Donald Wuerl

Donald William Wuerl (born November 12, 1940) is an American Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Washington from 2006 to 2018. He previously served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle (1986 to 1987) and Bishop of Pittsburgh (1988 to 2006). Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal in 2010.

Wuerl is widely viewed as a theological moderate, and is well known in the church for his ability to forge consensus between different factions. Questions arose in 2018 of whether Wuerl had adequately dealt with allegations of sexual abuse against clergy under his jurisdiction. A 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report criticized how he handled sexual abuse cases during his time as bishop in Pittsburgh. Wuerl has denied mishandling the cases.

There were additional accusations that Wuerl, despite initially denying it, was aware of sexual abuse accusations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, his predecessor in Washington. On October 12, 2018, Pope Francis accepted Wuerl's resignation as Archbishop of Washington. Wuerl remained in charge of the archdiocese as its apostolic administrator until Francis appointed his successor, Wilton Daniel Gregory, in 2019.

Donald Wuerl was born on November 12, 1940, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the second of four children of Francis and Mary Anna (née Schiffauer) Wuerl. He has two brothers, Wayne and Dennis, and a sister, Carol. Wuerl's father worked nights weighing freight cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and served in the US Navy during World War II. His mother died in 1944 and his father married Kathryn Cavanaugh in 1946. Donald Wuerl expressed an interest in becoming a priest early in life. He even held pretend masses for his brothers and sisters at home.

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. He attended Saint Gregory Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, for his freshman and sophomore years of college from September 1958 through May 1960. He then attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was a Basselin Scholar at the Theological College. Wuerl earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1962 and a master's degree in 1963.

Wuerl continued his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He earned a Master of Theology degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1967. While a student in Rome, Wuerl was able to observe the proceedings of the Second Vatican Council.

Wuerl was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh on December 17, 1966, by Bishop Francis Frederick Reh. After his ordination, Wuerl was assigned as assistant pastor at St. Rosalia Parish in Pittsburgh's Greenfield neighborhood and as priest-secretary to Bishop John Wright.

After Wright was elevated to cardinal in 1969, Wuerl became his full-time priest-secretary in Vatican City from 1969 until Wright's death in 1979. While in Rome. Wuerl attended the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he obtained a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree in 1974.