Robert W. McElroy
Robert Walter McElroy was born in 1954 in San Francisco and ordained a priest there in 1980. He holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Gregorian and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford. Named an auxiliary bishop of San Francisco in 2010 and Bishop of San Diego in 2015, he was created a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2022, over several archbishops of larger sees.
In January 2025 Pope Francis named him Archbishop of Washington, D.C. He is among the most progressive cardinals in the United States — known for advocacy of 'radical inclusion' of LGBT Catholics, a broad approach to Communion, and support for synodality — and a firm proponent of Pope Francis's restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass.
Cardinal McElroy belongs to the party of the restriction, and acted early to enforce it. As Bishop of San Diego he met Traditionis Custodes in August 2021 with one of the first and firmest American implementations: any priest who wished to offer the old Mass had to seek his permission, and the Traditional Latin Mass was ended at the territorial parishes of St. Mary's and St. Margaret's, surviving only at the Fraternity of St. Peter's personal parish. The College of Cardinals' own profile of him notes that he fully subscribes to the motu proprio and to the reasons Pope Francis gave for it.
His broader cast of mind is well known and, on this site's standard, a matter of grave concern: a theology of 'radical inclusion' that treats the Church's settled moral teaching as a 'pastoral question, not a doctrinal one,' and a posture toward the Eucharist and Communion that troubles many faithful Catholics. We present these as his own stated views, in his own words; the reader may weigh them.
On the narrow question of this page — the Mass of Ages and the souls who cling to it — his record is clear enough. He has been an instrument of its restriction, not its defense. His policy in Washington remains to be written; on the evidence to date, the traditional Catholic should not look to him as a friend.