Steinberg: Cardinal George has steered church, self through strife

By Neil Steinberg
Chicago Sun-Times
September 20, 2014

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/29991927-452/serious-george-has-steered-through-strife.html#.VB2DjfldWSo

When the Rev. Francis George, archbishop of Portland, Oregon, learned that Pope John Paul II had named him as the successor to Chicago’s much-beloved Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the unassuming priest asked in surprise, “Are you sure the Holy Father has considered all the options?”

He had.

The former Northwest Sider became Cardinal Francis George, the city’s sixth cardinal and the first priest born within the Chicago Archdiocese to be called upon to lead it, which he has done with seriousness and a firm hand. On Saturday, Pope Francis namedBishop Blase Cupich, of Spokane, Washington, as George’s successor, according to the Associated Press.

Considered conservative at the time of his appointment — he was named head of the Chicago Archdiocese in April 1997 and elevated to cardinal in January 1998 — George tried to set an accepting tone for the archdiocese’s 2.3 million Catholics.

“The bishop is to be the source of unity in any archdiocese,” he said the day he was introduced to the city. “The faith isn’t liberal or conservative.”

George, 77, has been struggling with cancer for the past eight years after being diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer in 2006. It returned for a third time in the spring, and in August he began using experimental treatments to combat the disease.

The void left by Cardinal Bernardin, who also fought cancer, succumbing in November 1996, underscored his successor’s at times stiff demeanor. George is not a cardinal of hugs and sunshine. His personal manner can be chilly, and he was not embraced by the city as his predecessor had been. But he earned Chicago’s respect, presiding over the archdiocese during a difficult period marked by church closings, the challenge of inner-city violence, controversy over immigration and the lingering sex-abuse scandal with calm, discipline and a focus on core Catholic values.

Always outspoken, George kept a hard line against welcoming gays into the church, even after Pope Francis seemed to set a less judgmental course.

“The law, however, is bad law,” he said after Illinois passed a gay marriage bill in November, “because it will contribute over the long run to the further dissolution of marriage and family life, which are the bedrock of any society.”

Born in Evanston, he attended St. Pascal Elementary on North Melvina and then St. Henry Preparatory Seminary in Belleville, Illinois. George entered Quigley Preparatory Seminary but quickly had to drop out when he contracted polio at age 13. He wears a brace on his right leg and walks with a limp.

Earlier in his career, George taught philosophy at Tulane, as well as at Creighton and Gonzaga universities. He was sincere enough in his intellectual inquiry that the realm of philosophy sometimes posed a challenge to his faith.

“To go back and forth between those two worlds, one of which sometimes leads to agnosticism or even atheism, the other that is firmly planted in living with God, that too was another moment in my development that could have gone either way,” he told the Sun-Times. “In some ways you can imagine yourself living a life without faith if you do philosophy seriously, at least modern philosophy. So that was another moment when I had to reassert for myself that yes, I do believe.”

George could be caustic, quick to upbraid those he considered wrong-headed, earning him the nickname, “Francis the Corrector.” It’s a tendency he recognized.

“That’s one of the biggest difficulties,” he told the Sun-Times in 2005. “I get impatient at times. I try not to, but when you’re faced with something that you know just isn’t so, and you say, ‘Well, that’s not so!’ You try to be polite, but people should know better.”

As a critical thinker, George said having doubts about the church is part of being Catholic.

“Who hasn’t?” he said in that 2005 interview, chuckling. “I can’t imagine being married sometimes and not wondering, ‘Did I marry the right woman? This is it?’ It’s the same thing. Especially doing philosophy where you are trained to be extremely critical.”