Pope Francis promotes D. C.’ s bishop

Wilton Gregory will become first Black cardinal from the U. S.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday named 13 new cardinals, including Washington, D. C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who will become the f irst Black U. S. prelate to earn the coveted red hat.

In a surprise announcement from his studio window to faithful standing below in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said the churchmen would be elevated to a cardinal’s rank in a ceremony on Nov. 28.

Francis asked for prayers so the new cardinals “may help me in my ministry as bishop of Rome for the good of all God’s faithful holy people.”

The selection of Gregory won praise from LGBTQ advocates in the United States days after Pope Francis grabbed headlines for voicing support for civil unions for gay couples.

Other new cardinals include an Italian who is the longtime papal preacher at the Vatican, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who is a Franciscan friar; the Kigali, Rwanda, Archbishop Antoine Kambanda; the Capiz, Philippines, Archbishop Jose Feurte Advincula; and the Santiago, Chile, Archbishop Celestino Aos Braco.

Another Franciscan who was tapped was Friar Mauro Gambetti, in charge of the Sacred Convent in Assisi. The pope, when elected in 2013, chose St. Francis of Assisi as his namesake saint. This month, the pontiff journeyed to that hill town in Umbria to sign an encyclical, or important church teaching document, about brotherhood.

Gambetti was so surprised, at f irst he thought the pope was joking when he heard he was named, convent spokesman the Rev. Enzo Fortunato said.

Gambetti quickly pledged to “put himself at the service of humanity at a time so difficult to us all,” including offering compassion to the needy, Fortunato said in reference to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a ref lection of the pope’s emphasis on helping those in need, Francis also named the former director of the Rome Catholic charity, Caritas, the Rev. Enrico Feroci, to be a cardinal.

The prestigious Washington archdiocese traditionally brings elevation to cardinal’s rank, so the appointment of Gregory, 73, last year by the pope had positioned him to be tapped for the honor.

Still, the timing of his rise to cardinal is noteworthy, coming in the thick of increased U. S. attention on racial injustice after the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of Minnesota police this year. Gregory was publicly critical of President Trump’s visit to the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington a day after civil rights demonstrators were forcibly cleared from a square to facilitate the president’s visit to an Episcopal church in the U. S. capital.

Gregory has had his f inger on the pulse of factions in the U. S. Catholic Church, which has both strong conservative and liberal veins, since he served three times as the head of the U. S. Conference of Bishops.

Conservative prelates in the United States have openly lambasted Francis for his more liberal stands, including his support of same- sex civil unions, which came out in a new documentary this week.

Gregory said in a statement that becoming a cardinal would allow him to work more closely with the pontiff in caring for the Catholic Church.

While Gregory headed the Atlanta diocese earlier in his career, he wrote positively in a column about his conversations with Catholic parents of LGBTQ children.