Earlier this week, Pope Francis named a Catholic cardinal who has criticized Donald Trump’s political agenda the Catholic leader of Washington, D.C. The announcement was made just a few days before Trump will be inaugurated as president. The 70-year-old Cardinal Robert McElroy has been serving as the bishop of San Diego since 2015.
McElroy is set to replace Cardinal Wilton Gregory, retiring after serving the archdiocese of Washington since 2019. The cardinal has often criticized Trump’s plan for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. In a 2017 speech, he called on Catholics to “disrupt” those plans. He said to reports that Christians simply can’t stand by and watch [immigrants] get deported”.
Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who follows the Francis papacy, said the appointment was “a bold move.” He believes that it was no accident the announcement came on the 4th anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He also said that it was a statement to the halls of power in D.C. and boardrooms in America”. McElroy is one of the few American Bishops who are outspoken about Francis‘ woke agenda.
He has taken progressive positions on LGBTQ issues and has called for the ordination of women as deacons. The catholic church is no stranger to liberal subversion. As we reported, Some religious leaders protest what they say represents an impending threat to religious freedom. The so-called “sensitive locations” ban, stops the arrest of these immigrants at or near hospitals, schools, and even funerals and weddings.
10 Arizona faith leaders, including Catholic Bishops Edward J. Weisenburger of Tucson and John P. Dolan of Phoenix, put their concerns in an op-ed column published in the state’s largest newspaper. They said, “Of special concern to us are reported methods of detention and deportation that might include raids on churches, houses of worship, hospitals, schools, and other locations associated with meeting basic human needs.”
The piece also said, “We find it unacceptable that undocumented persons might be intimidated from going to a church and thereby exercising their right to the practice of religion.” In an additional statement to the news, Bishop Weisenburger said, “The 10 signatory Arizona bishops — or equivalent faith leaders — acknowledge our nation’s right to humane and legal immigration enforcement.
“However, we also acknowledge that immigration enforcement efforts that violate basic human rights, or our nation’s Constitution, must not be undertaken or threatened.” He continued “Our nation’s founders recognized the free and unimpeded exercise of religion as a foundation upon which a Great Democracy would be built.” Bishop Weisenburger stressed the importance of the human dignity of both migrants and citizens.
“As the Catholic Church in the United States, we are entering a unique moral moment,” Corbett, founder and executive director of the Hope Border Institute, predicted, “when we will be called to oppose counterproductive and unjust deportation policies which indiscriminately target our fellow parishioners, the students in our Catholic schools, and those who receive services from our Catholic Charities agencies.”
“Bishops and faith leaders across the country are right to point out the religious liberty implications, and our Catholic institutions need to prepare,” Corbett went on to say. “Our freedom to be the body of Christ is at stake — to be a place of welcome and healing, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all persons, and to be a sign of reconciliation and mercy in a broken society.”