Wilton Gregory, 72, joins College of Cardinals in Vatican.
Pope Francis has installed 13 new cardinals, including the first African American to hold the high rank, further expanding the pontiff’s impact on the group that will one day elect his successor.
Wilton Gregory, the 72-year-old archbishop of Washington DC becomes the first African American cardinal at a time the United States is examining race relations after a spate of police killings of unarmed black people.
He was the only American among those elevated to the College of Cardinals during Saturday’s ceremony. Brunei and Rwanda got their first cardinals.
Gregory, already the highest-ranking African American Catholic in US history, made headlines in June when he blasted Donald Trump after police and soldiers used teargas and rubber bullets to clear protesters so the president could be photographed in front of a historic Washington church holding a Bible.
Gregory said he found it “baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated”.
Catholic conservatives condemned Gregory and sided with Trump.
Gregory said last week he wanted to find common ground with President-elect Joe Biden despite disagreements on issues such as abortion.
He said he wanted to work with the incoming US administration to look for “where we can find things that we can do together for the betterment of the American community, for the people of the archdiocese in general. I want to be one who engages people in conversation.”
The ceremony, known as a consistory, was markedly slimmed down because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thus far, Pope Francis has appointed 18 cardinals from countries that never had one, nearly all of them from the developing countries.
The nine new electors come from Italy, Malta, Rwanda, the United States, the Philippines, Chile, Brunei and Mexico.
In his homily, Francis told the men to keep their eyes on God, avoid all forms of corruption, and not succumb to a “worldly spirit” that can accompany the prestige and power of their new rank.