The United States is the home country of 10 of the 133 cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope of the Catholic Church. That’s more than any nation except Italy, home to 17 of the electors who will gather at the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Wednesday for the conclave that will choose a successor to Pope Francis.
Only four of the American electors actively serve as archbishops in the United States: Timothy Dolan of New York, Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Robert McElroy of Washington. Two are retired archbishops: Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Wilton Gregory of Washington.
The other four cardinals’ careers have included lengthy service at the Vatican: Robert Prevost, James Michael Harvey, Raymond Burke and Kevin Farrell.
Here are brief profiles of the cardinal electors:
Burke, 76, a staunch Catholic traditionalist, often clashed with the more reform-minded Pope Francis. Born in Wisconsin, he was a bishop there before serving as archbishop of St. Louis from 2004 to 2008. Pope Benedict XVI had made Burke a cardinal in 2010, after he appointed him prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s high court. After Francis removed him from that post in 2014, he made Burke the cardinal patron of the Knights of Malta, a prestigious but limited role. There, too, Burke and Francis clashed over a governance crisis at the chivalric order; Francis pushed him aside. Burke has been outspoken in saying Catholic politicians shouldn’t present themselves for Communion if they support abortion rights.
Cupich, 76, archbishop of Chicago, was a close adviser to Francis and has served on several Vatican committees. He’s considered a moderate among his peers, having balanced upholding conservative Catholic teachings on social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion with advocacy for compassionate responses to the affected communities. Cupich, who inherited clergy sex abuse crises in dioceses he led, helped push reforms to combat the problem. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he was ordained in 1975 and appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1998 as bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota. Pope Benedict XVI transferred him in 2010 to Spokane, Washington. In 2014, Francis — in his first major U.S. appointment as pope — made him archbishop of Chicago, and made him a cardinal in 2016.
DiNardo, 75, retired this year as archbishop of Galveston-Houston — the fifth-largest U.S. diocese, with 1.7 million Catholics. DiNardo was ordained in his native Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1977. He earned degrees from Catholic universities in Washington and Rome and worked in the Vatican office overseeing appointments of bishops. He served as bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, before moving to Houston in 2004. DiNardo was named a cardinal in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI. He served as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2016 to 2019. That was a tumultuous time when the USCCB faced numerous allegations of coverups of sexual abuse by priests. DiNardo shared Pope Francis’ strong support for migrants while defending traditional church teachings on sexuality.
Dolan, 75, has been archbishop of New York since 2009. He previously served nearly seven years as archbishop of Milwaukee. He grew up in Missouri, where he was ordained in 1976. Among other duties, Dolan was chairman of Catholic Relief Services and served a term as president of the USCCB. In January 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him a cardinal. Dolan is widely viewed as conservative; he wrote a 2018 Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “The Democrats Abandon Catholics.” Yet in 2023, he wrote a letter of welcome to a conference at Fordham University celebrating outreach programs aimed at LGBTQ+ Catholics.
Farrell, 77, was selected by Pope Francis in 2019 to be the camerlengo, the Vatican official who runs the Holy See after the death of one pope and before the election of another. Farrell was born in Dublin in 1947, entered the Legionaries of Christ religious order in 1966 and was ordained a priest for the order in 1978. He left six years later — before revelations that its founder was a pedophile — and became a priest in the Washington Archdiocese. He worked in several parishes and helped manage finances for the archdiocese. He became auxiliary bishop of Washington in 2001 and served under ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick before becoming bishop of Dallas in 2007.
Pope Francis tapped Gregory to lead the Archdiocese of Washington in 2019 and made him the first Black cardinal from the U.S. in 2020. Gregory, 77, retired earlier this year from leading the prominent archdiocese, which he shepherded through significant turmoil. Its two previous leaders, McCarrick and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, were implicated in a new wave of the clergy sex abuse scandal. Gregory has supported social justice and solidarity with immigrants. He drew notice for his relatively inclusive approach for LGBTQ+ Catholics. He told an LGBTQ+ group in January: “I apologize for my own lack of courage to bring healing and hope, and I ask forgiveness.” Gregory was born in Chicago, where he was ordained in 1973 and served as an auxiliary bishop beginning in 1983. After serving for 11 years as bishop in Belleville, Illinois, he was appointed in 2004 by Pope John Paul II to be archbishop of Atlanta.
Harvey, 76, has pursued a long career at the Vatican, initially as a diplomat and more recently as manager of the papal household. Born in Milwaukee, he studied at seminary there before completing his formation in Rome. He was ordained by Pope Paul VI in Rome in 1975 and entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1980. Pope John Paul II appointed Harvey prefect of the Papal Household in 1998, a position entailing management of the pope’s official activities. Harvey filled that role for 24 years, under John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict proclaimed Harvey a cardinal in 2012.
Pope Francis named McElroy as archbishop of Washington in January, tapping one of his most progressive allies to head the Catholic Church in the U.S. capital at the start of Donald Trump’s second term as president. McElroy criticized Trump’s threats of mass deportations of immigrants as “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” Francis had appointed McElroy as bishop of San Diego in 2015 and elevated him to cardinal in 2022. McElroy, 71, was one of a few U.S. bishops assailing a campaign to exclude Catholic politicians who support abortion rights from Communion. He has also expressed support for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church. A native San Franciscan, McElroy received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a master’s degree and doctorate from Stanford, and a doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome.
The Chicago-born Prevost, 69, is prefect of the Vatican’s powerful dicastery for bishops, in charge of vetting nominations for bishops around the world. He has extensive experience in Peru, first as a missionary and then an archbishop. Francis had an eye on him for years, sending him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that position until 2023, when Francis brought him to Rome for his current role.
Tobin, 72, is archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and a veteran of the Vatican bureaucracy who speaks five languages. The Detroit native was ordained in 1978 and earned master’s degrees in religious education and divinity at Mount Saint Alphonsus Seminary in Esopus, New York. Pope Benedict XVI appointed Tobin in 2010 as secretary of the Vatican’s office overseeing religious orders. Tobin reportedly ruffled feathers by seeking to mend its frayed ties with U.S. nuns facing complaints they had become too liberal. Benedict appointed Tobin archbishop of Indianapolis in 2012. Pope Francis appointed him cardinal and archbishop of Newark in 2016. Tobin welcomed Syrian refugees to Indiana despite opposition from then-Gov. Mike Pence. He has a welcoming stance toward LGBTQ+ people.
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Seven U.S. cardinals, due to being 80 or older, are not conclave electors: Edwin O’Brien, Roger Mahony, Adam Maida, Seán Patrick O’Malley, Justin Rigali, James Francis Stafford, Donald Wuerl.
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AP journalists Holly Meyer and Tiffany Stanley contributed to this report.
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