Oregon Archbishop to Succeed Chicago Cardinal

Pope John Paul II named a relatively unknown Oregon archbishop Tuesday to succeed the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as archbishop of Chicago.

The appointment of the Most Rev. Francis E. George came just five months after the popular Bernardin died of cancer--and less than a year after George became archbishop of Portland.

Word of his appointment to lead one of the nation’s most important archdioceses surprised Catholics both in Portland and Chicago. George, 60, a Chicago native who walks with a limp from a childhood bout with polio, had not been prominently mentioned as one of those in the running to head the 2.5-million-member Chicago archdiocese.

Few expected that the eighth archbishop of Chicago would come from the West Coast or be a member of a religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, that ministers to the poor. Most bishops are selected from the ranks of diocesan priests.

But church insiders said that by temperament and training George is well positioned to take the helm of the second-largest Catholic archdiocese in the nation, after the one in Los Angeles. They said George, who speaks Spanish and is a close friend of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, has demonstrated a keen interest in social justice, outreach to immigrants and the poor, and concern about what he sees as dehumanizing forces in modern society--a favorite theme of John Paul’s.

Nevertheless, George faces a monumental task in filling the shoes of Bernardin, at whose tomb George prayed Tuesday.

Bernardin, one of the nation’s most prominent ecclesiastical figures, was widely admired, most recently for launching the “Catholic Common Ground” project to step up dialogue in the church over issues such as the ordination of women--and for his courage in the face of death. Before he died of cancer in November, Bernardin used his terminal illness as a means of reaching out to others facing cancer.

George indicated at a Chicago news conference that he was well aware of the inevitable comparisons. But, he joked, “the Vatican isn’t into cloning yet.”

Declining to define himself as a Catholic liberal or conservative, he said: “The faith isn’t liberal or conservative. The faith is true. And so I’ll preach the faith as Cardinal Bernardin preached and taught it. There’s no difference in substance. He gave his life for the faith and for the church, and I’ll do the same.”

George acknowledged that “there may be some differences in style,” saying: “The cardinal was a consummate gentleman, a Southern gentleman really, and I was born here so there may be some difference in the reaction time. But there’ll be no difference in substance.”

In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said George would be “a voice for the poor, powerless and immigrant peoples of Chicago.”

George wasted no time Tuesday in setting a tone of reconciliation. In a move seen as an effort to ease racial tensions, he visited a 13-year-old African American boy who has been hospitalized since a March 21 attack by three white teenagers.

Frank Fromherz, a professor of religion at the University of Portland--a Catholic institution--and head of the Portland archdiocese’s office of justice and peace, described George as a man of “deep faith, deep intellect and a person of deep human, down-to-earth qualities.”

Fromherz said he was impressed with George’s support of affordable housing and other causes.

“He’s concerned about what [sociologist] Robert Bellah would call ‘utilitarian individualism’ in our society,” Fromherz said. “It’s not just individualism, but utilitarian individualism, which is a kind of emphasis on measuring the value of a person based upon a utility--how useful are you to this organization and if you’re not useful, you’re to be downsized.”

George also opposed two anti-gay rights initiatives in the state of Washington.

But Father Thomas Rausch, chairman of the theology department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said George generally is viewed as theologically conservative--in accord with the pope in staunchly opposing abortion and euthanasia. “But he is very bright and he’s not one of these anti-intellectual conservatives,” Rausch said.

That quality will serve him well in Chicago, Rausch said, where the priests are among the “most progressive” in the nation. He noted that Bernardin “had to do a lot of healing” with priests who bristled under the conservative and autocratic leadership of his predecessor, Cardinal John Patrick Cody.

George is willing to battle for a cause. In Oregon, he led a legal attack on Lane County officials last year after it was disclosed that a jailhouse confession to one of his priests had been surreptitiously taped by authorities shortly before he became archbishop.

Incensed, George pushed the case to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which ruled that taping the confession was patently illegal and ordered that the Oregon prosecutor never do it again. The court did not order the tape destroyed, however, though it remains under seal.

George said Lane County officials had done “what no other officials in a democratic state have done: deliberately violating the seal of the confessional.”

“There is no way to play down his role,” Portland archdiocesan spokesman Bud Bunce said of George. “He made sure we were going to pursue it. This was considered an international incident [because of Vatican concerns] and he led the way.”

George became archbishop of Portland on April 30, after serving as bishop of Yakima, Wash., since 1990. He entered the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1957 and was ordained a priest in December 1963. He holds two doctorates, one in American philosophy and the other in ecclesiology. He serves on numerous National Conference of Catholic Bishops committees involving missionary work and Latin America. He also is a consultant to the bishops committees on Science and Human Values, Doctrine, and Hispanic Affairs.

He was vicar general of his religious order in Rome from 1974 to 1986, and holds degrees from the Pontifical University Urbaniana in Rome, Tulane University, the University of Ottawa and Catholic University of America.

On the most controversial issues facing the church in the United States, including allowing priests to marry and the ordination of women--an issue the pope has said is closed--George can be expected to uphold church teachings. Like Bernardin, though, he is viewed as open to discussion--and desirous of explaining the “whys” of Catholic teaching.

But George was noncommittal when asked Tuesday if he would pursue Bernardin’s Catholic Common Ground project.

The national president of a Catholic reform group, Call to Action, said that despite George’s doctrinaire views supporting an all-male priesthood, he seemed willing to listen.

“More important than where he stands ideologically on the specifics, much more important to Call to Action is what is his pastoral approach,” said Call to Action President Linda Pieczynski.