Two observations.

The Pillar reports that Pope Francis has selected the head of the San Diego diocese, Cardinal Robert McElroy to succeed Cardinal Wilton Gregory as the archbishop of D.C.

The Pillar reports that there was heavy politicking in the background of this appointment. I would only make two observations. This seems like a pick that comes a generation too late. That is, McElroy is considered one of McCarrick’s men, after the disgraced former head of the Washington, D.C., diocese Theodore McCarrick. And even a McCarrick type, apart from the moral stain associated with his not-so-secret life, seems like figure from a bygone era. McCarrick presided over a time when a Kennedy Democrat still had significant clout in the Senate. McElroy is rumored to be favored because he speaks up for immigrants in a Trumpian age. But in fact, the Democratic approach to immigration issues has been exposed not as merciful and welcoming, but as simply negligent. Instead of a beneficent state welcoming immigrants, it put into practice Hobbesian anarchy in which immigrants were exposed to predation by human traffickers on one side of the border, and criminally exploitative employers on the other.

Now we have what looks to be a heavily Catholic Republican administration, backed by a disproportionately Catholic and even traditionalist conservative political apparatus, which has remade the Catholic scene inside and outside of D.C. The neighboring diocese of Arlington may be the most friendly location for the Latin Mass in the Northern hemisphere. On the other side, the Catholic community being built in and around Hyattsville is a lay-led movement of the type envisioned by John Paul II.

The second observation is that McElroy himself has tried to avoid controversy and eschew heavy-handedness in his governing style. Some of the Pope Francis era smash-and-grab style of governance has tended to create martyrs of traditionalists, and embarrassments for bishops having to carry out orders at a time when the numbers — assignable priests and parishioner donations — call for cool moderation and liberality in governance. That is, even if McElroy seems like a generation too late to this assignment, the whole church seems to be calling out for peacemakers and unity after a decade or more of internal warfare and backbiting. Every cardinal at a time like this will find himself pressured to mortify his zeal for the peace of his diocese.