On March 11, His Eminence Robert Cardinal McElroy (71), Cardinal Priest of San Frumenzino ai Prati Fiscali, previously Bishop of San Diego (2015-2025) and originally a priest and Auxiliary Bishop (2010-2015) of San Francisco, was installed as the 8th Archbishop of Washington, DC.
At his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop he assumed a coat of arms which he then substantially changed when he moved to San Diego. In 2022 when he was created Cardinal I was privileged to assist him in preparing his coat of arms and at that time some further revisions and improvements to the design were made. At this most recent move, his personal arms, unchanged any further, were marshaled to those of the archdiocese and the episcopal cross was changed to an archiepiscopal cross.
From the website of the archdiocese we find the following:
“Arms impaled. In the dexter: Quarterly Azure and Gules, a cross bottony over all quarterly Or and Argent; 1, a crescent Argent; 2, three mullets of six points fesswise in chief Argent; 3, as many mullets of five points fesswise in chief Argent; 4, a head erased affronté and winged all Argent. In the sinister: Per fess Azure and Vert, in chief the stylized silhouette of Mission San Francisco de Assis above, in base, that of Mission San Diego both Argent; in base below to dexter a dove turned to sinister volant wings addorsed and to sinister, an oak leaf both Argent scales Or.
The shield is ensigned with an archiepiscopal cross Or in pale behind the shield and surmounted by a cardinal’s galero with cords and fifteen tassels on either side in five rows of one, two, three, four and five all Gules.
On a scroll below the shield is the motto: “Dignitatis Humanae.”
The arms of the Archdiocese of Washington were devised in 1947 by William F. J. Ryan and modified in 2001 by Anthony W. C. Phelps, when the cross bottony was substituted for the original cross of chain links in silver. Cardinal McElroy’s arms were devised originally by Rev. Timothy Pelc. The present blazon of his arms was done by Rev. Guy Selvester. The rendering of the impaled arms was done by Georgina Wilkinson.”
EXARANDORUM 
I know, as the designer, that you are subject to the wishes of the episcopal armiger and have to work within the context of his desires, but these arms are far too busy. The blazon, which should describe the arms heraldically in the fewest possible words, reads more like a short story. As Cardinal Rigali once told me, “When it come to the coats of arms of the clergy, simple is best.”
I don’t disagree but marshaling two different coats of arms on one shield often makes for a very complex design. I didn’t deign the Cardinal’s coat of arms. Rather, when he became a cardinal and I worked on his new emblazonment, I suggested a few ways to clean it up and simplify it from what it had been. Whoever designed the arms of the See of Washington, DC (the late Mr. Phelps merely did the revision where the cross of chains was replaced with the cross bottony) was clearly trying to get as many things in as possible making for an overloaded coat of arms. So, combined with the arms of the Cardinal, the whole things has a lot of charges to blazon. The blazon itself is only two sentences.