"Must be Bald-Faced Liar": the essential job qualification for Catholic Archbishop of Washington.

We all knew that Wilton Gregory was moved to Washington to keep Donald Wuerl's and Ted McCarrick's remaining secrets and network of pals secure. After all, the overlap is considerable.

And while that involves a certain amount of smiling mendacity, I wasn't expecting him to display his predecessors' knack for easily-disproven lies.

At least not so soon.

Donald McClarey brings this to our attention today: the shocked, shocked! Archbishop had been fully aware of the President's planned visit to the JPII Center and had declined an invite:

The White House said Sunday that Washington’s archbishop was invited to attend an event with President Donald Trump several days before it took place, amid media reports that the archbishop did not learn of the event until the night before it took place.

White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere told CNA June 7 that “Archbishop Gregory received an invitation to the President’s event at the St. John Paul II Shrine the week prior to the President’s visit. He declined due to other commitments.”

Correspondence between Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s office and the White House indicates the same.

In correspondence dated May 30th and obtained by CNA, Gregory’s office declined “the kind invitation to attend the event celebrating International Religious Freedom on Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at the Saint John Paul II Shrine.“

I'm neither surprised nor disappointed. As the last few years have shown, this is the precisely the kind of shallow, hissing ideologue the pontiff wants in prominent positions in the American church. 

I can't wait to see who he gives us to run Detroit when that bleak day comes.