The Devil in D.C.
Washington, D.C. is about to receive a new archbishop: a staunch opponent of incoming President Donald Trump and a champion of dissident LGBT causes. The Vatican announced last week that Cardinal Robert McElroy, currently the bishop of San Diego, would be replacing 77-year-old Cardinal Wilton Gregory as the archbishop of Washington. While the Vatican’s announcement glossed McElroy’s educational history and the various parochial and diocesan positions he has held, it did not address his radical left-wing activism and ideology.
Abortion and the Blessed Sacrament
First and foremost, McElroy has openly advocated for giving Holy Communion — the Blessed Sacrament which the Catholic Church declares to be the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ Himself — to pro-abortion politicians. In 2021, shortly after self-declared Catholic Joe Biden ascended to the presidency, U.S. Catholic bishops debated whether or not to issue a formal document barring pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion. McElroy was quick to denounce this proposed measure as “very destructive.” He stated, “I do not see how depriving the President or other political leaders of Eucharist based on their public policy stance can be interpreted in our society as anything other than the weaponization of Eucharist.”
Of course, what’s really “destructive” is abortion. The barbaric practice allows for the wanton slaughter of hundreds of thousands — even millions — of unborn children every year in the U.S. alone. The Catholic Church definitively and unequivocally condemns abortion as a grave sin and even imposes the dire penalty of latae sententiae or ipso facto excommunication upon those who procure, commit, or are knowingly complicit in committing abortions. That would apply to pro-abortion politicians. In other words, the Catholic Church teaches authoritatively that politicians who protect and promote abortion have actively killed their own souls — that’s why Catholics call it a mortal sin. The Church also stipulates that those who are in a state of mortal sin — that is, those who have committed a mortal sin and not yet repented, attended the sacrament of reconciliation, and made penance for that mortal sin — are not to receive Holy Communion. Doing so is (surprise!) yet another mortal sin.
Yet McElroy argues that denying Holy Communion to those who are publicly known to be in a state of mortal sin and who have not repented (certainly not publicly) is “destructive.” Never mind that providing the Eucharist to unrepentant pro-abortion politicians doubles their mortal sin. Never mind that it scandalously demonstrates to the would-be faithful that the Eucharist is nothing more than a token, a ceremonial badge blithely handed out to any who call themselves “Catholic,” and not the Body of Christ, God Himself made flesh. Never mind that it is an act of desecration, an affront to the Body of Christ which was so hideously mangled, innocent as a lamb, for the sake of the very sins which are being committed when Holy Communion is given to pro-abortion politicians.
Clearly undeterred by either common sense or the infallible perennial moral teachings of the Catholic Church, McElroy doubled down on his Holy-Communion-for-pro-abortion-politicians stance in an op-ed published in the left-wing Jesuit magazine America. The bishop wrote that “the proposal to exclude pro-choice Catholic political leaders from the Eucharist is the wrong step. It will bring tremendously destructive consequences—not because of what it says about abortion, but because of what it says about the Eucharist.” He continued to say that, due to Its “sacred nature and identity, the Eucharist must never be instrumentalized for a political end, no matter how important. But that is precisely what is being done in the effort to exclude Catholic political leaders who oppose the church’s teaching on abortion and civil law. The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare.”
To those who wrongly believe that compassion and empathy are chief among Christian virtues, McElroy’s argument may sound reasonable. It is not. The entire argument hinges on the bishop’s subtle — but firm — assertion that abortion is a political issue. Again, it is not. From the first century, the Catholic Church has declared that abortion is a grave moral evil. It is not a political matter that a great many Catholics happen to feel strongly about, it is the genocide of unborn children, a diabolical assault on innocence, children, women, motherhood, the family, and the very foundation of Western civilization.
Denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians is not a political gesture simply because it involves political figures. Denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians is not a political matter, it is a moral matter. No doubt McElroy and his episcopal ilk would hesitate to provide Holy Communion to, say, a famous athlete who was known to be a flagrant serial rapist and murderer. No argument would be put forth claiming that denying such a figure Holy Communion was a means of weaponizing the Eucharistic for athletic ends. McElroy’s argument is patently disingenuous and deliberately deceptive.
LGBT Agenda Advocacy
Second, in addition to clearly taking issue with the Church’s teachings on abortion and the Eucharist, McElroy has distinguished himself as a dissident against the Church’s moral teachings on sexuality. In another article in America magazine, McElroy openly criticized the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s characterization of homosexual inclinations as “intrinsically disordered.” The bishop said that such terminology is “very destructive language that I think we should not use pastorally.”
Perhaps McElroy simply does not understand the word “destructive.” (I am reminded of the character in The Princess Bride who reacts to every new occurrence with the exclamation, “Inconceivable!” His compatriot Inigo Montoya quips, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) If a doctor identifies a cancer, would it be “destructive” of him to say that those cells do not belong where they are growing? If a psychologist diagnoses a patient as a hallucinatory schizophrenic, would it be “destructive” of him to tell his patient that his hallucinations are not real? Of course not. Why? Because these things are disordered, they are not as they should be.
So, too, homosexual inclinations are, according to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church, disordered. They are desires which are not as they should be. Human sexuality is a gift from God and its chief purpose is the formation of a family. This is one of the reasons that the Church places sexual intercourse within the boundaries of marriage, so that the children who are born as a result of the conjugal act may be raised by a mother and a father. Two men cannot conceive a child together, nor can two women. The sexual desire, therefore, of one man for another man or of one woman for another woman is disordered.
While struggling against homosexual desires is not itself classified as a sin, acting upon it is. The Catechism instructs those who do grapple with “disordered” homosexual desires to live chaste lives. However, homosexual activity is a particularly grave sin. Unlike heterosexual activity which takes place outside the context of marriage — which is also a grave or mortal sin — homosexual activity has no natural impetus. That is to say, sexual sins committed between unmarried heterosexual couples are sins because they occur outside the context of marriage, but the act itself is still a good and is intended to be naturally desirable to us; one might say that such sins are formally disordered, rather than materially disordered. But homosexual activity is a graver sin because it is materially disordered. That is to say, there is no context in which such acts are a good. They are always a grave and, according to the Catechism, “depraved” sin.
But McElroy himself sanctions this “disorder.” In addition to his casual attacks on the Church’s perennial moral teachings on human sexuality, McElroy openly endorses the LGBT agenda and speaks often of “LGBT persons.” How could a Catholic cardinal, one of the Princes of the Church, a man who speaks so often of “pastoral” attitudes and approaches, be so cruel and wicked a shepherd as to identify those within his flock with their sins and sinful desires? What father would call his son a “masturbating person” if that son approaches him and admits that he struggles with chastity — that he fears he may be addicted to pornography? Such behavior would rightly be called dehumanizing. The Catechism demands that the dignity of those “who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies” be respected and protected. Yet McElroy — and many other Catholic bishops besides — insists on denying a whole portion of his flock the dignity that they are due as made in the image and likeness of God, reducing these fearfully and wonderfully made souls to their basest desires.
Not only does he encourage those struggling with what the Catholic Church warns are “intrinsically disordered” desires to embrace and identify with those intrinsically disordered desires, but McElroy also facilitates the social sterilization of the sin. The dissident New Ways Ministries, which advocates for a change in the Church’s unchanging teaching on homosexuality, hailed McElroy’s appointment as the new archbishop of Washington. “Of course, the most exciting feature about this appointment for New Ways Ministry is the cardinal’s strong positive statements regarding LGBTQ+ issues,” said a press release for the organization once condemned by the Vatican. The statement continued:
Most importantly is that Cardinal McElroy has been appointed to the nation’s capital at a time when a new presidential administration and Congress have strongly indicated that legislation repealing civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people are at the top of their agendas. We are confident that Cardinal McElroy can provide a strong Catholic voice affirming the human dignity of LGBTQ+ people and the need for laws that will protect them.
Abuse Cover-Up
Third, McElroy has been accused of covering up for rampant sexual abuse (predominantly abuse of a homosexual nature) within the ranks of the clergy. Most famously, the bishop has been accused of being aware of the crimes of disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who habitually groomed and raped young boys, seminarians, and even other priests over a period of several decades. In 2016, noted psychologist and sex abuse expert Richard Sipe warned McElroy of McCarrick’s crimes in a letter based on testimony from 12 different priests who had been abused by the once-powerful cardinal — some while in seminary, some after ordination to the priesthood. McElroy did not address the contents of the letter and even told Sipe that he had “no time” to meet with him “in the foreseeable future.” McCarrick’s crimes were not revealed to the public until 2018 — two years after Sipe wrote to McElroy. Now, the bishop is being handed the archdiocese of Washington, which was once McCarrick’s domain.
Under McElroy’s supervision, the Diocese of San Diego also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after having been assailed by hundreds of clerical sexual abuse lawsuits. McElroy has also been accused of personally covering up the ritual Satanic rape and sex abuse of ex-priest Jacob Bertrand. The now-laicized Bertrand was accused of serially raping 23-year-old Rachel Mastrogiacomo — during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — beginning in 2010. When McElroy came to power in San Diego, he was made aware of the abuse but refused to remove Bertrand from active ministry until a year later, when he learned that Bertrand was being criminally prosecuted. Diocesan spokesman Kevin Eckerty commented, “We knew that it was poor behavior. We didn’t know that it was criminal behavior.” Even when Bertrand was being prosecuted, McElroy’s office refused to hand over certain documents to prosecutors.
Immigration Conflict
Fourth, McElroy is a vocal and vigorous opponent of the immigration and border control agenda promoted by Trump. At a press conference last week, McElroy explicitly stated that he expects to confront the incoming Trump administration’s immigration agenda. “In terms of what issue would I see coming forth in the life of the church that might be in contrast with some of the priorities the president-elect has been talking about, a large one, of course, is immigration,” he stated. McElroy continued to say that “plans which have been talked about at some levels of having a wider, indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”
Of course, Trump’s immigration agenda and border control plans are not inconsistent with Catholic teaching on national sovereignty, hospitality, or offering refuge to those in need. They are, however, in conflict with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’s (USCCB’s) financial interests. For years, the USCCB and its affiliates, like various branches of Catholic Charities, have been accused of profiting from facilitating the illegal immigration crisis which played a substantial role in Trump’s reelection. Catholic teaching does not prohibit preserving national sovereignty, protecting one’s borders, or expelling those who flagrantly violate a nation’s just and reasonable laws.
The Price of Faithful Catholicism
Finally, a report from The Pillar has suggested that McElroy’s appointment is a retaliatory one, intended to spite Trump. Left-wing American prelates like the powerful Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago recommended that McElroy succeed Washington’s outgoing archbishop, 77-year-old Cardinal Wilton Gregory. However, the Pope’s own representative in America, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the U.S., and officials in the Vatican Secretariat of State reportedly opposed McElroy’s appointment, consistently. Pierre considered McElroy to be a “polarizing” figure, especially in such a crucial post as Washington. Thus, Pope Francis actually passed over McElroy and removed him from consideration last year.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, McCarrick’s successor as the archbishop of Washington who resigned after being accused of covering up McCarrick’s abuse, was inexplicably tasked with identifying a replacement and both he and Gregory signed off on Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City. However, Trump’s personnel picks are said to have influenced the Vatican’s.
The President-elect named CatholicVote co-founder Brian Burch, a Trump ally and stalwart conservative, as his ambassador to the Holy See. Given Burch’s anything-but-progressive views and his bold statements against heterodox priests and prelates, Vatican officials interpreted his appointment as “aggressive” and “undiplomatic.” Abandoning hope for “cooperation” or a “new beginning,” Pope Francis and his advisors named the divisive McElroy the new archbishop of America’s capital city. (READ MORE: Pope Francis Gets His Man in Washington )
It may be said that many of Pope Francis’s personnel picks have been poor choices. Indeed, he seems not infrequently to merely trust the wrong people, or prefer to trust people who agree with him on matters of policy or presentation. However, there can be no doubt that the Pontiff’s choice of McElroy as archbishop of Washington is a malicious one.
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