c. 1997 Religion News Service
CHICAGO _ The Vatican, acting nearly five months after the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Tuesday (April 8) named Archbishop Francis George of Portland, Ore., as the new head of the powerful and important archdiocese of Chicago.
Francis, 60, a member of the Oblate Fathers religious order and described as”very sharp”and”an intellectual conservative,”is the first native Chicagoan appointed to the post. He returns to his childhood home after just a 10-month stint in Portland.
Before that, he headed the Yakima, Wash., diocese from 1990 to 1996. George also served as the Vicar General for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Rome from 1974 to 1986. With the Chicago appointment, he is almost certain to be named a cardinal.
At a morning news conference, George said he learned more than two weeks ago from the apostolic nuncio Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan in Washington that he would become the eighth archbishop of the nation’s second-largest diocese, after Los Angeles.
Under questioning, George sought to draw both continuities and distinctions with the well-known and immensely popular Bernardin, who was widely regarded as the intellectual leader of the progressive wing of the U.S. church.
But he shied away from specific questions about policies and politics on which he might differ from the late cardinal, saying that he, like Bernardin, practiced traditional Roman Catholic faith.”The faith isn’t liberal or conservative,”George said.”The faith is truth. There’s no difference (with Bernardin) in substance. There may be difference in style.” Like Bernardin, however, George stressed his commitment to dialogue.
Among the issues George said he hopes to address while in Chicago are questions involving the Latino community in the life of the church, and the concerns of people with disabilities. George overcame a childhood bout with polio and still wears a brace on his leg.
He also wants to work with and listen to those whose perspectives are more distant from his own, he said.”I would like to understand how they understand the teaching,”George said of those who support the ordination of women. Acknowledging equal capabilities of men and women, George said,”It’s not as much a question of function as it is of symbolism. Symbols are more important than function. The church makes invisible realities visible.” But interpretation of those realities is not a settled question for many Catholics, especially women, who reacted to George’s appointment with caution.
For Sister Donna Quinn, director of Chicago Catholic Women, an independent feminist group within the archdiocese, the symbolism evident Tuesday morning was that of all-male representation in a majority-female institution.”Symbolism is quite important if we are to have a church for our daughters,”Quinn said.”It’s just crucial. We hope his number one priority would be to stop the gender discrimination and bring needed healing.” Rosemary Radford Ruether, a feminist theologian Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., said George’s comments simply reflect current Roman Catholic policy that argues since Jesus was a man he can only be represented in the priesthood by men.”As long as Vatican policy is that women can’t be ordained and that this is rooted in unchanged theological law, they are not going to say anything different,”Ruether said of many Roman Catholic clergy.”If the Vatican changed its mind, almost all of them would immediately change their tune.” Other progressive groups said they were willing to work with George in his commitment to dialogue.”We recognize that it will take time for the new bishop to become acquainted with the needs of the local church and we are confident that he will listen to a great variety of voices in the days and years ahead,”said Linda Pleczynski, president of Call to Action, the Chicago-based national reform organization that supports ordination of women, optional celibacy for priests and more focus on the church’s social justice teachings.
While considered a moderate conservative, George has also shown a more liberal streak, publicly opposing in 1994 and 1995 anti-gay rights initiatives in Washington.
On the ecumenical front, George’s appointment was welcomed by the Chicago chapter of the American Jewish Committee. “Archbishop George has already demonstrated an excellent track record on Catholic-Jewish relations, interfaith cooperation and human relations,”said Richard Weinberg, president of the Chicago AJC.
George was born Jan. 16, 1937, and was ordained a priest in 1963 in Chicago. He earned a Masters degree in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, and a doctorate at Tulane University in New Orleans.
He taught philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and in 1973 was elected provincial of the Central United States Province of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in St. Paul, Minn.
After receiving a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome, George returned to the United States to head the Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture in Cambridge, Mass. In 1990, Pope John Paul II named him bishop of Yakima, where he served until he was named to the Portland post last April.
He is active in the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the organization of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, but none of his posts have given him the kind of high-profile visibility Bernardin had.
As archbishop of Chicago, George will oversee an archdiocese that includes 1,411 square miles in Cook and Lake counties with a Catholic population of 2.3 million in a general population of 5.7 million.
After the news conference, George began making his first contacts with the city as its new Catholic leader. He visited the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to visit 13-year-old Leonard Clark, the victim of what police suspect was a racially motivated beating by three pupils from a Catholic high school on March 21, and traveled to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Ill., to pray at the Bishops Mausoleum, where the remains of Bernardin and some of his predecessors are interred.
MJP END CAMPBELL
