Francis George

Cardinal George (2011)

Cardinal's coat of arms

Francis Eugene Cardinal George OMI OESSH (born January 16, 1937 in Chicago , Illinois , † April 17, 2015 there ) was an American religious and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago .

Life

Francis George joined in 1957 the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at, studied in Ottawa the subjects philosophy and Catholic theology and received on 21 December 1963, the sacrament of ordination by the Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Peter Hillinger . He then went on to study in Washington, DC and at the University of New Orleans . At the same time he taught philosophy at the seminary of his order in Pass Christian, Mississippi , from 1964 to 1969 , and from 1969 to 1973 at Creighton University in Omaha .

In 1973 and 1974 he was the Provincial Superior of the Oblate Province in the Midwest . In 1974 he was appointed vicar general of his order and moved to Rome . In 1986 he returned to the United States, where he assumed leadership and teaching positions at the Center for Religious and Cultural Issues in Cambridge , Massachusetts . At the same time, he completed a doctoral degree at the Pontifical University of Urbania in Rome and obtained a doctorate in ecclesiology in 1988 .

July 10, 1990 appointed him Pope John Paul II. Bishop of Yakima in the state of Washington . On September 21, 1990, Francis George received the episcopal ordination of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the USA, Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan . Co- consecrators were the Bishop of Duluth , Roger Lawrence Schwietz OMI , and his predecessor in Yakima and Bishop of Spokane , William Stephen Skylstad .

After six years in Yakima, Francis George was named Archbishop of Portland, Oregon on April 30, 1996 . However, he only worked here for a few months, since he was appointed head of the Archdiocese of Chicago on April 7, 1997.

Since February 21, 1998 he was a member of the college of cardinals as a cardinal priest with the titular church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola . From 2007 to 2010 he was also President of the Bishops' Conference of the United States . In view of the growing threat from the Obama administration to the free exercise of the Catholic religion, in his opinion , George saw himself more and more as a witness in the tradition of Christian martyrs. In an interview he said: I myself expect to die in bed. My successor will die in prison and his successor will be executed as a martyr in public .

Francis George had been Grand Prior of the USA NORTH CENTRAL Lieutenancy of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem since 1998 . He was a spiritual advisor to the Order of Lazarus .

In August 2012, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that Cardinal George had kidney cancer . This had shown an investigation at the university hospital of Loyola University .

In the US Bishops' Conference he campaigned emphatically and with success for a zero tolerance policy with regard to sexual abuse of children . In 2006 he was charged with failing to immediately remove the priest who later confessed to molesting two children.

On September 20, 2014, Pope Francis accepted Francis George's motion to resign on grounds of age.

Web links

Commons : Francis George  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Entry for Francis George on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Website of Francis George (Archdiocese of Chicago) ( Memento of March 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cardinal Francis George, the Emeritus Archbishop of Chicago, dies at 78th The Catholic World Report, April 17, 2015, accessed April 12, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Frederick Marks, "The Catholic Connection," in: New Oxford Review, May 2012, p. 27. More detailed: Cardinal George: My Successor Will Die in Prison. kath.net, October 26, 2012, accessed April 12, 2018 . 
3. ↑ USA: Cardinal Francis George stops cancer therapy. ORF.at, January 1, 2015, accessed on April 9, 2019 . 
4. ^ New York Times: Laurie Goodstein: Cardinal Francis E. George, Who Urged 'Zero Tolerance' in Abuse Scandal, Dies at 78
5. ^ Rinuncia dell'Arcivescovo Metropolita di Chicago (USA) e nomina del nuovo Arcivescovo Metropolita. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, September 20, 2014, accessed December 4, 2015 (Italian). 

predecessor	Office	successor
William Stephen Skylstad	Bishop of Yakima 1990–1996	Carlos Arthur Sevilla SJ
William Joseph Levada	Archbishop of Portland in Oregon 1996–1997	John George Vlazny
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin	Archbishop of Chicago 1997-2014	Bladder Joseph Cardinal Cupich
---	Grand Prior of the Lieutenancy USA NORTH CENTRAL of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem 1998–2015	Bladder Joseph Cardinal Cupich