dicastery, in this case the one responsible for religious orders.

Francis, who was elected pope on a mandate of reform, has long had his eye on McElroy, making him bishop of San Diego in 2015 and then elevating him as a cardinal in 2022.

McElroy has been one of a minority of U.S. bishops to harshly criticize the campaign to exclude Catholic politicians who support abortion rights from Communion, a campaign Francis has publicly criticized by insisting that bishops must be pastors, not politicians.

He has also questioned why the U.S. bishops’ conference, which has leaned conservative in its leadership, consistently insists on identifying abortion as its “preeminent” priority. McElroy has questioned why greater prominence is not given to issues such as racism, poverty, immigration and climate change.

He has also expressed support for LGBTQ+ youth and denounced the bullying often directed at them, further aligning himself with Francis’ priorities as pope.

“McElroy is competent, kind, empathetic, and willing to fight on the side of the vulnerable,” said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, chairperson of the religion and philosophy department at Manhattan University. She said his nomination was particularly timely given the polarization in the U.S.

“McElroy has experience leading a diocese marked by diversity and challenges, and I can’t think of a bigger challenge than to be so close to the seat of the U.S. government in 2025,” she said in an email.

McElroy, a graduate of Harvard University with a master's in history from Stanford University, is a native of San Francisco and had ministered there until Francis moved him to San Diego.

Vincent Miller, professor of theology at the University of Dayton, pointed to McElroy's writings on Christian nationalism and patriotism — in which he argued for a “morally sound and unitive" patriotism as opposed to an isolationist one — as particularly relevant today.

“McElroy is uniquely prepared for this moment,” Miller said in a social media post. “At a moment when constitutional democracy is in crisis in the US, on the anniversary of an insurrection that sought to undermine it, Francis has moved one of his most capable and uniquely qualified bishops into position to respond to the needs of this moment.”

McElroy’s appointment to Washington comes just a few weeks after Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, nominated Brian Burch as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Burch, president and co-founder of the advocacy group CatholicVote, has criticized Francis and some of his policies, including his emphasis on “synodality” or making the church a more inclusive place.

McElroy, who was a papal nominee to the Vatican's big synod process, made clear Monday that he was fully on board with Francis' vision of a church that doesn't discriminate. Speaking in Spanish to address Washington's sizeable Latino community, McElroy cited Francis' famous line “todos, todos, todos,” to emphasize that everyone is welcome in the church, no one excluded.

He did, though, acknowledge likely points of disagreement with the incoming Trump administration. Climate change, he said, was “one of the greatest challenges” facing the world, while immigration would likely be a source of conflict if the administration fulfills its threat of mass deportations of migrants.

“The Catholic Church teaches that a country has the right to control the borders, and our nation’s desire to do that is a legitimate effort," he said. "At the same time, we are called always to have the sense of the dignity of every human person, and thus plans which have been talked about on some level of having a wider indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

The Archdiocese of Washington includes the District of Columbia and the Maryland counties of Montgomery, Prince George’s, St. Mary’s, Calvert and Charles. It has a total population of 3,050,847, of whom 671,187 are Catholic.

Its outgoing archbishop, Gregory, took over in 2019 at a time of turmoil for one of the nation's most important archdioceses. Its two previous leaders, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, were caught up in a new wave of the long-running clerical sexual abuse scandal.

Wuerl stepped down after he lost the trust of his priests, and McCarrick was defrocked after a Vatican investigation found he abused adults as well as minors.

Francis not only tapped Gregory to lead but then made him a prince of the church in 2020, making him the first Black American cardinal in the process.

McElroy was indirectly tainted by the McCarrick scandal after revelations that a whistleblower had told him in 2016 that McCarrick slept with seminarians. McElroy acknowledged having received the report but said the whistleblower refused to provide him with corroborating evidence.

Bishop Joseph Strickland, an arch-conservative whom Francis ousted as bishop of Tyler, Texas last year, cited the McCarrick connection in strongly criticizing Monday's appointment.

"The blatant corruption of Pope Francis and the US Cardinals is on full display with the appointment of a McCarrick clone to the same archdiocese where his evil reigned twenty years ago," Strickland tweeted.

The Archdiocese of Washington is home to The Catholic University of America, which is run by the church and is viewed as more conservative than many other Catholic universities in the U.S. run by the Jesuits.

The dean of CUA’s school of theology and religious studies, Professor Joseph Capizzi, said he looked forward to working with McElroy.

“I hope he becomes engaged,” Capizzi said. “I hope we can influence him and he can influence us.”

David Crary contributed from New York.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The polar vortex brings its bitter cold to the Southern US

2025-01-08 01:58 Last Updated At：02:02

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The plunging polar vortex brought subfreezing temperatures Tuesday to some of the southernmost points of the U.S., threatening to dump snow on parts of Texas and Oklahoma in the coming days and contributing to a power outage in Virginia's capital that made the water unsafe to drink.

The arctic blast that descended on much of the U.S. east of the Rockies over the weekend has caused hundreds of car accidents, thousands of flight cancellations and delays, and led communities to set up warming shelters, including one at a roller rink.

As the cold front moved southward Tuesday, it prompted a cold weather advisory for the Gulf Coast and pushed the low temperature in El Paso, along Texas' border with Mexico, to 31 degrees (minus 0.5 Celsius), with an expected wind chill factor ranging from 0 to 15 degrees (minus 18 to minus 9 Celsius) early Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Road crews in the Kansas City area, which has received about 11 inches (28 centimeters) of snow in recent days, have struggled to keep up with clearing the area's streets and highways.

“I don’t know what super powers some think snow removal teams have but 2 days of straight snow & ice isn’t going to disappear overnight,” the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, wrote Monday in a Facebook post.

In frigid northern Virginia, Carol Grayson wished she had a metal shovel — not her plastic one — as she tried to carve a path for her beagle, Rudy, sheltie, Emma, on Monday.

The great grandmother, who declined to give her age, said shoveling through nearly frozen snow that went up to her knees was “like climbing Mount Everest.” Her neighborhood in Alexandria was once populated with teenagers who’d offer to help. But they’ve all grown up and moved away.

“We’re not used to it here, and we’re just not prepared,” Grayson said.

As points in the Midwest, north and east dug their way out of snow and ice on Tuesday, communities in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were preparing for their own helping. A low-pressure system was expected to form as soon as Wednesday near South Texas, which could bring several inches of snow to the Dallas area and the lower Mississippi Valley, the weather service said.

In Texas, crews treated the roads in the Dallas area in anticipation of a storm that was expected to bring up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow on Thursday. As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) was expected farther north, near the Oklahoma border, said weather service meteorologist Sarah Barnes.

The storm is expected to make for slick roads Friday as 75,000 fans head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington to watch Texas play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington officials said Tuesday that crews had started treating bridges and overpasses, and would have salt, sand and equipment on standby near the stadium.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes plunges south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some experts say such cold air outbreaks are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world.

The eastern two-thirds of the U.S. were dealt another day of colder-than-usual temperatures. And the snow and ice in the central Plains through the Ohio Valley into the Atlantic is likely to linger for a few days, which will mean opportunities for constant refreezing and black ice. That could create treacherous road conditions.

A Kentucky truck stop was jammed Monday with big rigs forced off an icy and snow-covered Interstate 75 just outside Cincinnati. Michael Taylor, a long-haul driver from Los Angeles carrying a load of rugs to Georgia, said he saw numerous cars and trucks stuck in ditches and was dealing with icy windshield wipers before he pulled off the interstate.

“It was too dangerous. I didn’t want to kill myself or anyone else,” he said.

Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky, where a state trooper was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after his patrol car was hit.

Virginia State Police responded to 650 crashes, some of which were likely storm related, between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, including one that was fatal. Police said other weather-related fatal accidents occurred Sunday near Charleston, West Virginia, and Monday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kansas had two deadly crashes over the weekend.

More than 1,000 flights into or out of the U.S. were already delayed Tuesday morning, according to tracking platform FlightAware. More than 2,300 flights were canceled Monday and at least 9,100 more were delayed nationwide.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport reported that about 58% of arrivals and 70% of departures had been canceled. The airport announced early Tuesday that it had reopened all runways after closing them Monday evening so airport crews could focus on snow removal and prevent refreezing on the airfield.

Many were in the dark as temperatures plunged. About 200,000 customers were without power Tuesday across Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Illinois and Missouri, according to electric utility tracking website PowerOutage.us.

In Virginia’s capital city, Richmond, a weather-related power outage caused a temporary malfunction in the water system, officials said Monday. The city issued a boil-water advisory to its more than 200,000 residents and promised to get the system back online as quickly as possible. The advisory could be lifted as soon as Wednesday, Mayor Danny Avula said at a news conference.

The malfunction forced Virginia’s Capitol and General Assembly buildings to close Tuesday, a day before the start of the legislative session.

G. Paul Nardo, clerk for the House of Delegates, told lawmakers and staff in a Tuesday email to vacate the buildings or find somewhere else to go if they were headed to the capital.

“The water pressure has gone kaput,” he wrote.

Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, Julie Walker in New York; Joshua A. Bickel in Cincinnati; Jamie Stengle in Dallas; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Read more of the AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment