Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Mary Ann WalshMarch 02, 2015

If an academic pedigree is an indication, the hierarchy of the U.S. bishops took a big step forward with the promotion of Auxiliary Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Francisco to Bishop of San Diego on March 3. News of the appointment was broken by blogger Rocco Palmo, March 2.

The 61-year-old prelate holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard University (he finished summa cum laude in three years), a master’s degree in history from Stanford University and a doctorate from Stanford in political science. Then there are the church degrees: a licentiate in sacred theology from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkley, California, while at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, and a doctorate in moral theology from Rome’s Gregorian University.

He has published widely too, with both two books and five articles in America to his credit. His historical studies include examinations of Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray, the Second Vatican II expert on religious liberty, a subject especially pertinent in contemporary church circles. Bishop McElroy is author of The Search for an American Public Theology: The Contributions of John Courtney Murray (Paulist Press, 1989) and Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs (Princeton University Press, 1992). 

He was named an auxiliary bishop of San Francisco in 2010.

Mary Ann Walsh, R.S.M., is a member of the Northeast Community of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and U.S. Church Correspondent for America.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Right there at the cross, in Jesus, our humanity doesn’t fall beyond its edges. Even there, even then, he continues to love. And even in that dense darkness—or loneliness—that he experiences as a human being, he doesn’t let himself forget that he is loved too.
Andriy ZelinskyyMarch 29, 2024
The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024