Vatican appoints loyalist for D.C.

Pittsburgh Bishop Donald W. Wuerl, a man known for his loyalty to Rome by taking on unpopular assignments, was named archbishop of Washington yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI.

He will replace retiring Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, 75, who submitted his resignation to the Vatican in July. Cardinal McCarrick introduced his successor yesterday at a press conference as “one of the great churchmen of the United States.”

“I truly cannot think of a better choice for Washington than Donald Wuerl,” he said. The cardinal added that he had prayed that the pope would name “a great bishop to take my place.”

“He has done that in spades,” Cardinal McCarrick said.

Bishop Wuerl, who will transfer from a diocese of 800,000 Catholics in 214 parishes to one with 560,000 Catholics in 140 parishes, told reporters he accepts his new assignment “with a truly humble heart.” Washington, he added, is “a significant Catholic center and all the more distinguished as the nation’s capital.”

After lauding the archdiocese for its “rich cultural diversity,” he then gave a few remarks in Spanish.

He will be installed as Washington’s sixth archbishop on June 22. The last four archbishops here all have been elevated to cardinal, a position Bishop Wuerl is expected to assume in about two years, when the pope names a new batch of candidates.

The 65-year-old Pittsburgh native has long been discussed as a finalist for the position, along with Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput and St. Louis Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

“It surprised me a little,” said Michael Novak, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a scholar on Catholic social theory, who said he has only met the new archbishop “glancingly.”

“But his reputation is as one who knows his theology, who is brave and forthright in it, has a good, stout character and is not deterred by criticism,” he said. “He has a reputation for being of sound and good character. He has a good knowledge of doctrine; he’s internalized it and embodied it. I think it’s a good choice.”

Cardinal McCarrick is known for his good relationships both with President Bush and with Catholic Democrats on Capitol Hill. He was pressured to deny Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians during the 2004 election, but he refused to deny the sacrament. The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a former editor of the Jesuit magazine America, said Bishop Wuerl is of the same mind as Cardinal McCarrick on that issue.

“Wuerl is not confrontational,” he said. “He wants dialogue. The Vatican didn’t want someone causing a crisis with the U.S. government in the nation’s capital. They wanted someone who is smart, conservative, pastoral and prudent.”

Born Nov. 12, 1940, Bishop Wuerl received graduate degrees from Catholic University in the District and the Gregorian University in Rome. He became a priest in 1966 and worked in Pittsburgh under Bishop John J. Wright. When Bishop Wright was transferred to Rome as the prefect for the Sacred Congregation of the Clergy, he took along Father Wuerl as his secretary.

The young priest, who would earn a doctorate in theology from the University of St. Thomas in Rome in 1974, spent much of the first 20 years of his priesthood in the church’s central city. In January 1986, Pope John Paul II made the unusual move of personally ordaining him to the episcopate in St. Peter’s Basilica; a pope usually only ordains cardinals, not bishops.

But the pope had an emergency on his hands: He needed an American priest to serve on quick notice as the new auxiliary bishop to Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, a pacifist who dissented on homosexuality, sterilizations and remarriage after divorce. The Vatican stripped him of much of his power in early 1986 and forced him to share his duties with Auxiliary Bishop Wuerl.

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