Cardinal George Asks Church to Start Process of Choosing Successor

WLS
April 11, 2014

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9500149

Francis Cardinal George has asked the Catholic Church to begin the process of choosing his successor. His announcement came after he spoke Friday morning about how a ''strenuous'' round of chemotherapy led him to cancel an important trip to Rome later this month.

The cardinal, 77, said he has spoken with the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, D.C., and asked him to begin the process to eventually choose his successor.

Cardinal George is undergoing chemotherapy treatment and will not be able to rearrange his schedule to travel to Rome later this month for the canonizations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, who appointed Cardinal George to the Chicago Archdiocese.

"I had hoped to be there," he said of the canonizations, but considering his health thought the trip would be "very foolish." Cardinal George said he is "not going to do something dangerous."

The cardinal's health prompted him to consider his position within the Chicago Archdiocese.

"As you have chemo, there are good days and bad days," Cardinal George said. "The fact that my health is uncertain; it's a question of being able to extend your entire energy on what is my responsibility as archbishop of Chicago."

The cardinal was first diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2006. In 2012, it returned to his kidney and liver, leading several rounds of chemotherapy.

Cardinal George began more aggressive chemotherapy treatment in early March after doctors discovered new cancer cells in his kidney.

This second round of chemotherapy led Cardinal George to cancel his trip to Rome. It was interrupted when he spent a week in the hospital with flu-like symptoms.

"They've already postponed the second treatment," Cardinal George said. "They want to do chemo on a regular schedule now, a strenuous schedule. At the end of that, they'll do the scans and see what's worked."

The cardinal has one more treatment in this series of three. He plans to keep his Holy Week commitments.