{"id":39809,"date":"2025-11-05T22:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/39809\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T22:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:35:07","slug":"roman-catholic-cardinal-robert-mcelroy-has-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/39809\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Catholic Cardinal Robert McElroy has cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Catholic-Immigration-march-11.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"488\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Catholic-Immigration-march-11.jpg\" alt=\"An older man, facing to the right,  talking. He is Cardinal Robert McElroy.\" class=\"wp-image-303888\"  \/><\/a>Cardinal Robert McElroy (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n<p>Cardinal <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/life\/2025\/01\/05\/san-diego-cardinal-mcelroy-to-become-washington-d-c-archbishop-in-march\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Robert McElroy<\/a> is preparing for surgery on Nov. 13 to remove a cancerous growth, but his prognosis is positive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am at peace with this challenge and hope and believe that in God\u2019s grace I will be Archbishop of Washington for many years to come,\u201d  the <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/life\/2025\/02\/27\/cardinal-mcelroy-part-of-my-heart-stays-in-san-diego-no-plan-to-meet-with-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">former San Diego Bishop<\/a> said, according to a Wednesday statement from the <a href=\"https:\/\/adw.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington<\/a>, his home since March. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ask your prayers and support in these days and plan to resume full duties two weeks after the surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McElroy first made the announcement to fellow priests on Tuesday during an annual convocation in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n<p>His doctors say his prognosis is good, according to the Archdiocese. He has well-differentiated liposarcoma, a type of soft tissue cancer found in fat cells. <\/p>\n<p>While sarcomas are rare and more often diagnosed in children than adults, liposarcoma is a common form of soft tissue tumors found in older adults, <a href=\"https:\/\/sarcomaoncology.com\/blog\/six-most-common-types-of-soft-tissue-sarcomas\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Sarcoma Oncology Center<\/a>. Most diagnoses are in adults over 40; the cancer is found in the thigh or other extremities.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that McElroy\u2019s liposarcoma is well-differentiated is a positive: <a href=\"https:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/health\/diseases\/21142-liposarcoma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It\u2019s non-aggressive, slow growing<\/a>, painless, non-life threatening and rarely metastasizes to other parts of the body, according to the Cleveland Clinic.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/life\/2025\/07\/17\/bishop-pham-to-his-new-san-diego-flock-serve-all-people-without-discrimination\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bishop Michael Pham<\/a>, who followed McElroy as leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p>McElroy served as bishop in San Diego from 2015 until 2025 with a <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/life\/2025\/05\/22\/pope-names-san-diegos-michael-pham-first-vietnamese-american-bishop-in-u-s\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">focus on saving the planet<\/a> from climate change, <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/life\/2025\/08\/05\/local-catholics-new-ministry-daily-walks-with-fearful-facing-sd-immigration-court\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">immigrant rights<\/a> and not stressing abortion as the pre-eminent matter of the church.<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardinal Robert McElroy (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) Cardinal Robert McElroy is preparing for surgery&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27224,4900,27225,74,76,75,514],"class_list":{"0":"post-39809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-bishop-robert-mcelroy","9":"tag-cancer","10":"tag-roman-catholic-church","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego-news","14":"tag-washington-d-c"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}