Washington • The District of Columbia’s new Catholic leader — the country’s lone black archbishop — on Thursday issued his first public statement since his installation, lambasting President Donald Trump’s recent tweets about members of Congress of color as “diminishing our national life.”
Wilton Gregory, who came to Washington in May, is known through his long, prominent career for being nonconfrontational on hot-button issues in public, but working quietly behind the scenes — a model similar to the man he replaced, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. But on Thursday, Gregory signaled that he wants to use his higher-profile perch in the nation’s capital to challenge the use of identity — racial, national origin or otherwise — as a tool of attack.