Pope Francis announced Sunday that D.C.’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory will become one of 13 new Cardinals, making him the first African American to hold the high-ranking post.

Gregory, 72, became Washington’s archbishop in 2019. His predecessor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, resigned from his leadership of the archdiocese in 2018 after he was accused of covering up sexual abuse while serving as bishop of Pittsburg.

The pope announced the new bishop from his balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

Archbishops of Washington frequently become cardinals, so there was already anticipation he would become the first Black cardinal from the United States.

Gregory will be elevated to the position at a November 28 ceremony at the Vatican, according to the archdiocese. As a cardinal, he can vote in a papal election, though only until he turns 80.

“With a very grateful and humble heart, I thank Pope Francis for this appointment, which will allow me to work more closely with him in caring for Christ’s Church,” Gregory said in a statement.

Gregory’s appointment as the first Black American cardinal comes after months of protests over racial injustice.

In June, Gregory signed a letter alongside Maryland’s Catholic leaders calling for action to promote racial justice in the state.

“With regret and humility, we must recognize that as Catholic leaders and as an institution we have, at times, not followed the Gospel to which we profess and have been too slow in correcting our shortcomings,” the letter states. “For this reason, it is incumbent upon us to place ourselves at the forefront of efforts to remove the inequalities and discrimination that are still present in Maryland and our nation today.

And earlier this month, the archbishop addressed ongoing efforts to address policing in Maryland. He said that while most police officers are “dedicated guardians of public safety,” change is still crucial.

“Until we can get to the point where a young Black kid, a young Black man, can feel safe when he’s encountering a police officer, we’ve got to talk,” he said at a virtual town hall meeting.

Gregory’s elevation is significant for the Catholic Church as a whole, but particularly in the United States, says Shannen Dee Williams, a professor at Villanova University who has studied the history of Black Catholics.

“Historically, African American men had been systematically excluded from the nation’s seminaries and religious orders of men,” she said, “This moment matters.”

She adds that, globally, Black Catholics “still remain grossly underrepresented in the College of Cardinals.”

“For the small handful of Black men ordained to the priesthood before the Civil Rights movement, the vast majority were either hidden away as instructors in seminaries or sent out of the country to serve as missionaries in Africa or the Caribbean,” Williams said.

Gregory was born in Chicago. He was ordained there in 1973 and came to D.C. after serving as the archbishop of Atlanta for 14 years.

Gregory was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the early 2000s, and played a key role in drafting a new policy to address priest sexual abuse.

He arrived in D.C. years later, as revelations of clergy sexual abuse had shaken the archdiose. Gregory’s two predecessors as Archbishop of Washington — Wuerl and Theodore McCarrick — were either accused of abuse or of covering up other priests’ behavior.

A Pennsylvania grand jury report named Wuerl multiple times and accused him of moving abusive priests from parish to parish while serving as bishop of Pittsburgh. McCarrick is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be expelled from the priesthood, over allegations — rumored for years and later confirmed by a church tribunal — that he abused young seminarians while he was the archbishop of Newark.

Gregory addressed this troubling history when he arrived in Washington. In a homily delivered at his installation mass, Gregory said D.C.’s faith community stood at a “defining moment.”

“The stories history of this great archdiocese is a gift of the Church in the United States of America. Our recent sorrow and shame do not define us. Rather, they serve to chasten and strengthen us to face tomorrow with spirits undeterred.”

The Archdiocese of Washington covers D.C. and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s. It includes 139 parishes and 91 Catholic schools.

This story has been updated with comments from Professor Shannen Dee Williams, and additional information about Archbishop Gregory.