At their fall meeting, the US bishops elected Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services as the new bishops’ conference president. He defeated Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore on the third ballot by a 138-99 margin.

The bishops then elected Archbishop Lori as their vice president. He defeated Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend on the third ballot by a 143-96 margin.

In its analysis of the vote, The Pillar noted that Archbishop Broglio is “usually framed as ‘conservative’ bishop, at least relative to some other members of the conference.” At the same time, he worked in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, and thus “could prove an effective communicator for the US bishops in their dealings with the Holy See.”

On the other hand, Austen Ivereigh, who helped write the newest synod document, tweeted, “It is difficult to overstate what a repudiation of Pope Francis the selection of Broglio to lead the conference is. He is the one bishop in the US with long-standing tensions with the Pope.”