At Washington installation, Cardinal McElroy calls for hope, mercy and human dignity

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Washington’s new archbishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy, encouraged Catholics at his installation Mass on Tuesday (March 11) to have hope and show mercy in a service that included prayers in eight languages, with multiple mentions of the well-being of migrants.

“Mercy and compassion must be our first impulse when confronted with sin and human failure,” said the cardinal, who will fill the seat vacated by Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who retired at the beginning of this year.

The cardinal’s installation Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic Church structure in North America, was attended by thousands of lay Catholics, as well as seven fellow cardinals and about 80 bishops and 300 priests. Also in attendance were local politicians and some national politicians who are Catholic, including House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and former Vatican ambassador Callista Gingrich.

At Communion, bishops across the ideological spectrum, including Cardinals Blase Cupich and Joseph Tobin and Archbishops Timothy Broglio and William Lori, came into the aisles to distribute Communion to the faithful. In a personal touch, the choir and those gathered sang, “I am the Bread of Life,” a popular hymn that, McElroy shared, was written by his grade school choir director, Sister Suzanne Toolan.

Pope Francis’ decision to give the post to McElroy, whose previous seat as the bishop of San Diego gave him deep experience with immigration on the United States’ southern border, has been interpreted widely in the U.S. Catholic world as a retort to the anti-immigrant policies of President Donald Trump. 

At a press conference after his appointment was announced on Jan. 6, 2025, McElroy criticized then-President Elect Trump’s proposals, saying, “Having a wider, indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

Cardinal Robert McElroy speaks during his installation Mass as the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. (Video screen grab)

At his installation on Tuesday, he was more understated but mentioned immigrants in a homily that recalled the faith, prayer and hope of the 33 Chilean miners who spent 69 days trapped in a collapsed mine in 2010. “God is the Father of us all, and God sees us as equal in dignity and moral worth. How deeply that contrasts with the world that we have made. 

“Divisions of race and gender and ideology and nationality flourish in the world of politics, religion, family life and education. The poor and the migrant are daily dispossessed, and the dignity of the unborn is denied,” McElroy lamented.

An enthusiastic supporter of Francis, McElroy has been a leading voice in the U.S. church for immigrants and the environment as well as the application of the theological concept of synodality, all of which have been key themes in Francis’ papacy. He has argued for greater efforts to welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics, echoing a similar emphasis by Francis.

In his sermon, McElroy referred several times to Francis’ teachings, including his call for the church to be a field hospital and his declaration of 2025 as a year to become “pilgrims of hope.”

“We are called to be pilgrims of hope in a wounded world, not ignoring the suffering that abounds but seeing it as a call to strive even more deeply to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ into our lives and our nation and our world,” he said. 

McElroy’s selection has prompted blowback from conservative Catholics and some sexual abuse survivors, who allege that he ignored information about abuse committed by clergy. But the cardinal in his sermon called for hope as the church confronts a multitude of challenges.

“What hope we could bring to our world as the church of Washington if we could truly help our society to see others more as God sees them, beloved children, brothers and sisters,” he said.

McElroy said some of the most important parts of the Mass in Spanish, including his consecration of the Eucharist but stumbled over the pronunciation of the names of his Latino auxiliary bishops as he thanked them in his homily.

The Rev. Tim Manatt, a Jesuit studying canon law at the Catholic University of America, told RNS that the prominence of Spanish throughout the liturgy showed that McElroy “acknowledges just how significant Hispanics are in the U.S. Catholic church.”

Manatt highlighted the significance of McElroy’s scripture choice for his installation, including the Gospel passage where Mary Magdalene speaks with Jesus after his resurrection. “He finds many reasons to be hopeful for the local church, which came across to me not as a platitude, but something that was quite sincere,” Manatt said of McElroy.

Attendees kneel before Communion begins at the installation Mass of Cardinal Robert McElroy as Archbishop of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Washington. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

As the Mass was ending, McElroy said, “We’re especially joyous that the pope seems to be doing better,” before leading the Catholics gathered in a decade of the rosary for the pope’s health. He had earlier thanked Francis for “his monumental witness of faith amidst human suffering.”

Judy Coode, communications director for the Catholic peace group Pax Christi USA who attended the Mass with several other Pax Christi staff, told RNS that the show of unity from both the archdiocese and U.S. bishops at the Mass was “touching” and that she appreciated McElroy’s message in his homily that “we succeed and we move forward and we care for each other when we acknowledge that we are community and that we have faith in God.”

In the past, McElroy has participated in Catholic Nonviolence Initiative meetings and backed a Pax Christi USA letter calling on the U.S. to cut military spending and instead invest in ending poverty. Coode said she hoped that now that McElroy is in Washington, he will work with Pax Christi USA on peace in the Holy Land and “the injustice that’s being done to the Palestinian people.”

In his homily, McElroy spoke of sexual abuse, saying, “In the church, all of us are wounded and all of us are in pain, all of us sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness. The church sins and is in need of healing, especially in the failure to protect the young from sexual abuse.”

Rachel Mastrogiacomo, a survivor of sexual assault by a priest who abused her during Masses he celebrated privately for the two of them, has led a contingent of the opposition to McElroy. While the assaults occurred in Minnesota and were reported before McElroy became bishop of San Diego, Jacob Bertrand, the priest, was allowed to return to ministry shortly before McElroy began leading the diocese, and McElroy did not remove him until over a year into his leadership when he learned Bertrand was being prosecuted.

Mastrogiacomo joined a small group of protesters outside the Basilica before the installation Mass and called for new legislation to safeguard abuse survivors. The group also called on Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, to lead the Trump administration in opening a racketeering investigation, normally used to prosecute organized crime, into the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ use of government funds in their humanitarian work with immigrants.

Terence McKiernan, president of Bishop Accountability, a watchdog organization, has also protested McElroy’s appointment to Washington, citing his handling of meetings with Richard Sipe, a researcher and whistleblower who warned McElroy about several allegedly abusive Catholic leaders, including now-laicized Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

McElroy has said that Sipe refused to provide him with corroborating evidence and otherwise behaved in an untrustworthy manner, preventing McElroy from working with Sipe. 

McKiernan told RNS, “That McElroy has now inherited McCarrick’s crozier is a grotesque outcome of the Catholic abuse system, which would not surprise Sipe, its preeminent scholar.”

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests also called McElroy’s installation in Washington “deeply troubling,” saying that the move left victims “feeling retraumatized.”

“Survivors deserve more than a church hierarchy that rewards those who have enabled such harm; they deserve accountability, transparency, and genuine healing, not the continued empowerment of those who have failed them,” the group told RNS.