The appointment of Robert W. McElroy is a signal of the pope’s priorities, two weeks before Donald J. Trump’s term begins.
Pope Francis on Monday named Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, bishop of San Diego, to be the next Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, moving one of his most vocal allies on immigration to one of the most prominent posts in the American church.
The move, announced in the Vatican’s daily bulletin, comes at a critical moment two weeks before President-elect Donald J. Trump is inaugurated and signals that Pope Francis is establishing his own priorities in the face of the incoming administration. Many powerful American Catholics, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have aligned themselves with Mr. Trump’s efforts against immigration and abortion.
Cardinal McElroy, 70, is a longtime supporter of the pope’s pastoral agenda, and is known for regularly speaking out on the inclusion of migrants, women and L.G.B.T.Q. people in the Catholic church and in the United States.
He will succeed Cardinal Wilton Gregory, 77, the first African-American to be made a cardinal, a member of the church’s highest governing body.
At a news conference at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington on Monday morning, Cardinal McElroy directly addressed Mr. Trump’s immigration proposals, stating that plans for a “wider, indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country” would be “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”
While the Catholic church teaches that a country has the right to control its borders, it also centers the “dignity of every human person,” he said.