July 13, 2025 - "Robert Cardinal McElroy"

Robert McElroy was born in San Francisco on February 5, 1954 to Walter and Roberta McElroy.  Until he was 10 years old, he lived in Daly City, CA, attending Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School. His family moved to Burlingame, CA in 1964, where he and his three sisters and brother attended and graduated from Our Lady of Angels Elementary School.

 

During his youth, Cardinal McElroy felt called to the Catholic priesthood. Subsequently, after 8th grade, he entered St. Joseph High School in Mountain View, CA, which was the high school seminary of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

 

Upon graduating from high school, Cardinal McElroy was still committed to seeking a life in the priesthood but concluded it would be best for him to pursue his vocation in a college outside the seminary system. Therefore, in 1972, he entered Harvard College and graduated three years later with a bachelor's degree in American history. Cardinal McElroy attended Graduate School at Stanford University and in 1976, received a master’s degree in American history and in 1989, a doctorate in Political Science. 

 

In 1979, he was granted a master's degree in divinity (M. Div.) at Saint Patrick's Seminary and Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) from Jesuit School of theology in Berkeley, CA in 1985.  He went on to earn a doctorate in Moral Theology with the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1987. 

 

Reentering the seminary in the fall of 1976, Cardinal McElroy attended Saint Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on April 12, 1980. His first assignment was at St. Cecilia parish in San Francisco, which was the parish where both of his parents had grown up, attended grammar school and were later married.

 

Parish work has always been Cardinal McElroy’s first love. In 1989 he served as parochial vicar at Saint Pius parish in Redwood city.  In 1995, Archbishop Quinn appointed then-Father McElroy vicar general of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a post he continued to hold under Cardinal William Levada, who succeeded Archbishop Quinn.

 

The following year, then-Father McElroy was made of prelate of honor by Saint John Paul II and appointed pastor of St. Gregory’s parish in San Mateo by Cardinal Levada.  He spent more than fifteen very happy years serving in this parish.

Then- Bishop McElroy was appointed auxiliary bishop of San Francisco by Pope Benedict XVI on July 6, 2010, and was ordained by Archbishop George Niederauer at Saint Mary’s Cathedral on September 7, 2010. He became the Archdiocesan Vicar for Parish Life and Development served in that role until his appointment to be the sixth Bishop of San Diego in March 2015.

 

Pope Francis appointed then-Bishop McElroy to the College of Cardinals on May 29, 2022. He was installed in a Consistory on August 27, 2022, at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy the eighth Archbishop of Washington on January 6, 2025. Cardinal McElroy is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life. I have based this article on a post on the Catholic Standard website that appeared shortly after his appointment as the eighth Archbishop of Washington.

 

Let us continue to pray for Cardinal McElroy, as he will have many challenges in this assignment as Archbishop of Washington.  

 

Until next week,

Fr. John