Gregory Vows to Serve the Truth

By Michael Sean Winters
The Tablet
April 9, 2019

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/11567/gregory-vows-to-serve-the-truth-


Archbishop Wilton Gregory at a news conference in the pastoral centre at the Archdiocese of Washington April 4, 2019, after Pope Francis named him to head the archdiocese

Photo: CNS photo/Bob Roller

“I believe that the only way I can serve the local archdiocese is by telling you the truth,” Archbishop Wilton Gregory told his new flock at a press conference last weekend where he was introduced as the next Archbishop of Washington, DC.

He said this was “a moment fraught with challenges,” mindful that his immediate predecessor Cardinal Donald Wuerl resigned amidst controversy over his handling of clergy sex abuse allegations in the 1990s and the previous archbishop was the former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, now removed from the clerical state.

Speaking of the unique challenges of leading a church in the nation’s capital, but in which some neighbourhoods remain mired in poverty, Gregory said, “The Archdiocese of Washington is home to the poor and the powerful, neither of which realises they are both.”

The next day, Gregory toured various ministries of the archdiocese, starting at Catholic Charities downtown where he toured the chapel and visited with volunteers who serve the poor. The archbishop then went to a Catholic elementary school where a second grader asked what his favourite movie is. “I love the ‘Wizard of Oz,’” Gregory replied. Almost half the 228 students at the school benefit from a voucher programme that provides tuition assistance to poor families to attend Catholic and other private schools.

In the afternoon, Archbishop Gregory and Cardinal Wuerl visited the Jeanne Jugan residence for indigent elderly patients run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Archbishop Gregory, who has served as archbishop of Atlanta since2004, will be formally installed as Washington’s seventh archbishop on 21 May at the Cathedral of St Matthew.