HOW BLACK CATHOLIC MESSENGER FEATURES HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL GREGORY HIGHEST CIVILIAN HONOR! (1544 hits)
For Immediate Release From Black Catholic Messenger!
On Saturday evening, the Lincoln Academy of Illinois will award Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington the Order of Lincoln, the highest civilian award given by the State of Illinois.
The 75-year-old Black Catholic prelate is one of six Lincoln Laureates this year, described by the academy as those “who have brought honor to the state because of their achievements and their identity with Illinois, whether by birth or residence.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who serves as president of the academy, will bestow the medals at the 59th annual convocation and investiture ceremony in the House chambers of the Illinois State Capitol—where the namesake, Abraham Lincoln, served as a state representative from 1834 to 1842.
“These talented individuals embody the very best of Illinois, and I am honored to recognize them for their service and dedication to our great state,” Pritzker said of the Laureates earlier this year.
“These six Laureates, like the man after whom The Lincoln Academy is named, stand tall in their fields and remind us of what can be achieved with determination and vision," added retired circuit judge Ron Spears, who serves as chancellor of the academy.
Gregory, who has served as Archbishop of Washington since 2019, was born in 1947 to a Black Protestant family in Chicago, where he converted to Catholicism as a child. He later attended local diocesan seminaries and was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 25.
As a priest, Gregory obtained a Doctor of Sacred Liturgy in Rome in Rome and, after just a decade of priesthood, was named Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago by Pope John Paul II in 1983. At 35 years of age, he was the youngest Catholic prelate in the United States and one of the youngest in American history.
