Who will replace Cardinal Wuerl?

Last updated on: August 25, 2018 at 12:38 pm by Deacon Greg Kandra

Who will replace Cardinal Wuerl? 2018-08-25T12:38:36-04:00 Deacon Greg Kandra

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That question is now being asked, more frequently and more insistently, as newspapers and social media commenters call on the cardinal archbishop of Washington to step down. (He submitted his resignation two years ago, when he turned 75, but it has not yet been accepted by the pope.)

J.D. Flynn weighs in:

There has been speculation about who will succeed Wuerl since he submitted his resignation in 2015. Though this summer seems to have changed a great deal, at least in public perception, some of those who have been rumored to follow the cardinal are still likely in consideration, along with some other possibilities.

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Bishop George Murry, SJ, has been long-rumored as among Wuerl’s own top choices for the Washington job. Murry, the Bishop of Youngstown, has a doctorate in history from George Washington University in DC, and has worked in Washington for other stints. Murry served a term as secretary to the USCCB, was personally appointed by Pope Francis to attend the 2015 Synod on the Family, and was appointed to chair a USCCB committee on racism established shortly after the 2017 Charlottesville riot.

In April 2018, however, Murry announced that he had been diagnosed with acute leukemia. He reports that the treatment is going well, but he reported beginning a third round of chemotherapy in mid-August, and, even if he had been seriously considered, it is likely that his health would not now permit him to take on the demanding job.

For almost a year, there has been a great deal of speculation that Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego would succeed Wuerl in Washington; a Vatican official told CNA last October that McElroy’s appointment was a strong possibility. McElroy is a Harvard graduate, and a historian with an interest in the Jesuit John Courtney Murray; he was a secretary, and later vicar general, to the late Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, before becoming an auxiliary bishop in San Francisco and then Bishop of San Diego in 2015.

McElroy is seen to be an outspoken, politically and theologically progressive bishop who is often said to represent some of Pope Francis’ intellectual currents. He is also said to be well regarded by Cardinal Blase Cupich, who was a longtime friend of McElroy’s friend and mentor, Archbishop Quinn.

McElroy, however, has recently faced controversy, after it was revealed that he was informed by psychotherapist Richard Sipe in 2016 of allegations that McCarrick was involved in sexually immoral behavior with seminarians. While McElroy said recently that he did not find Sipe to be credible, the controversy surrounding the report would likely be exacerbated if he were appointed to succeed Wuerl. Church watcher Rocco Palmo, for example, tweeted Aug. 10 that the revelation of Sipe’s report had “effectively imploded” the possibility that McElroy would be appointed to Washington.

Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington has also been among those rumored to be in consideration for the position. Coyne, originally a priest of Boston and a trained liturgist, became the Archdiocese of Boston’s spokesman in 2002, as it grappled with the fallout of the Boston Globe’s reporting of sexual abuse in that diocese. Coyne became an auxiliary bishop in Indianapolis in 2011, and led that diocese as apostolic administrator after the early retirement of Archbishop Daniel Buechlein. In 2014 he was appointed to lead Vermont’s sole Catholic diocese.

Those are for starters. There are many more. Read the rest.

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