Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory

"We Are The Lord's"

Biographical Dates

Born:	December 7, 1947
Ordained priest:	May 9, 1973
Ordained bishop:	December 13, 1983
Installed as Archbishop of Atlanta:	January 17, 2005

Born December 7, 1947, in Chicago to Wilton Sr. and Ethel Duncan Gregory, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory attended St. Carthage Grammar School, where he converted to Catholicism. He attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, Niles College (now St. Joseph’s College Seminary) of Loyola University and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary.

He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 9, 1973. Three years after his ordination he began graduate studies at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant’ Anselmo) in Rome. There he earned his doctorate in sacred liturgy in 1980.

After having served as an associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Glenview, Ill., as a member of the faculty of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein and as a master of ceremonies to Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin, he was ordained an auxiliary bishop of Chicago on Dec. 13, 1983. On Feb. 10, 1994, he was installed as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., where he served for the next decade.

On Dec. 9, 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Gregory as the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. He was installed on Jan. 17, 2005.
Archbishop Gregory has also contributed a leading role in the U.S. church. In Nov. 2001, he was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops following three years as vice president under Bishop Joseph Fiorenza of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston. During his tenure in office, the crisis of sex abuse by Catholic clergy escalated, and under his leadership, the bishops implemented the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

He served on the NCCB Executive and Administrative Committees, the Administrative Board, the Committee on Doctrine and the U.S. Catholic Conference Committee on International Policy. He previously served as the chairman of the Bishops’ Committees on Personnel and the Third Millennium/Jubilee Year 2000 from 1998-2001, and Liturgy from 1991-93.

Archbishop Gregory has written extensively on church issues, including pastoral statements on the death penalty and euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide, and has published numerous articles on the subject of liturgy, particularly in the African-American community.

He has also been recognized with a number of honorary degrees, including a doctorate of humanities from Lewis University in Romeoville, Ill., a doctorate of humane letters from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., a doctorate of humane letters from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, a doctorate of humane letters from McKendree College in Lebanon, Ill., and a doctorate of humanities from St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo.

Archbishop Gregory was awarded the Sword of Loyola from St. Louis University in 2004. In 2006, he joined an illustrious group of preachers with his induction into the Martin Luther King Board of Preachers at Morehouse College, Atlanta. At the National Pastoral Life Center in Washington, D.C., in June 2006, Archbishop Gregory was honored with the Cardinal Bernardin Award given by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative.

Selected News Stories from The Georgia Bulletin

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Don't miss Archbishop Gregory's weekly column, "What I Have Seen and Heard"

Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory

Biographical Dates

Selected News Stories from The Georgia Bulletin

2007

2006

2005

2004