The rise of Archbishop Fabre?

The Louisville archbishop has a growing reputation as a pastor and a leader - and many are tipping him as a man to watch

When the U.S. bishops’ conference announced on a Tuesday a slate of candidates for committee chairmanships and an executive leadership position, one name may have stood out to some ecclesiastical observers — that of Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville.

Archbishop Shelton Fabre. Credit: Festival of Faiths/wikimedia. CC BY SA 2.0

Fabre’s nomination to chair the USCCB’s domestic and human development committee is the latest nod to a prelate whose profile among U.S. bishops has risen significantly in recent years. And, as the archbishop’s record of accomplishments and recognition broadens, expectations among some Catholics about his future in the U.S. Church have also begun to rise.

With the archbishop likely to be elected to chair an important conference committee at a critical moment, there are increasingly questions about just how much time Fabre will spend in Washington in the years to come.

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A priest of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Fabre was an auxiliary bishop in New Orleans before he spent nine years as ordinary in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana. Priests of that diocese have told The Pillar that the bishop enjoyed widespread popularity and trust among his clergy, mostly as both a fatherly and fraternal presence among them, reportedly giving the sense that he was invested in their ministries, their wellbeing, and their holiness.

Indeed, when Fabre, 60, became the Archbishop of Louisville in early 2022, several Louisiana priests made it a point to tell The Pillar how important to them Fabre had become.

In Louisville, the archbishop seems to have fast gained a similar reputation among his clergy — as a competent administrator, but more frequently mentioned, as a dedicated paternal figure to his priests. 

That reputation seemed to serve the archbishop well in June 2023, when Fabre was appointed as the temporary administrator of the embattled Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, which had just seen the resignation of Bishop Richard Stika, who was accused of interfering with the diocesan review board to cover up an allegation of misconduct, and of other financial and administrative acts of misconduct.

Fabre took over the diocese amid a period of extraordinarily low clerical morale, and significantly diminished ecclesiastical trust among local lay Catholics. 

For that context, the archbishop’s particular skill set seemed to many to be well-suited. But likely few would have predicted just how quickly Fabre would become beloved in Eastern Tennessee, with many priests and laity saying that the archbishop had listened to them, been present to them, and assured them of his commitment to open and clear communication in the embattled diocese, kicking off a process of healing in Knoxville that — while neither complete nor perfect — did seem to signify a sincere desire to turn a page in Knoxville. 

While there remain unanswered questions in that diocese, particularly about the status and future of Stika-era whistleblowers, Fabre was, by most accounts, seen as an agent of change in the diocese, even while he maintained his administrative and pastoral obligations four hours away in Louisville. .

On the whole, Fabre has gained a reputation as an on-the-ground pastor, in the style of episcopacy seemingly favored by Pope Francis. 

At the bishops’ conference, Fabre agreed in 2018 to become chairman of the USCCB’s anti-racism committee, when inaugural chairman Bishop George Murry stepped down amid cancer treatment. That decision put Fabre in a high-profile position during the summer of 2020, where he had the unenviable task of guiding the bishops’ conference through a national moment of reckoning, crisis, and riots over race. 

If he is elected chairman of the USCCB’s committee on domestic justice and human development, Fabre will find himself embroiled in another complicated situation, albeit one much more ecclesiastical. The committee is customarily connected to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a USCCB anti-poverty initiative facing both a budget crisis and the prospect of significant reshaping over the next 18 months.

While the CCHD campaign was recently shifted to be staffed in a different USCCB office, Fabre’s committee will certainly play a key role in consultations and discussions regarding the project’s future. That prospect was not likely lost on the bishops who nominated Fabre to the job.    

Amid that portfolio of increasing responsibilities and high-profile situations, Fabre has emerged in some discussions about the future of the Archdiocese of Washington, where Cardinal Wilton Gregory is nearly 77 years old, and facing health problems. 

The Pillar has confirmed Fabre is among the preferential picks of some senior Churchmen to replace Gregory, especially because the archbishop’s pastoral and clerical focus could be of real aid to an archdiocesan clergy facing a looming financial crunch, and lingering unresolved questions about the Theodore McCarrick scandal and archdiocesan transparency. 

Indeed, while the Archdiocese of Washington’s location means that politics seem an unavoidable part of its identity, Fabre’s uniquely pastoral reputation has reportedly been seen in some circles as a prospectively useful tone and style in the archdiocese, which would be seemingly focused on ecclesial life and health, rather than Beltway gridlock — an approach preferred by Cardinal Gregory, at least according to some in the archdiocese.

Earlier this year, Fabre played host to the U.S. bishops’ conference for its June meeting, held in Louisville in 2024, and scheduled to return to the city in 2027.

And while the archbishop himself — famously averse to ecclesiastical rumors or speculation — would likely demur at even the suggestion, it seems increasingly plausible that when the USCCB comes back to Kentucky in three years, Fabre could be arriving as a guest.