1. Donald Wuerl previously served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle and Bishop of Pittsburgh.
74 Facts About Donald Wuerl
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Donald Wuerl remained in charge of the archdiocese as its apostolic administrator until Francis appointed his successor, Wilton Daniel Gregory, in 2019.
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Donald Wuerl was born on November 12,1940, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Donald Wuerl was the second of four children of Francis and Mary Anna Wuerl.
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Donald Wuerl has two brothers, Wayne and Dennis, and a sister, Carol.
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Donald Wuerl's father worked nights weighing freight cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and served in the US Navy during World War II.
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Donald Wuerl's mother died in 1944 and his father married Kathryn Cavanaugh in 1946.
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Donald Wuerl expressed an interest in becoming a priest early in life.
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Donald Wuerl even held pretend masses for his brothers and sisters at home.
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Donald Wuerl received his early education at the parochial school of St Mary of the Mount Parish in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1958.
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Donald Wuerl attended Saint Gregory Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, for his freshman and sophomore years of college from September 1958 through May 1960.
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Donald Wuerl then attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he was a Basselin Scholar at the Theological College.
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Donald Wuerl earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1962 and a master's degree in 1963.
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Donald Wuerl continued his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
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Donald Wuerl earned a Master of Theology degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1967.
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Donald Wuerl was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh on December 17,1966, by Bishop Francis Frederick Reh.
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Donald Wuerl attended the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he obtained a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree in 1974.
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In 1976, Donald Wuerl co-wrote with Thomas Comerford Lawler and Ronald David Lawler a catechism for adults, The Teaching of Christ.
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Donald Wuerl served as rector at Saint Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh from 1981 to 1985.
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On December 3,1985, Donald Wuerl was appointed titular bishop of Rosemarkie and as an auxiliary bishop of Seattle by Pope John Paul II.
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Donald Wuerl was consecrated bishop on January 6,1986, at St Peter's Basilica in Rome by the pope.
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Donald Wuerl met privately with John Paul II, but declined to comment on the meeting, saying "I'm just going to wait and see what the commission does".
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Donald Wuerl resigned as auxiliary bishop of Seattle on May 26,1987.
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Donald Wuerl later said that remaining in Seattle became "unworkable", with many parishioners blaming him for the conflict with Hunthausen.
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Donald Wuerl moved to a Pittsburgh suburb to await his next appointment by the Vatican.
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Donald Wuerl was appointed as the eleventh bishop of Pittsburgh on February 12,1988, by John Paul II.
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Donald Wuerl asked his committee of lay advisors to address the debt and deficit spending associated with Catholic education in Pittsburgh.
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In 2003, Donald Wuerl conducted a $2.5 million fundraising campaign to create the Catholic Charities Free Health Care Center, serving the uninsured working poor.
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In 1989, Donald Wuerl merged Sacred Heart and St Paul Cathedral High Schools to establish Oakland Catholic High School, using the St Paul building in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
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Donald Wuerl launched and hosted a television program, The Teaching of Christ, in 1990.
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Donald Wuerl taught at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh as a distinguished service professor.
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Donald Wuerl wrote regular columns in Columbia, the major publication of the Knights of Columbus in the United States.
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In March 1994, Donald Wuerl closed 73 diocesan buildings, including 37 churches, and reduced the number of parishes from 331 by 117 through mergers.
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The diocese was operating 214 parishes when Donald Wuerl left in June 2006 to become archbishop of Washington.
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From 1994 until 2003, as bishop of Pittsburgh, Donald Wuerl served as a member of the board of governors of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, representing the Pennsylvania-New Jersey Region of the USCCB.
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Donald Wuerl was installed on June 22,2006, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC and received the pallium from Pope Benedict XVI on June 29,2006.
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Donald Wuerl served as chair of the board of directors of the National Catholic Educational Association starting on December 12,2005, and was chancellor of The Catholic University of America.
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Donald Wuerl headed the US Conference of Catholic Bishops ad hoc committee to support that implementation.
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Donald Wuerl was created Cardinal-Priest of S Pietro in Vincoli.
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In 2011, Donald Wuerl served on a committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that criticized the American Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson.
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Donald Wuerl later stated that he had offered to meet with Johnson regarding the book, but she did not respond to his invitations.
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Donald Wuerl was a cardinal elector who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.
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Donald Wuerl is said to have worked as a consensus builder on ideological conflicts over issues such as liturgical translation and communion for politicians favoring abortion rights for women during the 1990s and 2000s.
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Donald Wuerl was a supporter of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People by the USCCB.
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Donald Wuerl was totally enthusiastic about John Paul II, and then Pope Benedict, and now he's totally enthusiastic about Pope Francis.
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In cases where politicians and officeholders take policy positions that clash with church doctrine, Donald Wuerl said the decision to offer communion should be made case-by-case:.
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On November 26,2009, Donald Wuerl signed an ecumenical statement, known as the Manhattan Declaration, calling on evangelicals, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage, and other practices that go against their religious consciences.
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In December 2009, on the day that the council passed the same-sex marriage bill, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a same-sex marriage advocacy organization, wrote that Donald Wuerl had "refused to alter his official position" to reduce social services in the archdiocese.
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Donald Wuerl said the document was aimed at some theologians in Asia who were attempting to incorporate Hindu, Islamic and Buddhist tenets into the Catholic interpretation of the Gospels.
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Donald Wuerl said that Dominus Iesus defended the Catholic view of the necessity of proclaiming the Christian faith to everyone.
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Donald Wuerl commented that the pope was "trying to reach out pastorally to those who feel an attraction to this form of the liturgy, and he is asking the pastors to be aware of and support their interest".
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Donald Wuerl added that about 500 people a week were attending celebrations of the Tridentine Mass at three churches in his archdiocese.
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Donald Wuerl established a special committee "to assist pastors in evaluating and responding to requests for the regular and public celebration" of the 1962 form of Mass.
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Donald Wuerl later settled the lawsuit and the priest involved was laicized and eventually imprisoned.
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In 1988, Donald Wuerl removed Cipolla from public ministry; Cipolla appealed this action to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court, which ordered Donald Wuerl to return him to ministry.
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Donald Wuerl then asked the court to reconsider the case, saying that its decision showed a lack of awareness of the civil lawsuit against Cipolla and Cipolla's 1978 arrest.
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In 2010, Donald Wuerl argued that the American Catholic Church had made progress in confronting abusers.
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However, Donald Wuerl did not report the more detailed information contained within Diocesan records.
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Donald Wuerl launched a website, "The Donald Wuerl Record," containing a defense of his record during that era.
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In what CNN called a "growing Catholic insurgency," Donald Wuerl faced more calls for his resignation, including from a priest in his archdiocese and many laymen across ideological lines.
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The pope instructed Donald Wuerl to confer with the priests of the archdiocese regarding his next steps.
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Donald Wuerl told them he knew nothing about the allegations against McCarrick until they became public.
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Garcia denied that this refusal to serve with Donald Wuerl violated his vow of obedience to Donald Wuerl as his bishop.
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Vigano accused Donald Wuerl of putting seminarians at risk by allowing McCarrick to reside at the Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Seminary after his retirement despite knowing that he was accused of abusing seminarians.
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Donald Wuerl denied Vigano's claim that he knew of restrictions that the Vatican imposed on McCarrick.
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However, on January 10,2019, The Washington Post published a story stating that Donald Wuerl was aware of allegations against McCarrick in 2004 and reported them to the Vatican.
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Former priest Robert Ciolek, who had made the allegations, told the Post that Donald Wuerl shared the information in 2004, during his time as Bishop of Pittsburgh, with then-Vatican ambassador Gabriel Montalvo Higuera.
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The archdiocese said that Donald Wuerl did not intend to be "imprecise" in his earlier denials; he said they referred only to claims of abuse against minors, not adults.
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Donald Wuerl submitted a letter of resignation as archbishop of Washington to Francis in 2015, having met the mandatory retirement age for archbishops of 75.
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Donald Wuerl had planned to officially resign in September 2018 after first meeting with Pope Francis.
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Francis appointed Donald Wuerl to serve as apostolic administrator of Washington, DC, until his successor was appointed.
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Donald Wuerl departed as apostolic administrator when Archbishop Wilton Gregory was installed on May 21,2019.
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That same month, Shapiro criticized the Pope's decision to allow Donald Wuerl to resign without facing stronger consequences.
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On October 12,2018, Donald Wuerl wrote to members of the archdiocese and said,.