Hours after Pope Francis made the announcement to a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, pastors here shared the epic news with the faithful at Sunday Masses: the Holy Father had elevated their bishop to a cardinal, a first for the Diocese of San Diego.
“Normally, dioceses don’t have cardinals, usually it’s archdioceses that have them,” Father Efraín Bautista explained at the start of the 11 a.m. Mass at Corpus Christi Church in Bonita. “But the Holy Father has given us a beautiful gift.”
At the conclusion of his regular Sunday audience, Pope Francis had announced 21 new cardinals, with San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy the only one tapped from the United States.
Pope Francis will install Cardinal-designate McElroy, 68, to his new rank in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Aug. 27. As a member of the College of Cardinals, he will be able to vote for the next pope.
Those who have known him for any length of time said “Father Bob,” as one once called him, had always displayed remarkable gifts of wisdom, compassion and a pastoral zeal, and was perfectly suited to serve alongside the Pope.
In a statement, the Cardinal-designate said he was “stunned and deeply surprised” by his selection. He received the news in a 3 a.m. telephone call from Rome on Sunday morning.
“My prayer is that in this ministry I might be of additional service to the God who has graced me on so many levels in my life. And I pray also that I can assist the Holy Father in his pastoral renewal of the Church,” he said.
“In this moment, I give thanks for those who have contributed profoundly to my life and priesthood: my family, the priests and women religious who helped to form me, and the Catholic community of San Diego and Imperial Counties, whom it is my privilege to lead.”
The Cardinal-designate has led the diocese since 2015. Previously, he served first as a priest and then as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, where he grew up.
That’s where Father John Hurley, CSP, met him some 31 years ago when Hurley was appointed as pastor of historic Old St. Mary’s Cathedral. He and Father McElroy would meet regularly for the next six years, developing a close friendship.
Eight years ago, Pope Francis challenged bishops across the world to reimagine and re-energize their work with families. In response, Bishop McElroy, now leading the San Diego Diocese, convened a “synod” to consult members of the Catholic community about how to better engage and serve the wide variety of families that live in the region.
The bishop tapped Father Hurley to coordinate the synod, called “Embracing the Joy of Love.” He was leading an initiative at the time for the Paulists to develop new strategies for evangelization.
“It was a joyful experience for me to collaborate with a long-time friend,” Father Hurley recalled.
In a characteristic that defines his diocesan leadership, Bishop McElroy pledged to implement the recommendations the community members made in the synod. As a result, the diocese launched a new department, the Office for Family Life and Spirituality, to meet the wide variety of needs of the newly engaged, married couples and families living in the region.
Three years later, Bishop McElroy asked him to lead a second synod, this one focused on better engaging young adults in the diocese. The recommendations the young adult participants made are being implemented at the diocese now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
Both experiences allowed Father Hurley the opportunity to “encounter on many occasions (Bishop’s) pastoral way to embrace the challenges the faithful experience,” he said.
Bishop McElroy’s appointment as a cardinal “not only gives me hope for the Church as he will continue to be a close advisor to the Successor of Peter, Pope Francis, it gives me much hope as a priest. Hope in the midst of division on so many issues in our country and in our Church… He is a wise and learned man of faith and has the heart of a true shepherd!”
San Diego Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan remembers that he first met “Father Bob” McElroy in the late 1980s, also in the Bay Area, at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park. He was then a theology student and Father McElroy lived at the seminary while completing his PhD in political science at Stanford.
“It was very clear to me that this very intelligent man was showing the church how to be pastoral,” Bishop Dolan recalled. “When he became Bishop of San Diego, I was pleased to see that his pastoral zeal had not changed but was even more focused.”
Bishop Dolan said that the Holy Father “has selected a shepherd after his own heart. The Gospel of accompaniment proclaimed by Pope Francis has reached our diocese through the life and ministry of Cardinal-designate McElroy.”
Indeed, he has been one of the greatest champions of Pope Francis’s vision for the Church among bishops in the U.S., particularly on such issues as the protection of the environment, immigration and social justice.
He’s supported the Pope’s simple call for the church hierarchy at all levels to listen to diverse voices at the grassroot level and allow them to have a role in the life of the Church.
Father Emmet Farrell said he was “almost expecting” for Bishop McElroy to be named to a top Vatican post, given “his unwavering support for Pope Francis’s pastoral approach.”
Father Farrell leads the diocese’s Care for Creation ministry, which encourages parishes and schools to do whatever they can to protect the environment. This is an issue that Bishop McElroy has strongly supported at the local, national and international level.
“Bishop McElroy has given clear and strong support for our Creation Care Ministry, even when many cling to a position of indifference at a time of extreme crisis,” he said.
Father Michael Pham has known Bishop McElroy since he paid a pastoral visit in 2015 to St. Therese Parish, in San Carlos, where he served. Bishop tapped him to serve in various committees and then appointed him Vicar General, leader of the diocese’s Office for Ethnic and Intercultural Communities.
He, too, said the Cardinal-designate is gifted, both intellectually and pastorally, to serve the Church on the universal stage. Father Pham called Bishop McElroy’s knowledge of the Church and its structure “truly remarkable.”
“He is a deep thinker and very wise in his decision-making,” Father Pham said. “He is very caring and mindful of the needs of all peoples and cultures. I am very blessed to watch him in action and to learn from him.
“Our diocese is truly blessed to have such a great leader to guide our church.”
The world stage that is the Vatican was on the mind of the diocese’s Chancellor, “Marioly” Galván. She said Cardinal-designate McElroy will be able to raise the pastoral needs of the local church to Pope Francis, other cardinals and the Roman curia.
The diocese is currently consulting its faithful in San Diego and Imperial Counties to identify those needs in the latest synod, which “is close to Cardinal-designate McElroy’s heart.” She noted that he has once more pledged to implement its recommendations to strengthen the voice of the faithful at all levels of the diocese.
Back at Corpus Christi Church, Father Bautista asked the Mass-goers to pray for their shepherd.
“We have to entrust our Cardinal-designate to the mercy and love of our heavenly Father,” the pastor said. “That’s the responsibility of each of us as members of his flock. We have to ask our Lord to guide him in this new work that he has been called to do.”
The above comes from a May 30 story in the Southern Cross.
The word “pastoral” is much misused and much misunderstood. “Pastoral” ministry can never lead people away from the truth of the Gospel nor encourage people to continue sinning.
“Being pastoral” is currently used as an attempt to justify disregarding or violating Church doctrine. It’s all in vogue among the Catholic left.
Examples: It’s pastoral for priests to bless gay marriages. It’s pastoral to allow gay-married church employees to keep their jobs. It’s pastoral to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics without annulments to receive Communion. It’s pastoral to not withhold Communion from obstinately manifest grave sinners. It’s pastoral to avoid preaching about sin in homilies. And so on.
There is such a thing as authentic pastoral ministry and being authentically pastoral. McElroy is not an example of it.
A good shepherd leads the flock to safe, green pasture. John Paul II taught that revelation is needed to guide human decisions in choices of right and wrong. Even Adam and Eve needed guidance in choice- making and received it in the warning to steer clear of a certain alluring tree. the serpent pastored them out of the garden. Leading is not enough. Fidelity to the revealed Word is the sine qua non or there is no ” joy of love”
Bishop/Cardinal Bob Boomer, out of touch, overeducated, scavenging the remains of the “church of nice,” epitome of the boomer priest and the boomer Catholics who failed to pass down the faith to their own children but have the nerve to tell the rest of us how the future of the Church should look like
I recommend not reading Cal Catholic Daily shortly before or after a meal.
It is not conducive to normal peristalsis. That said, some stories are effective alternatives to ipecac or Dulcolax.
Sometimes the truth hurts. Thanks, Cal Catholic. I guess it beats ignorance or denial.
Saint Erasmus (Elmo) pray for us.
As a lowly lay person I feel impaled. I’m not looking for a super right wing cardinal. I do want someone who will stand up to the political machine here in the United States. In particular the Democratic Party that promotes abortion, birth control, and could care less about the sovereignty of the United States. When I think about the environment, I think about the 10 Commandments. We really should be promoting the 10 Commandments. For instants, the third commandment. There’s 52 weeks in a year. That’s 52 days that we keep the sabbath holy. We don’t work on the sabbath, we don’t shop on the sabbath. That’s about a month and a half for the earth to rest. Certainly that would repair a lot of environmental damage that’s done. It would also alleviate a tremendous amount of stress on people and help their mental health. The commandments are more relevant than we dare think. There’s more wisdom in these antiquated words than we realize. Get a grip teach the truth and stop murdering babies.
The above photo of Bishop McElroy is strikingly unmanly. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with our Church’s leadership: it is overflowing with effeminate and effete clerics.
McElroy “hailed as wise shepherd.”
I’ll go as far as “wise guy”
he’s a hireling – don’t besmirch
the good name of shepherds.
This article sickened me. Many of McElroy’s clerical pals are a danger to the true, authentic Catholic teaching, including many Paulist Fathers, such as Hurley. Hurley wrecked his beautiful, famous old parish, Old St. Mary’s — designated as a historical landmark– and many who had grown up in that parish who were middle-aged and elderly, were forced to leave, due to Hurley. He destroyed everything excellent that many of us were involved in. He shooed a group of us ladies out of the church one afternoon, ridiculing us for quietly holding our Rosary group– and told us that Rosaries are “taboo” for Vatican II– and we had better become “feminists.” And he destroyed our fine, semi-professional Catholic choir, and fired everyone. He hired an uneducated folk music guy as a replacement. He also championed gay unions, and hired gay couples, too. Bing Crosby recorded a famous “pop” song about Old St. Mary’s in the 1940s, long before the time of Fr. Hurley– and made a famous appearance there, singing, shortly before his death– very nostalgic.
What a sad story. “Rosaries are “taboo” for Vatican II” reminds me that much later at another church in Marin, we had to beg for one hour of Adoration on the First Friday of the month. After Mass, the pastor would expose the Eucharist. We could set our clocks by Fr.’s reappearance one hour later to “put that Monstrance away”. How did rosaries and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament become passé?
I’m now in San Diego and McElroy is opposed to the Tabernacle being placed behind the altar; closed our churches during Covid; opposed to receiving Communion on the tongue; tried his best to eliminate Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament during Covid; came all but short of mandating the jab.
What a sad day to hear of this appointment, although not surprising. He has been a sycophant to the Pope in getting his red hat. God help us and His Church.
Whatever you do, don’t search for “pride” on Google. I warned you.
Bishop Barron is going to Minnesota, not San Diego.
I majored in pastoral theology. We didn’t read anything written by McElroy, so how important can he be? And no, it wasn’t at LMU.
I’m disheartened that the pope does not see that his appointment of mcelroy is a slap in the face to all of its church members. What commandment goes next…now that #5 has been canceled? Sad to see this happening in my lifetime. Cal Catholic is no longer my periodical to hear about my Catholic faith.