Yesterday in Washington, D.C., 230 bishops elected their current vice president, Bishop William Skylstad, 70, of Spokane, Wash., as their president, despite concerns that he will be preoccupied by a diocese that is declaring bankruptcy because of sexual abuse lawsuits.

There were also concerns that Skylstad once shared a rectory with a priest who molested minors. Survivors groups have accused him of doing nothing to intervene.

Although the vice president is normally automatically elected president, Skylstad won just 52 percent of the vote in a field of 10. His election was attributed both to protocol and to the bishops' desire to affirm the policies against sexual abuse that he helped Gregory to implement.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was chosen as vice president in a runoff vote, defeating Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh, 51 percent to 49 percent.

There is little apparent difference on issues between Wuerl and George, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America and author of a book on the bishops' conference,

"They're both very bright, they are both articulate, they both have experience working in Rome and they both are very loyal to the Holy Father," Reese said.

Both Wuerl and George had argued against denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights, saying that priests are not able instantly to judge the hearts and souls of those who come forward. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, who had taken a much harder line against abortion rights politicians, got no more than six of 230 votes on any of the ballots.

Wuerl said he voted for George, and was both delighted and relieved that George won.

George, he noted, had served small and mid-sized dioceses before Chicago, and could understand a wide variety of problems that bishops face. That was more important to his election than his status as a cardinal, Wuerl said.

"Cardinal George was elected because of his competence," Wuerl said.

George carries enormous weight in Rome, where Vatican officials have great respect for his academic knowledge and his concern for relating faith to culture. He recently got a ringing endorsement from the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, the influential conservative editor of "First Things," who described him as "the intellectual leader" of the conference.

Perhaps the largest known difference between Wuerl and George is over gender-inclusive language for human beings in the liturgy. Wuerl has long advocated adding "sisters" to "brothers" when scripture is clearly addressing both sexes. George once gave a talk to the bishops on why he believed such language was not necessary or accurate.

Some bishops said privately that the major differences they saw between George and Wuerl were of style rather than substance. George was seen as a philosopher, while Wuerl was viewed as more of a tactician who knew how to get things done. Skylstad and George will assume their new duties when Gregory steps down on Thursday, after guiding the bishops through a sexual abuse crisis that no one predicted when he was elected three years ago.

In his farewell address, Gregory urged the bishops to continue the work they had started to prevent future abuse.

Staying the course may be more difficult because Kathleen McChesney, the former FBI agent who heads the bishops' Office for Child and Youth Protection, said yesterday that she will step down in February. Nicholas Cafardi, chairman of the bishops' national Lay Review Board that oversees McChesney's office and dean of the Duquesne University School of Law, will help choose her successor.

"Kathleen is a close-to-indispensable person," Cafardi said.

Some bishops were unhappy with some of Gregory's decisions during the sexual abuse crisis. In particular, there were objections to the selection of former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating as the original head of the Lay Review Board. Before he resigned last year, Keating compared some of the bishops to "La Cosa Nostra."

"I am sorry for the mistakes and missteps I that I have made, and I hope that you and the members of the church that I love so deeply have been able to forgive me for those," Gregory said.

(Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.)