Pope’s pick for Washington archbishop sets stage for conflict with Trump, experts say
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Appointment of progressive Robert McElroy comes as rightwing Catholics wield significant influence in US capital. When the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sought to shut down a Catholic charity that was was providing shelter and aid to undocumented migrants at the border, the San Diego cardinal, Robert McElroy, took a robust public stand against the attempt.
![[Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a9aa3b5381819ebf5bb73b2a9d3a412208a502e3/0_0_6951_4634/master/6951.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“The state of Texas is using governmental pressure to curtail the work of the Church in one of its most fundamental obligations: to feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, and to provide drink to the thirsty,” McElroy said in a statement at the time. “No government can morally tell us to abandon or limit this mission.”.
![[Steve Bannon said said Francis’s choice of McElroy showed he was on a “collision course”.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f848ca6d1c0ebf6ce5f51e36dfd76f4ae31e1ce3/0_2_3622_2174/master/3622.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Last week, as billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg adopted policies that seemed designed to ingratiate themselves with the incoming Trump administration, Pope Francis took a different tack when he tapped the Harvard and Stanford-educated McElroy to the role of archbishop of Washington DC – one of the most high-profile positions in the US Catholic church.
It followed Donald Trump’s own announcement that he was appointing Brian Burch, a rightwing political activist and critic of Francis who heads CatholicVote, a conservative advocacy group, to the role of US ambassador to the Vatican. In his statement, Trump claimed that Burch had helped deliver him more Catholic votes than any other presidential candidate.
Both allies and critics of Francis say the appointments set the stage for conflict between the Vatican and Trump’s Washington, at a time when rightwing and far-right Catholics – from Leonard Leo to Steve Bannon – wield significant influence in the US capital. It was noted, too, that Francis chose 6 January, the anniversary of the Trump-inspired insurrection on the Capitol, to make the announcement.
