The news that Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego has been named a cardinal is thrilling. The first American to be named a cardinal who was not already an archbishop or a top Vatican official, McElroy has long been recognized as the leading intellectual among the U.S. bishops. He is America’s Newman.
St. John Henry Newman was the Anglican clergyman and Oxford don turned Catholic priest, who emerged as the leading 19th Century theologian of the English-speaking world. He earned many enemies along the way, but Pope Leo XIII recognized his wisdom and named him a cardinal in 1879. His writings were seen as a precursor to the Second Vatican Council just as McElroy’s writings are seen by some as among the finest applications of the teachings of that same council.
NCR has a long association with McElroy. Back in 2010, NCR’s Tom Roberts ran the first national profile of McElroy when he was named an auxiliary bishop of his home city, San Francisco. He has written for us many times, including what remains the best article on synodality from a U.S. bishop to be published to date.
Understandably, I am very excited by the announcement and extend the new cardinal my best wishes.
One wonders if the official U.S. delegation to the August consistory where McElroy will receive his red might be led by a prominent Catholic who is also from San Francisco: Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What an exciting thought. I wonder if San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s ban on Pelosi receiving communion extends to the Diocese of Rome?
There will be some gnashing of teeth in certain conservative circles to be sure. Michael Warsaw, CEO at EWTN, published an article at the National Catholic Register two days before the announcement, entitled, “A New Era?” Warsaw pointed to Cordileone’s action against Pelosi. Right meme; wrong application. It is the McElroy appointment that signals a new era.
A protégé of the late San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, McElroy carries on Quinn’s example of civic engagement by means of intellectual engagement. Very few bishops have the theological depth or range that McElroy brings to virtually any topic. Like Quinn, he is a churchman who sees past and through the often small and sterile public debates of the day to the core values and foundational principles at stake. From heaven, I think Quinn is smiling broadly at this news.
McElroy was on the receiving end of what I considered the most ill-mannered conduct by a president of the U.S. bishops’ conference in my many years of attending their meetings. In 2015, during the debate on the bishops’ document on voting, Faithful Citizenship, McElroy made a powerful intervention calling for the bishops to scrap the text and start over. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, then the conference vice president, replied brusquely to McElroy, commenting on the latter’s “rhetorical flourishes” as if rhetoric was the heart of the matter. It was appalling. I wonder what DiNardo thought of the news McElroy will be joining him in the College of Cardinals?
I wonder, too, what Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, the current president of the conference, thinks of the news. The Holy Father has sent an unmistakable sign: Gomez leads the largest archdiocese in the country, he is the president of the conference, and he is McElroy’s Metropolitan Archbishop. Instead of leading the conference in a new direction of unified leadership behind Pope Francis, he joined up with the Napa Institute crowd. By naming one of Gomez’s suffragans as cardinal, and not Gomez himself, the pope has rendered an unmistakable sign of the kind of episcopal leadership he is seeking. An unmistakable sign.
There will be plenty of time to reflect on what this means for the U.S. church going forward. Some wondered if this news means McElroy will be transferred to an archbishopric, but I doubt it, at least not right away. The elevation of Cardinal Joseph Tobin to the archdiocese of Newark shortly after he was named a cardinal in 2015 was different: Tobin’s name was already being considered for Newark when the pope named him a cardinal. Besides, the U.S. church needs a cardinal on the West coast.
What we can say is this: Cardinal-designate McElroy has long been seen as the intellectual leader of those bishops most closely aligned with Francis, and the pope has confirmed that assessment. Like Newman, he knows the Catholic tradition in detail and applies it with dexterity and fidelity, and he is unafraid of new challenges. It is a thrilling day for the church in the United States. Thrilling.
The above was published in the May 29 National Catholic Reporter.
The National Catholic Reporter would be thrilled if the Catholic Church publicly renounced the Catholic Faith. They want us to be like woke Episcopalians (whose churches are dying), except that they want the money, prestige, reputation and historicity of the Catholic Church. Also, they want many Catholics’ loyalty to the Catholic Church to cause them to continue to contribute financially and in other ways to their efforts and hope they don’t notice that they’re taking the Church in an apostate direction.
Of course, they won’t ultimately succeed. The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus and is His bride. We may look quite different in the future (as Pope Benedict and others have noted). Yet, the Church will be here until the Lord returns. Stay on board everyone! Just hold on for what might be a rough ride.
“Like Newman, he knows the Catholic tradition in detail and applies it with dexterity and fidelity, and he is unafraid of new challenges.” To mention McElroy in the same breath as Newman is beyond reason. McElroy does know the traditions of the Church and despises them.
Such a joke, starting with Nighty Night Tobin all the way to the newest homosexualist Cardinal-designate, these men should be asked explicitly if they are gay or not, since it apparently makes no difference
To the contrary, it makes all the difference. Connect the rainbow-colored dots. You’ll understand.
I find Mr. Michael Sean Winters, of the Condemned National Catholic Reporter, to be a Boring Liberal Dissident.
So, it’s no wonder that Mr. Winters is thrilled that that San Diego, Bishop Robert McElroy, is to be a Cardinal this coming August.
AS for the National Catholic Reporter, it was Condemned in 1968. Then Bishop, Charles H. Helmsing, of Kansas City, Missouri Condemned NCR and Demanded that NCR remove the word Catholic from their name. Here it is 54 years later, and NCR has not complied.
DET JOHN: The National Catholic Reporter is a privately owned newspaper. It can call itself anything it wants regardless of what a Bishop orders.
“It can call itself anything it wants regardless of what a Bishop orders.” A newspaper with “Catholic” in its title presumably is, well, Catholic. That’s what those pastors across the country who stand as one with Winters believe by putting it in their parishes. What a melancholy situation we have when there is uncertainty as to the meaning of the word “Catholic.”
Welcome to America and the U S Constitution which guarantees the freedom of the press!
Unless you say something the Left does not like
“One wonders if the official U.S. delegation to the August consistory where McElroy will receive his red might be led by a prominent Catholic who is also from San Francisco: Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What an exciting thought.” It is understandable to me that a man like Winters would hold Catholic morals in such contempt as to throw down the gauntlet at A. Cordileone’s feet. I wonder how many bishops would, if given the chance, do the same. I am beginning to wonder if the only winners in all this are Pelosi and Biden, protected by all those friendly to the National Catholic Reporter.
The National Catholic Distorter.
Odd, but not surprising a progressive Catholic considers this ‘thrilling’. Progressives, almost by definition exist in a bias confirming, mutual admiration society bubble outside of which they have no awareness whatever. Progressive Christianity is in it’s agonal breathing stage. Their press is shored up by non-Christian money sources and progressive ecclesial communities are slowly but surely being cremated and scattered on beaches somewhere. I take no pleasure in any of this, but the faithful remnants of authentic Catholicism are thriving. But don’t look for them in California or the East Coast. They’re in ‘fly over’ country where abortion is going to be illegal and then you’ll really see the Church flourish.
“But don’t look for them in California or the East Coast.” This is not completely accurate, there are more than 5 parishes near me that offer the traditional mass/sacraments. We may be well behind enemy lines but we are here.
Reagan1: please cite a public statement by Bishop McElroy in which he advocates abortion. I searched the internet and could not find one.
McElroy supports abortion. That is a mortal sin. He should not be promoted to cardinal. Indeed, he must either confess his sins or be excommunicated.
Comparing Bishop McElroy to St. John Henry Cardinal Newman? More progressive craziness from NCR… and the Pope too.
One of the rewards of being a pro-abortion, pro-adultery, pro-sodomy bishop is getting slobbered on by M.S Winters.
Can’t wait to read what NCR has planned now that we are entering the High Holy Month of Pride.
Maybe they’ll focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus (as is usually done in June).
Let’s see “Pride” or love, humility, truth and true compassion?
Michael Sean Winters atop a Gay Pride float, decked out in a pink gown, pink cloche hat and pink satin slippers. Or is that too tame for him?
William Robert. What you said is true — but — NCR is condemned nonetheless.
So, is the editorial staff of NCR “thrilled” that McElroy covered-up the horrific sexual sins of notorious Theodore McCarrick, and refused to see or speak with psychotherapist Richard Sipe, who tried repeatedly to report McCarrick’s crimes, based on Sipe’s numerous interviews with sex abuse victims of McCarrick? And where is the sincere “pastoral” concern of the Catholic Church, for these poor, suffering victims of clerical sex abuse crimes?