Il cardinale George attacca le suore, hanno appoggiato Obama sull’aborto
Jul 07, 2010
Chiusi in sessione ordinaria a Saint Petersburg, in Florida, i vescovi degli Stati Uniti hanno ascoltato qualche giorno fa il cardinale Francis George, presidente della Conferenza episcopale e arcivescovo di Chicago, attaccare duramente sister Carol Keehan, guida della più grande associazione cattolica di assistenza sanitaria del paese, la Catholic Health Association, una delle leader indiscusse del mondo religioso femminile americano che qualche settimana fa aveva appoggiato pubblicamente la riforma sanitaria di Obama. La vicenda è nota: mentre i vescovi esprimevano parere contrario alla riforma perché non impedisce il finanziamento all’aborto, non offre un’adeguata protezione all’obiezione di coscienza e non è abbastanza inclusiva nei confronti degli immigrati, Keehan rassicurava Obama del suo appoggio comunicandogli che, assieme a lei, c’era la gran parte del mondo religioso femminile statunitense.
Il cardinale George non ha digerito l’affronto, non ha digerito il fatto che le suore abbiano agito in autonomia, e a Saint Petersburg c’è andato giù pesante. Ha parlato a porte chiuse durante l’assise vescovile di fine primavera. Ha esposto ai suoi confratelli il contenuto di un lungo report dedicato alla situazione della chiesa negli Usa. Il report è entrato in possesso dell’agenzia Catholic News Agency che ne ha pubblicato alcuni stralci. Dice George: “Sister Keehan ha messo in campo un magistero parallelo a quello della chiesa”. “I vescovi sono sempre rimasti coerenti a due princìpi guida in merito alla riforma: tutti dovrebbero aver accesso alle cure sanitarie ma nessuno deve essere ucciso”. “La Conferenza episcopale non ha mai ceduto su questi princìpi”. “Sister Keehan e le sue colleghe sono colpevoli per l’approvazione della riforma sanitaria”. “I vescovi hanno ripetutamente provato a entrare in contatto con sister Keehan sia prima che dopo il voto”. “Personalmente sono riuscito a incontrare la religiosa a marzo ma il risultato è stato frustrante”. “La legge approvata è fondamentalmente errata. L’ordine esecutivo promosso dall’Amministrazione Obama non ha senso. Sister Keehan sbaglia a pensare che si tratta di una normativa pro vita”. “L’appoggio della suore e altri gruppi cattolici a Obama hanno indebolito la voce morale dei vescovi negli Stati Uniti. Come tale ha provocato confusione e una ferita all’unità della chiesa”.
Poche ore dopo che la stampa americana rilanciava le dichiarazioni di George, il vaticanista del National Catholic Reporter, John Allen, ha offerto una sua versione del summit in cui il capo dei vescovi americani ha attaccato sister Keehan. Allen ha sostanzialmente confermato la versione offerta dalla Catholic News Agency aggiungendo che per il cardinale è importante che siano “i vescovi a parlare e a esprimere opinioni di fede e di morale”. Contro il cardinale George sono intervenuti nelle scorse ore diversi esponenti del mondo progressista cattolico ed evangelico americano. Tra questi Jim Wallis, il più noto tra gli evangelici di sinistra nonché voce moto ascoltata nella casa Bianca di Barack Obama. Il 18 giugno anche la rivista Commonweal ha criticato George: in un editoriale ha scritto che la vicenda dell’appoggio cattolico alla riforma di Obama manifesta un conflitto tra i vescovi e le singole coscienze dei cattolici. Un concetto, quest’ultimo, espresso anche da un vescovo, Robert Lynch di Saint Petersburg che dice: “Non sapevo che noi vescovi abbiamo il primato sull’interpretazione morale delle proposte di legge”. La spaccatura tra vescovi e ordini femminili è grande. La visitazione apostolica che il Vaticano sta portando avanti in alcuni istituti americani probabilmente la acuisce. Le suore si sentono controllate da un’autorità che sentono distante. C’è chi ha chiesto al cardinale George di cercare una mediazione. Ma per ora il suo intento è uno: chiarire la posizione dei vescovi, ribadire che questa posizione è quella autentica e denunciare chi rema in senso contrario. Suore comprese.
http://www.ilfoglio.it/soloqui/5548
Allen Interview of Cardinal George Supports Report of 'parallel magisterium' Worries
Jun 27, 2010
6/23/2010 Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)
From your point of view, is this ultimately an ecclesiological question - who speaks for the Church?
Several bishops who wished to remain anonymous told CNA that Cardinal George charged CHA and other Catholic groups with providing "cover" for undecided legislators to support President Obama's legislation. He said these groups' actions also weakened the moral voice of the bishops in the U.S., caused confusion and wounded Catholic unity.
KANSAS CITY, MO (CNA) - Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in an interview last week agreed that the rift over the federal health care bill between the bishops and the Catholic Health Association (CHA) exposed a major question concerning who speaks for the Church.
The cardinal's recorded comments echo other reports. Last week, episcopal sources, who requested anonymity, told CNA that the cardinal lamented the rise of a "parallel magisterium" in the health care debate and blamed CHA and other groups for the passage of the bill.
On Tuesday, Vatican expert John L. Allen, Jr. published the full text of his June 16 interview with Cardinal George on the blog of the National Catholic Reporter's website.
The cardinal noted the difference of opinion over the actual content of the health care legislation, saying supporters of the health care legislation have not answered USCCB counsel Anthony Picarello's objections to its treatment of abortion funding.
"What worries me more than a difference over empirical content, however, is the claim that the bishops cannot speak to the moral content of the law," the cardinal told Allen. "That seems to be what the CHA has said, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong."
Later in the interview, Allen asked: "From your point of view, is this ultimately an ecclesiological question - who speaks for the Church?"
"Yes, exactly," Cardinal George replied. "Our disagreement may be narrow, but it's a narrow difference that has exposed a very large principle. It affects the nature of the church, and therefore it has to concern the bishops."
The prelate said he had written to CHA president Sr. Carol Keehan, reporting that he wants "to try to reshape the relationship in dialogue together."
"As part of that conversation, we have to clarify the claims being made, primarily on this question of our role in assessing the moral quality of law, because it affects every area we touch on," he continued, noting the question's relevance to the immigration debate.
"Are we supposed to just say that the present situation is morally unjustified, or do we have the right and the duty to make moral judgments about whatever legislation comes down the line?"
At one point in the interview, he invoked the example of Blessed Cardinal Clemens von Galen, who under the Nazis "not only condemned euthanasia as an unethical procedure, but he also condemned the laws which permitted it."
"This is the question that has to be raised: Are we to offer moral teaching solely about actions, or also the laws which permit and foster them?" Cardinal George commented to Allen.
He suggested an effort to put the language of the Hyde Amendment back into the health care legislation would "go a long way toward fostering reconciliation" between the bishops and the CHA.
At the U.S. bishops' executive session last week, the USCCB president reportedly discussed the fallout resulting from CHA's support for the health care legislation despite the bishops' opposition.
Several bishops who wished to remain anonymous told CNA that Cardinal George charged CHA and other Catholic groups with providing "cover" for undecided legislators to support President Obama's legislation. He said these groups' actions also weakened the moral voice of the bishops in the U.S., caused confusion and wounded Catholic unity.
Differences between the USCCB and the CHA were not just two equally valid conclusions inspired by Catholic teaching, he commented.
According to these episcopal sources, the cardinal clearly remarked that Sr. Carol and her colleagues are to blame for the passage of the bill. The prelate also criticized as meaningless the president's executive order allegedly barring abortion funding, saying that Sr. Carol was mistaken to think that the legislation is pro-life.
Cardinal: Catholics, Mormons must defend religious freedom together
Mar 10, 2010
PROVO, Utah (CNS) -- Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must continue to stand together as a "vital bulwark" against those in American society who want to "reduce religion to a purely private reality," the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told a historic gathering at Brigham Young University in Provo.
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago spoke Feb. 23 on "Catholics and Latter-day Saints: Partners in the Defense of Religious Freedom" as part of the Mormon school's forum series. He was the first cardinal to speak at the university.
Cardinal George praised the Mormons for their work with Catholics to protect the conscience rights of health care providers and institutions that do not want to participate in abortion or assisted suicide and to defend marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
"When the government fails to protect the consciences of its citizens, it falls to religious bodies to defend them," he said.
True religious freedom means not just freedom to worship or "individual conscience rights as long as you don't make anyone unhappy," but the right to "influence the public square," he added.
The cardinal said Catholics and Mormons shared not only a common understanding of religious freedom, but the common experience of growing from a small, sometimes persecuted religious minority to larger communities of 67 million U.S. Catholics and about 6 million U.S. Mormons today.
"Both our communities have prospered in a nation that respects religious freedom and recognizes that government should never stand between its citizens and almighty God," he said.
Catholics and Mormons also have stood side by side in efforts against "the degradations associated with pornography" and in promoting "respect for the lives of those waiting to be born and respect for marriage," he added.
Although he did not refer directly to the successful 2008 campaign to overturn same-sex marriage in California, in which Catholics and Mormons were prominent, Cardinal George said both religious communities believe that "every single person is made in God's image and must be respected."
"But that does not mean you accept everything they do," he said. "The relationship is at question here, not the persons."
He also said that those who "have gay people in their families, as I do ... have to be there for them and love them."
The audience at the 22,700-seat Marriott Center gave Cardinal George a standing ovation after his talk, which also was attended by two top officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Elders Quentin L. Cook and M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve.
Cardinal George told the gathering that his own experiences with the church began when he went to Salt Lake City as a child with his mother, a church organist, who wanted to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Many years later in 2007, he was offered an opportunity to serve as guest conductor for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for one song. "Never had I been asked to do something like that," he said. "It was a tremendous feeling of awe and power and great satisfaction."
It was also "something of an ego trip" to have "that great choir waiting for me," Cardinal George said. And when he moved his arm, the choir erupted into "a magnificent sound -- all in unison, all in harmony," he added.
"I thought to myself, 'I'm doing better with the Mormons than I am with the Catholics,'" the cardinal said with a laugh. "I've had a lot harder time getting (Catholics) to sing together."
Cardinal: Group's support of gay marriage not authentic church teaching
Feb 24, 2010
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced a Maryland-based organization for its criticism of Catholic efforts to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman and said it does not offer "an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching."
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago said that since the founding of New Ways Ministry in 1977, "serious questions have been raised about the group's adherence to church teaching on homosexuality."
"No one should be misled by the claim that New Ways Ministry provides an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice," Cardinal George said in a Feb. 5 statement.
"Like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of church teaching, New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and ... cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States," he added.
New Ways Ministry, based in Mount Rainier, Md., describes itself as a "gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian and gay Catholics and reconciliation within the larger Christian and civil communities."
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, said in a statement posted on his organization's Web site that the cardinal's words "will not impede or slow us in our efforts to work for justice for lesbian/gay people in the church and society."
Although he made no reference to the issue of same-sex marriage, DeBernardo said "for more than three decades, New Ways Ministry has had its programs reviewed by scores of Catholic bishops, theologians and pastoral leaders, and we have always been found to be firmly in line with authentic Catholic teaching."
In March 2009 DeBernardo testified before a Maryland House of Delegates committee against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have limited marriage to a man and woman and in favor of the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would have given same-sex couples the right to marry.
"It would be a grave error in judgment -- both politically and morally -- for government leaders to assume that the Catholic hierarchy reflects the belief of most Catholic people," DeBernardo testified. "I ask that you follow the will of hundreds of thousands of Catholic Marylanders, not the few leaders at the head of the church, and protect the human dignity and civil rights of same-sex couples."
In a Feb. 11 response to questions about what had prompted the earlier statement, Cardinal George cited "an often troubled conversation" between New Ways and church leadership over the past three decades and said "opposition to church teaching and governance is clear" in DeBernardo's testimony before the Maryland committee.
"The point of the recent USCCB statement is to put again on the public record what everyone knows: the New Ways Ministry is not a ministry of the Catholic Church and has no right to present its moral opinions as Catholic," the cardinal said.
"Genuine pastoral concern is based on respect for every person, no matter their sexual orientation, and acceptance of the truths of the Catholic faith," he added. "These are the terms in which the church welcomes everyone and offers them a true home in Christ's love and mercy."
DeBernardo said he was "astonished that Cardinal George released (the Feb. 5) statement" without contacting New Ways or informing the organization that it was being released to the press.
Cardinal George said that as far back as 1984, then-Archbishop James A. Hickey of Washington "denied New Ways Ministry any official authorization or approval of its activities," citing "the organization's lack of adherence to church teaching on the morality of homosexual acts."
"This was the central issue in the subsequent investigation and censure of the co-founders of New Ways Ministry," Cardinal George added. "This continues to be the crucial defect in the approach of New Ways Ministry, which has not changed its position" since then.
New Ways Ministry was co-founded in 1977 by Sister Jeanine Gramick and Salvatorian Father Robert Nugent, who were ordered by the Vatican in 1999 to stop their ministry to homosexuals because "ambiguities and errors" in their approach caused confusion for Catholics and harmed the church community.
After they continued to speak and write about homosexuality, the two were directed by their religious superiors in 2000 not to speak publicly or write about the topic or about the Vatican actions. Father Nugent accepted the discipline and is in parish ministry, but Sister Gramick refused and continues on the lecture circuit.
Because she defied the Vatican ban and faced expulsion by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, she left the order and joined the Sisters of Loretto in 2001. She made her final vows with her new order in June 2004, and is currently co-director of the National Coalition of American Nuns.
In his statement, DeBernardo urged New Ways supporters "not to give up hope in the Catholic Church, but to continue to pray and work for the day when lesbian/gay people are welcomed as full and equal members in our beloved church."
In an "action alert" on the organization's Web site Feb. 11, DeBernardo said Cardinal George needed to hear from those who "support New Ways Ministry's mission and programs" and asked supporters to write or e-mail the cardinal about the role the organization's "projects have played in your life."
He urged that copies of the letters and e-mails also be sent to Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and to New Ways.
"New Ways Ministry has withstood several challenges over the years, thanks to our concerned and involved supporters," DeBernardo wrote. "We trust that you will do what you are able at this point, too."
Cardinal George Lauds House Action to Ban Federal Funds for Abortion; Promises Vigilance as Senate Pursues Health Care Reform, Wary About Affect on Poor, Elderly
Nov 22, 2009
House action backs President Obama's promise to not expand abortion
Senate must follow House example
Bishops still concerned for poor, elderly
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, lauded the November 7 decision of the U.S. House of Representatives to block federal health care reform money from paying for elective abortions.
In a statement issued November 9, two days after the Saturday night decision, Cardinal George voiced thanks that "the Representatives honored President Obama's commitment to the Congress and the nation that health care reform would not become a vehicle for expanding abortion funding or mandates."
"The Conference will remain vigilant and involved throughout this entire process to assure that these essential provisions are maintained and included in the final legislation," he added.
"We remain deeply concerned about other aspects of health care reform as the debate now moves to the Senate, especially as it affects the poor and vulnerable, and those at the beginning and end of life. We will continue to insist that health care reform legislation must protect conscience rights. We support measures to make health care more affordable for low-income people and the uninsured. We remain deeply concerned that immigrants be treated fairly and not lose the health care coverage that they now have," he said also.
The full statement follows.
Over the weekend, the US House of Representatives advanced major legislation to provide adequate and affordable health care to all. The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long advocated that adequate health care be made available to everyone. In an essential step, the House voted overwhelmingly to reaffirm the longstanding and widely supported precedent that no federal funds will be used to pay for elective abortions. In doing so, the Representatives honored President Obama's commitment to the Congress and the nation that health care reform would not become a vehicle for expanding abortion funding or mandates. The Conference will remain vigilant and involved throughout this entire process to assure that these essential provisions are maintained and included in the final legislation. We will work to persuade the Senate to follow the example of the House and include these critical safeguards in their version of health care reform legislation. We also thank the members of the House who took this courageous and principled step to oppose measures that would force Americans to pay for the destruction of unborn children, and the Democratic leadership for allowing the Representatives to vote on this amendment that protects the common good.
In the national discussion on how to provide the best kind of health care, we bishops do not claim or present ourselves as experts on health care policy. We are not prepared to assess every provision of legislation as complex as this proposal. However, health care legislation, with all its political, technical and economic aspects, is about human beings and hence has serious moral dimensions. Our focus is on the concrete realities of families with children and their access to doctors, the poor and the elderly, those with limited means and those with few or even no means, such as the mother carrying a child in her womb. Our Catholic commitment to health care picks up the pieces of our failing system in our emergency rooms, clinics, parishes and communities. This is why we believe our nation's health care system needs reform which protects human life and dignity and serves the poor and vulnerable as a moral imperative and an urgent national priority.
We remain deeply concerned about the debate that now moves to the Senate, especially as it will affect the poor and vulnerable, and those at the beginning and end of life. We will continue to insist that health care reform legislation must protect conscience rights. We support measures to make health care more affordable for low-income people and the uninsured. We remain deeply concerned that immigrants be treated fairly and not lose the health care coverage that they now have. We will continue to raise our voices in public and in prayer; we ask our people to join us in making the moral case for genuine health care reform that protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all.
Cardinal George defends bishops' right to define Catholic identity
Nov 22, 2009
In his presidential address to the annual meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cardinal Francis George spoke at length about the Year for Priests, reflecting on the need to support and defend priests in their ministry.
Cardinal George also spoke about the responsibilities of bishops as teachers, defending the right of the bishops to define what it means to be Catholic and "to clarify questions of truth or faith and of accountability or community among all those who claim to be part of Catholic communion."
In making that remark about Catholic identity, Cardinal George was referring to two separate but related controversies: his own decision to set up USCCB committees to set standards for Catholic identity in educational institutions and media outlets; and the current political debate over health-care reform, in which the US bishops' conference has been heavily involved. Regarding the latter, the cardinal defended the right of Church leaders to engage in the public debate, noting that bishops are moral leaders, and "issues that are moral questions before they become political remain moral questions when they become political.”
Cardinal George and the politics of liturgy
Nov 20, 2009
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has several times recently addressed the relationship between bishops and ordinary Catholics and how that relationship affects the manner in which we all live out a life of faith.
Cardinal George and the politics of liturgy
National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 18, 2009
By Tom Roberts
News Analysis
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has several times recently addressed the relationship between bishops and ordinary Catholics and how that relationship affects the manner in which we all live out a life of faith.
“Relations do not speak first of control but of love,” he said in a Nov. 16 speech as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “If there is a loosening of relationship between ourselves and those whom Christ has given us to govern in love, it is for us to reach out and re-establish connections necessary for all to remain in communion.”
Exactly what the cardinal meant by that comment was evidently to be unpacked the next day in a secret meeting of bishops, a gathering closed to the media and to staff at the U.S. bishops’ conference.
George treated the topic in his recently released book, The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion, and Culture, and he elaborated on the matter during a recent interview with NCR’s John Allen. In that exchange, the cardinal expressed his weariness with the Catholic liberal-conservative divide, suggesting that each was similar to the other in the exaggerated attention they give to intrachurch politics and in focusing far too much on bishops, the power they have and the way in which they exercise it, and not enough on Christ.
The inference to be drawn from it all is that Catholics, liberal or conservative, are incorrect to view the relationship with bishops through the lens of control and power and that if laypeople would concentrate more on being “simply Catholic” and less on what goes on in hierarchical venues, there would be less contentiousness all around.
The sentiment deserves attention because during the bishops’ gathering in Washington this month, George would be overseeing what might be the last installment of a debate that has gone on, at times bitterly, over liturgical reforms that have their origins in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
The council is fading into history as a marker of a certain generation of contemporary Catholics. However, how that council is interpreted — indeed, whether some of our bishops today are willing even to concede that anything significant occurred at the council to change the church — will continue to have an effect on Catholic life for the foreseeable future. The effects of the council are somewhat akin to the effects of the feminist or civil rights movements. Young people today do not have to worry about the same battles that their parents fought, but the benefits that both women and minorities today can take for granted are both a direct result of those earlier efforts and something to be diligently guarded.
And while the council was hardly a movement — indeed, it was far more formally structured and produced a body of documents approved by the world’s bishops — what some would perceive as its benefits or gains are now far more disputed than those achieved in matters of race or the rights of women.
A reading of even a portion of the record on liturgical reform shows that the council inspired deep shifts in ecclesiology, as well as the role of bishops in relation to the way we pray. The essential nature of the changes underway was noted in 1963 by then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, today’s Pope Benedict XVI.
As a peritus, or expert, at the council, he wrote: “The first chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy contains a statement that represents for the Latin church a fundamental innovation. The formulation of liturgical laws for their own regions is now, within limits, the responsibility of the various conferences of bishops. And this is not by delegation from the Holy See, but by virtue of their own independent authority.”
He termed the development “especially important” in “the decentralization of liturgical decision-making.”
It is clear that the Ratzinger view contained in those comments has undergone substantial change since. But what invalidates his understanding back then that “this small paragraph, which for the first time assigns to the conferences of bishops their own canonical authority, has more significance for the episcopacy and for the long desired strengthening of episcopal power than anything in the Constitution on the Church itself”?
By extension, what invalidates others’ similar understanding that, in Ratzinger’s earlier view, the council had, “without fanfare, and largely unnoticed by the public … produced a work fundamental in the renewal of ecclesiology”? It is a conclusion far different from that expressed by some today that the council merely confirmed a continuation of what had gone before.
While George asserts that Catholics should pay less attention to bishops, it was bishops — he among them — who have argued that those who hold the early Ratzinger view of the council as marking a fundamental change in ecclesiology are wrong and that liturgical renewal has gone off in the wrong direction.
It was bishops who, in 1997, convened a committee of 11 men who met in the Vatican to secretly overhaul the translations of the American lectionary, or the scripture readings used at Mass.
Overturned by the committee was a translation process that had been in use since the council and that was broadly consultative and had included a number of women. Only one of the men on the new committee held a graduate degree in scripture studies; two were not native English speakers; and several had a history of objecting to inclusive-language translations, including two of the American archbishops and the lone scripture scholar. Three American bishops who had worked most closely on the lectionary and were themselves Bible scholars — including Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., currently the lone voice of opposition to certain translations in the missal under consideration by the bishops — were excluded from the group. They were replaced by conservative prelates Bishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa; William Levada, then of San Francisco and now a cardinal and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Justin Rigali, then of St. Louis and
now cardinal in Philadelphia; and Cardinal Francis Stafford, then head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
In 2002, leadership of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, known as ICEL, was replaced under pressure from the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship with bishops more congenial to that congregation’s view of how translation should be effected.
Chosen as executive secretary was Fr. Bruce Harbert, a former Anglican who was previously critical of the commission and who had served the previous year as a visiting faculty member at George’s liturgical institute at Mundelein Seminary. At the time, Allen characterized the institute as “in part conceived as an alternative to progressive liturgical approaches associated with some ICEL consulters.”
For lack of more precise terms, as much as the matter of translation and liturgical reform have been the battleground between conservative and liberal forces within the church for more than 40 years, George has weighed in heavily and influentially on the conservative side. He now gets to oversee deliberations that will lead to important decisions in the debate.
George may wish Catholics rise above the fray and eliminate considerations of power and control from their assessment of church life, but it might be difficult to ignore bishops when their politics and ecclesial persuasions ultimately determine the very words we use in worship.
Roberts is NCR editor at large. His e-mail address is troberts@ncronline.org.
Cardinal George questions role of independent Catholic media
Nov 20, 2009
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Nov. 16 that Catholic publications, universities or other organizations that insist on complete independence from their bishops are “sectarian, less than fully Catholic.”
Cardinal George questions role of independent Catholic media
Bishop Trautman says Vatican II liturgical norms being violated
National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 17, 2009
By Jerry Filteau
BALTIMORE
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Nov. 16 that Catholic publications, universities or other organizations that insist on complete independence from their bishops are “sectarian, less than fully Catholic.”
In his presidential address at the opening session of the fall USCCB general assembly in Baltimore, George announced that the bishops “have recently begun discussions on how we might strengthen our relationship to Catholic universities, to media claiming to be a voice in the church, and to organizations that direct various works under Catholic auspices.”
According to NCR sources, those issues were to be the main topic of discussion in a three-hour executive session the afternoon of Nov. 18, when the bishops were slated to meet alone behind closed doors, with all reporters and observers and virtually all USCCB staff excluded.
George placed his comments in the context of the bishops’ role in governance as promoters and guarantors of church unity.
"Relations do not speak first of control but of love,” he said. “If there is a loosening of relationship between ourselves and those whom Christ has given us to govern in love, it is for us to reach out and re-establish connections necessary for all to remain in communion.”
After announcing that the bishops have initiated discussions on how to carry that out in relation to Catholic higher education, independent Catholic media and organizations that engage in activities under Catholic auspices, he added:
“Since everyone in Catholic communion is truly interrelated, and the visible nexus of these relations is the bishop, an insistence on complete independence from the bishop renders a person or institution sectarian, less than fully Catholic. The purpose of our reflections, therefore, is to clarify questions of truth or faith and of accountability or community among all those who claim to be part of Catholic communion.”
At a press conference later that afternoon George declined to name specific Catholic media, higher education or other organizations that the bishops might have in mind, but he said that more generally “if any institution, including the media, calls itself Catholic,” it is the moral responsibility of a bishop to assure that it is Catholic.
That offers the bishops “a chance to clarify the relationship” and see if the entity in question is operating within the bonds of Catholic communion, he said.
It’s the moral responsibility of bishops “to keep the faithful gathered around Christ,” he said, so it is their responsibility, when institutions or organizations call themselves Catholic, to sort out what that means in each case.
Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco, chairman of the USCCB Communications Committee, added, “I think that it’s a much more media-intensive landscape in this country than it was many years ago.” He said he and other bishops now regularly face questions from Catholics who say that different media, all claiming to be Catholic, present different views of what the Catholic teaching is on various subjects.
“That really does challenge us to make sense of it,” he said.
USA: Kardinal gratuliert Obama
Oct 23, 2009
Die US-Bischöfe gratulieren Präsident Barack Obama zum Friedensnobelpreis. Das Statement von Kardinal Francis George von Chikago erinnert schon im zweiten Satz daran, dass „für den Aufbau einer friedlicheren und gerechteren Welt... das Meiste noch zu tun bleibt“. Immerhin habe Obama schon in seinen Anfängen als Präsident das Klima auf internationaler Ebene „verändert“. „In unserem eigenen Land“, so Kardinal George weiter, „hat die bemerkenswerte und historische Errungenschaft seiner Wahl die Beziehungen zwischen Männern und Frauen aller Rassen verändert.“ Die „Vielfalt der US-Gesellschaft“ sei jetzt „stärker in einer nationalen Einheit verankert“, die dem Frieden diene. Vom Streit der US-Kirche mit Obama in Sachen Lebensschutz ist in dem Statement keine Rede. Kardinal George ist derzeit Vorsitzender der US-Bischofskonferenz.
Cardinal Francis George's new book
Oct 14, 2009
Cardinal also offers glimpse of moments with Bernardin
Chicago Cardinal Francis George's latest book offers some behind-the-scenes details on the early ups-and-downs of his tenure and some private moments with the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the beloved archbishop who preceded him.
It's hardly a memoir. But in "The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion and Culture," George knits together anecdotes, lectures and homilies to provide context for many of the sound bites and quotes that have aired during his more than 11 years as Chicago's archbishop.
In a recent interview, George said he has wanted to write a book about relationships for a while. As the archdiocese's administrator, opportunities to talk about such issues don't come up quite often enough.
"We are defined by our relationships, not by individualism," he said. "Nothing in Catholicism is unrelated. Our local church is part of the universal."
But the local church in Chicago has its own distinct spirit, he added, reflecting on a passage in the book where he recounts a midnight conversation with Bernardin in 1994. After hearing Bernardin explain the difficulties of trying to unify a divided archdiocese, George asked him what was going to happen.
"Well, you know, Francis, Chicago is sometimes ungovernable," Bernardin said with a smile. George still insists Bernardin was cracking a joke. George had no idea he would find out for himself four years later. "That statement comes back to me again and again at odd moments!" he wrote.
The book also revisits a debate George sparked on the eve of being named a cardinal in January 1998.
At the end of a Saturday evening Mass at Old St. Patrick's Church, George called liberal Catholicism "an exhausted project." Likewise, he called conservative Catholicism "obsessed with particular practices." His choice of words -- one of a few choices he confesses he regrets -- rankled liberals and conservatives alike. But, he says, the context and point was clear.
"The answer is simply Catholicism, in all its fullness and depth, a faith able to distinguish itself from any culture and yet able to engage and transform them all, a faith joyful in all the gifts Christ wants to give us and open to the whole world he died to save," he said. That statement would become the theme of his book 11 years later.
The book also lets George offer his vision for spreading the gospel in a modern American context, reflecting on dialogue with Jews and Muslims, the rise of liberal and conservative brands of Catholicism and Catholic liturgy.
George contends that liberal or conservative labels are not effective for evangelization, and faithful from both camps rely too much on the hierarchy to fix the church. Bishops do not speak for themselves or constituents, he said. They speak on behalf of Christ.
"Bishops cannot be co-opted by state authority or political power, nor by pressure groups within the Church, lest the bishops fail in their office," he said.
For him, Catholicism is not liberal or conservative. It is "simply Catholicism" -- a concern for prayer and serving the poor.
Kudos to Cardinal George
Aug 14, 2009
Cardinal Francis George hit the nail on the head in his speech to the Knights of Columbus convention yesterday, calling for renewed efforts at binding up the unity of the faithful.
Kudos to Cardinal George
America Magazine, posted at: 2009-08-06 08:56:59.0
Author: Michael Sean Winters
Cardinal Francis George hit the nail on the head in his speech to the Knights of Columbus convention yesterday, calling for renewed efforts at binding up the unity of the faithful.
"A Catholic way of life is based on assent to revealed truth and obedience to appointed pastors, both of which create the unity Christ wishes us to enjoy. The Church’s unity today is severely strained, as we all know," the cardinal said. "Bishops and priests have sometimes been less than worthy of their calling, and lay groups have sometimes come together to create a Church in their image and likeness rather than Christ’s. Political interference and the hostility of some in the media and entertainment industries, the self-righteousness of some on both the right and the left, have created a dangerous situation, one the bishops now want to explicitly address. How to stitch up the Church where her unity is torn, how to use the authority given by Christ to the apostles without wounding the faithful who are already hurting is a project that begins with the bishops’ own submission to Christ and our own self-examination in the light of God’s word."
Cardinal George deserves credit for acknowledging something that social scientists have been discussing for some time, that Americans’ attitudes today do not break down along confessional lines so much as they do along liberal v. conservative lines which run through the various denominations. We Catholics have begun to blend into the broader American fabric and lost any distinctive attitudes. We line up with our ideological, not our ecclesiastic, fellows. Alas, this appears to be the case with the Bishops’ Conference as well, which one of their number told me is as polarized as it has even been in the past twenty years. Cardinal George especially deserves credit for acknowledging that the process of binding up the unity of the Church must begin with the bishops’ self-examination.
Part of the challenge, but only part, is for all bishops to avoid the appearance of partisanship (so long as neither political party fully embraces the Gospel) while not withdrawing from the public arena. The bishops and all the faithful must, as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate, see the Church’s teaching as integral but the bishops must also allow for the possibility that well-informed consciences can reach different conclusions, especially in the realm of politics where the question of how to affect change is always complicated even if there is agreement on the kind of change to affect.
The direction that the bishops must take, and that I believe is being indicated by Cardinal George, is to say that it is no longer enough to be a Catholic and a banker, or a Catholic and a politician. We must be Catholic bankers and Catholic politicians. Even better, I prefer that Catholic be the noun, the thing that defines us not the adjective that qualifies us. Bank-managing Catholic. A Catholic who politics. I do not think this will mean that all politicians or bankers who are Catholics will suddenly become univocal. That is not the point. Instead the goal is, I believe, to show to the culture that the most important event in our own, oh-so busy twenty-first century lives happened on a hillside in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and that together, as one Church, we continue to tease out the meaning of that event. There are no ready-made "answers" or the Virgin Mary would have given birth to a summa. There is communion with Christ and through him with each other, so that we can search for answers together.
The challenge for the two sides in the Church today is for the side that is usually called "the left" to recognize the priority of faith and the requirement of obedience in finding the truth and for the "conservatives" to recognize the fact that we are all still searching and that nostalgia is not an answer. Cardinal George gets credit, lots of credit, for demonstrating the truth found in last Sunday’s Gospel – only those who admit they are hungry can be fed.
Le cardinal George n’a plus beaucoup d’espoir en Obama
May 05, 2009
Americatho a été le premier blogue francophone à vous signaler, dès le 18 mars dernier, le tête-à-tête impromptu la veille à la Maison Blanche entre Obama et le cardinal Francis George, président de la Conférence des évêques américains (USCCB). Pendant que se déroulait cet entretien, le cardinal avait fait mettre en ligne une vidéo où il mettait en garde l’administration américaine contre une dérive vers « le despotisme » au cas où la « clause de conscience » serait attaquée. Vous trouverez ici tous les détails.
Le cardinal George vient de revenir sur cet entretien lors d’une session de questions/réponses qui a suivi le discours qu’il a tenu le 21 avril dernier devant 200 prêtres des sept diocèses de Louisiane, à l’occasion de leur convention. Le président de l’USCCB leur a donné « une évaluation sincère » de cet entretien selon Catholic News Service [1], espérant qu’Obama aura bien compris que l’Église catholique n’abandonnera pas le combat pour la vie.
Voici quelques-uns de ses commentaires.
« Je pense que pour ce qui est du problème de la vie, [Obama] est du mauvais côté (…) Je pense qu’il a des dettes politiques à payer et qu’il est en train de les rembourser. C’est difficile de ne pas être d’accord avec lui parce qu’il ne cesse de vous dire qu’il est d’accord avec vous. Peut-être que c’est de la politique. Je crois qu’il veut sincèrement être d’accord avec vous. Et alors vous devez lui dire encore et encore : “Non, M. le Président, nous ne sommes pas d’accord [sur l’avortement]”. Mais on peut être d’accord sur beaucoup de choses, et nous le sommes, et c’est pourquoi il y a beaucoup d’espoir. Je pense que nous devons prier pour lui tous les jours. » Le cardinal a abordé avec lui la question de l’abolition de la Mexico City Policy qui permet désormais le financement sur fonds fédéraux de l’avortement à l’étranger. « Il m’a dit que nous n’exportions pas l’avortement. Je lui ai dit : “ Si, nous le faisons”. Il me répond : “Je sais que j’ai un certain nombre de choses à faire là… Mais soyez patient, et vous verrez que le modèle changera”. Je lui ai répondu : “M. le Président, vous ne nous avez rien donné sinon de mauvais signaux sur cette question”. Enfin, nous verrons bien, mais je ne n’ai pas autant d’espoir aujourd’hui que j’en avais au moment de son élection ».
Pour le cardinal George, cette question de l’avortement – qui semble bien avoir été le thème principal de son entretien avec Obama – a quelque chose à voir avec le débat sur l’esclavage qui a opposé, en 1858, lors de l’élection pour le poste de sénateur de l’Illinois, Abraham Lincoln et Stephen Douglas : le premier était pour l’abolition de l’esclavage, le second favorable à son maintien, ce qui, rapporté au problème de l’avortement, revient à la question pour ou contre l’abolition du “droit” à l’avortement : « C’est un problème qui divise la société, et sur ce problème nous sommes du côté d’Abraham Lincoln et lui [Obama] est du côté de Stephen Douglas, et il n’aime pas qu’on le lui dise, mais pourtant c’est bien de ce côté-là qu’il est ».
Ce sont là des confidences fort intéressantes en ce qu’elles montrent combien la bienveillance a priori – et fort naïve, une naïveté encore perceptible dans ses commentaires – du cardinal George pour Obama s’est lentement érodée pour glisser vers la méfiance.
[1] Le d’information de l’USCCB qui, curieusement, situe la date de cette rencontre George/Obama le 18 mars, alors qu’elle s’est bien tenue la veille.
www.chretiente.info
Text size: increase text sizedecrease text size Cardinal George, 17 other bishops to confirm 3,000
May 05, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS - Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Archbishop Daniel Buechlein and 16 other bishops will help confirm nearly 3,000 Roman Catholics during a 175th anniversary Mass for the Indianapolis Archdiocese at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday.
As many as 40,000 people are expected to attend the Mass marking the growth of the church in Indiana from its roots as the Diocese of Vincennes in 1834 to one that celebrated the canonization of a saint less than three years ago.
Popes renamed it the Diocese of Indianapolis in 1898 and made it an archdiocese in 1944. The diocese that initially covered the entire state of Indiana and eastern Illinois has since been carved up into five separate dioceses in this state.
Assisting George, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Buechlein with the confirmation of 3,000 young people and adults in the faith will be Indiana's four other bishops -- William Higi of Lafayette, Gary's Dale Melczek, Gerald Gettelfinger of Evansville and John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend -- and 12 others from out of state.
Archabbott Justin DuVall of southern Indiana's St. Meinrad Seminary, retired Archabbott Lambert Reilly and more than 20 archdiocesan priests also will deliver the rite-of-passage sacrament at the Mass, where readings and prayers will be said in 10 languages and communion received at more than 200 stations.
"It's a greater experience of the larger church," Buechlein, who will also be celebrating his 45th anniversary as a priest at the Mass, said in an interview Wednesday.
Buechlein, who has returned to a full schedule after undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease last year, said he has devoted much of his energy over the past six months to promoting sainthood for the first bishop of Vincennes, Simon Brute (pronounced broo-TAY').
"He was a holy man and a brilliant man" who was regarded as one of the top U.S. Catholic theologians of his day, Buechlein said.
Brute had just three priests when Pope Gregory XVI created the Diocese of Vincennes in 1834, Buechlein said. Brute recruited many of those new priests from his native France, as he did St. Mother Theodora Guerin, who established the Sisters of Providence in Indiana at St. Mary-of-the-Woods near Terre Haute in 1940, a year after Brute died. Pope Benedict XVI canonized Guerin as just the eighth U.S. saint in 2006.
Buechlein said the archdiocese he has led for nearly 17 years has become more diverse, largely through the influx of Latinos and African-Americans.
"It's hard to put my arms around it all, just how much we've changed," said Buechlein, a Jasper native who's only the second Indiana-born bishop to lead the archdiocese in its 175 years.
The Mass begins at 3 p.m. Sunday and is open to non-Catholics. Doors open at 1 p.m. ------
www.chicagotribune.com
Notre Dame : University le cardinal George déplore la « gêne extrême »
Apr 17, 2009
C’est le neuvième prélat américain à réprouver l’initiative de Notre Dame. Et ce n’est pas le moindre puisqu’il s’agit du cardinal Francis George, archevêque de Chicago, et président de la Conférence des évêques américains (USCCB).
Samedi dernier il intervenait devait une foule nombreuse réunie à l’hôtel Marriott O’Hare de Chicago sur le dernier document du Saint Siège relatif à la bioéthique Dignitatis Personæ. Une partie de son discours fut consacré à « l’affaire Notre Dame ». Il apprit à son auditoire qu’il en avait discuté avec les responsables de l’administration de l’USCCB et, à plusieurs reprises, avec le P. John Jenkins. « La discussion va continuer, a-t-il indiqué, qu’elle ait ou non une quelconque conséquence susceptible d’amener, je pense, l’Université de Notre Dame à la compréhension [qu’à l’USCCB] de ce que veut dire être catholique (…) Ainsi, et tout à fait indépendamment des positions personnelles du Président [Obama], et qui sont bien connues, le problème c’est que vous avez une université catholique – le bateau amiral des universités catholiques – qui fait quelque chose qui apporte une gêne extrême à beaucoup, beaucoup de gens qui sont catholiques. Donc (…) il est clair que Notre Dame n’a pas compris ce que c’est qu’être catholique quand elle a lancé cette invitation, sans avoir anticipé l’espèce de tumulte qui a résulté de sa décision, à tout le moins pas avec l’ampleur qu’on a connu ».
La cardinal presse les catholiques préoccupés : « faites ce que vous êtes supposés devoir faire : téléphoner, envoyer des courriels, écrire des lettres, pour exprimer ce que vous avez sur le cœur à cause de cette affaire : votre gêne, votre difficulté ».
Le président de l’USCCB estime impossible de “désinviter” Obama, mais pense qu’il est légitime d’envisager une certaine forme de protestation lors de la cérémonie.
www.chretiente.info
CNSNews.com Cardinal George: ‘Notre Dame Didn't Understand What It Means to Be Catholic’ When They Invited Obama
Apr 07, 2009
(CNSNews.com) - Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop of Chicago, said on Saturday that the University of Notre Dame had “brought extreme embarrassment” to Catholics by inviting pro-abortion President Barack Obama to speak at the university’s commencement and that the school “didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation."
His remarks were reported by LifeSiteNews.com.
Cardinal George exhorted the group of Catholics he was speaking with to keep the pressure on Notre Dame, calling on them to “do what you are supposed to be doing: to call, to email, to write letters, to express what’s in your heart about this: the embarrassment, the difficulties."
But the cardinal warned that he did not expect Notre Dame to cancel an invitation to the president of the United States, because “you just don't do that."
"You have to sit back and get past the immediate moral outrage and say, ‘Now what’s the best thing to do in these circumstances?’” said the cardinal. “I can assure you the bishops are doing that.”
The cardinal made these remarks at the Chicago archdiocese’s annual “Gospel of Life” conference that was held Saturday. The conference focused on bioethics, infertility and parish “Respect Life” ministries. The cardinal’s talk focused on the Vatican document “Dignitas Personae,” the Dignity of the Person.
"Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation," said George, according to LifeSiteNews.com.
LifeSiteNews.com also reported that Cardinal George said he had discussed the invitation with the U.S.C.C.B’s administrative committee as well as with Fr. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president. The cardinal said the “conversation” will continue and indicated that it was an effort to communicate to Notre Dame the U.S.C.C.B.’s understanding of what it means to be Catholic.
"So quite apart from the president's own positions, which are well known, the problem is in that you have a Catholic university--the flagship Catholic university--do something that brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are Catholic,” he said.
"So whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation, and didn't anticipate the kind of uproar that would be consequent to the decision, at least not to the extent that it has happened," said George.
Cardenal George pide evitar que administración de Obama caiga en despotismo
Apr 01, 2009
El Arzobispo de Chicago y Presidente de la Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Estados Unidos (USCCB), Cardenal Francis George, dirigió un videomensaje a los católicos del país para que se pronuncien contra la anunciada medida de la administración Obama que obligaría a los agentes sanitarios pro-vida a practicar abortos desplazando al país "de la democracia hacia el despotismo".
A fines de febrero, la Oficina de Gestión y Presupuesto de la Casa Blanca informó que analiza una propuesta para que se pueda actuar legalmente contra los trabajadores médicos y las instituciones que se oponen a cooperar en abortos.
El Cardenal George explica en su mensaje que la norma es "una parte de la gama de protecciones legales" para los trabajadores de la salud que se oponen a participar en "el aborto y otros procedimientos asesinos" que contradicen su fe por lo que exige el respeto de la libertad religiosa y la libertad de conciencia personal.
Hablando en nombre de los obispos estadounidenses, que son "obispos católicos y ciudadanos americanos", el Cardenal George expresó su profunda preocupación porque la eliminación de la norma sería "el primer paso en el desplazamiento de nuestro país de la democracia al despotismo".
"Ningún gobierno debe intervenir entre una persona y Dios. Este es un verdadero terreno común para nosotros estadounidenses", indicó.
"¿Por qué no debería nuestro gobierno y nuestro sistema jurídico permitir la objeción ante una acción moralmente mala, como la muerte de los bebés en el vientre de su madre?", cuestionó el Purpurado.
"La gente sabe lo que ocurre realmente en un aborto y en los procedimientos relacionados en los que un miembro de la familia humana es asesinado y nadie debe ser obligado por el gobierno a actuar como si estuvieran ciegos ante esta realidad", precisó.
El Arzobispo alentó a los católicos a pronunciarse ante el Gobierno a través de los canales de comunicación con la ciudadanía y expresen su opinión.
The Church in Public Life
Mar 25, 2009
The state, unless it is despotic, should not force a citizen to do something that violates that person’s conscience. The state cannot place itself between an individual and God.
CHICAGO (Catholic New World) - Last week, more than 4,000 Catholic parishioners, employees, volunteers and school children met in Springfield to promote the tenets of Catholic social teaching and express support or disagreement with bills currently being considered by those who represent the citizens of Illinois in the capital. After a rally around schools, we split up to contact various legislators and the new governor. The conversations were mostly pleasant and, I’m told, the day was well received.
The state government, like the federal government, is wrestling with huge deficits and with payments for social services that are many months behind. Catholic hospitals now have a harder time borrowing money to pay their bills while waiting for the state to pay its bills for health services guaranteed by government programs. Catholic Charities and other social services have similar problems. Everyone agreed easily that the state has to find ways to pay its bills more quickly, even if ways for the state to find money remain extremely contentious.
There were eight areas of concern addressed last week but, as I spoke to various people in our state government, I stressed two: schools and conscience clauses. In the current economic crisis, many parents are finding it very hard to pay tuition for their children’s education in Catholic schools. The state now grants a $500 tax credit to each family with children in our schools, and I was asking that the tax credit be raised to $1,000 per family. This is not money the state pays to parents or schools; it is money not collected by the state from parents who have children in our schools. It can be considered a financial savings measure because the government, if our schools ceased to function, would have to add almost $2 billion to an already huge deficit. An increased tax credit would help relieve the burden on parents of Catholic school children.
The second concern I discussed in Springfield is a proposal to effectively repeal the right to conscientious objection to abortion and related procedures that kill. It is a shame that such a socially divisive measure should be proposed at a time when we all have to try to come together around economic policy. This country recognizes a conscientious objection to war, even though it is a good and moral action to defend one’s country. Why do some want to deny the right to conscientious objection to abortion, which is a moral evil?
Sometimes the desire to diminish or do away with the public influence of the Catholic Church in our society is ideological: Society should be free of any religious rhetoric or impact. Religion is an entirely private affair and, often, to be discouraged even in private life. While this opinion is not consistent with American history or public life for the past 200 years, it now seems to be the opinion of some who shape public life in the government, the courts, the media, the universities and the entertainment industry.
There is often, moreover, a particular animus against Catholicism. Dislike of the Catholic Church can arise from prejudice that is fostered by some other religious groups or from a biased reading of human history. It can stem from a hurtful personal incident with a priest or sister or mistreatment in a Catholic institution. But there are “principled” reasons why it is intellectually and socially acceptable to drive the Catholic Church from public life. Let me mention four of them, which can be reduced to one: the church preaches limits in a society that imagines every individual and our country itself should be able to do whatever we deem desirable and possible. While many issues could illustrate the point, the examples below all stem from the church’s constant teaching on respect for every human life.
First, the church teaches that there are religious limits to state power. The state, unless it is despotic, should not force a citizen to do something that violates that person’s conscience. The state cannot place itself between an individual and God.
Second, the church teaches that there are limits to individual freedom. No one can take the life of another, even an unborn child, just because the other human being is unwanted.
Third, the church teaches that there are limits to scientific research. The current dispute about killing human embryos for research purposes has little to do with therapy and a lot to do with hubris. All the practical medical results so far have come from using adult and other stem cells. The issue is whether the scientific community can claim absolute control over its own activities to the exclusion of the moral laws that govern all human actions.
Fourth, the church teaches that there are limits to how one can define her own teaching and life. The church comes from Christ, and no individual Catholic or group of Catholics can decide on their own what the church’s teaching on life issues and other doctrines should be or what demands they place upon us. In the last election campaign, some Catholics tried to redefine what it means to be prolife. This is a betrayal of the faith, as Pope Benedict’s recent words to the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives made eloquently clear a couple of weeks ago.
It’s not easy to hear about limits to what one wants, but the limits taught by the church express universal norms for moral behavior. With the whole world, we’re being brought face to face with economic limits. Lent is a good time to recognize again moral limits that serve to make us both civilized and holy.
Our elected representatives in Springfield and Washington want, I believe, to serve the common good, and so should all of us. The church helps us to see what the common good requires of us by teaching clearly the moral principles that have been and are basically common to the human race. Prayer for our government officials reminds us that their actions and ours determine not only how we live together here but also whether we’ll all live together in eternity.
God bless you.Sincerely yours in Christ,Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago
Summit of the Chiefs
Mar 19, 2009
Earlier this afternoon -- a day after the latter publicly lobbied against the rollback of the Bush administration's last-minute "conscience rights" protections for health-care providers -- President Obama met in the Oval Office with the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George OMI of Chicago.
Whispers in the Loggia, Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Summit of the Chiefs
Earlier this afternoon -- a day after the latter publicly lobbied against the rollback of the Bush administration's last-minute "conscience rights" protections for health-care providers -- President Obama met in the Oval Office with the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George OMI of Chicago.
The White House has issued the following statement:
Today the President met in the Oval Office with His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago and President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The President and Cardinal George discussed a wide range of issues, including important opportunities for the government and the Catholic Church to continue their long-standing partnership to tackle some of the nation’s most pressing challenges. The President thanked Cardinal George for his leadership and for the contributions of the Catholic Church in America and around the world.
And the Mothership has released the following:
Cardinal Francis George, OMI, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, met at the White House with President Barack Obama during the afternoon of March 17.
The meeting was private. Cardinal George and President Obama discussed the Catholic Church in the United States and its relation to the new Administration. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes.
At the conclusion, Cardinal George expressed his gratitude for the meeting and his hopes that it will foster fruitful dialogue for the sake of the common good.
Also today, the President used the traditional St Patrick's Day lunch to announce his nomination of Dan Rooney -- the chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a Catholic and a faithful supporter of church causes -- as his ambassador to Ireland.
Now celebrating the sixth world championship of the team his father founded, Rooney was a staunch Obama advocate during last year's campaign.
Cardinal George Honors Rabbi Dreyfus as New President of CCAR
Dec 26, 2008
Homewood , IL–(ENEWSPF)– Francis Cardinal George of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago was guest speaker Friday for the Testimonial Lecture Series. Cardinal George spoke in honor of Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus being named President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR).
The cardinal delivered the sermon for the Shabbat service at Temple B'nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood.
Cardinal George was introduced by Rabbi Leo Wolkow, who started the Testimonial Series.
Rabbi Dreyfus will begin her two-year term during the CCAR’s Annual Convention in Jerusalem, February 24 to March 1, 2009.
According to Rabbi Dreyfus, the organization is comprised of about “1,800 rabbis, mostly in North America, but also around the world.”
The Central Conference of American Rabbis was founded in 1889 and is comprised of rabbis who consider themselves and are considered to be the organized rabbinate of Reform Judaism
Etats-Unis : Il faut défendre la vie comme la justice raciale
Nov 25, 2008
Une nouvelle « bénédiction des enfants dans le ventre de leur mère »
ROME, Mercredi 19 novembre 2008 (ZENIT.org) - La défense de la vie est un bien commun des Etats Unis, au même titre que la justice raciale, déclare le cardinal George lors de l'assemblée des évêques américains, rapporte l'agence vaticane Fides. Les évêques des Etats-Unis adoptent par ailleurs la « Bénédiction des enfants dans le ventre de leur mère ».
C'et en effet à la défense de la vie humaine que le cardinal Francis George, archevêque de Chicago et président de la Conférence des évêques des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, a consacré son discours d'ouverture de l'assemblée plénière des évêques, qui a eu lieu à Baltimore (10-13 novembre).
« En ce moment de transition historique, les évêques de l'Eglise catholique des Etats-Unis souhaitent la bienvenue au président élu Obama, et ils espèrent pouvoir travailler avec lui et avec les membres du nouveau Congrès en faveur du bien commun de tous », a affirmé le cardinal George.
L'archevêque de Chicago a ensuite rappelé que « le bien fondamental est la vie même, un don de Dieu et de nos parents », ajoutant qu' « un Etat qui est bon protège la vie de tous ». Ainsi, « le bien commun n'est jamais suffisant dans une société qui se permet d'assassiner légalement des enfants qui ne sont pas encore nés ». De plus, « il sera impossible de créer l'unité désirée par le Président Obama et par tous les Américains en ce moment de crise » si l'administration fait augmenter le nombre d'avortements.
Pour le président de la Conférence des évêques catholiques, « l'avortement ne tue pas seulement les enfants conçus mais détruit aussi l'ordre constitutionnel et le bien commun, qui n'est assuré que quand la vie de tout être humain est protégée légalement ». « Une politique d'avortement agressive éloignerait des milliers d'Américains et beaucoup la percevrait comme une attaque au libre exercice de leur religion », a ajouté le cardinal.
« Nous exprimons encore une fois notre grand désir de travailler avec tous ceux qui considèrent le bien commun de notre nation. Le bien commun n'est pas une somme d'intérêts et de désirs individuels, mais il s'obtient par une vie commune fondée sur la raison et sur le bien de tous », a conclu le cardinal George.
Au cours de leur assemblée, les évêques ont aussi approuvé l'institution de la « Bénédiction des enfants dans le ventre de leur mère », à utiliser dans tous les diocèses des Etats-Unis d'Amérique.
Cardinal George: Obama faces 'formidable' odds
Nov 18, 2008
BALTIMORE--Chicago's Cardinal Francis George today told America's Roman Catholic bishops that President-elect Barack Obama faces "formidable" odds in serving the good of all.
"In working for the common good of our society, racial justice is one pillar of our social doctrine," said George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during his annual address to bishops meeting in Baltimore.
"Economic justice, especially for the poor both here and abroad is another.... [But] the common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice."
Over the past year, bishops have stepped up their efforts to fight abortion rights. In Baltimore, they will discuss their approach during the Obama administration. They also will discuss measures regarding same-sex marriage and civil unions.
Bei der Vollversammlung der US-amerikanischen Bischofskonferenz ruft Kardinal George zum Schutz des Lebens au
Nov 14, 2008
Baltimora (Fidesdienst) – Der Vorsitzende der US-amerikanischen Bischofskonferenz und Erzbischof von Chicago, Kardinal Francis George, widmete seine Eröffnungsansprache zur Vollversammlung der Bischöfe, die vom 10. bis 13. November in Baltimore tagt, dem Thema Lebensschutz.
„Die Bischöfe der katholischen Kirche der Vereinigten Staaten begrüßen diesen Moment des historischen Wandels und hoffen, dass sie mit dem gewählten Präsidenten Obama und den Mitgliedern des neuen Kongresses zum Wohl aller zusammenarbeiten können“, so der Kardinal in zur jüngsten Wahl des ersten afro-amerikanischen Präsidenten, Barack Obama.
Kardinal George erinnerte insbesondere daran, dass „das grundlegende Wohl das Leben selbst ist, das Gott und unsere Eltern uns geschenkt haben“. Deshalb „schützt ein guter Staat das Leben aller“. Somit „kann das Gemeinwohl in einer Gesellschaft nie in ausreichendem Maß gefördert werden, die erlaubt, das Ungeborene legal ermordet werden“. Außerdem „wird es auch nicht möglich sein, die von dem gewählten Präsidenten Obama und von allen Amerikanern in diesem Moment der Krise gewünschte Einheit zur erlangen“, wenn die Regierung dazu beiträgt, dass die Zahl der Abtreibungen zunimmt.
Nach Ansicht des Vorsitzenden der Bischofskonferenz „bringt eine Abtreibung nicht nur das ungeborene Kind um, sondern es zerstört auch die konstitutionelle Ordnung und das Gemeinwohl, das nur sichergestellt ist, wenn das Leben jedes menschlichen Wesens gesetzlich geschützt wird“. „Eine aggressive Abtreibungspolitik würde viele Amerikaner entfernen und viele würden sie als Angriff auf die Ausübung der eigenen Religion betrachten“, so der Kardinal weiter.
„Wir bringen erneut unseren Wunsch nach Zusammenarbeit mit all denjenigen zum Ausdruck, die das Gemeinwohl unserer Nation vor Augen haben. Das Gemeinwohl ist nicht die Summer der individuellen Interessen und Wünsche, sondern man erlangt es wenn das Zusammenleben auf dem Interesse und auf dem Wohl aller gründet“, so Kardinal George abschließend
USCCB: George issues blunt challenge to Obama on abortion
Nov 11, 2008
Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said all Americans should “rejoice” that a country which once tolerated slavery has elected an African-American as president – and, in the same breath, he issued a blunt challenge to the new administration on abortion.
USCCB: George issues blunt challenge to Obama on abortion
All Things Catholic By John L Allen Jr
Created Nov 10 2008 - 10:16
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Baltimore
Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said all Americans should “rejoice” that a country which once tolerated slavery has elected an African-American as president – and, in the same breath, he issued a blunt challenge to the new administration on abortion.
“If the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, that African Americans were other people’s property and somehow less than persons, were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be President of the United States,” George said.
"Today, as was the case a hundred and fifty years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good," he said.
“The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice,” George said, drawing sustained applause from the bishops.
George said that while efforts to end racism and to promote economic justice are “pillars” of Catholic teaching, so too is opposition to abortion. His address drew a standing ovation from the bishops.
George’s comments, and the reaction from the floor, offered the first indication that the election of a pro-choice Democrat to the White House is unlikely to induce the bishops to soften their emphasis on abortion and other “life issues.”
George said that the election of Barak Obama represented, among other things, a “vindication” of those Catholic priests, religious, laity and bishops who worked against racism and on behalf of civil rights over the years in light of Catholic social doctrine.
Yet, George suggested, other aspects of the church’s social teaching – particularly its message on the defense of unborn life – have yet to be vindicated.
“We are perhaps at a moment when, with the grace of God, all races are safely within the American consensus,” George said. “We are not at the point, however, when Catholics, especially in public life, can be considered full partners in the American experience unless they are willing to put aside some fundamental Catholic teachings on a just moral and political order.”
George issued a strong call for unity in the church.
“Those who would impose their own agenda on the church, those who believe and act self-righteously, answerable only to themselves, whether ideologically on the left or right, betray the Lord Jesus,” he said.
In his lone direct reference to Catholic politicians, George prayed that “the Catholic faith will shape your decisions so that our communion may be full.”
George also appeared to encourage individual bishops to be bold, almost apart from whatever consensus positions may come out of the bishops’ conference.
“As we all know, the church was born without episcopal conferences, as she was born without parishes and without dioceses, although all these structures have been helpful pastorally throughout the centuries,” George said.
“The church was born only with shepherds, with apostolic pastors, whose relationship to their people keeps them one with Christ, from whom comes authority to govern the church,” he said.
Finally, George offered a joking reference to the mounting challenges he said are facing bishops these days.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I’ve been tempted to think that bishops should be given, at their consecration, not crosiers but mops!”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting Nov. 10-13 at Baltimore’s Marriott Waterfront hotel. It’s the first gathering of the American bishops in the wake of the recent elections.
Interview with Cardinal Francis George
Oct 17, 2008
If the typical American bishop once upon a time was a “bricks and mortar” man, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is anything but typical.
Interview with Cardinal Francis George
All Things Catholic by John L Allen Jr
Created Oct 15 2008 - 13:28
If the typical American bishop once upon a time was a “bricks and mortar” man, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is anything but typical. He’s a scholar-prelate who loves to chew over ideas (George holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Tulane), and he also has a deeply cosmopolitan view of the world – a fruit, in part, of having lived for more than a decade in Rome as the Vicar General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
George is held in high regard around the Catholic world, one small sign of which is that he was elected moderator, or chair, of one of the English-language discussion groups at the current Synod of Bishops on “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.” He sat down for an interview on Wednesday at the North American College, which covered not only the synod, but also the debate over abortion and politics in the United States, the current economic crisis, the legacy of John Paul II, Benedict XVI’s trip to the United States, and how the church might put its money where its mouth is with regard to supporting laity who want to become Bible scholars.
The following is a complete transcript.
When I bumped into you the other day, you said that you’ve found it a good synod so far. What did you have in mind?
I think the quality of the interventions has been very good. Overall, each intervention had something to say that was worth saying. In other synods, that hasn’t always been the case!
Can you tick off what you would regard as the essential points of the discussion so far?
I purposely have tried not to do my own relatio post disputationem [Note: A speech given by the relator, in this case Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec, drawing together the points made during the opening round of speeches.] I’m interested in hearing what Cardinal Ouellet has to say, because he’s always very synthetic and original in the way he puts things together. That’s what I have to use in my small group, so if I come to a personal sense of what’s important before I hear what he has to say, I won’t be able to guide the discussions very well. I haven’t tried to say what’s going to be more important than something else. You have to let the process take its own way, particularly since now, as a moderator, I’m somewhat responsible for it.
In general, however, the topic of the Word of God means you have to ask questions about how God speaks, through the written witness to his actions in Holy Scripture. So, all the questions about the relationship between exegesis and systematic theology, the distinction between truth and inerrancy, those questions about how God uses the Holy Scriptures to speak to us, are one side of the issue. The other side is how we listen. I was trying to talk about the personal context that makes it possible to hear, or not to hear, the Word. Many of the fathers brought out the social context in their own areas, and that was very interesting to hear, as it always is when you get so many people together from around the world. These would be the two poles: How does God speak, and how do we listen? Then, we have the question of how we transmit what he speaks. There were a lot of interventions around the media and social communications.
There was one prayer that was very important, I think: What happens when God is silent? That’s another whole area. I don’t know that it will be developed, but from a spiritual perspective, from the perspective of the church, trying to be God’s voice … that’s something that probably deserves more attention than it’s going to get. This is perhaps not the milieu to explore that.
So, those would be the parameters of the discussion, as I see it.
Yesterday, the pope spoke to the synod for the first time. What struck you about his remarks?
He wanted to clarify something to which the Pontifical Biblical Commission, when he was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had already spoken. Basically, he used those notes for his intervention. It was the question of the relationship between exegesis and systematic theology. You can’t limit the significance of scripture, and the meaning of the text itself, to simply what the human author, in his own time, in his own context, wanted to write. If God is equally an author, then God wants to write something, and it’s only the reflection of the church upon the Word and upon the events of history that enables the development of doctrine to come out of scripture, and to be a commentary upon scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does that very well. It’s really an extended commentary on scripture. It shows how the doctrines of the church, and our systematic thinking that comes to us from the tradition itself, is
rooted in scripture. To put a break between what historical-critical methods can do in exegesis, and what theologians can do, is to consign us to one of two extremes. On one side is fideism – meaning that we believe the faith even though we can’t find it in scripture, supposedly. On the other is losing scripture to archeological science, to ancient literature. Then the question arises of its importance – why should we be worried about it at all?
So his point was holding these two things together?
Not just holding them together, but that they’re inextricably linked one to the other. It’s what makes exegesis a theological science, because otherwise it’s not theology at all.
You weren’t here for the Synod on the Eucharist in 2005, but I remember that, like this time, the Holy Father spoke at the end of the first round of speeches. Like this time, he argued for transcending an apparent opposition – in that case, the tension between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Mass, between the Mass as meal and the Mass as sacrifice. Does it seem to you that he has a gift for synthesis?
I’d heard about that intervention from Bishop Arthur Roche, who made some comment about it himself. He was quite pleased that the Holy Father had come into the discussion. [Note: Roche is the bishop of Leeds, England, and chair of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.]
I think it’s true that [the pope] has a personal gift of synthesis. He sees things whole. It’s also, however, another reflection of him as a man of faith, because the faith sees things whole.
The pope also took a gentle swipe at exegesis in Germany, something like, ‘If you read some exegetes, it would seem Jesus is still in the tomb.’ What do you think the situation is in the United States in terms of the relationship between exegesis and theology?
I don’t know that I can generalize. The fact that a distinction exists, which sometimes becomes a chasm, is quite clear. I’ve heard a professor at a Catholic university say that she just does exegesis. Sometimes it supports Protestant doctrine, sometimes it supports Catholic doctrine. For her, it’s a totally independent discipline, without any relationship to what any particular church does. That means that the churches are all, in some sense, not scriptural. That completely abstracts from the fact that these are all books written by people of faith, for a community of faith, and meant to be read within a community of faith. In a sense, it’s bad scripture study. But that does pass for professional scripture study in some circles.
It’s going to be very hard for us to move beyond that immediately, because we do it very well. The Germans have gone beyond that now, and the French were never into it in the same way. We’re the last outpost of that kind of thinking. We’ll just have to wait a while, I suppose, to catch up with the rest of the church.
You mentioned a moment ago the discussion within the synod about inerrancy. Some have suggested that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ought to prepare a document on inerrancy. What’s the issue there?
The question, finally, is what kind of confidence can those who hear the Word of God proclaimed from scripture have that it’s the truth? Fundamentalists would say that it’s all literally true, so we have every reason to be confident. But that ignores what exegesis has done for us in the last 200 years, identifying the different forms of literature in the Bible, the contexts of the communities in which it was written, and all the rest.
You’ve still got the problem, however, of the affirmation in faith that inspiration and inerrancy go together, so that what is inspired is also inerrant. At the same time, you have to discover what inerrancy means when you’re not reading a newspaper, but you’re reading poetry, or a myth of some sort, or a fable or a parable. We can make that distinction more easily in the New Testament, when Jesus is speaking in parables. It’s harder sometimes for us to make those distinctions in the Old Testament.
One way of solving it came out of the Second Vatican Council. It wasn’t Cardinal Bea’s way of solving it, but that of some commentators. [Note: Cardinal Augustin Bea was a German Biblical scholar and influential figure at Vatican II. Bea, who died in 1968, also headed the Vatican’s office for Christian unity.] It holds that what God intended for our salvation is what’s inerrant. It didn’t say that the rest wasn’t inspired, but nonetheless scripture’s inerrancy is more or less limited to what God intended to teach for our salvation. The other school is a little bit broader, and I think it’s more where we’re at now. It says no, inerrancy applies also to what the human author intended to teach, under God’s inspiration. However, what the human author did not intend to teach, but rather brought in to his writings because it was part of the zeitgeist, the understanding of the world at the time, is not necessarily factually inerrant. So
there are all kinds of places where you can split it, but you’ve got to determine what those places are and how you should go at it. In that sense, a document might be helpful.
So you’re supportive of a document on inerrancy?
I would be, but you have to allow the scholars time to continue those discussions and to make the distinctions necessary. There’s been forty years of discussing it, and I think we might be ready to have some kind of more definitive document now. I think the study would be good. Whether or not it’s the time to do the document, I don’t know. We have to consult with a lot of the scholarly community and see where we are.
We’ve heard a number of bishops talk about the importance of connecting the Bible to the issues of the day, so I want to ask you about a couple of those issues. First of all, the looming election in the United States: What should preachers be saying from the pulpit?
We’ve already published “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” That’s what preachers should draw upon.
The bishops’ conference has placed abortion and politics on the agenda for the November meeting. What can you tell me about that discussion?
The discussion came about because the teaching of the church on the morality of killing unborn children was brought into doubt. Some public figures, very highly placed, brought it into doubt.
You’re talking about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Joseph Biden?
Yes, particularly them. There was a response to that by the conference, as well as many individuals, including myself, because the teaching was misrepresented. That, finally, is the bottom line. Because it was around that issue, however, the whole question of what happens to people who are consistently in public opposition to the church’s teaching naturally comes up. It remains a pastoral problem that troubles us. So, we said we want to talk about it again, even though we’ve already talked about it twice.
Is it the same conversation as 2004, just seeing where you are today, or is there some new wrinkle?
I don’t know if there are new wrinkles. I hope the conversation will tell us whether there are or there aren’t. I do think there’s a new sense of urgency.
Are you going to vote on something at the November meeting, or will this be purely for discussion?
Well, we’ll see what happens. The conversation will show that.
There’s no specific proposal that the Administrative Committee, for example, is bringing to the bishops?
No.
Speaking of new wrinkles, some Catholics argue that being pro-life is not the same thing as seeking the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Is that going to be part of your discussion?
I suppose it is, inasmuch as there are many ways of being pro-life, but none of them has the same priority as the question of abortion or euthanasia.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. What I meant is that some Catholics believe it is possible to be anti-abortion without seeking the overturn of Roe v. Wade. People such as Doug Kmiec argue that seeking to address the root causes of abortion – poverty, inadequate health care, a lack of support for women and children – might be more effective than criminalizing abortion. Will that be part of your discussion?
It could very well be. That would make sense, but I’m not sure that it will be.
I’ve asked other bishops this question, and my sense of what most of you seem to feel is this: While the doctrine of the church doesn’t speak to specific pieces of legislation or court decisions, nevertheless the moral gravity of abortion is so enormous that the church has to work toward making Roe v. Wade no longer the law of the land. In other words, it may not be an article of the faith, but you see it as a clear extension of the faith. Am I reading you right?
Of course.
Therefore, in your eyes it’s not purely a matter of prudential judgment whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned?
It can’t be. If you’ve got an immoral law, you’ve got to work to change that. You’ve got children being killed every day. It goes on forever. That’s the great scandal, and that’s why there’s such a sense of urgency now. There’s no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed, and we live, therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something that you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.
Therefore, while you would presumably support better health care and anti-poverty measures, in your mind that’s not an alternative to efforts to outlaw abortion?
Absolutely right.
Another issue that’s very much on people’s minds is the economy. I know bishops are not economists, and therefore you’re not going to issue a white paper on the economic situation.
We did once. [Note: The reference is to a 1986 pastoral letter from the U.S. bishops titled “Economic Justice for All.”] Actually, some of the criticisms of the economic system that are in that letter are now being proven correct [1].
People are hurting and scared. What can the church say about the situation?
The Word of God, in our doctrinal language, is translated as saying that the economy exists for people, not people for the economy. We’re not just units of production or units of consumption, but everything has to be looked at in terms of how it affects human beings, particularly the poor. That remains the principle. It was the principle that John Paul II used to criticize communism, and it was the same principle he used to criticize capitalism. He was of the opinion that communism certainly had to fall, but that capitalism also had to change. Today we can perceive some indications that it’s changing – in fact, it’s changed already. The markets are now far less free than they ever were before. Does that mean going towards a managed economy? I don’t think anybody wants that, in the socialist sense, but it’s different than what we had before. That change has already taken place, and we’ll see what it means for the future.
Are you optimistic that a more human economy will be the result when the dust settles?
We can hope for that, but I don’t know.
Speaking of John Paul, the day after tomorrow will be the 30th anniversary of his election to the papacy. Do you hope he will soon be made a saint?
I’m hoping that he will be beatified and canonized, because I believe he was a saint. I believe that strongly. How soon depends upon the process. But if you’re asking if I hope it’s soon enough for me to pray to him publicly as a saint, yes.
More than three years after his death, how would you describe the permanent impulse John Paul II left the church?
Oh, there are so many things. I think he was part of the Second Vatican Council, and he wanted above all to see that the council’s effects were part of the ordinary life of the church. Primarily, I think, for him that meant we should understand how the church is global. It’s always been universal, but it’s now also global – a “world church,” as Karl Rahner called it at the time of the council. For John Paul, that was a lived reality. He organized his papacy around that, he helped bring us into it with the World Youth Days, the synods dedicated to the continents, the celebration of the Great Jubilee. He brought all the mysteries of our faith – forgiveness, God’s mercy, reconciliation, our dialogue with everyone – into the structures of the church, and into his own way of pastoring the whole church. It would be very, very difficult now for Catholics to retreat into a kind of nationalist religion. That was the temptation at the time of the
collapse of monarchies and through the 19th century. I think we’re past that, and we’ve moved past it before most of the world is past it.
But the temptation of nationalism isn’t just fueled by European nostalgia for the ancien regime, a sentiment that’s now largely passé, is it? Isn’t there a streak of nationalism in American Catholicism too, which has to do partly with geography, a congregationalist ethos, and a strong sense of American patriotism?
You also find it in Latin America, in Asia … you have the same temptation to nationalism around the world. They haven’t conceived of the church nationally the same way they did in some European nations, but it’s always there. Whom do you adore, the people or God? What’s more important, the nation or the church?
In reality, it’s more ‘sectarian’ to be American or French than it is to be Catholic …
Of course that’s true, but …
Don’t say ‘of course.’ A lot of people don’t think that’s true at all, including in our own country. Take a look at the way they use the word ‘sectarian.’
Who’s ‘they’?
In the public conversation in the United States. If you say something’s ‘sectarian,’ people automatically think you mean it’s religious. They never assume that it means ‘nationalist.’
I wonder if there’s something uniquely insular, to use that word, about the United States, and therefore about Catholicism in the United States, that cuts a bit deeper than some other places. After all, we’re the world’s exporter of culture. We produce the books and movies and TV shows and music that everyone else consumes, but it doesn’t come as naturally to us to import culture.
What you’re saying is that the insularity of the United States affects Catholics in the United States, who become insular because they’re Americans.
Do you think that’s true?
Sure.
What do we do about it?
(Laughs). That’s a very good question, and I wish I knew the answer. I don’t believe that I do. The answer to that question would be how we should shape our ministry.
You haven’t just been sitting on an answer?
No, I’m sorry, I haven’t been. Of course, there is no single answer. You have to keep the total vision in mind. You have to understand that salvation history goes back many, many centuries, and it also goes out around the whole world. You try to teach and to preach in that way. The pope is himself a great symbol of that universality, and he was very well received in the United States when he came. We’re all very proud of that. I think we did a good job in receiving him. Of course, he did a good job too, and that helped make everybody’s job easier.
I think if the vision is there, it will come up in small ways and new ways, where it’s appropriate. Naturally, people live where they are. They’re concerned about their family, and their parish, sometimes their diocese. The point of Catholicism is to extend that concern universally.
I think, for example, the way that Catholics in the United States respond to CRS and other appeals outside our country show that a fundamental generosity of heart is still alive. They are concerned about the victims of a tsunami somewhere else, and they’ll use the charities of the church to help those people out, because the church was there, already, before the disaster came, and they can connect with its structures. So in some ways, we’re perhaps not as insular as we might tend to think we are, but culturally we can be. I think you’re right in what you say there. We export our popular culture, and we tend to think that other people either are like us, or want to be like us, when in fact they might not.
I don’t think there’s a magic solution. It’s just a question of being Catholic at all times … for example, praying as a Catholic. We start the intercessory prayers with the pope and the needs of the world, and then we work down. Every Mass does that now, and I think that has an effect. There are small ways and big ways in which we say that we’re different, and we are. That’s perhaps our role in our country, to be different enough, ‘other’ enough, to allow a criticism of who we are as a nation to surface … a criticism based on love, of course, because you can’t criticize if you don’t love. It won’t be listened to.
Close enough to love, far enough away to be critical?
Yes.
In that sense, this is part of a broader conversation we’ve had before, about restoring a ‘thick’ sense of Catholic identity?
Yes, exactly.
We haven’t spoken at any length since the pope’s trip to the United States. You probably saw the survey the Knights of Columbus commissioned about American reactions to the trip. I was struck by the finding that the two moments Americans identified as ‘most important’ were the pope’s meeting with victims of sexual abuse and the visit to Ground Zero. Amid all the pageantry and oratory of the trip, these were the two smallest events, neither of which even had a papal speech. Why do you think they were the two moments people remember?
I think it’s because they’re the two moments that most interested the media which reported the events. The story about the Catholic church in these years has been entirely a story about sexual abuse. You can’t get very many other stories out there, so that’s of great interest. Certainly the terrorist attacks on our country continue to reverberate. Some of the economic consequences we’re living out now are probably connected to that. That’s something burned into the American psyche, so anything connected to that is going to be of major importance. At least, that’s how I see it.
Let me offer a slight challenge. I was on CNN during the papal trip, and I can tell you that we covered far more than just those two stories. For example, we took three papal Masses in one week live from bell to bell: Nationals’ Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Yankee Stadium. That’s probably more Catholic liturgy on commercial television than in any previous week in American history. So, I think this may be one instance in which an absence of media attention to the rest of the agenda doesn’t quite cut it as an explanation.
I didn’t say that. I just said that in recent years, when you think of the church, you think of sex abuse.
Granted, but let me float my hypothesis by you. I think those two moments loomed large because they, more than anything else, showed the pope being a pastor. He was reaching out directly to suffering and hurt people, and offering healing to them. When people see that, it still resonates.
Oh, I quite agree with you. But there were other moments similar to that. For example, his meeting with disabled children, and their parents and guardians, was very touching. But, disabled children and parents and guardians are not, to use your word, quite as ‘sexy’ as Ground Zero and child abuse.
Maybe these two things came together. People paid attention to what the pope was doing on sex abuse and terrorism, and once he had their attention, the pastoral dimension could register.
There was also a lot of response after the fact [to the meeting with victims], talking to victims again. I wasn’t able to see the TV commentary, which was the disadvantage of my being with [the pope]. That was very enjoyable for me, because it gave me an insight into how security is arranged and so on. It’s a different world, an alternative universe, which I was very pleased to be in for a couple of days. But it meant that I didn’t see any TV coverage at all. I read the papers, but I heard the TV coverage was very, very fine.
Perhaps part of it, too, was that it gave victims a chance to talk not just about the hurt but also about healing, which is a dimension of the story that isn’t often told.
Yes, it was wonderful, it was graceful. The other thing that television did very well was shaping images so that somehow the personality of the Holy Father came though, in a way that the print media wouldn’t be able, perhaps, to do. Those images, of course, didn’t correspond to a lot of the impressions of him that had been given before.
This will be the last question, but I would be remiss if I didn’t ask it. You’re at the synod talking about how to promote the Bible in the life of the church. I recently spoke with Terrence Tilley, who you know is the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America as well as the chair of the Theology Department at Fordham. I asked him about the relationship between theology and exegesis, and he made a very interesting practical point. He said that at Fordham, they’ve recently done searches for an Old Testament person and a New Testament person, and in both cases it was hard to find Catholic candidates. One reason, he said, is that given the language demands to get a Ph.D. in scripture, it requires an unusually long period of study, and many lay Catholic grad students simply can’t afford it. In the old days, dioceses and religious orders would keep people in the pipeline, but laity don’t have that means of support. If you want to do
something to promote the Bible in the church, wouldn’t this a place to start?
That’s a very good question, and I think we should give it a lot more thought. I think there are priests and others studying scripture, but they’re destined to be part of seminary faculties. That’s a part of the Catholic intelligentsia that’s pretty much dropped out of the CTSA. I think they’re trying to remedy that, on both sides, but that is the unfortunate fact in recent years. So there are Catholics doing scripture studies, but they’re doing it in the way that you said … they’re being supported by their diocese or by a religious order. They’re not teaching in the universities, because they’re usually sent off to go back to the seminaries.
What you’re saying seems an evident fact, although it wasn’t so evident to me before you brought it out. I would say that we should try to organize something to be sure that lay people in particular have an opportunity to study scripture, without worrying about how their livelihood will be taken care of. Of course, there will be other questions. If you can get a pool of money around that, and it might be possible, you would have to think about who these people would be, how they would be chosen, whether they’d be preparing for a specific university the way others are preparing now for seminaries. All that would have to be talked about, but it’s worth talking about. It’s a good idea.
Cardinal George on Pelosi's Abortion Remarks
Sept 08, 2008
"The Teaching That Covers Evils Such as Abortion Could Not Be Clearer".
CHICAGO, SEPT. 5, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the response of Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, to recent comments of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on abortion, Catholic teaching on the beginning of life, and other life issues.
The Sept. 2 statement by Cardinal George is available on the Web site of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
In the midst of a lengthy political campaign, matters of public policy that are also moral issues sometimes are misrepresented or are presented in a partial or manipulative fashion. While everyone could be expected to know the Church's position on the immorality of abortion and the role of law in protecting unborn children, it seems some profess not to know it and others, even in the Church, dispute it. Since this teaching has recently been falsely presented, the following clarification may be helpful.
The Catholic Church, from its first days, condemned the aborting of unborn children as gravely sinful. Not only Scripture's teaching about God's protection of life in the womb (consider the prophets and the psalms and the Gospel stories about John the Baptist and Jesus himself in Mary's womb) but also the first century catechism (the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) said: "You shall not slay the child by abortions. You shall not kill what is generated." The teaching of the Church was clear in a Roman Empire that permitted abortion. This same teaching has been constantly reiterated in every place and time up to Vatican II, which condemned abortion as a "heinous crime." This is true today and will be so tomorrow. Any other comments, by politicians, professors, pundits or the occasional priest, are erroneous and cannot be proposed in good faith.
This teaching has consequences for those charged with caring for the common good, those who hold public office. The unborn child, who is alive and is a member of the human family, cannot defend himself or herself. Good law defends the defenseless. Our present laws permit unborn children to be privately killed. Laws that place unborn children outside the protection of law destroy both the children killed and the common good, which is the controlling principle of Catholic social teaching. One cannot favor the legal status quo on abortion and also be working for the common good.
This explains why the abortion issue will not disappear and why it is central to the Church's teaching on a just social order. The Church does not endorse candidates for office, but she does teach the principles according to which Catholics should form their social consciences. The teaching, which covers intrinsic evils such as abortion and many other issues that are matters of prudential judgment, could not be clearer; the practice often falls short because we are all sinners. There is no room for self-righteousness in Catholic moral teaching.
The Conference of Bishops in this country and the Bishops of Illinois have issued statements about Catholic social teaching and political life. They are available in our parishes. All of us should keep our country and all the candidates for office in the next election in our prayers. God bless you and your families.
Cardinal George: Pope will find a 'chastened' Church ready to listen
Apr 15, 2008
As president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago will be a key point of reference throughout Pope Benedict XVI’s April 15-20 visit to the United States. George will also be the figure who leads the American bishops in after-the-fact reflection on what the trip meant, and how it ought to shape their future agenda.
All Things Catholic by John Allen
Created Apr 12 2008 - 09:02
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
As president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago will be a key point of reference throughout Pope Benedict XVI’s April 15-20 visit to the United States. George will also be the figure who leads the American bishops in after-the-fact reflection on what the trip meant, and how it ought to shape their future agenda.
For those reasons alone, George’s thoughts on the significance of the pope’s presence obviously matter.
There’s a further sense, however, in which George may be in a unique position to handicap both the opportunities and the challenges the pope will face. Among the American cardinals, George has a profile closest to Benedict’s own – cerebral, difficult to pin down or to label, and given to speaking in fully formed paragraphs rather than sound-bites. Like Benedict, George has occasionally said things in the course of a complex argument which, out of context, stir the waters. (His 1997 remark that “liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project” offers one example.)
Given that track record, George may also have a special feel for some of the communications hurdles Benedict XVI will face over his six days in America.
I spoke with George about the trip on April 11. Among other things, George said that the pope will find a Catholic church in the United States "chastened" by the sexual abuse crisis, a church with less "hubris," and perhaps for that reason especially disposed to listen.
Pointedly, George added that the American bishops will not go into this visit looking to teach the pope -- a departure, he implied, from some previous encounters.
The following is a transcript of our interview.
How do you think the pope will do in our sound-bite culture?
I think he’ll do very well, assuming that people in the media don’t have a pre-written storyline and then go looking for individual words he says, for sound-bites, in order to corroborate what they’ve already written. If the media people are willing to listen carefully and to explain what he said, to present it in his own terms, he’ll do fine.
How optimistic are you that this will actually happen?
I can’t talk about the media in general. Most of the questions I’ve received so far have been quite predictable, trying to fit the pope into our context. For me, that’s the most important unknown about this trip: Are we willing to allow the pope to come and speak to us from his context? That’s what a pope, as a universal pastor, is able to do, but the question is whether we’ll able to hear it. His context is the whole globe, not just the United States.
The Pew Forum recently conducted a survey which found that 80 percent of Americans, including 63 percent of American Catholics, say they know “just a little, or nothing at all” about Benedict XVI. Do those findings track with your own sense of where Americans are? Why do you think we know so little about Benedict after three years in office?
I don’t know about the numbers. They’re accurate, I’m sure, but I don’t know if they coincide with my own intuitions. I’ve never thought about it.
Assuming they’re right, I think the explanation goes back to your first question. Benedict doesn’t give himself to sound-bites, and he is not very dramatic. Those are the two elements, auditory and visual, that usually capture people’s attention. People who don’t read his encyclicals and his other messages, because they don’t have the time and they’re not readily accessible, obviously wouldn’t have a good grasp of who he is. That’s how this pope presents himself, in those letters and encyclicals. That’s how he communicates.
Will this trip give people a better sense of the man?
People will develop a better sense of him, sure. There will be a lot of conversation, and people will see him more. Americans will come out of this with some impressions, although whether they really know him or not is another question, as it is with any public figure.
How will you measure the success of the trip?
The hoped-for outcome is the strengthening of our own faith in Christ. That’s the hope for this visit, the desire. What would count as concrete evidence of that result? If our conversation in the church after the pope leaves were to become more concentrated upon Christ, and less upon ourselves. Christ is the source of our unity. It’s not a negotiated unity among the various camps in the church. It’s a gift from Christ. If we seem more united, and if we act more united, it would be evidence that the trip was a success.
This will be the ninth papal visit to the United States. Each time a pope comes he finds a slightly different Catholic reality, because the church in this country is constantly changing. Most notably, this is the first papal trip since the sex abuse crisis broke. How will that affect the visit?
Obviously, we’ve been deeply wounded by the scandals that have erupted since 2003. I think we have faced it, and we will continue to face it. We’ve done more than most people know, because from a media point of view, that’s not the story. But we’ve done a great deal to reach out to victims, and to ensure that these horrendous sins and crimes don’t happen again.
We’re a chastened church, certainly the hierarchy is. We bring a little bit less hubris, a little bit less self-righteousness, that sometimes can become a characteristic of the church in this country. In that sense, we’re more open to conversion and what the pope will tell us. I don’t think the bishops are intent upon teaching the pope this time, and that’s something of a shift. We’re quite willing to listen to what he has to tell us. We also know that he appreciates us and the church in this country.
It’s important to say that Benedict comes with his own sense of that crisis. He has read all the case files, and he was profoundly affected by that. He has a deep sense of compassion for the victims, along with a deep sense of how the vocation of the priesthood has been betrayed by these crimes and sins. Of course, he also knows that it’s not all priests. We’re talking about less than three percent nationwide, and he’s clear on that. But he knows each case, and each case is a tragedy.
Do you think there’s any possibility that the pope might still meet with victims?
By now the schedule has been definitively set. In view of the logistics involved and the security demands, I would be very surprised if there are any deviations from it.
The pope has made it clear that he’s not coming to get involved in America’s 2008 elections. But are you worried that various forces might try to “spin” the pope in order to score political points?
That’s a distinct possibility. In the end, you have to trust people to recognize when there’s manipulation or spin going on. To be honest, there’s not much you can do to avoid that attempt being made.
Do you see it as your role to help protect the pope’s message from political spin?
I wouldn’t use the word ‘protect.’ I can try to explain what the pope is saying if that’s necessary, although he’s always clear. Maybe what I could add is a certain sensitivity to the political context, which is something I have as an American citizen. If there is clear evidence that somebody is trying to instrumentalize or manipulate the pope’s message for their own purposes, I would certainly try to step in and clarify things.
The important thing here is context. The pope clearly speaks as a universal pastor. That’s his context, and we have ours. Sometimes context is far more important than the words. If you take only a part of what the pope is saying, then you lose the whole. That’s what we do, sometimes, but it’s certainly not the best way to understand him.
What moments on the pope’s itinerary do you think will be especially important or memorable?
I’m excited about the whole visit. But in terms of specifics, the first highlight for me will be his talk to the bishops [on April 16 in Washington]. That’s going to have a big impact on us and our agenda as we move forward. We will be listening very intently to what he has to say.
After that, the address to the United Nations will be important. That’s where the Holy Father’s global focus will probably be most clear. The public homilies in New York and Washington will also be important. In those instances, the pope will be speaking to laity, and it will give us a sense of how he wants us to preach to our own people.
I also think the meeting with young people in New York will be interesting. It’s an event that he asked to be put on the schedule himself. I think we have some sense of how he’ll approach it from World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005, but this is specifically for our American children. It’s a generation undecided about its personal beliefs. There’s a lot of generosity among young people, but they’re searching.
The Holy Father’s meetings with other Christians, and with Jews, Muslims, and people of other faith, will be valuable, but those relationships are on-going. The real purpose of these sessions is to further strengthen relations that are already generally good here. That’s not to say he won’t break new ground, but in general I suspect their value will be to reinforce what’s already in place.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the meeting with Catholic educators, which some see as a lynchpin of the trip.
I see it like the meeting with our ecumenical partners. I think the Holy Father will encourage the great efforts in Catholic education that have marked our history in this country. I’m sure he’ll emphasize the importance of the relationship between faith and reason. I expect that it will be an encouraging message.
Also, of course, I’m sure the pope will remind us that for a university to be true to its nature, it has to engage the dialogue between reason and faith and foster it in our general society. The university is a privileged space for that dialogue to take place.
Chicago on Top
Nov 13, 2007
Cardinal Francis George OMI of Chicago has won the presidency of the US bishops with 188 votes, 85% of the total body.
(Whispers in the Loggia, Tuesday, November 13, 2007)
Chicago on Top: Windy City Sweeps Bishops' Posts
Cardinal Francis George OMI of Chicago has won the
presidency of the US bishops with 188 votes, 85% of
the total body.
The first cardinal elected to the post since 1971,
George, 70, is the first religious ever chosen to lead
the American hierarchy.
By a margin of 22 votes (55-45%), Bishop Gerald
Kicanas of Tucson bested Archbishop Timothy Dolan of
Milwaukee to win the conference's vice-presidency.
A native Chicagoan -- where he served as auxiliary
bishop and rector of Mundelein seminary under
Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and George -- the incoming
VP, 66, has garnered acclaim for his successful
handling of the abuse crisis in the Arizona diocese,
which had declared bankruptcy in light of settlement
costs.
Named to Louisville earlier this year, Archbishop
Joseph Kurtz was elected conference treasurer by a
2-to-1 edge over Bishop Michael Bransfield of
Wheeling-Charleston.
...in subsequent voting, the key committee
chairmanships went to:
* Cultural Diversity in Life of the Church --
Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio
* Clergy, Consecrated Life and Religious --
Cardinal Sean O'Malley OFM Cap. of Boston
* Catholic
George may lead bishops
Nov 11, 2007
Chicago cardinal likely to be chosen as voice of American prelates at trying time for church.
(Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2007) When the nation's Roman Catholic bishops gather this week in Baltimore, they will likely elect Chicago's archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, to provide the voice for the church in America.
Former presidents of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have led the group to speak out to the nation on topics as far-ranging as nuclear war and abortion, while representing rank-and-file American clergy at the Vatican.
But George, 70, is poised to become president of the bishops' conference at a precarious time. Massive budget and staff cutbacks have diminished the group's influence, even as it struggles to regain credibility amid the continuing sexual abuse crisis.
At the same time, the choice of George—who would be the first cardinal elected to the post and is one of the nation's most senior churchmen—suggests to some observers that the conference itself may be evolving into a new role, one that is as much about Rome speaking to the U.S. bishops as it is about the American church speaking out.
Chester Gillis, chair in Catholic studies in the theology department of Georgetown University, said George's ties to Rome could cut both ways.
"Cardinal George is someone with high visibility and high stature in the church. So, if there were an issue that needed to be brought to the Vatican's attention, he has the status to bring it, and they'll listen to him," said Gillis, author of "Roman Catholicism in America."
"On the other hand, he is someone that is so thoroughly known in many ways and so thoroughly obedient to Rome. Will creativity come to mind? Probably not. Will his vision be to empower the American church or remain obedient to Rome at all costs?"
The appointment of George, who worked in Rome for more than a decade and served as the Vatican's point man on several issues, could raise the profile of the bishops' conference. But it is unclear how the cutbacks at the conference might limit the group's impact.
"Cardinal George takes over a conference that's been stripped down both in infrastructure and ambition, and it's not realistic to expect the same kind of bold new initiatives," said John Allen, a Vatican analyst and columnist for National Catholic Reporter.
"He will really become the first president of the conference in what we might call the 'post-crisis' period. . . . Perhaps his most important role will be to lead the bishops in picking up the pieces and deciding where to go from here."
Some church reform groups and advocates of sexual abuse victims have urged bishops not to elect George. They say his failure to immediately remove Rev. Daniel McCormack from his West Side Chicago parish in 2005, when credible accusations were made, is unacceptable. McCormack pleaded guilty to molesting five boys in July and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
"Cardinal George has exhibited a fundamental lack of understanding of the impact clergy sex abuse has on children, the seriousness of each accusation, and the need for swift action," said Mary Pat Fox, president of Voice of the Faithful, a lay group formed in response to the sexual abuse scandal.
"The U.S. bishops cannot elect a known enabler of clergy sex abuse as president of the [conference] if they are ever to regain the trust of American Catholics," Fox said.
In 1966, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference were established to address the needs of American Catholics. (The two groups were combined in 2001.) In its early decades, the conference traditionally chose a bishop from a small or mid-size diocese as president, giving a stronger voice to a constituency that was not as well-connected in Rome.
It was in the 1970s and 1980s, beginning under the leadership of then-Archbishop Joseph Bernardin—then in Cincinnati, before he was posted to Chicago and elevated to cardinal—that the bishops' conference rose to international prominence.
Russell Shaw, information director for the bishops' conference from 1969 to 1987, said the high-point for the bishops came when they adopted the 1983 pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace," which defined church teaching on war, peace and the nuclear arms race.
The conference "took on this aura of omnicompetence and was trying to cover the waterfront of Catholic concerns in the United States. But, it had neither the resources nor the canonical authority to do that," said Shaw. "Over time, the inherent limitations of the conference became increasingly apparent. . . . There is just so much that a national organization can do."
Pope John Paul II began to rein in the national conferences in 1998, when he ruled that conferences could not issue authoritative teaching unless approved by the Vatican.
"If Rome were to empower these national constituencies, it would conflict with its own power," said Gillis, of Georgetown.
By then, the American bishops' budget crunch had worsened, as spending on research and committees outstripped the group's revenues. That was followed by the 2002 sexual abuse scandal.
"Survey after survey showed that as much as people were appalled by behavior of predatory priests, they were more appalled by behavior of bishops in covering up," said Rev. Richard McBrien, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. "They did it to themselves. If they're going to regain [credibility], it's going to take a long time."
Recently, George said one priority for the bishops should be strengthening Catholic identity. That would include reaffirmation of the church's teaching on hot-button political issues which are being debated in the presidential campaign.
At their meeting in Baltimore this week, bishops are expected to approve a document on "Faithful Citizenship," a political guide issued every four years before the election. But, for the first time, the bishops will debate and vote on this sensitive document in public.
Shaw, the former information director, said if the conference focuses on fewer issues and regaining trust, it could become effective again.
"Gifted as he is, I don't think Cardinal George is a miracle worker," Shaw said. "But, he's probably as well-equipped, and arguably better equipped, than anybody else on the scene at the national level in the Catholic Church in the United States at the present time. If anybody can pull it off, it's Francis George."
George may lead bishops
Nov 11, 2007
Chicago cardinal likely to be chosen as voice of American prelates at trying time for church.
(Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2007) When the nation's Roman Catholic bishops gather this week in Baltimore, they will likely elect Chicago's archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, to provide the voice for the church in America.
Former presidents of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have led the group to speak out to the nation on topics as far-ranging as nuclear war and abortion, while representing rank-and-file American clergy at the Vatican.
But George, 70, is poised to become president of the bishops' conference at a precarious time. Massive budget and staff cutbacks have diminished the group's influence, even as it struggles to regain credibility amid the continuing sexual abuse crisis.
At the same time, the choice of George—who would be the first cardinal elected to the post and is one of the nation's most senior churchmen—suggests to some observers that the conference itself may be evolving into a new role, one that is as much about Rome speaking to the U.S. bishops as it is about the American church speaking out.
Chester Gillis, chair in Catholic studies in the theology department of Georgetown University, said George's ties to Rome could cut both ways.
"Cardinal George is someone with high visibility and high stature in the church. So, if there were an issue that needed to be brought to the Vatican's attention, he has the status to bring it, and they'll listen to him," said Gillis, author of "Roman Catholicism in America."
"On the other hand, he is someone that is so thoroughly known in many ways and so thoroughly obedient to Rome. Will creativity come to mind? Probably not. Will his vision be to empower the American church or remain obedient to Rome at all costs?"
The appointment of George, who worked in Rome for more than a decade and served as the Vatican's point man on several issues, could raise the profile of the bishops' conference. But it is unclear how the cutbacks at the conference might limit the group's impact.
"Cardinal George takes over a conference that's been stripped down both in infrastructure and ambition, and it's not realistic to expect the same kind of bold new initiatives," said John Allen, a Vatican analyst and columnist for National Catholic Reporter.
"He will really become the first president of the conference in what we might call the 'post-crisis' period. . . . Perhaps his most important role will be to lead the bishops in picking up the pieces and deciding where to go from here."
Some church reform groups and advocates of sexual abuse victims have urged bishops not to elect George. They say his failure to immediately remove Rev. Daniel McCormack from his West Side Chicago parish in 2005, when credible accusations were made, is unacceptable. McCormack pleaded guilty to molesting five boys in July and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
"Cardinal George has exhibited a fundamental lack of understanding of the impact clergy sex abuse has on children, the seriousness of each accusation, and the need for swift action," said Mary Pat Fox, president of Voice of the Faithful, a lay group formed in response to the sexual abuse scandal.
"The U.S. bishops cannot elect a known enabler of clergy sex abuse as president of the [conference] if they are ever to regain the trust of American Catholics," Fox said.
In 1966, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference were established to address the needs of American Catholics. (The two groups were combined in 2001.) In its early decades, the conference traditionally chose a bishop from a small or mid-size diocese as president, giving a stronger voice to a constituency that was not as well-connected in Rome.
It was in the 1970s and 1980s, beginning under the leadership of then-Archbishop Joseph Bernardin—then in Cincinnati, before he was posted to Chicago and elevated to cardinal—that the bishops' conference rose to international prominence.
Russell Shaw, information director for the bishops' conference from 1969 to 1987, said the high-point for the bishops came when they adopted the 1983 pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace," which defined church teaching on war, peace and the nuclear arms race.
The conference "took on this aura of omnicompetence and was trying to cover the waterfront of Catholic concerns in the United States. But, it had neither the resources nor the canonical authority to do that," said Shaw. "Over time, the inherent limitations of the conference became increasingly apparent. . . . There is just so much that a national organization can do."
Pope John Paul II began to rein in the national conferences in 1998, when he ruled that conferences could not issue authoritative teaching unless approved by the Vatican.
"If Rome were to empower these national constituencies, it would conflict with its own power," said Gillis, of Georgetown.
By then, the American bishops' budget crunch had worsened, as spending on research and committees outstripped the group's revenues. That was followed by the 2002 sexual abuse scandal.
"Survey after survey showed that as much as people were appalled by behavior of predatory priests, they were more appalled by behavior of bishops in covering up," said Rev. Richard McBrien, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. "They did it to themselves. If they're going to regain [credibility], it's going to take a long time."
Recently, George said one priority for the bishops should be strengthening Catholic identity. That would include reaffirmation of the church's teaching on hot-button political issues which are being debated in the presidential campaign.
At their meeting in Baltimore this week, bishops are expected to approve a document on "Faithful Citizenship," a political guide issued every four years before the election. But, for the first time, the bishops will debate and vote on this sensitive document in public.
Shaw, the former information director, said if the conference focuses on fewer issues and regaining trust, it could become effective again.
"Gifted as he is, I don't think Cardinal George is a miracle worker," Shaw said. "But, he's probably as well-equipped, and arguably better equipped, than anybody else on the scene at the national level in the Catholic Church in the United States at the present time. If anybody can pull it off, it's Francis George."
Cardinal wary of speakers at conference on gays
Oct 19, 2007
Cardinal Francis George says he thinks some speakers at DePaul University's upcoming "Out There" conference on homosexuality may be too out there.
(suntimes.com, October 18, 2007)Some presenters may encourage people to ignore Catholic teaching and may justify same-sex behavior that "brings people's salvation into jeopardy," the cardinal wrote in a column for the latest Archdiocese of Chicago newspaper.
"To the extent that this is true, the purpose of the conference moves from reflection to advocacy in the name of being 'pastoral,' " the cardinal wrote.
The Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, DePaul's president, acknowledged that some speakers may promote ideas that conflict with church teaching. But he supports their "freedom of inquiry."
The "Out There" conference, being held Friday and Saturday, is for scholars, students and university staff involved in gay issues on Catholic campuses.
"Too often when bishops hear 'homosexuality,' they immediately think about sexual behavior," said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a conference speaker. "To single that out is a narrow understanding of what the conference is about and what gay and lesbian people are about."
Un cardenal pide que los judíos dejen de llamar “bastardo” a Jesús
Oct 17, 2007
Quien ha puesto el dedo en esta llaga es el cardenal de Chicago, Francis Eugene George, y la polémica ha sido recogida en la prensa anglosajona.
(elmanifiesto.com, 17 de octubre de 2007) Interpelado en tono crítico sobre las oraciones cristianas que piden la conversión de los judíos, el cardenal George concedió que deberían ser revisadas, pero, acto seguido, añadió que lo mismo podrían hacer los judíos con los pasajes del Talmud donde se llama “bastardo” a Jesús de Nazaret. Porque, en efecto, la imagen de Jesús en las escrituras judías es considerablemente ofensiva. Aquí explicamos todos los puntos de la polémica.
Curzio Malatesta Tamaño de la letra
Aumentar Disminuir Imprimir esta noticia
Enviar a amigos
Curzio Malatesta
Un cardenal Americano ha pedido a los judíos que revisen aquellos pasajes religiosos en los que se describe a Jesus como bastardo. El cardenal Francis Eugene George, de la archidiócesis de Chicago, pide a los judíos que se deshagan de su anticristianismo del mismo modo que la Iglesia se ha deshacer de sus tradicionales oraciones pidiendo la conversión de los judíos.
Pero, ¿cómo? ¿Acaso la Iglesia católica pide que los judíos se conviertan? En los Estados Unidos, al menos, sí: un pequeño numero de parroquias todavía reza durante las celebraciones de Pascua, en la misa del Viernes Santo, llamando a la conversión de los judíos al cristianismo. Es precisamente este hecho, muy mal visto por la comunidad judía, el que ha llevado a George a hacer sus declaraciones.
El Cardenal dijo que esta oración, la de la conversión, debería cambiarse de tal modo que no ofendiese a los judíos: “Espero –señaló- que el arreglo se lleve a cabo, porque lo que queremos es asegurar que nuestras plegarias no son ofensivas para los judíos, que son nuestros antepasados en la fe”. George realizó estas declaraciones en una entrevista para el National Catholic Reporter.
Ahora bien, el cardenal de Chicago no ha dejado pasar la oportunidad para pedir algo a cambio: “No podemos insultarlos de ninguna manera en nuestra liturgia… No quiero decir que cualquier grupo religioso tenga derecho a veto sobre las oraciones de ningún otro, pero también, a través de las escrituras judías, se puede encontrar material ofensivo para nosotros, los cristianos. Si de verdad estamos interesados en mantener un sólido diálogo, y tenemos que estarlo, debemos tener mucho cuidado con cualquier oración que ellos puedan encontrar insultante. Pero esto debería significar que los judíos, por su parte, consideren la enmienda de sus textos”.
Lo que dice el Talmud
“Esto –añade el cardenal George- funciona en ambos sentidos. Quizás podríamos decir para empezar: ¿les importaría mirar aquellas partes del Talmud en las que se llama bastardo a Jesús, y a continuación, quizás cambiar algunas cosas en tales escrituras?”.
El cardenal de Chicago ha puesto el dedo en la llaga de un problema serio que judíos y cristianos, por mor de la convivencia, suelen evitar, pero que no por ello deja de estar presente. El judaísmo, en efecto, no menciona la figura de Jesús sino para cubrirla de improperios. Las fuentes talmúdicas sobre Jesús son estas: Sanhedrín 43a, Sanhedrín 67a, Sanhedrín 107b, Sotá 47a, Shabbat 104b.
¿Qué imagen se da en ellas de quien los cristianos consideran el Mesías. Yehuda Ribco lo resume así: “Su madre, que se llamaba Miriam, era peluquera de lejano parentesco con la familia Jasmonea (en el poder en aquel momento, pues el verdadero Jesús nació aproximadamente 100 años antes del supuesto nacimiento del Jesús adorado como falso dios), y estaba casada con un hombre al que apodaban Stada.Era adúltera, en particular con un romano que se llamaba Pantera, con quien concibió a su pequeño bastardo Jesús (Sanedrín 67a); Ieshu ben Pantera tuvo diferentes acciones perversas e inmorales, por las cuales terminó expulsado de las academias sin haber avanzado mucho en sus estudios. En una estadía en Egipto aprendió las oscuras artes de magos y brujos, por lo que podía hacer trucos y actos aparentemente milagrosos, tal como los brujos de antaño sabían. En sus andanzas se relacionó con gobernantes y funcionarios, pero se rebeló y fue ejecutado un día antes de la Pascua; y tuvo varios discípulos, algunos de los cuales fueron a su vez ejecutados (Sanedrín 43a)” (http://serjudio.com/rap3301a3350/rap3313.htm).
Muy amable no parece, ciertamente. Se ignora si la petición del cardenal George ha sido bien acogida en medios hebreos.
In memorial, lives honored
Jun 30, 2007
War in Iraq continues to put day of remembrance.
(Chicago Tribune, May 28, 2007) Cardinal Francis George used his first visit Monday to the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago's newest cemetery to urge people to honor the nation's war dead.
"We remember them with great gratitude," the cardinal said to a somber congregation, some seated on lawn chairs, at an outdoor mass at Good Shepherd Cemetery in Orland Park. "Today we remember the dead, especially those who died in service of their country in the armed forces."
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Elsewhere in the Chicago area, Memorial Day was observed with parades, ceremonies and a protest by members of two veterans groups.
The mass at Good Shepherd was among 37 Memorial Day masses at Catholic cemeteries in the area, officials said. The special masses, called field masses, are celebrated outdoors to replicate masses held on battlefields and are held every Memorial Day.
George's homily focused on the power of a promise, including the promise of those who join the military to defend the country and the promise of their superiors to follow the civilian leadership.
"We thank God for those who have served our country well," George said.
Church officials said George chose Good Shepherd because it is the newest cemetery in the Chicago archdiocese and because the prelate was in Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II when the cemetery was dedicated in 2005.
The mass attracted hundreds of families from the south suburbs who had come to pay homage to loved ones buried in the cemetery. Some said they came specifically to hear the cardinal. Others came to commemorate the nation's fallen during a time of war.
"That's why we're here," said Bill Duncan of Oak Forest, whose son, Gary, served on a Navy ship in the 1990s before retiring from the military. "The war in Iraq."
Some congregants said the day was all the more poignant because the nation was at war.
"I have mixed feelings about this war," said Diane Niehoff of Oak Lawn, whose husband, William, 70, a one-time private in the Army, died last year. "We're losing too many of our young people."
In Chicago, veterans from the wars in Iraq and Vietnam assembled at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Chicago River to call for an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq. Several veterans of the Iraq war said the war betrays the American ideals that they joined the military to uphold.
Aaron Hughes, who served in Iraq as a sergeant in the Illinois Army National Guard, said he went to the Middle East believing that he would help the Iraqi people. But when he got overseas, he was given orders that shattered that belief.
"I went in with values. I went in with a belief in America, and a dream," said Hughes, head of the Chicago chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. His duties included ferrying supplies to U.S. bases in Iraq, but he was told never to stop along the way. "I was ordered to never give food or water to any of the kids that are starving in Iraq."
Vince Emanuele, who served at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, has been coping with the loss of his best friend in his platoon and with the knowledge that he killed an Iraqi insurgent who was planting a roadside bomb.
"There are a million ways to describe a war—unneeded, useless, tragic, horrific. I would also say missing and sad," Emanuele said. "Missing is a piece of me that I will never get back. Sad is the state of affairs of the world which we live in today."
After speeches by the Iraq war veterans and Barry Romo, a coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a few dozen veterans and more than 100 other people lined up to throw red carnations into the Chicago River and pause to remember U.S. war dead.
Martha Rosenberg: Chicago Priest and Cardinal Caught in Crossfire over Gun Shop
Jun 13, 2007
It's been a month since 16-year-old Blair Holt, son of a Chicago Police gang investigator and a Chicago fire captain, was shot and killed riding the bus home from high school.
(BuzzFlash, 06/13/2007) Like Bill Cosby's son, Michael Jordan's father, Serena and Venus Williams' sister, and Chicago-area Congressman Bobby Rush's son, family proved no hedge against gun violence for Holt.
But do the 21 Chicago students killed by guns since September -- two from Blair Holt's school -- mean Chicago's gun ban doesn't work as gun lovers contend?
(And since it doesn't work, should we be allowed to buy 18 guns at once to protect ourselves? Including automatic weapons? And weapons from unlicensed dealers to avoiding background checks?)
Or does it mean that suburban gun shops are arming the city from its borders and stoking and profiteering off the violence? Aided and abetted by state laws such as HR 4818, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005, which prevents disclosure of "any part of the contents of the firearms tracing system?" In effect, protecting the identities of straw purchasers and criminals?
Father Michael Pfleger, the outspoken pastor of Chicago's St. Sabina Church, known for defacing tobacco and alcohol billboards in his church's neighborhood, believes the latter.
Two weeks after Holt's death, Pfleger and Rev. Jesse Jackson led 200 Chicagoans in a march to Chuck's Gun Shop in bordering Riverdale where police say more guns involved in crimes have been traced than any other gun shop -- 2,370 from 1996 to 2000 -- including the weapon that killed a police officer 9 years ago.
Chuck's was ready for the visit with a semitrailer truck parked in front to block protesters' access and doors tightly shut and locked.
Addressing the small crowd of community activists, reporters, and gun violence victims, Father Pfleger pledged to "snuff out legislators that are voting against our gun laws" and "call them out by name, by district."
As for the owner of Chuck's Gun Shop, John Riggio, whom Pfleger says is hiding his identity behind a trust? "We're going to find you and snuff you out," said the priest. "We're going to catch you and pull you out."
Pfleger is not alone in seeing the bodies pile up while the gun lobby croons about the Second Amendment. The Mayor himself has gotten nowhere with gun legislation thanks to suburban and downstate politicians in thrall to the gun lobby.
Days after the Virginia Tech shootings, he introduced yet again legislation in Springfield to ban assault weapons and .50-caliber rifles; limit handgun purchases to one a month (there go your rights!), mandate licensing of gun dealers by the state police, and limit all gun sales to licensed dealers.
Federally, he's hoping for an assault weapons ban and closure of the gun show loophole that lets gun buyers elude background checks.
And this week, Congressman Rush introduces "Blair's Bill" on Capitol Hill -- named after Chicago's Blair Holt -- which would create a national registry of gun sales and ownership and require licensing of all individuals who own guns.
Pfleger got few Valentines for his trouble. In fact he got swift boated. The Illinois State Rifle Association issued a press release trumpeting, "Chicago Priest Calls for Murder of Gun Shop Owner" (murder as in "snuff") and launched a media event.
Gun shop owner John Riggio hired an attorney who called Pfleger's statements "alarming" and "slanderous" and threatened legal action. And gun lovers deluged the archdiocese with complaints and expressions of outrage.
(Don't underestimate gun lover rage says Philip Andrew, who survived the 1988 Laurie Dann shootings in suburban Chicago to become an antigun activist. He has received Nazi post cards, bullets with his name on them and been told by the husband of a state Senate candidate that Laurie Dann should have had better aim.)
"I am a student of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and have always and will always preach non-violence," writes Pfleger -- who claims ignorance of the street meaning of "snuff" -- on the St. Sabina Web site. "I am insulted by this character assassination, but not surprised. The tactic is to divert the attention off the real issue, easy access to guns and turn it on me. It will not work!!!"
But unfortunately the tactic does work. Recently, Pfleger's superior, Cardinal Francis George, felt compelled to share his nonsupport for the priest by telling Chicago newspapers that "Publicly delivering a threat against anyone's life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest."
Is the world's most powerful religious organization bowing to the gun lobby? Like the world's most powerful legislative body has?
Privately Chicago archdiocese priests say no.
Top 10 things Cardinal George has learned in 10 years
May 06, 2007
Lately, he's looked vulnerable. He's undergone cancer surgery. He's suffered a hip injury. And his reputation has been scarred by controversy over his handling of sexual abuse issues.
(Chicago Sun-Times, May 4, 2007) But Cardinal Francis George appears to be taking stock as he marks 10 years as Chicago's archbishop.
On Thursday, he conducted media interviews at his Gold Coast residence. The cardinal is celebrating his milestone in a big way. Festivities include a gala dinner Saturday and a 5:15 p.m. anniversary Mass on May 12 at Holy Name Cathedral.
Here are 10 lessons he says he's learned in his 10 years as archbishop:
1. The grace of God works. "This is the most important lesson I've learned," he said. "The immense outpouring of concern and support during my illness was very humbling. But it means I can count on that. Others can, too. It's there for everybody."
2. What's unexpected can be a blessing and a curse. "Much of the response to the sexual abuse scandals has been on how to contain it. But you have to respond in a way that leaves your integrity intact. You also need to help people find hope in the midst of all the sin and the scandal."
3. People's biggest fear is fear of love. "It's the reason there are fewer priests, nuns and marriages. When people betray us, our lives become more brutal. The lack of trust is the reason for much unhappiness."
4. You can't have a church without bishop pastors. "Of all the positions I've held, this is the one that most constrains me and keeps me locked in administrative duties and (religious) celebrations. That doesn't leave a lot of time to be with people. Consequently, I've asked our auxiliary bishops to be with the priests and the people a lot more."
5. It's a lot of fun to be a cardinal. "Sometimes, I get impatient because it can seem pretentious. But I don't think it is. Chicago is not a city given to pretension."
6. Electing a pope makes you self-conscious of history. "Most of my life is bound up with day-to-day things. When the (papal) conclave happened, all of a sudden I was in an arena where the whole world was watching. It's a momentous decision to put a name on a piece of paper. You realize this is only the 265th time this has happened."
7. When working with popes, listen very carefully. "You only have a limited time with the pope -- make best use of it. But don't be afraid to speak up about your concerns. They expect that."
8. Health is a gift; cherish it while you have it. "I know what I have to do to maintain health -- eat sensibly and do more exercise. But if I find the time to do it, I often don't have the will to do it. I'm awfully fond of chocolate."
9. When closing schools and parishes, involve as many people as possible. "People resent change. There's anger and sadness, even when they recognize it's necessary for financial reasons. Assure them that even though the institution has closed, the church has not abandoned them."
10. Religion protects freedom and is not a danger to freedom. "Historically, the effort to create purely secular utopias has resulted in great human misery and death. You think of ... communism. No God was permitted. I don't want our own history to go that way in the name of individual rights."
Cardinal George Marks A Decade As Archbishop Of Chicago
May 04, 2007
This weekend, Francis Cardinal George marks his 10th anniversary as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago.
CHICAGO (WBBM, 03 May 2007) -- In a one-on-one interview with WBBM's Bob Roberts, Cardinal George said it has been one filled with challenges.
Among them: reasserting the beliefs of those whose faith was shaken by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; addressing the scandals of pedophile priests, and particularly the charges filed against the Rev. Daniel McCormack; attempting to find new priests, particularly those born in the U.S.; and finding the funding needed to keep schools and parishes open.
"Religion is suspect as a cause of violence now that didn't used to be the case in our country," he said. "So some people are saying we must become more publicly secular."
He said that movement has been "strengthened because we were attacked in the name of God."
He said it has shaken those who only recently have come to realize that the United States is not necessarily invulnerable and is not universally loved.
"A lot of people didn't know those two things," he said. "It's not going to go back."
At the same time, the Cardinal said, he believes that the rapid globalization of politics, business and many other aspects of everyday life uniquely positions the Catholic Church to play a major role in 21st century life.
"The world is not secular. Most of the world's population believes in God," he said. "We can't secularize ourselves and expect to be able to talk to the rest of the world. It won't work."
He says that "people want to be themselves," and says religion can be much more of a common bond among those of different nationalities than it was before Sept. 11.
He calls the sex scandal -- and particularly the charges against Father Daniel McCormack -- "a terrible evil."
He said his life would have been "a lot easier" had there been no Fr. McCormack, but said he believes the Archdiocese, under pressure from victims' rights' groups, has responded well.
"After going through all the records, even seminary records which we never used to go through, there's no record of anybody that shows that a priest now in the ministry has this in his past," he said.
He can be reassuring only to a point, though.
"Will it ever happen again? I don't know," he said. "We've got all kinds of safeguards in now, including instructing children how to take care of themselves, directing people on how to take care of kids, background checks, but there's no foolproof system.
I can only say that we've done everything that we can possibly think of."
He's also trying to find an answer to the "graying" of the priesthood, and to understand why more immigrants than those born in the United States seek to become priests. But he said it is not necessarily a problem.
"The advantage of this, though, of seeming to have so many foreigners in the priesthood, is that the priesthood now, more than ever, looks like those in the pews," he said.
Cardinal George said it was not an easy decision to close Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary.
"The money was there to keep it open but you can't do that well (with) less than a certain number of people," he said.
The Cardinal said he sees fewer and fewer young men making the decision to choose the priesthood in high school and more and more during or after college, or later in life.
"What bothers me is that people trained to be Catholic elsewhere are both more often in church and more often in the priesthood than people who are trained to be Catholic in our country," he said.
His next big goal is to change that.
"I'd like us really to move into a more self-conscious development of our spirituality and a return to Catholicism not as a set of ideas we all argue about but a way of life," he said.
The Cardinal said the Roman Catholic Church is "a big church" and that there will always be some amount of disagreement.
"What's important is, however, that there's a way of life that keeps us connected to god and to one another," he said.
He said some may consider that way of life "confining," but he said it "gave us a piece of security and a set of relationships that have certainly sustained me for 70 years."
The 10th anniversary festivities began Monday and climax over the next week with a visit from the pope's ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Pietro Sambi. A convocation is scheduled Saturday at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein.
A banquet is scheduled Saturday night at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. A special Mass will be said Sunday at Holy Name Cathedral.
And in coming days, the Cardinal will have special meetings with Chicago-area Muslim and Jewish leaders, the priests of the Archdiocese, the superiors who oversee Catholic religious orders operating in the Chicago area and key donors.
Cardinal George said the last 10th anniversary activities may not take place until October.
While most bishops retire at the age of 75, those who rise to the rank of Cardinal often stay on until they are 80. The 70-year-old George said he would like to become the first Cardinal-Archbishop of Chicago to retire, instead of dying in office. But given his well-publicized bout with cancer and relentless pace, is it possible?
"I'm up for it this year, but maybe I'll die next year," he said. "Who knows?"
He said until his time comes he wants to be faithful, responsible in his tasks, and open to everyone.
But Cardinal George, who last month suffered a hip fracture when slipping on holy water on the floor of a northwest side church, shows little sign of slowing down. On Thursday, he walked with only a mild limp, and without the assistance of a cane or walker.
"If I don't (make it to retirement), well, okay, it's in God's hands," he said.
1st report scared cardinal
Apr 10, 2007
Cardinal Francis George said Monday he was scared when doctors told him he fractured his hip after he slipped on holy water and fell Saturday in a Northwest Side church but was relieved to be told later it was just a crack.
(Chicago Tribune April 10, 2007) "I was pretty scared," the 70-year-old cardinal told WGN-AM 720 radio host Spike O'Dell Monday morning in George's first interview after the accident, which occurred while he was blessing Easter baskets. "I thought 'Oh, my gosh. That's all I need now.'"
But George, archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, said he only cracked the non-load bearing nodule that connects the hip bone to the leg bone.
He will have to use a walker this week and will rely on crutches for the rest of his six-week recovery period.
Colleen Dolan, the archdiocese's communications director, said the cardinal welcomed the chance to be on the radio since he was unable to celebrate Easter mass on Sunday at Holy Name Cathedral.
"I think people get nervous," she said.
"He wanted to let everyone know he was OK."
George was released from Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on Sunday morning and returned home, where he said Easter mass in the chapel at his private residence.
Dolan said the cardinal will try to make his first public appearance Wednesday at the dedication of St. Leo Residence, Catholic Charities' new housing facility for veterans.
George, spiritual leader of the Chicago area's Roman Catholic community and one of the most respected leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church, battled polio as a child and wears a brace on his right leg, the same side that was injured in Saturday's fall.
Last July, George was diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent surgery that removed his bladder, prostate and a portion of his right ureter.
Cardinal George released from hospital after fracturing hip
Apr 08, 2007
Crowds lined the pews and aisles, the incense and choir voices filled the air, but a distinct voice was missing on Easter Sunday in Chicago's Holy Name Catholic Cathedral. Cardinal Francis George, who has presided over the holiday masses each year since 1997, was home nursing an injury suffered in a fall Saturday.
(Chicago Tribune, April 8, 2007) The congregation prayed for him, and many acknowledged mass wasn't the same.
"It just feels more holy when he's here," said parishioner Heather Pateros, who was married in the church less than a month ago. "There's something about his presence."
Her husband, Nick, agreed: "We definitely missed him today. He's a powerful speaker, and people here really value what he has to say."
George, 70, was released from Loyola University Medical Center Sunday morning and returned home, where he held an Easter mass in the chapel at his private residence.
On Saturday, while blessing Easter baskets at a Northwest Side church, the cardinal slipped on holy water that he had sprinkled on the church's marble floor, falling on his hip and fracturing the top of his right femur. He got up and continued the service but was later taken to the hospital when the pain in his hip became more severe.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said Sunday that doctors gave George a list of things "not to do"—like pivot on the injured leg or put too much weight on it—and he was advised to use a walker until the fracture heals. Dolan said the cardinal will resume his regular work schedule from home Monday, but he will postpone all public appearances until he is feeling better.
Also, Dolan said, the cardinal will not be able to make a much-anticipated pilgrimage this week to Rome to celebrate his 10th anniversary of being archbishop of Chicago. The trip will go on, led by Bishop Timothy Lyne of Chicago.
"The cardinal is very, very disappointed that he can't go to Rome," Dolan said. "This particular trip he was really looking forward to. But he learned a long time ago how to deal with adversity in a very spiritual way. No matter what he faces, he always continues to be so kind and so positive in his approach to life."
George had just recently fully recovered from bladder cancer surgery in July. He also battled polio as a child and wears a brace on his right leg.
Many who came to Holy Name Sunday said the cardinal's health problems demonstrate that, as Michel Herard put it, "everything is in the hands of God."
Herard, 80, was an usher at Holy Name for nearly two decades. Though he missed the cardinal, he felt Sunday's Easter mass went flawlessly.
"The cardinal's place is unique," he said. "But it doesn't mean the other priests don't know what to do."
Lyne presided over the 11 a.m. mass and assured congregants standing shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the cathedral that they were in the cardinal's prayers and that the cardinal hoped he would be in theirs.
In his homily, Lyne spoke of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ—the heart of the Easter celebration—and called it an example of there being "a touch of human in the divine."
"Easter is a time when there is always hope that things can be better, that things will be better," he said. "And you and I can reach out and touch the divine, and by touching the divine, it will change us."
Later in the service, the congregation said a prayer for George, asking "that he mend his injury swiftly."
Waiting in line for the 12:30 a.m. mass, Kim Demos said she was disappointed the cardinal wouldn't be in the pulpit. She and her family had driven up from southwest suburban Plainfield to attend Easter mass at Holy Name, their first time.
But upon reflection, Demos conceded that, as with any mass, the real headliner is not the priest.
"I guess," Demos said, looking skyward, "we're here for a different reason."
Cardinal George hospitalized after fall
Apr 07, 2007
Cardinal Francis George was hospitalized with a slight hip fracture Saturday after he apparently slipped and fell inside a Chicago church while blessing Easter baskets, archdiocese officials said.
(Chicago Tribune, April 7, 2007) George, 70, was at St. Ferdinand Catholic Church on the Northwest Side Saturday morning to bless baskets of food for Easter meals and slipped on some holy water that had splashed onto the marble floor, said Colleen Dolan, spokeswoman for the archdiocese.
Upon falling, the cardinal appeared to land squarely on his hips in a seated position and grimaced in pain. He did not lose consciousness and even continued with the blessing. But shortly after the service, the pain in his right hip grew more severe and he was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood in a private car.
Though the injury was not serious and did not require surgery, Dolan said George would remain hospitalized for a few days of physical therapy and using a walker, so as not to apply pressure to his hip.
"He took a fall . . . in his exuberance with the holy water," Dolan said. "He was concerned when it started to hurt more. That is why he wanted to check, and we're glad he did."
The accident and hospitalization spell a double disappointment for George. Because of the hospitalization, this Easter will be the first time George has not celebrated mass at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral since he became archbishop in 1997. Instead he will say mass privately in his hospital room, Dolan said.
Also, the injury means the cancellation of a highly anticipated trip to Rome this month for celebrations marking his 10th anniversary as Catholic archbishop of Chicago. George had planned to leave for the Vatican on Friday, but he now will remain in Chicago, Dolan said.
"He is very sorrowed he can't be at Holy Name Cathedral for mass . . . He would ask for prayers from all the people of the archdiocese," Dolan said.
George, spiritual leader of the Chicago area's Roman Catholic community and one of the most respected leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church, battled polio as a child and wears a brace on his right leg, the same side that was injured in Saturday's fall.
Last July, George was diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent surgery that removed his bladder, prostate and a portion of his right ureter. Though he lost 20 pounds after the surgery, George appeared to have made a remarkable recovery and resumed an active schedule this year.
Dolan said the accident came just when George seemed to have regained his strength.
"I think his energy level had gotten stronger in the last few weeks. He had reached back to his old stride," Dolan said.
On Saturday, doctors performed a series of tests on George. He is scheduled to see an orthopedic doctor Sunday.
"He feels fine. He is in very good shape," Dolan said. "He won't miss a beat and he will be back at work."
Chicago Cardinal's Remarks on Communion For Pro-Abort Politicians Disappoint Pro-Life Catholics
Mar 23, 2007
Answering questions about priests who do not sufficiently support the Church’s doctrine on the right to life, Chicago’s archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, called the attitude of some pro-life advocates “judgemental.”
CHICAGO, March 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking at a crowded pro-life conference sponsored by the Archdiocese, Cardinal George said on the issue of pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion, “Maybe you should talk to Pope Benedict XVI, who gives communion to the pro-choice Prime Minister of Italy. You have to look at a lot of things. It's not all that simple.”
The diocesan newspaper, Catholic New World, quotes the Cardinal saying, “You may win your battle but you'll lose the war when it appears to be just another sectarian movement that punishes anyone who doesn't agree with them.”
Cardinal George also criticized advocates for life when they “berate” politicians for claiming to uphold social justice while supporting abortion. On this issue, he said, they are “saying this is conservative and this is liberal, and never the twain shall meet. Well, that may be where we are now, but that's not where we should be.”
Father J. Patrick Serna, a priest of the diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, responded that the Cardinal’s remarks were regrettable and likely to start a “firestorm” of new arguments in favour of allowing abortion-activist politicians to continue to receive Holy Communion.
Writing on the website of Catholic journalist, Matt Abbot, Fr. Serna said it was even more regrettable, considering the Cardinal’s previously “rather good” record upholding Catholic doctrine.
“It is my hope and prayer that the cardinal spoke these words glibly and off the cuff, without premeditation, without fully realizing the damage which can and probably will transpire from them,” Fr. Serna wrote.
Attempting to control the potential damage, Serna said it was possible Cardinal George in his off-the-cuff remarks was “innocently ignorant.” While the former Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, supports the so-called “gay rights” movement, Serna said his sources in Rome had confirmed that he is not a promoter of the abortion movement.
Serna also said that the Cardinal’s first assumption had been mistaken and that the Pope never gave Holy Communion to Prodi.
Serna praised Cardinal George for his previous “courage and dutiful respect for Jesus in the Holy Communion” when he refused to allow homosexual activists to receive Communion in 2004.
But Serna vigorously defended the Pope from the implication of hypocrisy. Given his leadership on the vexed question of Communion for American political abortion campaigners, “for him to then give…Communion to a pro- abortion politician is a hypocrisy which our current Holy Father is incapable of. Could he have given communion to a pro-abortion politician unwittingly? … Knowingly? Definitely not!”
It was while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and during the last US presidential election campaign, that Pope Benedict instructed US bishops to refuse Communion to such politicians as former presidential hopeful John Kerry who is an avowed abortion promoter.
Chicago’s media office did not issue a statement from the Cardinal before LifeSiteNews.com’s deadline.
At Library of Congress, cardinal warns against secularism's dangers
Feb 16, 2007
Freedom of religion, and all freedom, can be placed at risk by an "aggressive secularism" that asserts its dominance in society, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago warned in a Feb. 13 talk at the Library of Congress.
WASHINGTON (CNS, Feb-15-2007) -- In his talk -- titled "What Kind of Democracy Leads to Secularization?" -- Cardinal George weighed in against both legal and cultural expressions of secularism that marginalize the importance of religion in society.
It is, the cardinal said, "an issue of great importance for our life together in a democratic republic." Religion "can remain a necessary and legitimate actor in our affairs," he added.
"The secular must provide legitimate ground for religion" in society, Cardinal George said. "When the secular is legitimized without freedom of religion, persecution of religion becomes inevitable."
He noted his own remarks could be minimized. "If I were to present an argument on its own philosophical, rational terms, it would be seen as religious, because of the speaker," he said.
Cardinal George took aim at the Supreme Court. "Their jurisprudence is admittedly incoherent," going back 50 years to when Justice Felix Frankfurter was on the bench, he said.
The cardinal cited as one example the 1971 ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which dealt with Pennsylvania and Rhode Island laws on government aid to religious schools. Eight-member majorities of the high court, in each of the two questions before it in the case, ruled against government aid, calling it "an excessive government entanglement with religion."
But the cardinal noted that many European nations, "most Canadian provinces and even the Baathist regime in Saddam Hussein's Iraq" -- which, he acknowledged, was not a democracy -- "have given money to the parents so their children can attend Catholic schools" without those nations' fortunes being put at risk.
"Incoherent and unpredictable law has resulted in self-censorship," Cardinal George added, noting on the day before Valentine's Day that some have even banned Valentine's Day cards to avoid any possible entanglement between government and religion.
Cardinal George said a "radical secularist" society would resemble Soviet-era Russia by "limiting freedom of religion to the freedom of private conscience and worship."
"In the United States, the primary danger to democracy comes not from religion, but from philosophical secularism," Cardinal George said, adding that some of the wounds have been self-inflicted. Jews embraced secularism, he said, to show that one "did not have to be Christian to be American," and, likewise, Catholics embraced secularism to prove one "did not have to be Protestant to be American."
But matters have been carried too far, the cardinal said, "when a preacher can be tried in Scandinavia ..., and even in Chicago, for saying that the Bible says homosexual activity is immoral."
Cardinal George said another danger can manifest itself when "democracy doesn't remove religion, but democracy replaces religion: 'The homeland deserves our love.'" At times, he said, "it can be replaced by asserting that the mission takes on a religion dimension."
Alexis de Tocqueville, whose travels in the United States in 1831 resulted in the widely quoted book "Democracy in America," "loved this country but was afraid for its future," Cardinal George said. The French writer wondered whether democratic ideals would "be undermined by the same forces that give democracy its rise."
"What kind of democracy promotes freedom? Ours, if it becomes totally free," Cardinal George said. "What kind of democracy destroys freedom? Ours, if it becomes totally secularized."
Transcript of cardinal's homily
Oct 31, 2006
The following is a transcription of the homily Cardinal Francis George gave during the 10:30 a.m. mass Sunday at Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park, on the occasion of the dedication of a new building at the school (October 31, 2006).
"Dear friends in Christ, Catholic Theological Union brings something that is a great grace and that is in many ways unique, not only to this local church but to the church's ministry here and throughout the world, because it was begun with a missionary impetus and with a missionary dimension. Not as something extra, not as something added, not as a course in missiology but as an expression of the charism of the founding bodies that were, for the most part, international and who sought to find a place and found a place that would be faithful to the universality of Jesus Christ.
"I think because of that, CTU has continued to reach out [all] these decades of its existence. It has been open to training others -- lay ministers particularly in this local church and elsewhere. It's been very involved in dialogues here and elsewhere, ecumenical dialogues and interfaith dialogues, and dialogues with the culture itself.
"Theology is always a conversation, a dialogue between faith and reason within a particular culture in which the conversation takes place . . . There is, then, in that missionary impulse as a goal a unity, a wholeness that does not replace any diversity but sees the good wherever it is to be found and incorporates it into God's vision.
"Jeremiah the prophet foresees the return of the chosen people from exile . . . to their own land so that their unity could be restored. It was impossible to imagine a people existing in their own identity but also living in a land that had been given them as part of the covenant and he rejoices in that, the fulfilled promise. He makes it whole by proclaiming it, he makes it present.
"And St. Paul, in the second reading, speaking to the Ephesians, can celebrate the unity of all those who have been called to Christ Jesus, whether Greek or Jew or any other of the nations in the Mediterranean basin of his day, so that they could find in that unity -- which was pure gift from Christ -- a unity that superceded the division that often had them at one another, both in the church and outside the church.
"To celebrate them as a dwelling place of God in the spirit -- that unity, that wholeness is always a gift. It is not an achievement. It's a gift from Christ that follows upon conversion to him that takes place when we encounter him on the way.
"In the 10th chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark, that was read in part by the deacon for this inaugural eucharistic celebration, we have the story of Bartimaeus. But it follows another story of a rich young man.
"A rich young man who was at ease in his time and place, a good man who had kept the commandments, but recognized that something more was needed for completeness, for wholeness, for integrity of self, and for unity with God. He was a moral man who kept the law and did what was demanded of him within the context of his religion.
"And yet, there was something more that depended not upon his own actions, but depended on a gift from Christ. And that depended upon his being able to surrender, to give everything up in order that he follow Jesus. At that, he drew back. For he was a well-situated young man with a promising future, many gifts, and also much wealth. There came a certain point where that final surrender was not possible and Jesus himself was not able to break through and bring him to conversion.
"In Bartimaeus, we have something very different. He is an obviously very incomplete man. He's not only blind, he's a beggar. And that incompleteness turns out to be the beginning of a gift -- he has nothing to lose. And so he comes up with a very simple request, when finally he gets the attention of the Lord. The crowd at first had told him to keep silent. Jesus recognized him and then he turned around and encouraged him to tell the Lord what he wanted. And he says, simply, 'That I might see.'
"That's not a very impressive request. It is, of course, for a blind man, but the rich young man said, 'I'm good, I want to better.' That seems altogether more satisfactory as the beginning of a religious life, a life of discipleship. But it's not.
"The blind man, the beggar asked for help, 'So that I may see.' In asking for that help, he surrendered even the very cloak which was probably his last earthly possession, to leap up and to go to the Lord. Free of himself, he then, after his conversion in that encounter, after he received the gift of sight and then spiritual sight through his faith, he joined Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.
"He joined Jesus on the way to his own self-surrender, to his passion and death, to receive back his life from the Father after he'd accomplished the Father's will through the resurrection.
"There is in this gospel, in these stories, a double dynamic. There is a personal dynamic wherein we recognize that what I have not surrendered to the Lord, I will not have, certainly not for eternity, but also not truly have in this life. I'll always be worried ... I'd always be cautious, and those precautions would get in the way of true surrender. It isn't that the Lord doesn't want us to be prudent and careful about the good things of this life so that we might share them with others and take care of our families and our responsibilities, and use them to build marvelous facilities such as this.
"Nonetheless, in the end we have only what we surrender, we have only what we have given to the Lord. We have only the relationships that are established in that surrender.
"I went through a very serious illness, as you know because so many of you have prayed for me, and I want to take this occasion in gratitude to God not only for this new moment of grace for CTU, but also to thank all of you who prayed for me.
"I had the sense in the midst of pain that often isolates that I was not alone. Because there is that relationship of faith and love that is far more profound than we think of as we go through the demands of ordinary life, with all the distractions that are a part of our lives -- mine as well as yours -- we can forget that the church exists in this network of relationships, this communion, we call it . . . .
"That is there. That is there and we can always count on it, even when we forget about it. It is always there and it is a pure gift. And for having discovered that again, I am grateful to God, and for your having been a part of it, I am very grateful to you.
"But there is more than that experience of relationships. There [is] also, when faced with death, the question: What have I not yet surrendered? What have I not yet given up? Because if I haven't surrendered it, I cannot receive it as a gift. It is simply gone.
"And there we enter into a kind of cultural dynamic as well as a personal. We are in the United States of America and most of us are United States citizens. And that is something that is truly good. I believe our country has often been an instrument, I believe, of God's providence, to help others live more freely, to conquer tyranny, and many wonderful things.
"But there is another side also to our reality that came home to me precisely as a member of a missionary congregation. For 12 years when I was the vicar general of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who have been part of CTU now for many years and I hope will continue in some fashion, I visited the world's poor in many, many countries where the Oblates are present in rather low-profile because they are with those who would otherwise be overlooked and neglected.
"And I was blessed with the ability to talk to poor people, with people whom they trusted and whose language they spoke. These are missionaries and the people they served that you won't find on FoxNews or CNN, not the kind of people who speak enough English to appear on our television and who are not particularly important.
"That experience transformed me, certainly, and I think that experience is made concrete at CTU in many ways.
"I found as I went around that no matter where I went, even in Marxist lands, people knew who I was as a Catholic priest. Sometimes they trusted that and sometimes they did not, and they knew who I was, and I could find my way -- sometimes clandestinely, sometimes openly --some very difficult circumstances in dictatorships of all sorts, in countries struggling to be free.
"This was in the '60s and '70s, long before 9/11, long before the Iraqi war. And people, everywhere that I went, although I found myself part of a global society as a Catholic priest, I found myself suspect as an American citizen. There aren't many places where I can say that, there aren't many places where I would want that to be said for me, and I wouldn't want to be quoted outside of this context.
"But you understand that -- at least certainly the students here. And I think those of you who have been a part of the building up of this great institution here, this true blessing, come to understand it also:
"The world distrusts us not because we are rich and free. Many of us are not rich and some of us aren't especially free. They distrust us because we are deaf and blind, because too often we don't understand and make no effort to understand; because we know what is best.
"We have this cultural proclivity that says, 'We know what is best. And if we truly want to do something, whether in church or in society, no one has the right to tell us no.' That cultural proclivity, which defines us in many ways, has to be surrendered, or we will never be part of God's kingdom.
"That conversion of an entire culture is far more difficult than the personal conversion that is our challenge each time we pick up the gospel. But we know it is necessary -- not only for us, but for every single culture and every single society, poor or rich, in the world today. ... There is always a need for something more, not only more, but for something radically different. And it won't come unless we ask for it as a gift. We cannot achieve it ourselves.
"I would pray that CTU continues its mission, as it has done so well. But also within that mission, to not only instruct those who would minister, those who would be ordained priests or who would become lay ministers in the church, but also continue, as I know it has done so well in so many ways, to continue with the cultural analysis as well as the personal analysis that is part of the formation here, so that we might truly be a gift to the world, both as individuals and as Americans. That we might come to a point where we understand how we are to find our way in this kingdom, at this [time.]
"CTU is at a new moment . . . I congratulate you and with all my heart I thank you.
"This is also an occasion when we must ask what still has to be surrendered to Christ in order to receive it back as a gift from him. And if this occasion can be of that nature, well then truly CTU will be a far more important place, even than it has been so far.
"For the gift of faith, for the desire to see as Christ sees us, I give thanks to Almighty God. Amen."
(Transcription by Sun-Times religion reporter Cathleen Falsani. Ellipses appear only where the recording was unintelligible.)
What makes a saint?
Oct 30, 2006
As we approach the Feast of All Saints on Nov. 1, we recall that what makes a saint is God’s grace. But, on Oct. 15, I was in St. Peter’s Square in Rome when Pope Benedict XVI “made” four holy men and women saints in the calendar of the Church. By Cardinal Francis George.
(Catholic New World, Oct. 29, 2006) They had cooperated with God’s grace and his will that we live intimately with him in this life and the next. The Church recognized that life of union with God in the canonization ceremony two weeks ago.
I was in Rome for the ceremony primarily because one of those canonized was Mother Theodore Guerin, the founder of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary of the Woods in Indiana. All the bishops from the State of Indiana were present as well, and we all concelebrated the canonization Mass with the Pope. The Sisters of Providence have a long history in the Archdiocese of Chicago, primarily in education but in other ministries as well.
Mother Guerin joined the Sisters of Providence in her native France. She taught and cared for the sick for years, having been prepared for such ministry in caring for her own family after her father was murdered when she was fifteen and her mother was unable to carry alone all the burdens of raising her family. Perhaps because of the hardships of her life, she developed a keen sense of God’s abiding providence in human affairs. She trusted Divine Providence when she was sent to begin a new foundation of her religious Congregation in what was then a wilderness in southern Indiana. It was in many ways a hostile place, where the Sisters were often not only cold and hungry but also despised by Americans who had been taught that Catholic convents were hotbeds of immorality.
As her own health declined, her spiritual force, by the grace of God, was strengthened. She became Superior of the newly founded Sisters of Providence Congregation here and founded convents and schools in Indiana and Illinois. Mother Guerin lived from 1798 to l856. She knew her own weakness but relied always on God: “What strength the soul draws from prayer! In the midst of a storm, how sweet is the calm it finds in the heart of Jesus.”
Reliance on God in the midst of weakness and great difficulties characterized the lives of the three other saints canonized with Mother Guerin. Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia (1878-1938) lived through the persecutions of the Church in his native Mexico. Born in the State of Michoacan, where so many of the Mexican Americans in Chicago have their family roots, he was ordained a priest in 1901. During the years of persecution, he disguised himself as a street peddler, a musician and a doctor of homeopathic medicine. These disguises enabled him to continue to minister, especially to the sick, and to administer the sacraments to the dying. Pursued by the anti-clerical Mexican government, he escaped first to the United States and then to Cuba. In 1919, he was named Bishop of Veracruz, but he spent the first nine years of his episcopate in exile or fleeing for his life during his brief visits to his diocese. At one point, he offered to give himself up to his persecutors if they would promise to give his people freedom of religion. His people trusted him and recognized the strength of God’s grace in his life. When we look with admiration at the deep faith of many Hispanic Catholics in the Archdiocese, we should look further and see behind them the example and ministry of Bishop Rafael Guizar.
Fr. Filippo Smaldone (1848-1923) was an Italian diocesan priest whose life was marked by an immense charity, with a special concern for those who are deaf and mute. Our ministry in Chicago to those who cannot hear or speak is strong because of the pastoral charity and dedication of Fr. Joseph Mulcrone. During the canonization Mass, I thought with gratitude of him and those who minister with him.
The fourth person declared a saint was Rosa Venerini (1656-1728), a young Italian woman who eventually gave her life to the cultural, moral and spiritual education of girls, opening the first public school for girls in Italy and founding an apostolic religious Congregation of “Pious School Teachers,” at a time when women religious were almost all members of cloistered orders. “Educate to save” was her motto, and it could serve as the motto for our Catholic schools here in the Archdiocese.
Salvation is found in surrender to God’s will for us. Trusting in his Providence rather than our own desires, plans and designs, we travel the way to sanctity on a path not of our own choosing; and that’s the point. If we want to be saints, we have to pray daily for the gift of holiness and then live each day in cooperation with God’s grace. At the heart of a saintly life is self-surrender. At the beginning of his homily during the Mass of canonization, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the Gospel account of the rich young man, who refused to follow Christ because he was unable to bring himself to sell all that he had and give his money to the poor. The Pope explained that, “a saint is that man or that woman who, responding with joy and generosity to the call of Christ, leaves everything to follow him.” That is extremely hard because each of us wants to hold something back as his or her own, making it impossible for God to give it back to us as a gift from him rather than a possession we have hoarded for ourselves.
During the week after the canonization, the President of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, Bishop William Skylstad, and I visited the heads of many departments in the Vatican and even spoke with the Pope. The diversity and universality of the Church is always evident in these conversations. But the heart of the Church became visible during the canonization ceremony; and each of us is called to be part of that heart, no matter our station in life.
During the month of November, as we pray for those who have gone before us in faith, let us pray also for one another in the community of faith, that God may make us saints.
Religion, reason, voting
Oct 18, 2006
I wrote the last column to explain what I understood Pope Benedict to have said during his visit to Germany last month: that the path to genuine peace is marked by dialogue between faith and reason in every religion and in every culture on the planet.
(catholicnewworld.com, Oct. 15, 2006) In our country, the dialogue between faith and reason becomes focused every couple of years in the decisions we make for choosing our elected officials.
The social teaching of the Catholic Church is based on divine revelation and on our understanding of the common good. Scripture tells us that we must love our fellow citizens and all others, even our enemies. Reason tells us that we love others by helping them participate in all the goods that are necessary for a fully human life: free exercise of religion, freedom from violence, access to the truth, productive work, leisure to play and to reconstitute our forces, opportunities for friendship and community and the like. The sum total of social conditions that allow people access to full participation in these goods is called the common good.
Conscience is not an excuse for doing something irrational. We are to form our consciences according to the social teaching of the Church and use that formation to make political choices. This is not easy, because principles are clear but practice often is clouded by confusion of fact and the distraction of various forms of self-interest. The first and most essential principle of Catholic social teaching is the dignity of every human person and one’s basic right to life from conception to natural death. Respect for human dignity is the basis for the fundamental right to life. This is a non-negotiable principle that is supported by our beliefs but is logically independent of our faith. Many non-Catholics think a society dedicated to the common good should protect its weakest members.
A Catholic politician who excuses his or her decision to allow the killing of the unborn and of others who can’t protect themselves because he or she doesn’t want to “impose Catholic doctrine on others” seems to me to be intellectually dishonest. The protection of every innocent human being’s right to life is a principle of reason, even though it is also a stand supported by Catholic moral teaching. Everyone understands, by way of example, that the state should protect property by forbidding stealing. This is a matter of the common good. It is not imposing Catholic morality on anybody, even though the Church teaches that stealing is a sin. Our present legal system protects stocks and bonds, as well as dogs and cats, more than it protects unborn human beings. This is contrary to the common good.
Other principles of Catholic social teaching are similarly based on both divine revelation and human reason. “The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” published by the Holy See in 2004, starts with God’s love for us and the dignity of the human person, and then sets out in about three hundred pages the full range of principles informing the Church’s social teaching: the common good, the universal destination of goods, the principle of subsidiarity, participation in society, the principle of solidarity, the fundamental values of social life—truth, freedom, justice.
I admit to a sense of frustration as I contrast this beautiful teaching with the political, economic and social order in which we now live. In the long run, God governs creation and the ideals of Catholic social doctrine are therefore possible of accomplishment. In the short run, we have to vote in a few weeks. The Catholic Bishops of Illinois are publishing a short statement on elections, conscience and the responsibility to vote. Its intention is to be of some help to Catholics who want to take seriously both their faith and their responsibility to the common good of our society.
It’s important to vote in a democratic society, even though much of our life is governed by decisions of unelected bureaucrats and judges and editors and economic players whose names we do not recognize unless there is a scandal of some sort. May each of us do the best we can, using the dialogue between faith and reason that takes place in our hearts, guided by the Church’s social doctrine; and may God protect us and our country. God bless you.
Religion, reason, violence
Oct 06, 2006
Last September 12, Pope Benedict XVI lectured at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria on the relation between faith and reason. His argument was straightforward: faith without reason will often lead to violence; and contrariwise, reason without faith will often lead to violence. Therefore, if we want to live in a peaceful world, faith and reason must be in dialogue not only in particular cultures but globally.
(The Catholic New World, Oct. 1, 2006) Few of the commentaries on what he said have addressed his full remarks. Instead, his quoting part of an argument between an emperor, who was a man of Orthodox Christian faith also schooled in Greek philosophy, and a Persian Muslim philosopher was used to say that the Pope meant primarily to condemn Islam’s use of violence. Muslims were insulted and secularists said pointedly that the Pope has no room to talk since Christianity has also been used to countenance violence in its history. Both responses ignored what this Pope and his predecessor have often said: reason cut loose from faith closes in on itself and opens the world to violence. God is supremely rational and we are made in his image. What is irrational in itself is against God’s nature and ours. Today, of course, it would be pointed out that what is irrational is itself a matter of dispute. It’s obvious to me that “gay marriage” is an irrational concept, like a square circle; others see it as a civil right. Conversation to clarify presuppositions is necessary to avoid violence.
If someone asks about religiously inspired violence, many can think of examples. The most tragic such example for our country was the attack on New York and Washington, D.C., five years ago, executed in the name of God. These acts of terrorists were correctly understood as attacks on all Americans. In the universal Church, the upcoming feast of the Holy Rosary on October 7 commemorates the victory in 1571 of the Christian fleet over the Muslim sea forces that had threatened Christians in the Mediterranean for centuries. Religiously inspired violence is part of many histories, but Americans generally have felt that wars of religion were a thing of the past, until recently.
By contrast, if someone were to ask about violence inspired by reason, few would understand the question and many would insist that secularist rationalism (reason which deliberately excludes faith as a source of knowledge and truth) could not foster violence. But, again, history is instructive. The first great rationalist revolution, the French Revolution of 1789 that shaped the modern history of Europe, enshrined the Goddess of Reason on the desecrated altar of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and proceeded to institute terror in the name of Reason. Rationalist secular utopias, especially those inspired by the last great Enlightenment thinker, Karl Marx, have been responsible for more violence and death than any religion in the history of the human race.
Faith without reason (fundamentalism) can lead to violence; reason without faith (rationalism) can lead to violence. In a healthy culture, faith is open to rational critique and reason has been opened to the horizons that revealed religion teaches. Perhaps because many Americans don’t often think of reason as a source of violence nor of religion as a source of truth, the plea for a marriage of faith and reason has yet to be discussed. Without such dialogue, the Pope believes that secularist cultures will be isolated from religious cultures, and the mutual understanding necessary for peace will escape us.
Speaking this week to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See from Muslim countries, Pope Benedict said: “In a world marked by relativism and too often excluding the transcendence and universality of reason, we are in great need of an authentic dialogue between religions and between cultures, capable of assisting us…to overcome all the tensions together.” I believe we have such a dialogue in Chicago, and I trust that we can continue to build up this society together. I also believe that the dialogue between Catholics and Muslims here can help open American culture to other nations that are not secularist in their thinking and living. A dialogue of cultures can prevent a clash of civilizations.
The clash of civilizations within our own country is sometimes called a culture war. One dividing line in that cultural tension concerns how people understand what it means to respect human life. The divide separates believers and secularists. The Church’s annual celebration of Respect Life Sunday during the month of October therefore brings its own tensions to our life of faith, for we live in our culture as well as in our Church. I hope that every parish and each priest and parishioner can enter prayerfully into the mystery of human life as a gift from God and then move out of this month with strengthened faith and clearer reasons for the defense of every human life at every stage of development.
A last thought concerns the launching this week of a third official Archdiocesan newspaper. Besides the Catholic New World, the Archdiocese publishes Catolico for Spanish-speaking Catholics. These two newspapers are now joined by Katolik for Polish-speaking Catholics. So far as I know, our Archdiocese is the only one in the country to have an official Polish language newspaper. I am proud of that fact and grateful to the Polish community for supporting this new paper. We welcome its beginning and pray for its success.
May God bless all of us.
Cardinal George talks about his recovery from cancer surgery
Oct 05, 2006
Cardinal Francis George talks about his recovery from bladder cancer surgery during his first interview since he was released from the hospital last month. The Cardinal spoke to ABC7's Alan Krashesky Monday afternoon at his residence on the city's near North Side.
(abclocal.go.com, September 25, 2006) It has been eight weeks since he first entered the hospital for surgery and there have been a number of rough days, but Cardinal George now appears much stronger than when we last saw him and he is strengthened spiritually as well.
He is truly grateful to be alive moving along well and despite all he's been through, maintains his sense of humor.
I have no pain, I have fatigue sometimes, don't have as much stamina, they told me that would happen too, good days and bad days as move along, always have a daily schedule, which is tentative, depending on how I feel (laughs) which is a new experience for me," Cardinal George said.
And the experience of confronting the very real possibility of his own death has changed Cardinal George.
"When you're almost dying at times, or think you are, when things so difficult, sense of presence of spiritual world, far more intense, bishops pray, but becomes rote at times, suddenly what is happening in prayer, union with God, becomes far more clearly evident," Cardinal George said.
He is convinced that prayer has sustained him not merely his own prayers, but the prayers of many people - from various religious backgrounds - who have sent him countless cards and e-mails. If you sent one - you're message got through.
"I've read them all now still coming in (you read all) just got thru them yesterday. Emails too," Cardinal George said.
While he knows that he will live with the shadow of a cancer diagnosis. He's taken comfort from the many Chicagoans who've shared their own personal cancer stories.
"So I'm not frightened when suddenly I feel very weak, just part of the recovery, but those days should be come rarer and rarer - and they have - it takes 5-6 months from what I'm told," Cardinal George said.
And Cardinal George believes - he is cured.
"There's a kind of surrender to God and confidence in caretakers and you go ahead, that doesn't mean you're not kind of nervous at times, sometimes I get anxious, that happens, usually when I'm tired, but that doesn't disturb the fundamental relationships nor the conviction that I'm gonna be OK, at least for the near future," Cardinal George said.
The Cardinal says he will gradually resume his public schedule but at a less hectic pace than before.
Even so, he's hoping to travel to Rome next month for a meeting of the executives of the U.S. Bishops Conference.
'I've lost 20 pounds,' but I'm fine
Oct 05, 2006
Almost two months to the day after he underwent radical surgery for bladder and ureter cancer, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George sat down with the Sun-Times in the parlor of his Gold Coast home to talk about his road to recovery and how his battle with cancer has affected his faith.
(Chicago Sun-Times, September 26, 2006) George, 69, is a little thinner -- "I've lost 20 pounds, back to what I was when I first came here [10 years ago]," he boasted -- but he's on the mend, he says, thanks to the power of prayer.
"I'm feeling much better, obviously,'' George said. ''I don't have any pain. . . . My biggest problem is from time to time overcoming weakness.
"But they said that in convalescence, you have good days and bad days. Some days you feel just about what you always thought you were and other days you feel you can hardly get out of bed or lift a finger. But those days become fewer as you move forward.
"I'm getting more strength, more stamina. It's a challenge and it's gonna take some time. They said it could take five or six months until you really are pretty much who you want to be. But I feel pretty good and I'm fine."
Q. How has this whole experience has changed you?
A. That's a good question and I don't know that I'm ready to give the definitive answer. It was a humbling experience to have so many people praying for me. I've said that often, but it's true.
To have so many people who believe in God remembering you before the Lord, people that you've met maybe once or twice, who you barely met when they saw you, or not at all -- it tells you a little bit about that network of love that unites a bishop and his people that you can lose track of, because normally you're dealing with complaints and you're bound up with all kinds of administrative details.
So, I think I'll never forget that. That really came home to me very clear. And that has changed my sense of priorities.
Q. You had a couple of medical setbacks right after surgery that were pretty scary. Did you have a near-death experience?
A. No. Not in the Kubler-Ross sense of it.
Q. Did you feel like you were on the threshold?
A. Yes, that happened often during this, in pain and in other moments, when you feel the comfort as others pray . . . when you feel the proximity to the Lord and to the saints and the angels that surround us. We don't see them, but they're there all the time. At those moments, that presence becomes more palpable and that veil between this world and the next becomes very thin -- gossamer.
I knew that things weren't going well. . . When I came out of the first operation, my vital signs kept failing and they let me know that. That's when I knew that I was in serious trouble, but my mind was clear.
Then they came in and said, "Look, we thought the bleeding had stopped but it didn't." And they had to be sure so they did a second intervention. And it was during those times that the surrender I had made of myself before we went into this I thought, well, perhaps that's the Lord's will and this is the end.
Q. You said you could "feel" people praying for you. What did it feel like?
A. That you're not isolated. When you're seriously ill, the world ends at your fingertips. It's confined to the sensations of your own body. That never happened . . . because I knew I was connected to all these people, I could feel that their concern for me was very much a part of my life, and they were bringing me before the Lord.
My own faith told me that, and it was a comforting feeling, even in the midst of pain. I was never alone.
Cardinal George reflects on health, life and eternity
Oct 03, 2006
Nearly two months after having his cancerous bladder removed, Cardinal George spent several hours Sept. 25 and 26 meeting with members of the media in advance of resuming his public schedule Oct. 1.
(Catholic New World, Sept. 31 2006) The cardinal said he is doing well and no longer experiencing pain from the July 27 surgery, which included the removal of his bladder and using a section of bowel to create a new bladder. Doctors did a second operation late that night after discovering that a blood vessel was still bleeding internally.
Cardinal George, 69, acknowledged that for a period of several hours following the first surgery, he believed he was dying—a thought which did not frighten him.
“The important thing when you die is to be ready to surrender your whole life to the Lord,” he said. “When you’ve done that, when you’ve given the Lord your life, that brings a certain peace. After that, it’s up to the Lord to take care of you, and he will. That’s his end of the bargain.”
And, while being in pain makes it difficult to think, Cardinal George said he could feel the prayers thousands of people were saying for him.
“I knew I wasn’t alone,” he said. “I could sense that I was in people’s prayers. I could also sense the presence of the Lord. The Lord was with me, and he brought his friends—and quite a few of my friends, too.”
Since leaving Loyola University Medical Center for his North State Parkway residence in August, the demands of convalescence and physical therapy have not left as much time for thought and reflection as he expected, Cardinal George said.
But there has been some, and among the things he is thinking about is creating some new priorities for the archdiocese. Since being named archbishop in 1997, Cardinal George has used the “Decisions” document created under Cardinal Joseph Bernardin to set the direction for the archdiocese.
While many of those priorities remain—some, like evangelization, will always continue—it’s time to take stock again, the Cardinal said.
“I think we need to focus on a spiritual renewal of the archdiocese,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot of growth in perpetual adoration and the liturgical life of the archdiocese has been renewed by the Liturgical Institute (at Mundelein Seminary/St. Mary of the Lake University), we see it in traditional devotions that people are looking for now.”
The move comes after the church secularized itself in the 1960s and 1970s, he said. It has now entered a “post-secular” period in which many young people are seeking more than material goods.
“There might not be many, but there are enough of them that want priests to be priests,” he said. “That means being a mediator and speaking with authority about life with God.”
Priests, he said, should “talk more about the Lord than about the parish. It’s a direction I want to test and talk to the priests about.”
At the same time, one of the things that has surprised Cardinal George over the past two months—besides the intensity of the pain following his surgery—was how well the archdiocesan administration ran without him. Seeing that has given him the confidence to say he will delegate more of the day-to-day duties in the future.
“I am content to allow others to do more,” he said, “I’m always in such a rush to do administrative work I sometimes don’t pay enough attention to the details.”
Cardinal George said he was never angry at God about his illness.
“I didn’t have time to be angry before the operation,” he said. “And of course, after the operation, you’re focused on getting well. … God has sustained my vocation, accompanied me through life and loved me. If I were to die tomorrow, I’d have no reason to be angry with the Lord. Quite the opposite.”
While he would be sorry to leave the people he loves on earth, at least for a time, and give up his “projects and plans,” Cardinal George said, the goal of this life is to share eternal life with God.
“The important thing is that you live with the Lord in eternity.”
Cardinal a hero to survivors of polio
Sept 12, 2006
They see strength, resilience in George's career, health woes
(Chicago Tribune, September 7, 2006) As Cardinal Francis George resumes limited duties this week from his Near North Side residence, Janet Felde will be following his progress with a mix of pride and concern.
Felde feels a special connection to George, who's recovering from surgery for bladder cancer. Like Chicago's Roman Catholic archbishop, she's a polio survivor.
George, 69, contracted polio at age 13; to this day, he wears a leg brace to support muscles ravaged by the viral illness. Felde, 58, caught the disease as an 11-month-old infant and has lived with its aftereffects ever since.
"As a fellow survivor, I'd like the cardinal to know: You're an amazing example to us all. And please, please, take care of yourself," said Felde of Downers Grove.
Medical experts say it's advice worth heeding. As the last generation of Americans struck by polio advances into their senior years, the disease's residual impact is exacerbating the effects of aging and later-life illness, such as George's cancer.
That can pose new challenges to individuals who, like George, have dealt with their disability by refusing to let it define their identity or limit their sense of possibility.
"Most of my patients with polio are real Type A high achievers," said Dr. Irwin Siegel of Rush University Medical Center, who has treated polio survivors since the 1950s. "They resist anything that labels them as handicapped, and they don't want lifestyle changes like working less.
"If they start getting weaker--which most do with age--their response is usually to try harder, which can backfire and make the weakness even worse. You have to convince them to back off and get some rest."
Easing up may be hard for George, 69, who is used to overcoming obstacles and pushing himself to the limit. The cardinal plans to return to a full public schedule Oct. 1 and to make a demanding trip to Rome about two weeks later.
George is an extraordinarily disciplined man who exercises daily to keep muscles in his legs and trunk in shape, according to Colleen Dolan, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
Although he "does not speak about his polio ... he's never wanted that to be the focus of his life ... it's very much a part of who he is," Dolan said.
One of the most feared diseases of the 20th Century, polio largely disappeared from the U.S. after the Salk vaccine became available in the mid-1950s.
There are about 1.6 million American polio survivors, including 640,000 who had a more severe, paralytic form of the infectious illness, according to Dr. Julie Silver, director of the International Rehabilitation Center for Polio at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.
This subgroup experienced the greatest damage to nerves and muscles and thus is at greatest risk later in life from polio's aftereffects, including weakness, fatigue and chronic pain.
Those complications don't represent a recurrence of polio; instead, they're the result of long-lasting deficits the disease left behind. An illness such as cancer can compound polio-related weakness, especially for people who undergo potentially disabling treatments or extensive bed rest that can contribute to muscle atrophy.
"A real risk for the cardinal was a significant decline in his functional status, due to the combined effect of the cancer and the earlier polio," said Dr. James Sliwa, a polio and cancer rehab specialist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
The challenge for George, the doctor suggested, will be to balance the need for activity with the need to conserve energy and prevent muscle overuse.
Scientists are still exploring what causes the late effects of polio. In addition to the natural effects of aging, there are two main theories, said Dr. Eric Sorenson, section head of neuromuscular diseases at the Mayo Clinic. One is that overtaxed motor neurons--cells that transmit messages to muscles--wear out over time. The other is that an ongoing inflammatory reaction may slowly worsen muscle damage.
When someone is young, the body has a remarkable way of compensating for polio-related neuron loss: Unaffected neurons start doing double-duty, sprouting new shoots that activate nearby muscles. But with age, motor neurons begin to wear out and die, reducing the body's ability to adapt. Overuse may contribute to the deterioration.
"If you've got a lot of neurons in reserve, like most people do, you probably won't notice much difference," said Siegel. "But if you've had polio, your bank account of neurons will be severely depleted."
Then there are ailments related to the ongoing strain of compensating for a disability. "Someone who has worn a brace most of their life may be more vulnerable to arthritis or more likely to fall," explained Silver, whose mother, grandfather and uncle caught polio just after the end of World War II.
Arms that have helped a polio survivor rise from a sitting position over the years may weaken. Knees that have borne the stress of an uneven gait may begin to give out. Wear and tear on a hip may contribute to what many polio survivors describe as "deep, burning, aching" muscle and back pain, Silver said.
For some, these symptoms are sufficiently far-reaching to merit a diagnosis of "post-polio syndrome." More than 300,000 Americans may suffer from this condition, which typically surfaces 15 to 30 years after an initial episode of polio, Silver estimates. There are no proven treatments other than lifestyle modifications.
Other survivors, such as George, aren't diagnosed with the syndrome but have episodes of difficulty related to their long-ago disease.
Patricia Morris, 67, who was hospitalized with polio for 7 months in 1943 at age 4, says re-encountering the illness later in life takes an emotional toll.
"You can't believe this is happening to you again--it can't be," said Morris of Rolling Meadows. "You fought so hard to get where you were and you feel you can't lose it, so you fight harder. And the more you fight, the worse it becomes."
With years of physical therapy, Morris was able to walk with crutches and a brace, marry, have two children and work in an office. Then, in the 1980s, her legs started weakening and her shoulders began aching non-stop. Today, she can stand only for 30 seconds and uses a scooter to get around.
"What's the point of feeling sorry for yourself?" Morris asks rhetorically. "You put it behind you and you go on."
Morris has watched George from afar over the years, wondering and worrying about his stamina and his very busy schedule. Now, she said she'll be paying special attention, as the cardinal steps back into his role with the public's attention newly focused on his health.
"All I can think is, everyone is going to see him and know what he's had to go through," Morris said. "And that's something special for people like me who know what it's like."
'Grateful' Cardinal George walks out of hospital
Sept 11, 2006
Cardinal Francis George walked out of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on Tuesday a little thinner, a little weaker, but in much the same way he walked in nearly three weeks ago -- laughing.
(Chicago Sun-Times, August 16, 2006) "Last-minute glitch there," the 69-year-old cardinal told reporters, grinning as he gingerly made his way on crutches from the hospital vestibule to a stand of microphones on the sidewalk.
"These pants are draw pants and they started to become undrawn," he said, chuckling heartily as he motioned to the black drawstring trousers he was wearing that matched his standard-issue black Roman-collared suit.
George, 69, entered Loyola July 27 to undergo radical surgery to remove his cancerous bladder, prostate and part of his right ureter. He returned home cancer-free, his doctors believe, and, he said, with a strengthened spirit.
"I feel very good -- nice to be out on a good day like this," George, who was diagnosed with cancer in early July, said, squinting at the bright blue morning sky. "I feel very grateful to God and especially to all those who prayed for me, who sustained me, who spoke to the Lord about me. I felt that support and I'm very grateful."
Dr. Myles Sheehan, the cardinal's personal physician and a Jesuit priest, said George, who had polio as a child, would need to use crutches to walk until his legs, weakened by his long hospital stay, could be strengthened through physical rehabilitation. The cardinal normally wears a brace on his leg and walks with a limp.
"Probably we could have let him go earlier last week if it wasn't for some of the extra physical therapy and leg strengthening that we wanted to do before he went home," Sheehan said. A physical therapist will work with George in his Gold Coast residence during the coming weeks.
No 'Free Francis' T-shirt
George was a good patient and his ironic gallows humor was ever present, Sheehan said, joking that he thought the cardinal might be "wearing the 'Free Francis' T-shirts he made up earlier. He's laughing and happy to get out.
"The other day he did say, 'Is this a Jesuit torture you've devised for the cardinal-archbishop of Chicago?' And I said, 'No, we manage that for everyone,' " Sheehan laughed. "[The cardinal] does what he's told and he's very, very intelligent and he asks good questions that I sometimes don't know the answers to. So it's a wonderful feeling at 50, being the dean of the medical school, to feel like a stupid third-year medical student again."
Taking it slow until October
George said the surgery and recovery went as he expected them to when he checked in to the hospital. "I'm not in any pain now and I wasn't in pain then. But there was a lot of pain in between and I'm a little weaker now, obviously, but I'm on my way to recovery, hopefully, with God's help," he said.
"Nobody anticipates every turn and there were lots of them, but there was always hope. There was hope then and there's better-founded hope now."
During his nearly three-weeklong hospitalization, George suffered what his doctors described as several "setbacks." A day after his July 27 surgery, the cardinal was rushed back into the operating room to repair a nicked artery that was bleeding internally. A week later, George was moved back to an intensive-care unit, and last week doctors treated him for a mild infection.
George expects to return to work on a "limited schedule" at his residence after Labor Day, and hopes to resume his busy public schedule in October.
Cardinal feeling well, able to walk
Aug 09, 2006
For the first time in several days, Cardinal Francis George told his doctors Tuesday that he feels well, according to a release from the Archdiocese of Chicago.
(Chicago Sun-Times, August 8, 2006) The Cardinal, recovering at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood from a second bladder surgery performed on Saturday, has been sleeping better and feeling more rested, the release said. The abdominal pain that had troubled him has diminished and there has been no evidence of further gastrointestinal bleeding.
The Cardinal's blood counts are stable as are his vital signs and there is no fever, the release said. It is hoped that the Cardinal will be able to resume a more normal diet shortly as his gastrointestinal tract regains function, according to the release.
On Tuesday morning, George walked about 100 feet with very minimal assistance, and doctors expect to move him out of Intensive Care in the next few days, the release said.
The Cardinal remains grateful for the prayers on his behalf, and reads the electronic messages sent through the Archdiocese of Chicago Website at www.archchicago.org.
Chicago cardinal frustrated after medical "setback''
Aug 08, 2006
Cardinal Francis George, hospitalized since cancer surgery more than a week earlier, was back in intensive care Sunday because of internal bleeding, the Archdiocese of Chicago said.
((Associated Press, August 6, 2006) MAYWOOD, Ill. --) Evidence of bleeding, discovered Saturday by doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, was a "known but infrequent complication" after surgery to remove a cancerous bladder, officials said.
George, 69, celebrated Mass in his room Sunday and should still recover fully, although the setback means he will stay in the hospital longer than originally expected, the archdiocese said. He had normal vital signs and no fever Sunday afternoon.
"This type of bleeding is usually minor and usually stops on its own," an archdiocese statement said. "The most prudent course is deemed to be watchful waiting and careful monitoring."
George underwent an upper endoscopy and an examination of his colon Saturday after doctors discovered blood in his stool and a "moderate drop" in his red blood cell count. Doctors planned to allow George to resume eating Sunday, beginning with liquids, officials said.
"The Cardinal also clearly wants to get back to more active functioning, and is looking forward to resuming his walking and rehabilitation," the statement said.
George is one of the most prominent U.S. cardinals and the spiritual leader of the Chicago area's 2.3 million Roman Catholics.
He underwent surgery on July 27 to remove his cancerous bladder, prostate, some lymph nodes and a section of his right ureter, officials said.
Doctors have said they succeeded in removing all the cancer and George will not require radiation or chemotherapy.
Return To Full Schedule Might Take Cardinal Longer
Aug 08, 2006
Vicar General Says He's Anxious, But Expert Says Complete Recovery Will Take Longer
(CBS, Aug 4, 2006) CHICAGO - Today's medical bulletin says Francis Cardinal George is up and around, eating regular meals, making steady progress following cancer surgery.
But CBS 2’s Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports that while the Cardinal is already anxious to leave the hospital, his return to a full schedule may take longer than most people think.
Father John Canary is among those closest to the Cardinal. He has been at the hospital every day noticing some things doctors don't.
“As he's come off the medication, he's experienced more discomfort. But he's more himself, you can tell,” said Vicar General Fr. John Canary.
Used to giving orders, not following them, we're told he's been an exemplary patient -- to a point.
“He was coming out of surgery, and he was making comments about what the doctors should and shouldn’t have done,” Canary said jokingly.
“I think spirit-wise, he's strong and determined as you might guess. And he does want to come home; he's getting tired of hospital experiences,” added Canary.
Who's going to say no to the Cardinal?
"His doctors," said Canary.
Sources tell us he'll be going home by mid-week, recuperating there until Labor Day. But one of Chicago's most respected oncologists says complete recovery will take a lot longer than that.
“He’s talking about going back to work in four to six weeks,” said University of Chicago doctor Gary Steinberg. “Well I think he'll have an abbreviated schedule within four to six weeks, but really until he's traveling like he’s traveled and all the meetings, I think it’s probably going be four to six months.”
After that, Dr. Steinberg says, there'll be regular blood tests and X-rays -- more frequent at first.
“The greatest chance of a reoccurrence is typically within the first two years after surgery, and if he’s cancer-free for two years, he can be surveyed less often,” Steinberg added.
The Cardinal's doctors have called him a cancer survivor, the disease confined to the organs removed. But they also know some cancer cells are undetectable at first.
“Bladder cancer potentially is a life threatening disease and it can come back in any part of the body,” said Steinberg.
Odds are it won't but that's why regular check-ups are needed -- just in case.
Right now, the Cardinal is up and around, working with physical therapists. Doing some work and reading messages from well-wishers. That, friends say, may be the most effective part of his therapy.
Cardinal orders up PB&J, hot chocolate
Aug 07, 2006
After getting the green light to eat his favorite foods, including chocolate, peanut butter, pasta and ice cream, Cardinal Francis George resumed a regular diet Thursday after surgery affecting his digestive system.
(Chicago Tribune, August 4, 2006) First thing on the postoperative menu was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and hot chocolate.
George is recovering at Loyola University Medical Center after removal of a cancerous bladder.
On Thursday, he received communion from Rev. John Canary, the archdiocese's vicar general. He also received his first iPod, which will be loaded up with classical music, opera, audio books and Vatican podcasts.
Many are hopeful for Cardinal George's recovery
Aug 05, 2006
While Cardinal George recovers from his bladder cancer surgery, there are some key individuals who are with him nearly everyday.
WLS, August 2, 2006 - One of them is the man who is in charge of running the Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese while the Cardinal recovers - Father John Canary, Vicar General.
As the Vicar General, Father John Canary is a chief executive of Chicago's Archdiocese. He's now splitting his time between his duties at the Archdiocesan offices and visiting Cardinal George at Loyola Medical Center.
The Cardinal is his boss but also his friend.
"He is fully alert," said Father Canary. "Obviously he has to concentrate his energy on his recovery, but he's interested. He wants to know what's going on."
Father Canary was with Cardinal George when he left for the hospital and he now typically goes to the hospital twice a day.
Cardinal George is out of bed with the help of a walker.
"Some of that is complicated by the polio," said Father Canary. "They want him to use all his muscles, and some of that is retraining muscles, after the surgery."
The best news is that there's no sign that the cancer has spread beyond what the surgery removed.
Colleen Dolan, the Archdiocese communications director, has spent many hours by the cardinal's side.
"The results are the best we could possibly ask for," said Dolan. "When you're dealing with cancer, the word 'absolute' has to go away, but it's as absolute as we can hope for."
"He was relieved he didn't have to go through chemotherapy," said Father Canary. "Again some of that, I'm sure is with his own body and the extra challenges - he didn't know what the chemotherapy would do."
The cardinal's absence means more responsibility - temporarily - for the Vicar General. But if there's a positive benefit, Father Canary believes the Cardinal has been revitalized in terms of his mission and the importance of relationships. He is overwhelmed by the well-wishes coming from so many.
"I said to him, 'Would you like me to read these to you?'," said Dolan. "He took them from my hand and said, 'I want to read them myself'. He got his glasses and he wanted to read them himself and he enjoyed them tremendously."
Cardinal George in good spirits
Aug 05, 2006
Cardinal Francis George was said to be in good spirits Tuesday as he recuperated from recent cancer surgery at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. Archdiocese officials said the cardinal slept well during his first post-surgery night out of intensive care.
(Chicago Sun-Times, August 2, 2006) George, 69, reportedly spent part of Tuesday afternoon walking and undergoing physical therapy. Earlier that morning he received communion from the archdiocese's vicar general, the Rev. John Canary, and prayed with some staff members. George's doctor said earlier in the week that the cardinal's operation was a success.
Improving Cardinal awaits PBJ sandwich
Aug 05, 2006
Cardinal George, continuing his recuperation from emergency surgery for bladder cancer last week, has been up, out of his bed regularly throughout the day, and is accompanied by his physical therapist while walking in the halls at the Loyola University Medical Center, the Archdiocese of Chicago reports.
(Chicago Sun-Times) August 3, 2006 When he is not resting or working with his physical therapist, the Cardinal has been spending his time reading and reviewing Archdiocesan business matters with Vicar General, Very Rev. John Canary, according to a release, which also said the Cardinal said his morning prayers with members of his staff and received communion from Father Canary.
The Cardinal has returned to a full and regular diet and has made it clear to his staff that he is looking forward to his first post-operative peanut butter and jelly sandwich accompanied by hot chocolate, the release said.
The Archdiocese of Chicago web site, www.archchicago.org , can receive e-mail greetings and best wishes for Cardinal George, who is reading the e-mail messages twice a day, the release said.
Cardinal George, 69, the spiritual leader of 2.4 million Roman Catholics in the Chicago area, had his cancerous bladder removed Thursday.
Tests reveal no spread of Cardinal George's cancer
Jul 31, 2006
George to move out of intensive care
July 31, 2006 (abclocal.go.com) - The cancer surgery performed on Cardinal Francis George was a success. His doctors say the tumor was contained and there is no evidence of any cancer remaining in his body.
That's encouraging news for the millions of Roman Catholics in the Chicago area. Cardinal George underwent a five hour operation Thursday to remove his bladder and prostate. Tests results Monday confirm the surgery was a success.
It is certainly good news for the cardinal. He has minimal cancer. The cancer has not spread. It has been contained. The prognosis is very good for him.
"We are happy to report the best possible outcome," said Dr. Myles Sheehan, Loyola Medical Center.
Sixty-nine-year-old Francis Cardinal George is resting in his room at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood two days after he had emergency surgery to close a bleeding artery in the pelvis that was discovered after the removal of his cancerous bladder last week.
The pathology report released Monday afternoon shows the cardinal has minimal cancer and is now a cancer survivor.
"We do not know absolutely if the cardinal is cured, nor can we say definitively that he is cancer free. What we can say is that the cardinal is a cancer survivor with a good prognosis," said Dr. Sheehan.
The cardinal was grateful for the good news.
"His reaction, of course, was very happy. He was happy that things were not worse. He was very concerned about the lymph nodes, originally, which would have made the prognosis much more dire," said Dr. Robert Flanigan, Loyola Medical Center.
The cardinal underwent a five-hour operation last Thursday to remove his cancerous bladder, prostate, some lymph nodes and a section of his ureter, which links the bladder to the kidney.
"All 10 lymph nodes are negative for tumor. All surgical margins, including both ureteral margins, are negative for tumor," said Dr. Myles Sheehan, Loyola Medical Center.
"He in fact had what we a call an orthotopic neobladder where we form a new bladder for him out of bowel," said Dr. Flanigan.
Cardinal George has been out of bed and was visited by a physical therapist.
Doctors say, because he is a polio survivor, it is more important to begin his rehabilitation as soon as possible. He has also started eating.
"The pain is a little bit more real and localized. He's a little more uncomfortable. He got up and walked quite far, did a terrific job. And so he'll probably be pretty tired from that. All in all, his spirits are very good," said Colleen Dolan, Chicago Archdiocese.
The cardinal does have some prostate problems, not unusual for someone his age. But the prostate was removed and there is little concern about that. He will be moved out of intensive care to a regular room Monday. He will probably stay another week before resuming his duties.
Surgery will alter George's lifestyle
Jul 28, 2006
Experts say the medical outlook for Cardinal Francis George following surgery for bladder cancer hinges on whether doctors can remove all of his cancerous tissue, but regardless of the prognosis, the removal of his bladder will have a lasting effect on his life.
(Chicago Tribune, July 26, 2006) Five-year survival rates for George's form of bladder cancer, called carcinoma in situ, can be as high as 85 percent if surgeons get the whole tumor and the cancer has not affected the lymph nodes or other tissue. Survival odds can fall to 50 percent if the cancer has penetrated deep into the bladder muscle, or as low as 25 percent if the cancer affects the lymph nodes or prostate.
That wide range of possible outcomes may be impossible to narrow down until doctors take out George's bladder, an operation in which the prostate and adjacent lymph nodes are also usually removed. Doctors then send samples to a lab for study.
Such unknowns are a common feature of bladder cancer, one of the most common cancer varieties, which claims about 13,000 lives a year in the U.S. The uncertainty is especially keen with carcinoma in situ, which in the case of bladder cancer can be so unpredictable that one expert described it as spooky.
"It's hard to determine which patients will have an aggressive disease course," said Dr. Mark Schoenberg, director of urologic oncology at Johns Hopkins University.
The disease is difficult to diagnose in the first place, experts said. As is the case with most patients, George's first symptom was blood in his urine. A urine screen can detect the disease, but those are not commonly done on healthy patients.
Immediately following the removal of George's bladder on Thursday, which experts described as major surgery, surgeons will move to the delicate job of fashioning a new way for him to store and void urine.
The preferred method for most patients is to remove a portion of lower intestine and sew it into a new bladder, which then is attached to the urethra. But that approach may be impossible if the cancer has spread too far into adjacent tissue.
In that case, doctors likely would reroute the urine into an external pouch that George, 69, would have to wear permanently. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki said George's doctors have kept both options open.
"It can become a quality of life issue—what the patient desires, what lifestyle they need," said Dr. Gary Steinberg, director of urologic oncology at the University of Chicago Hospitals, who specializes in reconstructing the urinary tract after bladder cancer.
The experience for patients who get a reconstructed bladder can be quite good, Steinberg said. Incontinence may be a problem, most often at night.
George's diagnosis appears to be in the middle on the severity scale for bladder cancer. Superficial bladder cancer, in which the tumor is limited to the inside lining of the bladder, is the least life-threatening form, with common survival rates of more than 90 percent.
Bladder cancer is most dangerous when it metastasizes, or spreads through the blood or lymph system. In such cases, a life expectancy of 10 to 12 months is common. Archdiocesan officials said doctors do not believe George's cancer is metastatic.
The form of cancer that struck George is relatively unusual, accounting for about 10 percent of bladder-cancer cases. With carcinoma in situ, the tumor is superficial—a flat growth limited to the wall of the bladder. But the cancer cells are of an aggressive type and can spread rapidly to other parts of the body.
Several experts said it would be unusual to remove the bladder just two weeks after the cancer was diagnosed. The most common initial treatment for carcinoma in situ is to try a drug that can elicit an immune response that kills cancer cells. Doctors typically wait at least three months and then remove the bladder if the patient does not improve.
Archdiocesan officials could not be reached Wednesday evening for clarification. Outside experts said doctors sometimes proceed to surgery more quickly when they think the cancer poses a pressing threat.
"It's not a very common choice to remove the bladder up front," said Dr. Stephanie Kielb, an assistant professor of urology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
In the past, bladder cancer has received little high-profile attention, said Dr. Mark Soloway, chairman of the department of urology at the University of Miami.
"The last poster boy we had was [late U.S. Sen.] Hubert Humphrey," he said.
Cardinal out of surgery
Jul 28, 2006
Cardinal Francis George is awake and speaking after surgery this morning, according to Rev. John Canary, vicar general for the Chicago Archdiocese.
(Chicago Tribune, July 27, 2006) The cardinal underwent a procedure today at Loyola University Medical Center to remove his bladder in hopes of conquering a cancer that experts called unpredictable and potentially aggressive.
"I'm happy to report good news," said Myles Sheehan, one of the cardinal's physicians.
"The cardinal is doing well after approximately five hours in surgery."
The procedure began around 8:15 a.m. and was completed around 1:15 p.m., the doctor said.
"The cardinal has a fair amount of healing to do," he said, adding that George would be transferred to the hospital's surgical intensive care unit.
He is expected to remain in the hospital for about a week.
Doctors said at a 2:30 p.m. news conference that more information on the cardinal's condition would not be available until the end of next week, when pathology results are in.
"Exact details of [the stage of the cancer] and thus prognosis will have to wait until next week," Sheehan said.
This morning, George left his hospital room at dawn in jovial spirits after a good night's rest, said Colleen Dolan, communications director for the archdiocese. Before rolling out of his room, Canary, Dolan, and a cousin from Chicago joined him for morning prayers.
About a dozen religious leaders held an interfaith prayer service for the cardinal in a chapel at Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine.
It was closed to the media, but several of those who took part said they were motivated to show unity and to pray for the cardinal.
"When one member of our family suffers, we all suffer," said Demetri C. Kantzavelos, chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago.
At Holy Name Cathedral, about 200 people attended the 12:15 mass, where Rev. John Boiven prayed for both the cardinal and Chicago First Lady Maggie Daley, who this morning had a tumor removed from a breast.
He urged parishioners to rely on their faith to get through such difficult times. "Our first instinct might be to say, Why is this happening to me? Why is God punishing me …," he said. "All that is part of the mystery."
Tony Cascino, 57, an attorney who attended the mass, said of George: "What counts is how you deal with it, and he's dealing with it beautifully. He's admitted he's scared, but he has his faith."
Nathan Truitt, 78, said he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. "They (George and Daley) can't lose the faith," he said. "It helped me get through. There is a God. I found that out."
Yesterday, in the cardinal's Gold Coast home, he received the Roman Catholic sacrament known as the anointing of the sick, which is administered to the seriously ill. Bishops silently laid hands on George while the most senior of them, Rev. Timothy Lyne, marked his forehead and palms with oil and recited a prayer invoking the Holy Spirit to give him strength to heal.
As he left for the hospital, George expressed trepidation about the surgery, but not necessarily a fear of dying.
"You meet the Lord in prayer every day. The idea of meeting him is, while disquieting, not something I think I am afraid of," George said. "I'm more afraid of the operation and the complications of life without a bladder than I am of death itself at this point."
For many, the revelation recalled a painful time 10 years ago when George's predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, announced his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. But George and church officials expressed hope Wednesday that the cardinal would recover fully from the cancer, apparently found two weeks ago.
"He's very optimistic that this is treatable," Dolan said Wednesday. "He has great faith in his doctors, and he has great faith in God."
Update on Cardinal George
Jul 28, 2006
Cardinal Francis George returned to the operating room just before midnight last night for an exploratory surgery. The Cardinal had exhibited an unstable blood pressure and a drop in blood count despite having received blood transfusions. These conditions were discussed with the Cardinal and a decision was made to return to the operating room.
(Archdiocese of Chicago, July 28, 2006) In a two-hour procedure, Dr. Robert Flanigan, assisted by Dr. Fred Luchette, Chief of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Loyola, found a small blood vessel in the pelvis that was bleeding. The source was successfully closed, the bleeding was stopped and the Cardinal stabilized. He tolerated the operation well and is resting comfortably this morning.
Although the episode of postoperative bleeding represents a complication of the radical cystectomy, it is not an unusual occurrence and is not expected to have a significant impact on Cardinal George’s recovery. During the next few days he will continue to be closely monitored.
Chicago Cardinal Says Archdiocese in No Way Supports Gay Games
Jul 24, 2006
In a clarification to LifeSiteNews.com Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has denied allegations by the gay-activist Rainbow Sash Movement that the Cardinal himself and the archdiocese of Chicago are in any way supporting the 2006 Gay Games.
CHICAGO, July 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This past Friday Catholics and pro-family advocates were puzzled when the infamous Rainbow Sash movement published a press release congratulating the archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George for their alleged support of a “religious roundtable” that will take place at the 2006 Gay Games.
“In a stunning gesture of good faith the Archdiocese of Chicago seems to be rethinking its relationship with the Gay and Lesbian Community,” said the press release. “The Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach Ministry (AGLO) has added its name to the sponsorship list of the ‘Faith and Fairness’ religious roundtable to be held July 16, 2006 at the Chicago Cultural Center.”
The release continued, saying that the Rainbow Sash movement “applauds Cardinal Francis George for allowing an official Ministry of the Archdiocese to be involved in the religious Round Table.”
The Rainbow Sash movement consists of a group of Catholics who persist in actively pursuing a homosexual lifestyle against the Church’s clear moral teaching, and who publicly broadcast this fact by wearing a rainbow sash.
Cardinal Francis George, however, in a statement to LifeSiteNews, responded vociferously to the allegations that he was in any way offering his support to the Gay Games. “The press release issued by the Rainbow Sash Movement is misleading and an exercise in manipulation of facts and of people,” said the Cardinal.
“The Rainbow Sash Movement has misrepresented the involvement of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach (AGLO) in the ‘Faith and Fairness’ Roundtable organized by Gay Games VII and the Human Rights Campaign.
“It is my understanding that AGLO was never asked by the Human Rights Campaign to be a sponsor of the religious roundtable, nor did they offer any support other than publicizing the event in their newsletter, Blaze, which is not routinely monitored by the Archdiocese.” This last clarification was in response to an unsubstantiated claim by the Rainbow Sash Movement that the AGLO newsletter was routinely monitored by the archdiocese, and therefore--the insituation was--whatever appears in the newsletter must be in total agreement with the official stance of the archdiocese and the Cardinal.
In fact, this is not the first time that the AGLO has followed a tack that is not in line with the Cardinal, the Chicago archdiocese and the Catholic faith. In the past the AGLO has denounced the Church's longtime teaching that homosexual men are not to be admitted as candidates for the priesthood, accused the Vatican of "hate-filled comments" at the time of World Gay Pride, and criticized the Church for stemming its participation in notorious and thoroughly un-Christian Gay Pride events.
The Cardinal concluded, distancing himself from the AGLO's choice to publicize the Gay Games event: “I was never informed by AGLO about a request to publicize the roundtable. Neither the Human Rights Campaign Fund nor the Rainbow Sash Movement consulted me about AGLO’s involvement with this event or my attitude toward it.”
The AGLO was not available for comment by press deadline.
L.A. in L.A.: Liturgiam Authenticam in Los Angeles
Jul 03, 2006
The spring meeting of the United States Bishops’ Conference took place last week in Los Angeles. As is the case with most meetings, the bishops spent most of their time in a hotel, but we went one evening to celebrate Mass in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, a unique ensemble of buildings designed to place the Church and her ministry squarely at the center of Los Angeles’ life. By Francis Cardinal George.
(catholicnewworld.com, June 25, 2006) At the center of the bishops’ concerns during our meeting was the approval of a partial translation of the latest edition of the Roman Missal. The Roman Missal was revised after the Council and published under the authority of Pope Paul VI. That first edition of the Pauline Missal was translated into English and is still being used. Since the late 1960s, however, the Holy See has published a second edition of the post-Vatican II Missal and then, a couple of years ago, a third edition. The third edition has several more canons and prefaces and a number of new feast days to mark the celebrations of saints recently canonized. Because there is a new edition of the Missal in Latin, there has to be a new translation in the vernacular languages of the Catholic world. Some people have asked why we are bothering with new translations of the Mass. The reason is because we’re still using the first edition of the revised Roman Missal when we should be using the third edition.
Among the vernacular languages, English has a particular importance, although many more Catholics speak Spanish rather than English around the world. But English is the predominant global language today, and the English-speaking countries have had, since the Council, a single translation for the whole English-speaking world. Eleven English-speaking bishops’ conferences created the International Commission for English in the Liturgy (ICEL) after the Council to help the bishops oversee the translation of the Roman Missal from Latin into English.
ICEL has been working on translating the third edition of the Pauline Roman Missal for several years and has recently asked the various conferences to approve the translation of the Missal’s central section, the Order of Mass. This section contains the prayers we say at each Mass, as distinguished from the proper parts of the Mass for particular feasts. Australia, England and Wales and Scotland had already approved the new translations before the U.S. bishops took up the question last week. In fact, it was the third time we had discussed the texts. Twice before, we had sent in suggestions for changes to ICEL, some of which were incorporated in the texts and some not. We continued the process of revising parts of the text before we voted on it and approved it last week.
The history of liturgical translations has been stormy in the last seven or eight years. Part of the controversy has centered on the rules for translating. The Holy See, which determines how the Roman rite of the Catholic Church is to be celebrated around the world, issued a document called Liturgiam Authenticam several years ago in order to help translators create texts both faithful to the original Latin and satisfactory for worship in the vernacular. A good translation is faithful not only to the meaning of the original language but also to the form. There are, for example, different ways to instruct someone to turn on a light. I could say, “Turn on the light,” or I could say “Would you turn on the light?” The information is the same in both sentences, but the form is different. Liturgiam Authenticam instructs the translator to pay attention to both the content and the form of the original language.
The translation of the new Missal will consequently be somewhat more polite, more courteous in form than the texts we now use. The new translations will also restore parts of prayers currently not translated and pay special attention to the biblical context of many of the prayers of the Roman rite. A case in point is the much-discussed translation of “et cum spiritu tuo” as “and with your spirit” rather than the current “and also with you.” Our current translation might seem more personal and friendly, but that’s the problem. The spirit referred to in the Latin is the spirit of Christ that comes to a priest when he is ordained, as St. Paul explained to St. Timothy. In other words, the people are saying in their response that Christ as head of the Church is the head of the liturgical assembly, no matter who the particular priest celebrant might be. That is a statement of faith, a statement distorted by transforming it into an exchange of personal greetings.
The texts of the Order of Mass approved by the U.S. bishops last week are both beautiful and interesting. It will take some time and personal investment to pray them well. The full Missal will not be in use for two or three years, and this will give us time to become more instructed in the matter. In the meantime, we will continue at Mass to worship God in spirit and truth, praying for one another, the Church and the world. God bless you.
Will the real Vatican II please stand up?
Jun 15, 2006
In the time after Pentecost, the Church considers the impact of the Holy Spirit in her life. Individuals often speak of an inspiration, of feeling led by the Spirit.
(catholicnewworld.com, June 11, 2006) Works of mercy and compassion get organized against all odds. In the midst of serious disputes, unity of faith and life is preserved. In the Church’s common life, an Ecumenical Council is one of the events that is guided by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guards the Church in every age from abandoning the apostolic faith, and a Council is an instrument for strengthening that faith from generation to generation.
The Second Vatican Council (1962-1966), 40 years after its conclusion, remains for many Catholics a source of both joy and tension. What was the Holy Spirit calling us to think and to do? For some, the Council itself was the work of the Spirit, but its implementation has been hijacked by left-wing or right-wing ideologues, depending upon one’s choice of enemies. For others, the Council itself was flawed because its documents are ambiguous or even inconsistent with apostolic tradition. The extremists in this line made tradition another word for museum and lose the sense of a living Body of Christ. Some even believe that Pope John XXIII and all his successors are anti-Popes and that the Church has been without a Bishop of Rome since the death of Pius XII in 1958.
A few months ago, the current Bishop of Rome and successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, offered an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council that merits close attention. The Council was called in order to give genuinely new impetus to the Church’s mission in the world. In order to overcome within the Church anything that might impede or obscure the Church’s mission, the Council called for an updating or renewal in the Church’s life. “Aggiornamento,” which is Italian for updating, was not, however, intended to mean that the Church should simply accommodate herself to the world. Ecclesiastical renewal is not a form of self-secularization. Pope Benedict says of those who took this path: “They have underestimated the inner tensions as well as the contradictions of the modern epoch.”
Pope Benedict contrasted two interpretations of the Council. One is a story of discontinuity and rupture with the Church’s past. It is as if the Church after the Council was a new, a different Church from all that had gone before. Where the texts of the Council did not support this interpretation, they were put aside in the name of the “spirit” of the Council. This is not to deny that a “spirit” of a meeting is always more than the texts it produces; it is to say that the Church’s development from one age to the next cannot be in contradiction with her apostolic origins. Among those arguing for rupture, some Americans found attractive the idea that a Council can reconstitute the Church with a mandate from the “people,” understood as separate from their pastors. But the essential structures of the Church come from Christ, and the bishops of Vatican II had no mandate from Christ to make a new Church or destroy the nature of their own apostolic office.
The more authentic interpretation of Vatican II, according to our Holy Father, sees the renewal or reform rooted in the tradition that links the Church to her apostolic origins. The Council did set out to give “a new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought,” as Pope Benedict puts it, but in a way that “preserved and deepened the Church’s inmost nature and identity.” The Council’s emphasis on ecclesial communion means that everything and everyone in the Church is related. Nothing can be understood apart from our relationships among ourselves and with all those who have gone before us in faith. This communion or network of relationships across space and time is made vital through the action of the Holy Spirit. Synthesizing fidelity and the dynamics of renewal, the Pope states that: “The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes.”
Forty years after the end of the Council, its major documents are being taken up and studied again here and around the Catholic world. It is the Pope’s desire that these documents will give life to the Church a generation after they were first written in the hope of a new springtime for the Church’s mission in the world. That hope shaped the “spirit” of the Council and must remain with us now. To abandon hope is to sin against the Holy Spirit.
As the Council’s documents are re-read today, the question inevitably arises about the experience of the last 40 years of their implementation. Much that is positive and helpful in the Church today comes from the instructions of the Council. Much that is negative and destructive in the Church today comes, it seems to me, from fratricidal arguments about elements of the Church’s life and teachings, conflicts that distract Catholics from attending to the reason the Council was called: the conversion of the world.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, the personal expression of the love between the loving Father and the beloved Son. The Holy Spirit desires that the entire world know the truth about God, about ourselves and about the world itself. That divine desire is thwarted when the Church is not an eager and effective instrument of evangelization. The Holy Spirit works to make us an evangelizing Church. Let us pray to cooperate with the Spirit and to implement the Second Vatican Council more fully. God bless you.
Pentecost: the Spirit is sent; the Spirit sends
Jun 14, 2006
Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, is celebrated by the Jewish people as the feast that commemorates the giving of the Law, the great link between God and his chosen people. By Francis Cardinal George.
(catholicnewworld.com, May 28, 2006) In the Church, Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, is celebrated as the feast that marks the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and the apostles gathered in prayer after the risen Lord’s ascension to the Father. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Son, is the great link between the Father and his people who are the Body of Christ.
The Church, born from the side of Jesus dying on the cross, burst into life and action in the world on the day of Pentecost. Under the sign of a mighty wind which filled the whole place and flames of fire that came to rest on the heads of all present, the Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to take hold of the minds and hearts of his first disciples. The Holy Spirit of God, given in power, welded Jesus’ disciples into the community that is his Church and continues to do so. The Church is always our compass on our way to God; but she is not a detailed road map. For particular direction, we need constant prayer to the Holy Spirit.
Who is the Holy Spirit? In God, the Holy Spirit is the love between the loving Father and the beloved Son. A man and woman in love sometimes say that their love is bigger than both of them; it has a life of its own. So the love between Father and Son is the Spirit; and the totally shared being of all three Persons in one God enables Christians to say not only that God loves but that God is love, in his very essence.
The creating and saving and sanctifying action of God in history is attributed to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit moves over the waters in the creation stories, bringing life and order out of nothing and chaos. The Holy Spirit caused Jesus, the eternal Son of God, to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In the teaching and miracles of Jesus, the Holy Spirit touched people with the power of God’s presence. Jesus, led by the Spirit, went through his passion and death to rescue the world from sin and, in the power of the same Spirit, he rose from the dead. After his resurrection, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his apostles so that they had power to forgive sins. At Pentecost, the Spirit was sent upon the apostles to form the social body of the Church as the continuing instrument of God’s saving presence and work in the world. Despite the sins and stupidity of her members, the Church remains the temple of the Holy Spirit, the holy Church of God.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern Pentecostalism in Los Angeles in 1906. A remarkable power of holiness and conviction came into the lives of people gathered there to pray, and this experience launched the Pentecostal movement that remains the form of belief for many followers of Christ today. It is a growing movement, especially in Latin America. It has helped many people to draw closer to God. Its basic flaw is to pit structure against charism. Without charism, without Spirit, the structures of the Church lose vitality; but without the structures willed by Christ, his people become an amorphous movement, rooted in enthusiasm but not visibly united. Structure and charism are no more opposed than are Jesus and the Spirit.
It is in the power of the Holy Spirit that any of us is able to confess that Jesus is Lord. Through the action of the Holy Spirit, it is possible in each generation to have the same experience of the risen Lord that was lived by the apostolic community at the origin of the Church. Every person who becomes a follower of Jesus through faith and baptism is “inserted and grafted into him so as to participate in his nature through receiving a share in the Holy Spirit; we are made one with Christ the Savior by his Holy Spirit.” (St. Cyril of Alexandria). This Spirit is not an individual gift but the soul of the entire Church. Through participating in God’s life in the Church, we are lifted from our loneliness, from being closed in on ourselves. Through the Spirit in the Church, we become sharers in the love that unites us to God and to one another.
And this Spirit sends us out into the world to be witnesses to the Lord. How can we sense the Spirit’s presence? Through a good conscience, a heightened sense of the difference between right and wrong; through a deep desire to worship God in spirit and truth; and through a missionary impulse that does not rest until all the world knows who Jesus is.
St. Irenaeus (130-200), bishop of Lyons, after whom a parish of the Archdiocese is named in west suburban Lyons, wrote: “Wherever the Church is, God’s Spirit is too; and wherever God’s Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace, for the Spirit is truth.” As we celebrate Pentecost during this Year of Evangelization, let us pray for the courage to proclaim to the world with conviction that Jesus is Lord; and let us pray as well for the strength to live together in Christ more authentically each day in his Body, the Church. God bless you.
Biblical writings to be read in full, in faith
May 29, 2006
Biblical writings are meant to be read in full and in faith, Catholic Cardinal Francis George told clergy and laity at the "Preaching, Teaching & Living the Bible" conference at Duke University that began Saturday and concludes today.
(The Herald-Sun, May 22, 2006) DURHAM -- Clerical collars mixed with blazers and blouses in a Bryan Center banquet room as the archbishop of Chicago gave the keynote address of the conference Monday night. He lectured on the Catholic way of learning and using Scripture.
"Every text has multiple contexts and depends on the context in which it is read or heard," George said.
He described his Catholic boyhood in Chicago, one of parochial school and learning Scripture from masses until it was presented for study in the seventh grade. Then it was used for tests, not prayer.
George was ordained as a priest in 1963, studied theology at the University of Ottawa and earned a doctorate in American philosophy from Tulane University. He also received a doctorate in sacred theology from Rome's Pontifical University Urbaniana. George served as the bishop of Yakima, Wash., and archbishop of Portland, Ore., before being appointed to archbishop of Chicago in 1997. He was elevated to cardinal within a year. There are fewer than 200 cardinals in the world, all appointed by the pope.
George said that the faith of the church is another context for understanding the Bible. He said that while they cannot turn their backs on historical study, all the books of the Bible should be read together, not examined separately.
George frequently quoted from Pope John Paul II and the writings of Pope Benedict while he was still a cardinal. Catechism is integral to the study of the Scripture, and homilies follow that doctrinal manual, George explained.
Having a Bible study with catechism is like reading in the company of saintly readers and teachers, he said.
"Historical critical method is a critical tool, but depends on how it is used," George said. "The Catholic tradition calls for the use of reason when studying Scripture."
George also talked about the historical memory of the church. He recalled working as a vicar general for a missionary order in 1977, when he was sent to Chad as a troubleshooter.
"The bishop had messed up royally. The Holy See was considering removing him," he said. "Almost every fact I had, they had. What they didn't have was the context for interpreting those facts. I gave them context and made suggestions to address the conflict."
In response, he said, he was told, "We tried that in 1721 and it didn't work." George elicited one of the few laughs during his serious lecture.
"The memory of the church is enshrined in liturgy," he said. "Right now, the Catholic church is being accused of suppressing the history of Mary Magdalene, but for 1,300 years, we observed the feast of St. Mary Magdalene."
Most Catholics still come in contact with the word of God through liturgy, he said, and an effort should be made to unite the historical and theological in liturgy.
There are 2.4 million Catholics in the Chicago area and George oversees 378 parishes, 22 hospitals, more than 300 schools, six colleges and universities and three seminaries.
Scandal a 'moral crisis'
Apr 27, 2006
Cardinal Francis George, the head of the nation's third-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, said Thursday that sexual abuse of children by priests is a "moral crisis" that threatens to stain the church's progress over the past 50 years.
(Associated Press, April 6, 2006) George and the Chicago archdiocese have been under fire for weeks for failing to remove a priest from church work even though allegations that he sexually abused a boy arose months before he was charged.
The cardinal has accepted blame for the failure and has vowed to correct what went wrong. But he said Thursday that the national clergy abuse scandal is jeopardizing the church and the progress it has made in educating children, evangelizing and becoming more integrated.
"The moral crisis colors all this. ... All of that threatens to be completely submerged into the crisis around the sexual abuse of minors by priests here and elsewhere," George told the City Club of Chicago, a nonpartisan civic group.
The Rev. Daniel McCormack was first charged Jan. 21 with sexual abuse for allegedly fondling two boys. Prosecutors charged him again in early February with sexually abusing a third boy. His attorney insists he is innocent.
The archdiocese has acknowledged that one of the charges stems from an allegation first made in August, but McCormack was not removed until the day he was first charged.
George, who played a prominent role in developing the church's response to the national clergy abuse scandal that first erupted in 2002, hired an outside investigator to examine the McCormack case. The investigator discovered a string of lapses by archdiocesan staff that left children at risk.
In a new lawsuit filed Thursday in Cook County, a 31-year-old Chicago man alleges that he was molested as a child over a period of several years by a priest who should have been removed from the ministry.
"We're very alarmed. A victim had come forward while this kid was being abused," said attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents the unnamed plaintiff.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said the case occurred before established protocols for dealing with accused priests and the priest in question left the priesthood in 1993.
"The archdiocese looks forward to dealing with any victim in a compassionate way to settle their grievance," she said.
Observers say the recent priest abuse allegations have crippled not only George, who is vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but also other dioceses and the bishops who run them.
"The McCormack case in particular really sets the bishops back and undermines the progress they were trying to make," said David Gibson, a former Vatican radio newsman and author of "The Coming Catholic Church."
Voice of the Faithful, a lay reform group founded at the height of the abuse crisis, has urged George and the conference's president, Bishop William Skylard, who is facing his own priest abuse allegation, to temporarily step down from the conference.
The Survivors Network for the Abused by Priests has gone one step further and called for George's resignation as head of the archdiocese. Only the Vatican can discipline bishops.
More recently, Patricia Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review Board, the bishops' lay watchdog panel, has said what happened in Chicago "was a great sorrow and disappointment to all of us."
Others say George might be able to regain the trust needed to effectively lead the archdiocese if he keeps doing what he's been doing-- admitting his mistakes and doing what he can to correct them.
"The more transparency in institutions, the better," said the Rev. James Halstead, head of the religious studies department at DePaul University in Chicago. "People basically want to trust institutions and leaders, so do your best, tell us the truth, apologize when mistakes happen. ... Those of us who are human beings will cut you some slack."
George said Thursday that even though it's a difficult time for the archdiocese, he plans to continue to let people know they are loved by God and the church.
"The importance of saying that again and again even if our credibility is not what it should be can't be in any way diminished by the terrible crisis," he said. "If we stop telling people God loves them, then of course we've lost our purpose and we've lost the church herself."
Seminary boss to be cardinal's top aide
Feb 22, 2006
Rev. John Canary, rector of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, has been named vicar general of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George announced Friday.
(Chicago Tribune, February 19, 2006) The vicar general assists the cardinal as a chief executive officer and functions in the archbishop's name during his absence. Canary replaces newly ordained Auxiliary Bishop George Rassas, who will become the new head of Vicariate I, a region that includes north suburban Cook County and all of Lake County. Both appointments are effective Tuesday.
Canary has been rector of the Mundelein seminary since 1995 and previously served as vice rector and dean of formation. Rev. Thomas Baima will serve as acting rector of the seminary until a permanent replacement is named. Canary also has been the archdiocese's vicar for priests and was on the faculty at Niles College Seminary.
As head of the nation's largest Catholic seminary, Canary was recently involved in the Vatican-sponsored apostolic visitation to the 229 Catholic seminaries in the U.S. The National Catholic Reporter last month reported that Canary said he had intervened during the inspection late last year when seminarians were asked "inappropriate questions" about their sexual conduct.
In September, four St. Mary of the Lake seminarians were involved in a car crash that left two of the men dead. The driver was charged with aggravated driving under the influence and reckless homicide. Another seminarian was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and false impersonation of a police officer after Mundelein police said they found a gun, ammunition and deputy badges from Ohio in the car's glove box. Authorities also discovered that the seminarian had a criminal record dating to his service as a sheriff's captain in Ohio.
Shortly after the crash, Canary answered questions about alcoholism on campus and admission policies. Canary told the Tribune standards for seminarians are tougher than ever.
"People might wonder if the standards are lower or higher," he said. "The requirements are much more extensive and higher than they've ever been."
Rassas became vicar general shortly after Bishop Edwin Conway died of cancer in August 2004. The Vicariate I post he is assuming had been vacant since Bishop Jerome Listecki left in December 2004 to lead the diocese of La Crosse, Wis.
Cardinal Offers Apology, Plea To Priests
Feb 22, 2006
Following Abuse Scandal, Francis Cardinal George Tells Priests To Come Clean With Misconduct
(CBS, Feb 11, 2006) CHICAGO - Francis Cardinal George on Saturday offered an apology, and a plea to the 850 priests in the Chicago Archdiocese.
As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the apology was for his handling of his case of the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who was indicted on Friday on sexual abuse charges. He was accused of sexually abusing three young boys in his church rectory, and the indictment on Friday stemmed from allegations from one of the boys.
“Our response… was sorely inadequate,” George said in a letter written last week and received by priests over the past few days.
“I apologize to each of you for not finding some way to at least provisionally remove McCormack,” George added in the letter.
George has been under fire for allowing McCormack to remain in ministry after he was first picked up and investigated by police last summer on abuse allegations.
George also wrote: “I feel like I am walking on quicksand here. There is so much that I remain unaware of, yet I am, in the end, responsible for all.”
He admits responsibility for the decision to return McCormack to ministry at St. Agatha parish, at 3147 W. Douglas Blvd. on the West Side, where McCormack allegedly abused again. That incurred the wrath of parishioners and near daily attacks from victims’ groups.
At a news conference Saturday, the group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests revealed another victim's six-figure settlement with the archdiocese and named names.
“The issue is that Cardinal George's leadership has not created an environment that fosters openness and transparency,” said Barbara Blaine of the Survivors Network. “Cardinal George's leadership fosters secrecy and the protection of his priests above the protection of children.”
The cardinal has repeatedly apologized for his handling of the McCormack case. We have learned that he is planning an announcement on Monday of an independent investigation of what happened, a new policy of quicker action against priests who've been accused, and a new structure with a single person responsible dealing with all aspects of sexual misconduct.
But in his letter to priests, the cardinal, for the first time, went beyond the sex abuse scandal in an appeal to those who may be violating church policies.
“If there is any priest who is leading a double life – who is engaged in dishonest or sinful practices that destroy the church – he should for the sake of the church, come forward," George wrote. "If a priest cannot change and convert anew, he should leave his sacred office in the church."
What the cardinal was referring to were the requirements of chastity and celibacy. His clear message was that zero tolerance does not only refer to the abuse of children, but any sexual misconduct on the part of priests.
The goal is to strict adherence to the policy of zero tolerance enacted by U.S. bishops four years ago. Church leaders here acknowledge that would be the only way to restore confidence lost in the recent controversy.
The settlement discussed Saturday by the Survivors Network was from a Florida woman who accused three priests of sexual misconduct in the 1960s and 1970s. The settlement, reached in 2004, was worth $125,000.
The document shows the archdiocese offered the settlement after the woman claimed a priest molested her 40 years ago when she was 16 and that two other priests involved her in sexual encoungers when she was 18 and 19. The Archdiocese admits no negligence or wrongdoing in the settlement.
The woman, Linda Lee Burke, 56, of Manatee County, Fla., says she decided to go public now because of the way the archdiocese handled the allegations against McCormack.
Cardinal discusses Vatican
Feb 10, 2006
Chicago's Cardinal Francis George provided an inside perspective on the funeral of Pope John Paul II and subsequent election of Pope Benedict XVI Tuesday night, as the Archdiocese of Milwaukee kicked off its fourth annual Pallium Lecture Series.
(The Marquette Tribune, February 2, 2006) George's lecture, titled "At the Holy Center: Pope Benedict XVI" addressed the new pope's role as leader of the Catholic Church and what issues he is likely to address.
George, who was ordained a priest in 1963 and was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1998, is both respected and loved by the clergy, according to Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of Milwaukee.
"He's certainly one of the most respected individuals that we bishops look up to," Dolan said.
George began his speech by discussing the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. He focused his lecture on providing the audience with an "inside" perspective on the inner workings of the Vatican.
The cardinal touched on the impact the late pope had on the young people of the world.
"John Paul II was a person bigger than life," George said. "We didn't thoroughly understand the impact he had until people began pouring into St. Peter's Square" during the pope's illness and subsequent funeral.
George said the crowd was mostly young people, veterans of various World Youth Day celebrations--an event Pope John Paul II started in 1986. During the funeral, the Litany of Saints was recited and "they became very present," George said.
"Everyone was united... saints unseen and seen," George said. "They said, 'We came because he came to us.'"
After the pope's funeral George, as a member of the College of Cardinals, was involved in the conclave. He described the process of electing a new pope as "very choreographed."
"People sometimes try to put a political template on the conclave," George said. "They think people are getting up and giving speeches. Really we just pray and vote."
The decision to elect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, as pope was based on his preparedness for the office of pope.
"Questions about health and age gave us reason to pause, not his qualifications," George said.
After addressing the process of electing a new pope, George outlined what Benedict's mission will be during his papacy.
"Pope Benedict XVI wants to be a peacemaker," George said. "He is concerned with unity."
It is the theme of unity, held together by love, that is the basis for the pope's first encyclical, according to George.
"It is no wonder his first encyclical is about love," George said. "It comes from his desire for peace."
The encyclical, titled "Deus Caritas Est" or "On Christian Love-God is Love" was released Jan. 25. It discusses the self-giving love of God and how humans can practice that type of love in their earthly relationships, according to George.
The pope, motivated by love, points out that the Church must work with other charities for the well being of all humans, George said.
"He will be a servant of the truth, a servant of unity. A witness of God's love to the world and divine charity," George said.
The Pallium Lecture series started in 2003 when Bishop Dolan went to Rome to receive his pallium — a garment symbolizing his position as an Archbishop. The Archdiocese wanted to teach people from the diocese, who were accompaining the bishop, about the importance and significance of the event, accordig to Kathleen Hohl, communications director for the archdiocese.
"We thought it was a good opportunity to have well known academic theologians speak on a variety of topics," Hohl said.
The series is aimed at strengthening ties with the Holy See, according to Dolan.
"This has already become a cherished event in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee," Dolan said.
This year's theme ties into the vatican exhibit going on display Feb. 4 at the Milwaukee Public Museum, where the last lecture in the series will be held, Hohl said.
"All the speakers have some connection to the Vatican and have different insights on a common theme," Hohl said.
I should've done more
Feb 08, 2006
Cardinal Francis George was peppered with the same question again and again Monday night: Why would a priest interrogated by police about allegations of child molestation be allowed to continue teaching and ministering at a Roman Catholic church and school?
(Chicago Sun-Times, January 31, 2006) The head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, George told the approximately 300 gathered at St. Agatha Catholic Church, 3147 W. Douglas, for about two hours that he was sorry -- that he should have done more to make sure the Rev. Daniel McCormack abided by a church order not be be alone with children.
"I'm truly sorry you had as a pastor ... a person who was accused of being a child molester," George said, describing the allegations against McCormack, if true, as "destructive of the soul and destructive of the church."
Polite reverence
There are 750 families in the parish, which also includes Our Lady of the Westside School, places that he described as beacons in a struggling community.
But before they could look to the future, parishioners questioned why McCormack stayed on the job after police questioned him about abuse allegations in August. McCormack was not charged then, but some said that school officials where he taught and other lay members of the church should have been notified.
The cardinal said he agreed.
Most at the meeting offered polite reverence to George, despite a few tense moments, as he met for more than two hours with them about the abuse allegations dating back five years.
But pushing, shouting and cursing erupted during what turned out to be a question and answer session, and police were called in to separate some people. No arrests were made.
"This was my biggest fear: that sisters and brothers are going to be fighting with sisters and brothers," said Julia Bledsoe, a member since 1988 who grew up near the parish in North Lawndale. "Please, let's stay family."
McCormack, 37, was charged Jan. 21 with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Prosecutors say he fondled one boy multiple times while they were both in the rectory beginning in September 2001, when the boy was 9, until January 2005, when he was 12.
McCormack is also charged with fondling another boy, then 8 years old from Willowbrook, on two occasions in December 2003 while alone with him after mass.
Church law technicality
The cardinal was in Thailand when McCormack was charged, the beginning of an avalanche of criticism about how the Chicago archdiocese had handled the accusations of abuse against him.
George, 69, spent most of Thursday and Friday in the hospital undergoing tests for dizzy spells.
On Saturday morning he held a news conference, answering questions about why he didn't relieve McCormack of his duties at St. Agatha when one of the two boys came forward with allegations of sexual abuse.
The cardinal was hamstrung by a technicality in church law, he explained. According to protocols for handling allegations of clergy sex abuse of minors drafted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and approved by the Vatican in 2002, any clergyman with even one "credible allegation of abuse" against him must be removed from ministry.
Neither the Willowbrook boy nor his parents has ever brought accusations directly to the archdiocese, thereby stalling the canonical process by which McCormack could have been removed, George said. McCormack was removed from St. Agatha only after he was criminally charged.
Archdiocesan officials have said they first learned of abuse allegations against McCormack in August, when the mother of the Willowbrook boy went to police. Church officials did not punish McCormack because they could not determine whether the abuse allegations were "credible."
They enlisted another priest to live at the St. Agatha rectory with McCormack to make sure McCormack was never alone with a child.
'No desire to hide'
On Monday night, a visibly shaken Tara Rice, who has daughters who are the third generation to attend Our Lady of the Westside School, was "disappointed and angry" about how the situation was handled.
"How long will you continue to cover the secrets of the church?" she asked George, followed by a collective hush from the crowd.
The cardinal, once again, explained he was limited by church law in handling abuse allegations.
"There is no desire to hide something if it is something -- if it's known," George said.
Cardinal George is feeling “fine, thank you”
Feb 02, 2006
Francis Cardinal George was released from Loyola Medical Center at about 3 p.m. on Friday.
(catholicnewsagency.com, January 27th, 2006) Colleen Dolan, spokeswoman of the Archdiocese of Chicago, said doctors believe a combination of things caused the Cardinal to feel lightheaded - including air travel, medication, and dehydration - and discounted the possibility of a stroke.
“I think we’re all relieved we finally had the tests done and know what it isn’t,” Dolan said.
As he left the hospital, a reporter asked how he was feeling and Cardinal George said, “Fine, thank you.”
Doctors put the Cardinal on medication in March for an inner-ear infection. On January 13th, he embarked on a strenuous journey that took him to New Zealand, Thailand - to meet with members of his religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate - and finally to the Vatican, to deliver a keynote speech at the Conference on Charity where Pope Benedict discussed for the first time his new encyclical, “God is Love.”
According to some aides, the recent troubles of a Chicago priest, Father Daniel McCormack, who is accused of sexually abusing two boys, has also weighed heavily on the Cardinal.
The Cardinal will take the weekend off.
Cardinal released from hospital
Feb 01, 2006
Looking pale and moving a little slower than usual, Cardinal Francis George returned to his Gold Coast home Friday after being discharged from Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he had spent more than 24 hours undergoing tests after complaining of dizziness.
(Chicago Sun-Times, January 28, 2006) George, who turned 69 last week, said he felt "good ... pretty good" as he walked up the front stairs of his home on North State Parkway about 4:30 p.m., leaning hard on the arm of his assistant, the Rev. Daniel Flens.
Doctors at Loyola found nothing seriously wrong with the cardinal and ruled out a stroke as the possible cause of the dizziness he had complained of earlier in the week upon his return from a long trip overseas, said his spokeswoman, Colleen Dolan.
The cardinal waved energetically and smiled at a couple of reporters and passersby standing on the sidewalk nearby before ducking inside the mansion where Dolan said he would spend the weekend recuperating.
"He's taking the weekend off, whether anybody likes it or not," she said.
Suffering back pain
George was admitted to the hospital Wednesday morning after having felt ill since his return Tuesday night from the whirlwind trip. Before he departed Chicago for New Zealand, Thailand and Italy on Jan. 13, doctors had treated him for an ear infection.
The cardinal also was suffering from back pain and was having more discomfort than usual in his right leg, Dolan said. (George wears a brace on his leg and walks with a limp, the remnants of a childhood bout with polio.)
The bout of dizziness "seems like it was the combination of the meds he was on, a long trip, dehydration and the inner-ear situation," Dolan said. "The lightheaded, kind of wobbly feeling he had seems to have ceased."
Stress from the scandal involving one of his priests, the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who has been charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault for allegedly molesting two boys at St. Agatha parish, and who is facing several other allegations of abuse dating to 2000, may also have affected George's health, Dolan said.
'A sense of ownership'
"This is a man who is very empathetic, and he's also somebody who has a huge heart. So when anybody, anywhere, under any circumstances is hurt ... he would feel bad. But when it has something to do with anything he would be responsible for in his world, he has a sense of ownership. And I'm sure that didn't help," she said.
George also recently took two nasty falls, one last May when he missed a marble step in Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel and fell on his back, and a second last August during World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, when he slipped in a bathtub and injured his leg, Dolan said.
The cardinal is otherwise in good health, Dolan insisted. "He's really amazingly strong and has taken good care of himself," she said, adding that she expected him to be back to work Monday.
Cardinal George Leaves Hospital
Feb 01, 2006
Chicago Cardinal Francis George left Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on Friday afternoon after doctors ruled on a stroke as the cause of dizziness that brought him to the hospital.
(CBS, Jan 27, 2006) The Archdiocese of Chicago says the 69-year-old was hospitalized overnight as a precaution after he'd been bothered by periodic dizziness before recent trips to New Zealand and Rome. The problem continued during the trip and when he returned to Chicago.
As he left the hospital, George told reporters he was feeling fine. CBS 2's Jay Levine reported that he "looked pretty good."
Archdiocese Communications Director Colleen Dolan said the dizziness appared to be caused by a variety of factors, including “air travel, the medication, probably this inner ear thing that’s been bugging him for almost a month now. So in and of themselves no one of these things is a huge thing, but combined, they caused a dizziness and a sense of imbalance, sort of, that was very difficult for him and it was more difficult yesreday morning than before so consequently we brought him in."
George also underwent tests for back pain. Doctors prescribed rehab and rest.
The cardinal was comfortable while hospitalized, but characteristically impatient, having come to the hospital only after top aides insisted.
“I think he thinks he can tough it out and move through it as he has through most of his life with his polio and his leg brace, but this seemed to be a persistent problem that I think he needed to address and our hope is that with a few tests and some rest he can get through it,” said Archdiocese Chancellor Jimmy Lago.
Aside from the affects of polio, which he had as a child growing up in Chicago, his health has been good. His energy level has supported 18 hour days and repeated globe trotting, most often to Rome where he spent the first part of this week at an international charity conference.
This time dizziness, first thought to be an inner ear infection, stayed with him despite the medication prescribed before he left.
Dolan and aide Dan Flens brought him to Loyola Thursday afternoon.
The cardinal has a full plate, dealing with alleged sexual misconduct by a local priest, the work of the Conference of Catholic Bishops where he is now vice president, and his work in Rome as a respected member of the College of Cardinals.
But he may have to slow down for a short time. Dolan said, “We’re trying to make sure he takes this weekend off. We’re canceling his schedule.”
The cardinal's top aide would like him to pay more attention to his own needs.
“The idea was to come in here and take a little bit of time to run some tests and make sure it’s not something serious, and so I think that’s the purpose of today to run blood tests and MRI to see what else might be a problem if anything,” Lago said.
At this point there is no indication it’s anything serious. Aides hope he'll be able to go home on Friday but would like him to stay another day or so, because they know as soon as he's cleared by the doctors, he'll be back at work.
CBS 2 learned earlier Thursday that the cardinal had been taking medication for what was thought to be an inner ear infection that was diagnosed two weeks ago, before he left on a trip, which took him literally around the world.
When aides saw what kind of shape he was in upon returning to Chicago last last night, and then again this morning, they insisted he get checked out.
Overall the cardinal's health has always been good. He walks with a limp due to a six-month bout with polio as a child growing up in Chicago.
His workload has always been enormous and was becoming more so. Elected vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last year, he is generally considered the most influential of U.S. bishops.
He's often in Rome, working on revisions to the English version of the liturgy, though this week's event there was an international conference on charity.
Aides always try to make sure he gets some rest, but they're usually fighting a losing battle. He did, as usual, take a few days off after Christmas, visiting his sister in Michigan prior to his whirlwind trip around the world.
There had been hints from the archdiocese all day that the cardinal wasn't feeling well. We concluded he was simply worn out, after the 12-day trip to New Zealand, Thailand and Rome.
A written statement issued in response to the controversy over the archdiocese' response to alleged sexual misconduct of one of its priests, seemed out of character. Normally the cardinal deals with these issues in person.
Survivors of priest abuse didn't know he was hospitalized when they voiced outrage this afternoon outside the cardinal's mansion.
They say Father Daniel McCormack should have been removed from the ministry six years ago when allegations first surfaced.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a nun told church officials back in 2000 that a boy claimed McCormack told him to pull down his pants after mass at Holy Family Church.
The priest is now charged with abusing two other boys.
Cardinal George, in a separate statement, said that even though police advised the Archdiocese last summer that they had insufficient evidence to bring charges against Father Dan McCormack, he assigned McCormack a personal monitor.
"To err on the side of caution, since there was no evidence available to make an informed and definitive judgment, Father McCormack was told not to be alone with children," Cardinal George said.
Goerge said that the archdiocese has asked repeatedly for access to the August police interview of Father McCormack and other information from the family, and is in contact with the family, who have alleged that McCormack acted inappropriately with a boy in 2000.
The Cardinal says as soon as fresh allegations surfaced last week, the Archdiocese went to police, an arrest was made and Father McCormack was removed from ministry.
He said the archdiocese would provide "full cooperation" with authorities.
The founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wants the National Review Board, that oversees the response of the church to such accusations, to tell Cardinal George that he has forfeited the right to investigate such cases.
"Don't sit back and wait," Barbara Blaine said. "don't wring your hands in frustration and don't cry over spilt milk months or years from now. Be involved. Intervene."
The Cardinal said he cannot simply punish priests on the basis of accusations that cannot be substantiated.
"It seems to me morally wrong to insist that anyone should be punished on the basis of a story that could not be investigated," George said. "If this were the practice, no one would be safe."
SNAP wants Cardinal George to go to St. Agatha and Holy Family parishes, where Father McCormack worked, and meet with parents.
"Show by your words and deeds that you truly want anyone who suspected, witnessed or experienced sex crimes by Father McCormack to call the police," Blaine said.
George said both parishes, and their members, students and staff, are in his prayers, and said he hopes that anyone who knows of abuse by Father McCormack or any other priest should call DCFS and the archdiocesan Professional Responsibility Administrator.
Cardinal says new encyclical helps explain God's love, human love
Jan 30, 2006
Understanding human life as a totally free gift of God's love and love as a gift that seeks nothing in return, people can learn to love one another without fear and without exploitation, said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago.
VATICAN CITY (CNS, Jan-24-2006) -- In writing his encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), Pope Benedict XVI was trying to help modern men and women understand the greatness of God's love and of human love, the cardinal said.
Cardinal George offered theological reflections on the pope's encyclical Jan. 24 during the closing session of a Vatican conference on the encyclical organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable activity. The cardinal is a member of the council.
The cardinal told conference participants that love has to be seen in the light of "God's self-revelation if the message of the encyclical is to be clearly understood."
The Trinity itself is "a unity created by the total self-giving of the three divine persons, each to the others, for the others, in the others," the cardinal said.
Again, acting only out of a love that neither needed nor asked for anything in return, God created each human being, he said.
Even on earth, the cardinal said, love must strive to reflect the totally free gift that is God's love.
"In our culture we presuppose that there must be a separation between eros -- understood as human desire, sexually expressed -- and agape," a selfless, spiritual love, the cardinal said.
"The pope tries to overcome, and I think does so successfully, a separation between eros and agape by pointing to the inner movement of erotic love toward a generosity between a man and a woman based on the total self-giving of one to the other for the sake of the other alone," he said.
"Love becomes ecstasy when a person attains the freedom to give himself completely to another, where there is, in the loving, a purification of desire," he said.
If agape does not become part of the loving relationship, he said, the love of eros decays, which is why "pornography is an addiction that is never self-satisfying."
Cardinal George said modern culture has magnified the idea of love as spontaneous over the reality of love as involving choices to the point that people talk about being swept away and losing control.
Yet if passion is the essence of love, he said, it actually involves the loss of the freedom people claim to worry about when they hesitate making a permanent commitment to one another.
Cardinal George said Pope Benedict also tries to address modern cultures' separation between love and justice.
"What is seen in the encyclical is that, even if justice were to be established, love would always be necessary" for economic and political systems to safeguard, promote and defend the human person, he said.
An Iranian bishop asked Cardinal George what practical message the encyclical would give to a world in which a few rich and powerful countries try to control all the economic and political decisions of the rest of the world, ensuring they stay in a position of poverty and weakness.
The cardinal answered, "I sometimes try to tell my fellow Americans, 'The world resents us, not because we are rich and free ... they resent us because too often we are blind and deaf,'" not understanding the injustice others suffer or being willing to change.
However, Cardinal George said, there also must be a deeper analysis of the factors, including the corruption and mismanagement in the developing world, that prevent a more equal sharing of the world's goods.
People in rich countries must hear and take seriously the concerns and criticisms of people in poorer countries, he said, but anyone concerned about love and justice also must ask, "If the United States of America ceased to exist tomorrow, would there still be poverty and injustice in Iran or anywhere else in the world? I think there would."
Cardinal George said the pope's new encyclical, which was scheduled to be released Jan. 25, also emphasizes the identity of the church as a sacrament of God's love in the world.
"From this, it must follow that the church is as committed to the service of charity in the form of Christ-like love as she is to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments," he said.
Motivated by love, he said, the church also must form partnerships with other groups and organizations engaged in charity and philanthropy.
"The church has no corner, no monopoly on work for the poor and for the elimination of economic and political injustice," Cardinal George said. "The work of charity is ecumenical and universal both in its scope and its workers."
'That month in Rome' not soon forgotten
Jan 30, 2006
About once a year for the last six years, Cardinal Francis George, shepherd to 2.4 million Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and I sit down for a kind of spiritual-state-of-the-union chat.
(Chicago Sun-Times, January 16, 2006) This past year, because I had been on a long sabbatical from the Chicago Sun-Times to write a book, the cardinal and I had a lot of catching up to do.
When we met for our annual visit a few days after Christmas, the last time we'd seen each other had been eight months earlier, standing on a hill overlooking Vatican City the day after he and 114 other cardinals elected their new pope, Benedict XVI.
"That's not gonna leave me quickly, that month in Rome," George, who turns 69 today, says a little wistfully as we begin our conversation in his office at the archdiocese's Pastoral Center. "It was really a very moving and important month for me -- probably one of the most important months of my life, in some ways, to be part of that."
When I wonder aloud how the experiences of April 2005 at the Vatican, where he mourned and buried one pope, then elected and installed another, might have changed the way he does things back home in Chicago, he answers with typical nonchalance.
They haven't really, at least not directly, he says. Well . . . maybe ... except for one thing:
The power of television
"I noticed when I got back, because it was so closely followed -- and because they had that shot of me on CNN that everyone seemed to have seen -- people seem to recognize me more now," George says laughing. He's talking about some famous footage of him, dressed in cardinal red, standing on one of the balconies of St. Peter's Basilica, after Pope Benedict XVI greeted the crowds in the square below for the first time.
George lingered a long while -- he was perhaps the last cardinal to go back inside the basilica -- surveying the scene below him. Before he walked inside, the cardinal brushed his hands together in a sweeping motion, a gesture some observers believed was his way of saying "my work here is done." In reality, he was just knocking some dust from the balcony's stone railing off his hands. (Although, truth be told, one of his assistants has since informed me that it was pigeon droppings, not dust.)
"It just goes to show the power of television," the cardinal says, still chuckling. "So there I was, part of Chicago over there. I think that makes my life in Chicago a little easier in that sense. . . . Some people said they were proud to have someone from Chicago over there, so that was helpful. And I was proud to be there."
"It's had an effect here. But that's fleeting, I suppose."
Yes, Eminence, fame is fleeting.
Speaking of which, how's the new guy doing, Pope Benedict XVI?
Pope's deliberate style
"Necessarily when you are a bishop, you watch for signals from the pope, and he's been very deliberate, I think, in his actions. He hasn't done anything sudden. But that's consistent with his character. People who are looking for dramatic shifts, I think, are going to be watching for a long time. He's not going to govern that way," George says.
"He has his own habits of life," George continues soberly. "Those are a gift, but they also do qualify the way he is present. As you know as well as I, he is a professor by training and he is good with small groups and one-on-one. He is not a man of crowds, but he has been able to manage the crowds. He did that very well in Cologne with the kids [at World Youth Day in August]. But he's not doing as much of that as John Paul did and he won't. He won't do as much traveling. He's much older."
George, who is in New Zealand for a gathering of a Vatican committee on the liturgy until the end of the month, last saw Benedict XVI in October, when the cardinal traveled to Rome for meetings at the Vatican with a few other leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, of which he is vice president.
He met privately with Benedict XVI for about 20 minutes, but, as is his custom, he declines to tell me what they discussed.
"Sorry, no," he says, laughing.
A few minutes later, though, he reveals that during the October visit, he did ask Vatican officials to delay the release of a papal document on homosexuality in the priesthood. The document, which was released at the end of November, basically bars men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from ordination to the priesthood.
Vatican has its own schedule
"We asked them not not to publish it, but to delay it -- to wait -- otherwise it would color the visitations," George says. The problem, in his view, was that the document would be released in the midst of official Vatican "visitations" to U.S. seminaries to check, among other things, for "homosexual culture" on campus.
"The document itself goes back almost 10 years. The visitations grew out of the discussions in April 2002 between the [American] cardinals and the [Vatican] curia," about the sexual abuse crisis in the United States. "We said, 'If you do this, it will be taken as a commentary on the visitations and we'll get into this whole business that the gay community is so sensitive to of, 'You're blaming us for the pedophilia.'"
The Vatican's response to his pleas? Tough noogies, basically.
"Their response was, 'Well, we're sorry about that, but this is a universal document. It's not directed at the United States. It's directed to the whole church. So we're gonna do it.' They have their own schedule," George says matter-of-factly.
Archdiocese still healthy
The general health of the archdiocese is good, he says. He doesn't expect to have to close any more parochial schools or parishes in the next year. His priests and seminarians are a bit battered by four years of sex abuse scandals, but they're holding fast, the cardinal says.
"The statistics are better this year, both in money and in participation," he says. "Spiritually, the generosity and the interest in what the faith is about, not only in action but also in revelation -- Who is Christ? -- there is a hunger for more adult catechesis and more adult Bible study," he says. "So, ya know, I think it's going pretty well, all things considered. There are a lot of problems, but there always will be.
"The fact that it's still together," he says busting out in a belly laugh, "is, I suppose, something."
It's never over for abuse victims
It's been four years since the Boston Globe launched its ground-breaking series on clergy sexual abuse on Jan. 6, 2002, setting off a national firestorm about pedophilic priests and the bishops who sheltered them for years, moving abusive clerics from parish to parish without notifying parents who entrusted their children to their care at school, at catechism, on the altar.
The storm seems largely to have passed, at least here in Chicago, I say.
"That level of anger can't be sustained indefinitely," George says. "You get worn out. So that's just exhaustion maybe. I don't want to say it's over, because it's not. But even if it were, I shouldn't be the one to say it. I have no credibility saying that; it would be defensive.
"I would say, on the basis of what the statisticians tell me, is that it's contained. It's not over, but it's contained. It will never be over for the victims, even with healing. And I've talked to a lot of them," he says, quietly. "And if it's not over for them, it's not over for us."
Hauptsache, die Fassade stimmt
Jan 27, 2006
Die US-Bischöfe baten den Papst im vergangenen Herbst, die Veröffentlichung des Dokumentes über Homosexualität in Priesterseminaren zu verzögern.
(kreuz.net, 21. Januar 2006) Chicago - In seinem Jahresinterview mit der Tageszeitung ‘Chicago Sun Times’ sprach der Erzbischof von Chicago, Francis Kardinal George (69), auch über das Ende November erschienene vatikanische Homo-Dokument.
Die Stadt Chicago befindet sich im Norden der USA bei den großen Seen. Die Erzdiözese Chicago gilt als eines der bedeutendsten US-Bistümer. Der dortige Erzbischof ist gewöhnlich Kardinal. Die Erzdiözese besitzt gegenwärtig nicht weniger als sechs Weihbischöfe.
Nach Angaben von Kardinal George haben die US-Bischöfe während eines Ad-Limina-Besuches im Oktober versucht, die Veröffentlichung des seit zehn Jahren erwarteten Homo-Dokumentes zu verzögern.
Der Grund: Die Bischöfe fürchteten, daß die Veröffentlichung des Textes die gegenwärtig laufende Visitation der US-Priesterseminare in ein falsches Licht gestellt hätte.
Dies hätte Homo-Aktivisten auf den Plan rufen können, so der Kardinal.
Seit Ende September läuft eine kanonische Visitation der US-Priesterseminare. Dabei geht es vor allem um eine mögliche homosexuelle Unterwanderung der Priesterausbildungsstätten.
Nach Angaben von Kardinal George haben die Bischöfe versucht, Rom davon zu überzeugen, daß das Dokument als Erklärung der laufenden Visitation verstanden werden könnte:
„Wir werden in jene Geschichte hineingeraten, auf welche die Homo-Gemeinschaft so empfindlich ist, wenn sie sagt: »Ihr macht uns für die Pädophilie verantwortlich.«“
Die vatikanischen Stellen seien auf dieses Argument nicht eingegangen.
Man habe bedauert, daß es zu einer solchen Auslegung kommen könne, aber gleichzeitig darauf hingewiesen, daß das Dokument für die ganze Kirche bestimmt sei:
„Es ist nicht an die USA gerichtet, sondern an die ganze Kirche. Also werden wir es machen.“
Der Vatikan habe seinen eigenen Zeitplan.
Der Web-Herausgeber der katholischen Homepage ‘New Oxford Revue’ und Autor eines Bestsellers zur Homo-Unterwanderung von US-Priesterseminaren in den 70er und 80er Jahren, Michael Rose, kritisierte den Verzögerungsversuch der US-Bischöfe.
Dieser vorauseilende Verteidigungsversuch gegenüber den Homo-Propagandisten sei besorgniserregend.
Ein solches Verhalten sei ein falsches Zeichen für viele Menschen – erklärte Rose vor der Webseite ‘LifeSiteNews’ – nämlich, „daß unsere Bischöfe zur Gänze mit äußerlichen Erscheinungsformen beschäftigt sind – vielleicht zum Schaden für wichtigere Dinge.“
Pope on divine love vs. erotic love
Jan 27, 2006
Pope Benedict XVI may try to "save eros," in the first encyclical of his papacy, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George told the Chicago Sun-Times.
(Chicago Sun-Times, January 4, 2006) George expects the new pope will try to explain that erotic love, eros, and unconditional love, agape, are both inherently good in God's eyes in his encyclical titled "Deus, Caritas Est," Latin for "God is Love." An encyclical is a pope's most authoritative document, a pastoral letter circulated to the universal church.
Letter talks about Christ
The cardinal has not yet seen Benedict XVI's encyclical, which is expected to be released by the Vatican within days, but said he has "seen comments" about it. The pope has asked George to deliver an address about the major themes of the encyclical to a gathering of the pontifical charity organization Cor Unum in Rome at the end of the month, according to Colleen Dolan, the cardinal's spokeswoman.
Benedict XVI's first encyclical will likely "talk about Christ, which is a good thing for a pope to talk about in his first encyclical. John Paul II did that," George said. "And he is going to talk about the relationship between love and truth, between agape and eros."
Agape (pronounced "ah-gah-pay") is a Greek word, referring to unconditional love, the kind Catholic doctrine teaches God has for humankind. Eros was the Greek god of love, and his name has come to refer to sexual love or desire.
In the mid-1900s, Anders Nygren, a Lutheran bishop from Sweden, published a book called Eros and Agape, in which he concluded that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love.
"In a kind of Lutheran fashion, he distinguished between agape, the love of God in us, which is good; and eros, which is our own erotic life and desire, which turns us away from God," George said. "He said that in English 'love' is ambiguous and you have to distinguish between these two. And you do.
"What the pope is going to do is to try to save eros. That is to say that our own human love, our desires, are good in themselves. . . . The distinction between agape and eros is not a clean one. In fact, one influences the other and therefore both should be considered good. But we are sinful creatures, so they can be misused."
A pope's first encyclical is seen as setting the tone for the rest of his papacy. Pope John Paul II, who died in April, published 14 encyclicals during his 27-year pontificate.
What will it mean if Benedict XVI tackles the issue of erotic love versus divine love?
"It might be part of his overall program of trying to not let things become purely secularized and devoid of religious connection," the Rev. Donald Senior, president of Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, said by phone from Rome on Monday night.
'Purifying the church'
Senior is there for a meeting of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which was led by Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, before he became pope in April.
"He has spoken about, in a couple of his statements already, a 'soulless materialism,' so trying to integrate human experience with the divine is really fundamental to him," Senior said.
"It may be that he's worried about a picture of human love or sexuality that is devoid of any connection to the divine. And in a strange way, it may be part of his response . . . to the clergy abuse crisis.
"He talked about 'purifying the church.' Maybe this is part of his way of doing it," Senior speculated.
The pope, who is said to have begun work on his first encyclical last summer, is a scholar of St. Augustine, who famously had a hard time reconciling erotic and divine love.
"Maybe he's going to try to repair Augustine a bit," Senior said, adding that he has not seen the encyclical and had expected it to be solely about Christology, or the study of Christ.
The pontiff's "focus is so much more dogmatic. Nevertheless, he does have a very emotional way of speaking. In his homilies and stuff, people have been noting that they're all very rich in imagery and much more affective than cerebral," Senior said. "Bavarians are very sentimental and romantic."
Cardinal George Says It's Time To Celebrate A Miracle
Dec 26, 2005
In a year in which pundits have gone back and forth over whether there's a need to focus on Christmas instead of a "holiday season," Francis Cardinal George told the congregation at Holy Name Cathedral's Christmas Midnight Mass that perhaps Christ is becoming a bit too familiar.
(wbbm780.com, 25 December 2005) CHICAGO -- He said that too many people today trivialize Christ, ascribing to him both familiar virtues and familiar attitudes.
"It is good that we can find ourselves in him," Cardinal George said. "(But) it betrays him when we do not let him find himself in us, when we refuse to allow him to transform us, to convert us, to draw us into the world that he wants to be ours. That world is different."
Cardinal George said people "touch" that world sometimes.
"Miracles now give us a glimpse of that world, breaking through our present experience," he said. "Such a miracle we celebrate tonight." He said that miracle is God made man.
"The (nativity) crib draws us because it is familiar," he said. "The crib keeps us because it is different."
He said some of the mysticism has disappeared in today's popular culture.
"It's a beloved story," he said. "Even the angels have become more familiar, more domesticated in recent years. Angels? Sure, why not. It's all familiar."
He said Christ comes to those who are in mourning just as he does for those who are sharing the joy of Christmas.
A standing-room-only congregation of more than 1,250 people were on hand at the cathedral.
One incident marred the 90-minute service. A woman moved to the front of the church after communion and began shouting, disrupting a closing prayer. Police and ushers hustled her away, and police detained the woman after Mass had ended. It was unclear if charges were pressed.
Moments later, Cardinal George elicited laughter with a faltering attempt to extend Christmas greetings to his worldwide satellite television audience, finally saying, "I think that's enough," to the laughter of hundreds in the congregation.
Gays shouldn't be priests
Dec 04, 2005
If a man's primary self-identity is as a homosexual, he has no business being ordained a Roman Catholic priest, Cardinal Francis George said Tuesday -- the day a long-awaited Vatican document about gays in the priesthood was officially released after being widely leaked last week.
(suntimes.com, November 30, 2005) "While every person is to be respected, men cannot be admitted to Holy Orders who 1) practice homosexuality; 2) have 'deeply rooted' homosexual tendencies; or 3) support the so-called 'gay culture,' " according to George's statement, which echoed some of the Vatican document titled "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders."
"In other words," George said, "if one's self-identification as a 'gay man' is the most important component of a man's personality, he is not a candidate for Holy Orders."
While a nearly identical version of the Vatican document was leaked to an Italian Catholic Web site last week and then reported around the globe and its contents were hardly a surprise by Tuesday, the official delivery of the nine-page "instruction" about gay seminarians and priests drew strong reactions from many Catholics.
Priest calls it ludicrous
"The criteria of the Instruction are also entirely consistent with the teaching of the church for the past 2,000 years. To portray the Instruction as 'gay bashing' or 'gay banning' is to misrepresent it," the cardinal said at the conclusion of his statement.
But one priest of the Chicago archdiocese, asking that his name not be used, said, "It's an insult to the gay deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals .. . and it creates a caste system in the clergy."
The Vatican document, which reportedly has been in the works for a number of years and was begun at the urging of the late Pope John Paul II, says church leaders "believe it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called 'gay culture.' . . . One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies."
But, said the gay Chicago priest, what about all the homosexuals who have and continue to serve in the priesthood?
"In a nutshell to say, 'It's OK to be homosexual as long as you don't think like a homosexual, talk like a homosexual, act like a homosexual, hang out with homosexuals, or go to places that are known to be hangouts of homosexuals,' well, that's ludicrous on its surface. And I don't say that flippantly. Sometimes the cardinal says, 'Oh, that's flippant.' This isn't flippant. That's what the document says," the priest said, adding that he believed the "right wing" of the Catholic church had decided to make homosexuals "their scapegoats and whipping boys."
'Frightening'
The Vatican document's introduction said its attempt to answer the question of whether men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should be allowed in the priesthood was "made more urgent by the current situation." Most readers interpreted that last phrase to be a reference to the clergy sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the United States for three years.
Many advocates for the victims of clergy abuse deemed the insinuation both erroneous and insulting.
"At best, it's a distraction; at worst, it's damaging," said David Clohessy, national director of the advocacy and support group Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. "It will feed the mistaken notion that [the abuse scandal] is about the behavior of priests and not the behavior of bishops. Gay seminarians didn't hire and transfer and cover for child-molesting priests. It was bishops who did that."
Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of the group FutureChurch, which advocates the inclusion of all faithful people -- including women and married men -- in the priesthood, worried the document would drive gay seminarians underground.
"We risk re-creating some of the same dynamics that led to the sex abuse crisis to begin with," Schenk said. "That's the part that is frightening."
The Rev. Gus Belauskas, vice rector and admissions director for Mundelein Seminary, the major seminary for the Chicago archdiocese where about 200 seminarians are enrolled, said the Vatican's instruction probably wouldn't change how its students are trained.
"We will certainly take this document into close reading and make sure that we're doing everything that is asked of us," Belauskas said.
Cardinal's ties to group does not change neutral position
Oct 30, 2005
The Becket Fund's board of advisers includes Cardinal Francis George, but the Chicago Archdiocese is not on board O'Hare expansion opponents' bandwagon.
Elk Grove Times, Oct. 27 2005) Though he was unaware Cardinal George was on the Becket Fund's Board of Advisers, Jim Dwyer, Chicago Archdiocese director of media relations, said the Catholic church has no position on O'Hare expansion.
When first asked, Dwyer was unable to reconcile Cardinal George's position on Becket's advisory board and his silence on O'Hare expansion and the relocation of St. Johannes Cemetery.
Later, Dwyer acknowledged that Cardinal George is involved with the Becket Fund, but that his position with the organization does not include forming policy.
"The Cardinal is on many, many advisory boards and commissions and serves on them in an advisory capacity. That doesn't necessarily mean he supports all the policies and positions of those organizations," he said.
When asked if the Archdiocese of Chicago is opposed to the removal of bodies buried at St. Johannes, Dwyer deferred.
"The Archdiocese of Chicago has no position on O'Hare expansion, nor does it ever plan to take one," he said.
Requests for an interview with Cardinal George were declined.
When told of the statements from the Chicago Archdiocese, Elk Grove Mayor Craig Johnson said Cardinal George's apparent ambivalence over O'Hare expansion and the relocation of St. Johannes Cemetery is puzzling.
"Then why is the cardinal on their board of advisers? It seems to me that (the Archdiocese of Chicago's lack of a position) is an uninformed decision on their part. We have 24 other religious organizations that support us," he said.
Cardinal George reflects on Eucharist
Oct 15, 2005
Faithful of the Joliet Diocese welcome Cardinal Francis E. George for a special talk on the Eucharist Sept. 28 at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet.
(Catholic Explorer, Oct. 5 2005) JOLIET—Applause echoed within the worship space Sept. 28 as faithful teens, adults and senior citizens from across the seven-county Diocese of Joliet welcomed the evening guest speaker, Cardinal Francis E. George. “I’m glad to be part of the closing of the Year of the Eucharist” in the Diocese of Joliet, he said. With the celebration swiftly approaching conclusion in October, the 68-year-old leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago expounded upon the Catholic ritual during a presentation at the Cathedral of St. Raymond.
Before the archbishop’s formal remarks, Bishop Joseph L. Imesch publicly greeted Cardinal George on behalf of the faithful of the Joliet Diocese. Bishop Imesch mentioned that the cardinal had visited the cathedral on numerous occasions over the years, including ordinations, “but tonight is the first time he has come strictly to speak to the people of Joliet.”
Thanking Bishop Imesch for the invitation to speak about the Eucharist, Cardinal George began his presentation by saluting the late Pope John Paul II for inaugurating the worldwide observance in October 2004. The archbishop of Chicago since 1997, Cardinal George described the Eucharist as a “wondrous” experience that takes place during the summit of every Mass.
“The Eucharist is the self-sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary present now (during every Mass) in a non-bloody manner,” explained Cardinal George. “It’s a mystery outside normal time,” he added.
Reflecting upon the Catholic belief that Christ is physically present in the consecrated bread and wine at Mass, Cardinal George mulled over various notions and ideas about the Eucharist. “The crucified Christ is the only Christ there is,” the cardinal told the people. “Having conquered death, (Jesus Christ) is not limited by our time. Christ lives in a way that we don’t understand. He can be where he wants to be and he wants to be with us,” added the cardinal, talking about the reception of Communion at Mass.
Eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood “under the form of food” is an “intimate” action, explained Cardinal George. While he could have mandated that his followers make a special voyage across the continents to encounter his real presence or some other difficult challenge, Jesus Christ wanted to make “his body and blood available,” said the cardinal.
Prominent theologians and other devout believers over the last 2,000 years have endeavored to help clarify the idea of the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, said Cardinal George. Each generation of Catholics builds on the ideas of their forebearers and discovers new insights into the sacrament, acknowledged the cardinal. However, he cautioned the people gathered not to underestimate the mystery of the Eucharist. When a person believes that he or she has totally grasped the concept, he or she “has lost it. You can’t reduce Jesus. (The Eucharist) is always more.”
While human beings cannot fully understand the mystery of the Eucharist, they can react to it, asserted Cardinal George. “We become what we eat,” said the cardinal. After receiving Communion, believers are expected to make a difference in the lives of others. Through the sacrament, God “transforms us into himself,” he explained. The leaders of the Catholic Church maintain that the faithful must participate and receive Communion weekly. Reception of the sacrament connects and unifies participants, the cardinal added.
Meanwhile, the Eucharist “is the sacrament of mission,” said Cardinal George. The last phrase Jesus uttered to his apostles before assuming into the heavens was: “Go and teach and baptize all nations,” said the visiting cardinal. Nevertheless, only 30 percent of the population of the world is currently Christian, he stated. “We have to be united,” he exclaimed, noting that others won’t believe in the teachings of Christ if his followers remain divided into countless denominations.
Advocating unity among Christians, Cardinal George said, “(the Eucharist) is a great gift that God wants all people to have. It’s a great, great tragedy for our Protestant brothers and sisters and for us that they will never receive the Lord in holy Communion. They love the Lord,” he said. He charged those present with the responsibility of helping Protestants and others grasp Catholic beliefs, especially the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
In the meantime, Catholic believers in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are obliged to pass on the rituals, traditions and teachings of the church to their families as well as the next generation, said Cardinal George.
A once dormant tradition in the Catholic Church, the act of adoring the exposed Blessed Sacrament, resurfaced in recent years across the globe. Staunchly advocating the devotion, Cardinal George said, “If you spend enough time with the Lord you won’t be the same … you’ll be transformed.”
Endorsing the practice of spending time adoring the Blessed Sacrament, the cardinal said, “all we have is time. Some have more time than others, (but) in the end the Lord is going to ask us how we spent our time.”
Before the congregants departed from the church, Bishop Imesch thanked Cardinal George for shedding light on the sacrament near the conclusion of the Year of the Eucharist celebration. The bishop then informed the congregation that a special monstrance—blessed by Pope John Paul II for adoration during the yearlong observance—is scheduled to arrive at the end of October. Opportunities for eucharistic adoration with the special monstrance for vocations to priestly and religious life are expected on various occasions throughout the diocese, he added.
Cardinal bans mission
Oct 11, 2005
When Bishop Thomas Paprocki was pastor of St. Constance Parish on the Northwest Side, the Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission was using parish facilities for prayer meetings and other events.
(catholicnewworld.com, Oct. 9, 2005) Now, following an investigation conducted by Bishop Paprocki, the mission has been banned from using Catholic facilities and portraying itself as Catholic by Cardinal George; Archbishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa; Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis.; and Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford.
The decisions, all announced in September, come amid complaints by the loved ones of mission members, saying the mission has isolated their family members and convinced them that they will be condemned by God if they leave.
“Over the years, I have heard many stories of the deepening of the spiritual life from Catholics who have been part of this group,” Cardinal George wrote in a Sept. 22 statement. “I have also heard stories from those who claim it is coercive of its members and theologically inadequate or even false.”
The cardinal could not come to a definitive conclusion as to the value of the group, he wrote, so he found it necessary, based on “pastoral prudence” to call Father Leonard Kruzel, who had been released to minister to the group, back to archdiocesan ministry, as well as to bar the group from meeting or distributing its publications distributing its publications at archdiocesan facilities. Kruzel’s new assignment was to be decided by Oct. 5.
The decision was announced after the mother and stepfather of Ashley Fahey, 19, of McGregor, Iowa, appealed to the cardinal and to the public for help communicating with Fahey, who announced her intention to become a “sister” in the group and left home the day before she was to enter Loras College in Dubuque. Since that day, Aug. 21, her mother, Lora Knott, has seen Fahey once, briefly, on a farm owned by the mission and otherwise has not been able to have contact with her daughter. She believes Fahey is in Chicago, possibly at the LHTBM’s building, 7011 W. Diversey Ave.
“If you see her, just tell her that I love her,” was Knott’s appeal to reporters she spoke to about the mission. Repeated phone calls to the mission were not returned.
Bishop Paprocki, who coordinated an inquiry into the mission requested by Cardinal George last year, said most of the problems came to light after the group announced its intention to become a religious order, and the majority of them seemed to come from its activities in eastern Iowa.
In Chicago, he said, the mission has attracted mostly Polish and Polish-American participants, who were encouraged to deepen their spiritual lives. When the bishop was pastor at St. Constance from 2001-03, it ran an occasional announcement in the bulletin inviting new members to prayer meetings, and otherwise was invisible to the wider parish community, he said.
So when Kruzel, then associate pastor at St. Linus Parish in Oak Lawn, approached Cardinal George in 2003 with a request to minister to the mission full-time, the cardinal asked Bishop Paprocki, the archdiocesan liaison to the Polish community and episcopal vicar for the area, to look into it. The bishop is both a canon and civil lawyer.
Kruzel had also encountered the group for the first time at St. Constance, when he was assigned to the parish as an associate pastor in the early 1990s. Although his assignments took him to several other parishes after that, he continued to work with and minister to the mission on a voluntary basis for 12 years.
The mission, led by lay woman Agnes Kyo McDonald, calls on members to proclaim and witness “to God’s people together, to help God’s people follow Jesus Christ and the Way of the Cross.”
By 2004, Cardinal George had released Kruzel so that he could serve the mission—not appointed him to the mission, as the mission’s Web site reports.
But right around the same time, several pastors approached the cardinal with concerns about the group’s theology and methods, Bishop Paprocki said, and people in the Archdiocese of Chicago began to hear rumors of trouble with the mission in Iowa.
At that time, the archdiocese asked two theologians from Mundelein and a canon lawyer to meet with people from the mission and review their materials to make sure they conformed with Catholic teaching, Bishop Paprocki said.
“That theological review was inconclusive, because they didn’t receive all the materials they needed,” Bishop Paprocki said. The canon lawyer made a recommendation that they not be allowed to present themselves as a Catholic mission.
In March 2005, the cardinal met again with Kruzel, who asked that the mission get another chance to make its case.
The next month, Bishop Paprocki said, he met with Kruzel, two priests of the Diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, and nine lay people. By then, the bishop said, they were going beyond seeking recognition as a Catholic lay organization. “They were asking what the steps would be to being recognized as a religious order,” Bishop Paprocki said.
He asked them once again to work with a canon lawyer and submit to a theological review, and to gather letters of recommendation from pastors who had worked with them.
“We only got one letter from one pastor, and that was mixed,” Paprocki said. “They said they couldn’t supply the written materials to the theologians, because most of what they did was oral.”
At the same time, there was more news from eastern Iowa, where members of the mission had bought a farm and donated it to the mission, and the mission began buying apartment buildings in Dubuque to support itself with rental income.
Iowa media reported that the mission said Vatican officials had told them they must be self-supporting to become a religious order, but Bishop Paprocki pointed out they could not do so without the approval of a local bishop—something they never officially asked for.
When the group had not fulfilled the bishop’s requests by a June 30 deadline, they sought an extension. Cardinal George gave them until Aug. 31, but in those two months the only thing that changed was the publicity given to Fahey’s situation and other families in Iowa.
Lora and Roger Knott came to Chicago in September and went to the mission’s headquarters and rang the bell. A man who identified himself as “Jacek” answered and gave her some literature, but no news of her daughter, Knott said.
Cardinal addresses LU students
Oct 03, 2005
Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, was on campus last Thursday, Sept. 8, to speak on the "Meaning of Discipleship for Young Adults."
(The Phoenix – News, Sept. 14 2005) Expected to speak solely on youth discipleship, George touched on a variety of issues. He opened his speech by describing his experiences in Rome last April. After Pope John Paul II passed away, George spent a month in Rome participating in the Pope's funeral and the process of appointing the new Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI.
Following the lecture, George joined a group of 20 students and faculty for a dinner hosted by the World Theology Club, which took place in the new Life Sciences Building.
Describing the solemn task of selecting a new Pope, George said he and the Council of Bishops felt they had the support of saints and previous Popes.
"Participating in this event I sensed also the church's members standing beyond this world meaning we weren't alone," he said.
"It is really important to listen to what George has to say to us, with him being one of the main leaders of our church and just coming from electing the Pope," sophomore Laura Sienas said.
In addressing the issue of youth discipleship, George said, "The discipleship means to come from out of yourself, to be something great, to be part of something far beyond what you are imagining, called by the God who loves us more than we love ourselves."
The event was hosted by the World Theology Club. George spoke in the Simpson Hall Multipurpose Room to a crowd of approximately 200 people.
The rest of George's lecture focused on social justice issues. He spoke of the preferential option for the poor, one of seven principles of Catholic social teaching, which stresses the equality of every human being. He emphasized that the way in which we treat the poor in our nation is a reflection of our personal and societal values.
After expressing that every life has equal value, George responded to a question regarding the exclusion of women and homosexuals within the Catholic Church.
"Women, homosexuals, thieves, males, whomever you want to say, should be equally respected. That doesn't mean that everything everyone does is okay," George said. "You respect the person ... everyone deserves full respect and protection. Those are fundamental human rights."
Sophomore Matt O'Donnell said it is beneficial to have lectures of this sort to extend education beyond the classroom and help create well-rounded students.
Senior Joe Cassin was also glad for the opportunity to have George on campus.
"I have never seen the Cardinal before," Cassin said. "I know we have speakers all the time, like political speakers. Last year we had Howard Dean, this year we had John Edwards and it doesn't seem that we have as many people that are affiliated with the Catholic Church."
The World Theology Club has been working to get George to Loyola for a year. The club spent months planning the event, coordinating with the Cardinal, deciding on a lecture theme, finding the right location and spreading the word around campus.
Originally scheduled to speak at Loyola on April 4, George postponed the lecture to attend Pope John Paul II's funeral.
Since last April, the World Theology Club has been working closely with George and his staff to reschedule his visit. September was the first available opportunity George had to speak at Loyola.
"It's been a long, long journey to finally get the Cardinal here, but he is here. I think it says a lot about his regard for young people," said Jeannette Cespedes, president of the World Theology Club.
"It really matters to him to reach out to young adults and be in their company," Cesepedes said. "This is all happening not because of the World Theology Club but because the Cardinal really wanted it to."
Cardinal joins in Criticism of Movement
Sept 25, 2005
Cardinal Francis George is joining other Roman Catholic leaders in criticizing a secretive religious movement, banning the group from meeting in churches or other archdiocesan facilities.
(Associated Press, September 24, 2005) CHICAGO -- Members say the group Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission, founded 12 years ago, is born of Catholic teachings and is trying to establish itself as a new religious order. It holds weekly prayer meetings in nearly 100 Catholic churches in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.
On Friday, George announced that the Rev. Len Kruzel, who had been working full time at the group's headquarters on Chicago's Northwest Side, would be recalled to a pastoral position.
"While they have been functioning here for a number of years, the `Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission' has no official approval as a lay movement or as a religious order in the Catholic Church," the cardinal said in a statement.
The cardinal's statement followed a six-month review of the group by priests and church scholars who received few answers to their questions about the group's operations and theology, archdiocesan officials said.
Love Holy Trinity member Dick Vogt said leader Agnes Kyo McDonald is unavailable for comment "because of the persecution" of her group.
Bishops in Rockford, Ill., and Madison, Wis., have criticized the group in recent months. The strongest statement came Sept. 15 from Archbishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa, after some families in his diocese accused the group of using "cult-like" tactics.
Monsignor James Barta, vicar general of the Diocese of Dubuque, said the diocese acted because of concern about a 19-year-old girl who left home to become a "sister" in the group.
Ashley Fahey's mother and stepfather say they've been cut off from her for more than a month.
"I feel so cheated, so lied to," Lora Knott told the Chicago Tribune. "How can they claim to be Catholic? The Catholic Church doesn't tear families apart."
The couple said that when they attempted to enter the Love Holy Trinity offices Friday, they were turned away by a man who reportedly told them, "Your daughter has made her choice. Respect her wishes."
Cardinal George discusses role of church at St. Mary
Sept 23, 2005
The Catholic Church's mission is to convert locally and connect globally, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., told a capacity crowd at the Church of St. Mary in Lake Forest recently.
(Lake Forester, Sept. 22 2005) The cardinal visited St. Mary's at the invitation of its pastor, Rev. Michael McGovern, to speak on the topic: "The Role of the Catholic Church in the United States Today." Cardinal George is the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, which comprises all of Lake and Cook counties.
He was particularly pleased to make a visit in which he could speak and hear comments and questions, he said. His official duties take him all around the archdiocese, but usually at formal and sacramental occasions.
His visit to St. Mary's gave him a rare opportunity to connect less formally with his people, he said. More than 500 people attended.
Following the session he toured the parish's new learning center, set to open in a few weeks, and attended a light reception in the parish's school's gymnasium. True to form, the cardinal moved about the room and did not leave until he had spoken with every person there.
The Church as a two-fold task in the United States, Cardinal George said. First, to lead all people to Jesus Christ, and second, to use its unique role as a global institution to help America connect more fully and authentically with the rest of the world.
A former missionary, the cardinal did not mince words in declaring that the Church is meant to be converting people in the United States.
Will of God
"It sounds, perhaps, a bit abrupt, but it is the will of God," Cardinal George said.
He cited the Bible, noting that Jesus says in the 28th chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
"The Church has a mission," Cardinal George said.
That mission encounters three obstacles, he said: personal failings or resistance in its members; ecclesial failures including bishop's tragic failures associated with the priest-sex scandal; and cultural factors that form a bias against Catholicism.
Speaking at some length about the sex scandal, he noted the Church is working hard to see that no sexual predators are in contact with children, by measures such as conducting background checks on all workers, both priests and lay people. Workers have received special training in seeing and addressing signs of sexual abuse, and soon the children of the Archdiocese will receive special training in recognizing and preventing such abuse.
Seminaries, where priests are trained, are being examined to make sure their programs weed out potential abusers.
Lake County's own University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein received high marks in the cardinal's estimation.
No doubts
He has "no doubts" about Mundelein Seminary.
"It's a good seminary, a trustworthy seminary. You see that in the priests," he said. "But it wasn't always, perhaps, as good as it should have been."
The Church's mission is to help foster a world that is "more just, and more charitable, and is a little bit more like the Kingdom of God," he said.
The Catholic Church is particularly well-suited for this role because it emphasizes connection and community rather than the radical individuality so prevalent in American society, he said.
His religious order, the Oblates of Mark Immaculate, are traditionally "bush missionaries," close to the people. When he led that order Cardinal George worked and lived amongst the poor throughout the world.
People do not resent Americans for being "equal, rich and free," he said. "But we were resented because we are, in their estimation, too often deaf and blind."
The people he moved among do not appear on American television because they are poor, they do not speak English and they are powerless. Being among them changed his perspective.
"What I found is that the Catholic Church is a source of hope around the world," Cardinal George said.
In catechesis session, Cardinal George urges youths to stay faithful
Sept 03, 2005
Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George urged World Youth Day delegates to always follow Jesus, even when the path is not easy.
DUSSELDORF, Germany (CNS, Aug-17-2005) -- "If Jesus looks too much like you want him to look, be careful," he told young people attending an Aug. 17 catechetical session at St. Francis Xavier Church in Dusseldorf. "Yes, he wants to be your friend, but he also wants other things."
The cardinal spoke at one of more than a dozen English-language sessions for pilgrims attending the Aug. 16-21 World Youth Day activities in Germany. The sessions -- and additional talks in other languages -- were at sites in Cologne and surrounding cities.
Cardinal George told the youths that Jesus "wants a change in your life, and his path is not always easy. Don't shrink him down to your size, but let him elevate you to his, for he will lead you to a truth beyond your imagining."
Cardinal George also emphasized that following Jesus coincides with involvement in the church.
"Jesus never comes alone; he is the head of his body, which is the church," he said.
He also commented on the overall scope of World Youth Day, saying the event always changes hearts.
"It is not, like some would have us believe, a few days of prayer that come and go," he said. "World Youth Day creates new disciples."
He told the youths that if they did not want to change their lives then they should not look to meet Jesus.
"It takes courage to meet him, to be willing to change, and then go out again into the world where we don't always fit. A scary thought, but we are never alone in our faith," he added.
During a question-and-answer session, Scott Johnson of the Diocese of Providence, R.I., asked how to best bring people to the faith. The delegates laughed at Cardinal George's initial response: "Don't just go and hit them over the head with the Bible."
He continued: "Faith is about a person, that person is Jesus. Get to know your potential converts slowly, then introduce them to Jesus, who never comes alone but with the church."
When the cardinal responded to a question about his own faith experience, he told the youths about his early struggle with polio.
"I had polio when I was 13," he said. "A captive in my own body, I soon learned that self-pity got me nowhere. Faith was the way out, because in faith I was not alone, and good can come of something that appears bad at that time."
That message especially inspired Cathryn Leeper of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Belmont, Mich. Leeper, who is wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy, said the cardinal helped her to know she is not alone.
"Although I have many problems to deal with in my daily life, I really feel part of the global Christian community now, knowing that the cardinal understands what I am going through," she said.
Prior to the cardinal's talk, the pilgrims sang and danced in the church aisles and played games that involved a lot of clapping, singing and exchanging information about their faith.
Michael Rhine, director of youth ministry at Holy Family Parish in Yakima, Wash., looked out at the happy crowd and said it was "a wonderful idea to bring song and dance into worship."
He said he was accompanying 16 young people who "all feel they are on a spiritual quest, a bit like the Magi who followed the guiding star. They came here not knowing what to expect but sensing that the Lord will guide them and work through and for them."
Pilgrims from St. Chad's Church, in London, also liked the atmosphere.
"As Catholics, we are a minority in England, which is largely Protestant," said 23-year-old Anthony Casha. "Coming here today, with all this singing and dancing going on, I feel that we are all part of one family.
"We may speak different languages and also have different skin colors, but we are all the same. For this spirit of fellowship, I am very grateful, because I feel that our own country is not very spiritual," he said.
Father Cyril Paredes, youth director of the Diocese of Catarman, Philippines, also liked the singing and dancing before the session started.
"Back home, we always have a lot of song and dance in our services," he said. "If a bit more of this were done in your part of the world, maybe it would be easier to bring young people back to the church. Just look around you: All you see is happy faces, and they are happy for being part of the Catholic community which is strong and worldwide."
Media sometimes frustrate religious people
Aug 06, 2005
The media's constant penchant to look for conflict in stories sometimes drives religious people to be frustrated with the media and feel that journalists aren't covering the most important issues, Cardinal Francis George and other religious leaders said Monday during a symposium in Evanston.
(Evanstone Review, July 28, 2005) Cardinal George and several other religious leaders served as presenters at the symposium on religion and the press at Northwestern University. The gathering was co-sponsored by the Sheil Catholic Center and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
Meanwhile, a number of journalists who regularly cover religion, including NBC News 5's Mary Ann Ahern and Evanston resident Robert McClory, a former Roman Catholic priest and professor emeritus at Medill, served on the media panel, asking questions in between and after the presentations.
Cardinal George said the late Pope John Paul II had expressed high ideals for the press in his speeches and encyclicals, talking about the media's role in creating a town square and helping transform the world into a "global village."
He said the media, particularly in the last century, has even come to see itself as an "ersatz" church at times, solving society's ills.
"If anyone doesn't believe that, take a look at the Tribune Tower," he quipped, eliciting laughter from the audience packed into the McCormick Tribune Center Forum.
He admitted, though, that the media's "in-built" penchant for finding conflict in stories "drives religious people to be frustrated with the media."
School closings
Cardinal George said stories on Catholic funding problems focused on the closing of schools -- sometimes inaccurately fanning concerns -- rather than on what the church was doing to manage the crisis.
Similarly, on the sexual abuse scandal involving priests, the media necessarily reported the story about the abuses, which Cardinal George called "deeply perverse" and a "betrayal" to church members.
He said some rumors, though, were accepted as true, and the great efforts of the Roman Catholic church to help victims often went unreported.
The church and other faiths are centuries old, and have a different relationship with their followers than secular institutions, he said.
Perhaps, "we (religion and the press) simply have to live with that (the difference) ... and do the best with it" we can, said the cardinal.
To McClory's question that the church isn't always forthcoming with journalists, Cardinal George said the church's role is "keeping people together; that's our job."
Church leaders cannot lie and are instructed to be cooperative, the cardinal said, but "what to say, and what not to say, is challenging at times," he admitted.
Edith Blumhofer, an expert on the evangelical movement and a professor of history at Wheaton College, said typical media coverage of the evangelical movement portray evangelicals as a "power hungry and a cantankerous lot, always on the lookout for the next political fight." The media, however, overlook the changing face of the movement, she said.
A large percentage of evangelicals today came from Asian countries after the Immigration Act of 1965, she said. She said the movement is much more diverse than a label of "an army of militaristic Christ warriors" might suggest.
Modern evangelicals voice concern about school reform, the environment and other issues not usually associated with the movement, Blumhofer said.
Michael Kozin, executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, and Safaa Zarzour, an attorney and member of the Muslim community, both spoke on how the media too often reinforce stereotypes and don't play up their religions positive features.
Kozin said "some less-than-common aspects of Judaism" often receive the greatest exposure, while mainstream stories are ignored.
Zarzour said there is almost "a fanatic obsession in putting Islamic and terrorism in the same sentence."
The terms are automatically grouped together, Zarzour said, even though the vast number of Muslims worldwide are not terrorists.
A Man of Catholic Faith
Jul 15, 2005
Pope Benedict XVI is a man of faith, of Catholic faith, and he is also a man of prayer, who will have among his principal tasks that of confronting a process of aggressive secularization, particularly in the West. By Cardinal Francis Eugene George, Archbishop of Chicago.
(30Days, May 2005) I had the possibility of hearing the then Cardinal Ratzinger during a theological conference in Philadelphia, in the United States, before I was nominated bishop.
I had already read his books, not only those on the doctrine of the Church, on fundamental theology and ecclesiology, but also those on spirituality, which were a help to me in prayer.
When I became a bishop I had the possibility of meeting and talking with him on different occasions. He always gave me the impression of being a serene and capable man. Capable of listening and finding the points of agreement, putting off to another time discussion on diverging issues.
When Benedict XVI appeared on the balcony of Saint Peter’s and made that expansive gesture to greet the crowd, I thought: this is the grace of state, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger was not so expansive. I must say that for me also the moment in which Cardinal Ratzinger accepted his election as Pope was very important. At that moment I thought: there, now we have a whole Church, not a committee of cardinals, but someone who has the power of the keys in his hands.
I must say that I was struck by the choice of name, with the references to peace in the world (Pope Benedict XV) and the future of Europe (Saint Benedict of Norcia). I believe we will have a Pope who is profoundly sensitive to the cultural currents of today.Benedict XVI knows the history of the liturgy well, and is aware that with the so-called liturgical reform something was lost. He is undoubtedly a man of Vatican Council II, as was John Paul II. But forty years have passed, and we must look at the good and the bad in the reform. And perhaps the new Pope will bring balance to the contested field of the liturgy.
No Homosexuals Allowed in Priesthood
Jun 25, 2005
The American Conference of Catholic Bishops is being accused of ‘side-stepping’ the issue of whether or not homosexuals ought to be permitted to be ordained. At a recent meeting of the conference, the bishops voted by a wide majority to extend for another five years a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for admitting sexual abusers into the seminary, or allowing them to continue serving in the priesthood. This policy has been in place since 2002.
CHICAGO, Ill., June 20, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – However, some, including Don Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle, have complained that “The new 84-page report on seminary admission makes only one reference to homosexuality.” The reason for concern about an alleged lack of closure on the matter is the results of a study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice which has indicated that homosexuality and not pedophilia has been the underlying cause of the abuse scandal.
The one reference to homosexuality contained in the document, however, concisely lays down the long-held teaching of the Catholic Church. “With regard to the admission of candidates with same-sex experience and/or inclinations,” says the report, “the guidelines provided by the Holy See must be followed.”
Lattin claims that this isn’t sufficient as the bishops are still waiting for the latest document from the Vatican (The Holy See) on the issue of the admission of homosexual candidates into the priesthood. However, such a document can only further clarify what has already been clearly stated Church teaching. A decision on the matter has been firmly in place and promulgated since as early as 1961.
A 1961 document produced by the Sacred Congregation for Religious states: “Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination,” because priestly ministry would place such persons in “grave danger”.
Over the past weekend, with the American bishops converging in Chicago to vote on the new policies, Cardinal George spoke for the whole conference, stating that homosexuals, as per the universal teaching of the Church, are not to be ordained into the priesthood.
Cardinal George’s proclamation on the matter is perfectly in line with a more recent Vatican declaration dating from May 16, 2002, which once again clarified the Church’s long-held teaching.
In this more recent statement Cardinal Estevez of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated: “Ordination to the deaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.”
Illinois Gov: Rescind Pharmacist-Abortion Order
May 08, 2005
A leading Catholic says Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich should rescind his order requiring state pharmacists to fill all prescriptions. The order has been criticized because it would make pharmacists dispense drugs that can cause abortions and violate their moral and religious views.
Springfield, IL (LifeNews.com, May 6, 2005) -- Cadinal Francis George called on Blagojevich to back off the rule, which has sparked a national firestorm of controversy. Several pharmacists are participating in two lawsuits against the governor's actions.
"People have a choice what pharmacy they want to go to, and pharmacists should have a moral choice also," George said, according to a Chicago Sun Tims news report.
"I don't think the state has any business encroaching on the conscience of people," Cardinal George added. "We haven't done this in this country, we've respected individual conscience as something that is of great moral importance, so I would hope the governor would rethink his regulation."
The governor's ruling came down days after abortion advocates criticized a Chicago pharmacist for opting against filling a woman's prescription for the morning after pill, citing his moral objections.
Blagojevich defended his ruling Wednesday and is seeking to make the 150-day order permanent.
"I believe that if you're a pharmacist and you've made a decision to sell birth control and contraceptives, once you made that decision, then you're in no position to decide who might or might not be someone you sell it to," Blagojevich told the Sun Times. "That's not your place as a pharmacist."
Cardinal George and Govenor Blagojevich met on Wednesday, but aides to both did not confirm whether the two discussed the pharmacist's order.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a pro-life law firm, filed suit in state court on behalf of two pharmacists who say dispensing such drugs violates their moral beliefs. They contend they should not be required to participate in the abortions the drugs may cause or to contribute to a customer's sexual activity.
The ACLJ lawsuit says the Governor's order is unenforceable and lawsuit urges the court to overturn it.
The lawsuit also points to the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which allows Illinois health care providers to not participate in medical services about which they have a moral objection.
Francis J. Manion, a senior ACLJ attorney said Blagojevich's directive "is not only legally flawed but it puts pharmacists in the untenable position of having to choose between adhering to their religious beliefs and violating a law that could cost them their jobs."
"The religious beliefs of those in the health care industry must be protected," said Manion. "The pro-life pharmacist who chooses not to dispense abortion producing drugs should not face punishment and discrimination for abiding by those convictions."
Peggy Pace and John Menges, two registered pharmacists who will not dispense the morning-after pill or Plan B medication because of their religious, moral, and ethical beliefs brought the lawsuit. Both believe the drugs can act as abortion agents.
Both work for retail pharmacy stores and they join other pharmacists who say they will not dispense such drugs.
Reject stem-cell proposal
May 08, 2005
Urging them to embrace the "moral" choice, Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic archbishop of Chicago, Wednesday lobbied Gov. Rod Blagojevich and lawmakers to reject a pending proposal that would encourage embryonic stem-cell research in Illinois and provide money for some projects.
(Chicago Tribune May 5, 2005) SPRINGFIELD -- In his annual visit to the Capitol to promote the archdiocese legislative agenda, George told legislators that such projects, opposed by the Roman Catholic Church on moral grounds, are not a good use of taxpayers' money.
"I don't think that what is as morally questionable as creating embryos to destroy them for scientific purposes should be funded by public money," George said in an interview with reporters. "It's funded by a lot of private money right now, and you shouldn't use that kind of means even to come to a very good end."
Key supporters of the current measure called George "diplomatic" but vowed to go ahead with their efforts to enact what would be one of the most progressive stem-cell research laws in the country.
The plan would impose a 6 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery in Illinois, with the proceeds to be distributed among promising research projects at Illinois universities and other advanced research facilities around the state.
State revenue officials estimate that if the tax had been in effect in 2004, it would have generated almost $20 million to fund Illinois research projects. Champions of the proposal say it would speed along scientific breakthroughs that could save and improve lives.
George said policymakers shouldn't be enticed by those promises.
"You don't need it at this point, from what we can tell," said George. "All of the medical breakthroughs, with one possible exception, have been with adult stem cells and with umbilical cords."
The Catholic Church supports some scientific research with stem cells, George said, but not those drawn from human embryos.
House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego), sponsor of the bill and the father of a child with juvenile diabetes, said the proposal doesn't conflict with his religious faith.
"I see an existing life, of someone like my daughter, Reynolds," said Cross, the son of a Methodist minister. "We have a responsibility to make her life better."
An aide to Comptroller Dan Hynes, a champion of the measure, also defined the issue in terms of public good.
"We understand and appreciate his position," spokeswoman Carol Knowles said of the cardinal, "but this issue is about scientific research and about saving lives."
The current proposal passed a House committee by a vote of 10-3 earlier this spring, and is awaiting further consideration.
The choice was `clear'
Apr 26, 2005
Once the doors of the Sistine Chapel shut Monday, it didn't take long for Roman Catholic cardinals to decide that their dean, Joseph Ratzinger, would provide the most logical sequel to John Paul II's pontificate and emerge as the 264th successor to St. Peter, Cardinal Francis George said Wednesday.
Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2005) VATICAN CITY -- "It was a choice that was clear almost from the beginning," George said in a news conference at the Pontifical North American College following Pope Benedict XVI's first mass. "You don't close off anything immediately because you want to be open to whatever the Holy Spirit might indicate. But the lines were clearly forming."
A day after the 24-hour papal conclave, George and other cardinals rallied around the new pontiff and tried to paint a portrait of his deep spirituality and intellect as well as his humanity. Cardinals expressed concern that the media have already created an unfair caricature of Pope Benedict XVI as a conservative and authoritarian prelate.
"I firmly believe that no matter who you are, God takes the most unusual people and puts them in positions of authority and power ... and uses it for his purpose," said Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit. "And so I believe Cardinal Ratzinger, with all his gifts and talents, and even some of his shortcomings, will somehow be able to reach others because it will be the grace of God that ultimately touches the hearts and minds of people."
Benedict XVI's grasp of world history and record of safeguarding the doctrines of the faith for the last 24 years have prepared him to lead the 1.1 billion Catholics around the world at this time of cultural transitions, George said.
"Twenty-six years ago when Karol Wojtyla was chosen to be the successor to Peter, some of the most difficult challenges to the church's mission came from the East," George said, referring to the threat of communism in Europe. "Twenty-six years later the most difficult challenges to the church's mission come from the West. There is a man now very well-prepared who understands Western society and the history of the world."
Addressing critics
Catholics disappointed by the selection of Ratzinger have questioned his openness to changes in the church such as the ordination of women and the use of contraceptives. George said critics should not blame Ratzinger for their discontent.
"Someone who is looking for changes in the essentials of faith, that's not going to happen under this pope nor any other," George said. "There is a certain clarity in teaching that has been associated with him. I think, fine, clarity helps us all. If that's the problem then the problem isn't with this particular pope or man or predecessor, the problem is with the Catholic faith itself. ... It's a personal question."
Cardinals also addressed questions about the age and health of Benedict XVI, who, at 78, is the oldest pontiff to be elected in the past century.
Although cardinals said age was not a factor in his election, Benedict XVI himself forecast an abbreviated tenure when addressing the cardinals Tuesday night. He compared his peacemaking role to that of Benedict XV, who worked to end World War I and prevent World War II.
"Benedict XVI is saying, `I, too ... hope in this short reign to be a man of peace and to be able to see to it that the world be spared any future war,'" George said.
Bound by an oath of secrecy, the cardinals shared what they could about the sequestered proceedings of the conclave.
"We all knew Ratzinger was a strong candidate because of his particular attitudes," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster [London]. "Looking for the people that might have the qualities, what was noticed in Ratzinger [was] he is a very spiritual, open and highly intelligent man. Only a few others could challenge him for his outstanding aspects."
Murphy-O'Connor said that once the votes were tallied and the announcement was made inside the conclave, the cardinals gasped, then clapped while Ratzinger kept his head bowed as if in prayer. Some cardinals were moved to tears as Ratzinger made his way to the Room of Tears--so called because of its emotional impact on new popes--to don his white vestments.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., said he was moved by the whole experience.
"It's wonderful to be in a group of 115 people and you're all equals and you are all talking, `Eminence this, Eminence that,' or first name this, first name that, and suddenly one of them is different--the election is over and there is a Holy Father," McCarrick said.
After the presentation of the new pontiff Tuesday on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the cardinals dined on bean soup, veal cordon bleu and ice cream, and toasted the new pope with champagne and a Latin song, George said.
Murphy-O'Connor said it was hard to settle on a tune. "It was very difficult when you have about a hundred different languages to get one song," the British cardinal said.
Collegial atmosphere
Cardinals said they expect the collegial atmosphere to continue. They know Ratzinger as a theologian who remains faithful to the tradition of the church but holds his colleagues' positions in high esteem and often seeks their advice. He is scheduled to meet with cardinals again Friday.
"We've always had round-robin discussions," McCarrick said, referring to his meetings with the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. "He's always had a wealth of experience, not just his own, when he comes up with an answer."
George said his experiences from working with Ratzinger have been similar. The new pope has a natural ability to synthesize information and point out the consensus in a group.
When George greeted Ratzinger for the first time as Holy Father, he said he kissed the pontiff's hand and promised his love and obedience. The new pope indicated to George that he would renew a church policy that gives bishops the power to discipline sexually abusive priests without having to appeal to the Vatican for removal from the priesthood.
At a news conference Wednesday, George downplayed talk that he is up for a job at the Vatican.
"I haven't been asked," he told reporters. "I'm happy in Chicago."
McCarrick also shared an account of his initial encounter with the new pope. One of Ratzinger's books, "The Servant of Our Joy," is one of the Washington cardinal's meditations.
"It's a very, very powerful book about priesthood, about living a life that brings joy," he said. "Yesterday [Tuesday] when I came up I said, `Holy Father, I pray that we will always be ... the servants of your joy, that we will bring joy to your life by our fidelity and by our striving always to be in union with you.'
"I think that is one of the things we can offer to the Holy Father, our fidelity, our unity, our willingness to be servants."
'Though I don't always see clearly, I do believe'
Apr 24, 2005
Prayerfully, mindfully and with not a small amount of trepidation, Cardinal Francis George is stepping ever closer to one of the most important decisions of his life.
(Chicago Sun-Times, April 17, 2005) VATICAN CITY -- He never expected to be in this position, to be one of the few people in the world to decide who will lead a billion Roman Catholics. To sit in the Sistine Chapel, to cast his vote. To witness, perhaps, as one churchman put it, "the Holy Spirit flying around the room."
For a man whose inner life takes place mostly between his ears -- "I think that's fair enough," George said of such an assessment of his intellectualism -- the weight of the decision has taken its toll mentally, spiritually.
And, quite naturally for someone given to frequent bouts of self-examination, it has spurred him to evaluate his own life, to look back on the spiritual hallmarks that have led him to this historic moment.
FRANCIS EUGENE GEORGE
Age: 68
Raised: Roman Catholic
Now: Roman Catholic
Attends: Holy Name Cathedral most often when he's not celebrating mass elsewhere
Words to live by: "Feelings are feelings. They're important. They're facts. Don't ignore them, or you'll suffer. But they're never the last word."
"At each turning, there's a call," George said in a long interview before the College of Cardinals' self-imposed pre-conclave media blackout went into effect last week. "You may not always see it as a call. Sometimes it's 'Why am I doing this now, and what am I doing here?' But it's a call. You have to see it as a call, and with God's grace, you do. And I have to say, I have. But I still have the question of why this call and not another.
"Nonetheless, each time there is a response to a call, you see a different dimension of Christ."
George is 68, and by all accounts he has been a good Catholic his whole life. By the book. Card-carrying. Gold standard, even.
With typical self-deprecation, he'd say such estimations are unmerited, that he's doing the best he can, that he fails often, and that he sometimes has doubts -- about the faith, about his call.
"Who hasn't?" Chicago's cardinal-archbishop since 1998 said, chuckling to himself. "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."
Savors time spent in academia
The younger of Francis J. and Julia George's two children -- he has an older sister, Margaret Mary -- Francis Eugene George was born in Chicago and reared on the city's Northwest Side, where he attended St. Pascal's School.
A stint at the diocesan Quigley Preparatory Seminary ended quickly because of what he describes as his disability. He suffered a bout of polio at age 13 that has left him with a limp and requires him to wear a metal brace on his right leg. Post-Quigley, he enrolled in St. Henry Preparatory Seminary in Downstate Belleville.
In 1957, George entered the religious order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate; he studied theology at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, and was ordained a priest in 1963. Two years later, he earned a master's degree in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and in 1970, he completed his first doctorate -- also in philosophy -- from Tulane University in New Orleans. (He holds a second doctorate, in ecclesiology, from the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.)
He taught philosophy at Tulane, Creighton and Gonzaga universities, and his time in academia is one he looks back on with great fondness, as if, perhaps, he would have been perfectly content to remain a simple professor.
But he did not. Eventually, George became vicar general -- the international head -- of his religious order, traveling the world to visit Oblate missionaries.
In 1990, Pope John Paul II ordained him a bishop, installed him as an archbishop in 1996, and in 1998 elevated him to the College of Cardinals -- the princes of the church.
It was during his years studying philosophy that George said he faced down some of the greatest intellectual challenges to his faith.
"You have to work through Hume and Hobbes and people like that who absolutely denied everything I'm living," he said. "So, if you don't take them seriously, you're not studying them. And if you do, it has personal [repercussions]. And I saw that. Some guys would go through that and not come out the other end.
"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 said quietly. "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.
"Even though I don't always see clearly, I do believe."
Once just Frannie George
As he's describing his intellectual and spiritual journey, George is a prince of the church seated in the parlor of the Pontifical North American College up Gianiculum Hill from the Vatican.
Fluent in Italian and several other languages, as well as the curious ways of Vatican politics, he is clearly one of the most well-regarded members of the College of Cardinals. One Vatican watcher has called him the "intellectual head" of the American church.
In fact, were he not an American, Vatican watchers say, he'd be a strong candidate for the papacy.
But he didn't start out that way.
Once upon a time, he was just Frannie George, a studious, 8-year-old Cubs fan about to make his first communion.
"I remember clearly that was the first time I thought of being a priest," he said. "People ask me, 'When did you choose?' I prayed for the gift at a certain point. And then hopefully Christ chose me because, while I went along, I can't say that it's my choice."
Parents' approaches differed
The Catholic Church has been a part of his life since he took his first breath at St. Francis Hospital on Jan. 16, 1937.
His parents, both devout Catholics, had their own, different, approaches to faith and practice.
"I think for my father, who was a very responsible man, it was bound up with duty. Duty to God, duty to religion," George said. "With my mother, it was more a sense of accompaniment. She had friends among the saints and the people she prayed to and the people she didn't.
"But my dad didn't get into that at all. It was pretty much bare bones. He was not into churchy things at all, really. He got into it more as I went on to priesthood and things, just because my friends were priests, and he got to know priests," he said.The cardinal says he believes his parents' divergent takes on Catholicism complemented his own spiritual formation.
"My introduction to Jesus was as a loving savior whose own suffering rescues me from my sinfulness and therefore enables me to live with him and the Father and the Spirit forever, and all of his friends," he said. "Without saying it, that was the Jesus presented to me. I remember it vividly; it was presented at the end of grade school. . . . I still remember the seventh-grade textbook."
Writings will help him focus
In fact, when asked whether there were people he turned to for spiritual guidance or as examples of how to live a life of faith, George couldn't readily come up with any names, apart from his first-grade teacher, Sister Rita McCabe, whom he still visits regularly.
"It was less a person as often as it was a text or a book," he said of where he found and continues to find spiritual guidance.
He seems to resonate most deeply with ideas.
"Oh yeah," he said. "I've always had an inclination there. But Christ is not an idea. Christ is a person. But ideas about him are very important. If you have a wrong idea, that stops your growth in God."
In the modest carry-on bag of belongings George brought with him to Rome -- he can pack light because he keeps an extra set of all of his elaborate liturgical robes and other cardinal-wear stored in Rome -- is a slim collection of the works of the late Cardinal John Henry Newman.
George, who Sunday afternoon moves into Domus Sanctae Marthae, the 130-room "hotel" John Paul II built to house the voting cardinals during the conclave, said Newman's writings would help focus his prayer and meditation as he prepared to choose the next pope.
Newman, a 19th century English convert to Roman Catholicism, wrote extensively about the challenge of secularism to faith in Western Europe.
"He stayed steadfast, but he kept raising the questions of one who had once known what it meant not to believe. He raised all of the questions of agnosticism and of the social role of the church," he said. "Newman was a very creative thinker. . . . He was a first-rate mind, no question about it. He raised the questions 100 years before anybody else that we have to answer today."
'Francis the Corrector'
Tolerance for what he calls wrong ideas about God is not exactly George's strong suit. (It is this trait that early in his tenure in Chicago earned him the unfortunate nickname of "Francis the Corrector.")
"That's one of the biggest difficulties. 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."
And he's not just talking about the sometimes-ignorant questions reporters ask him about this or that, to which, more often than not, he responds with a caustic retort.
"Reporters have a lot to worry about, so I don't worry about reporters. That's their job. But people within the church should know better and just are ignorant of the facts, no matter what you think about them. That puzzles me," he said.
Focuses on prayer
Still, he knows he doesn't always get it right, either.
Which is why, as he looked toward the conclave that begins Monday, he was so focused on prayer.
His own prayers and those of others who would pray for him.
"I know how inadequate my own prayers are at times like this. Somebody better be praying for me because --" he said, his voice trailing off rather somberly for a moment. "But I believe they can do that. And that makes a difference, that I'm not left to my own devices."
Can he feel people praying for him?
"I'm not sure how much I've permitted myself to feel it," he said. "You know, the feelings, you better be in touch with them, but don't trust them. They can lead you astray. You have to check feelings either with others or with your own judgment, etc. Feelings are feelings.
"They're important. They're facts. Don't ignore them, or you'll suffer. But they're never the last word."
The Vatican needs to appreciate the American cultural situation
Apr 17, 2005
I always find Cardinal Francis George of Chicago a fascinating interview, and he did not disappoint during our Oct. 20 session at the North American College in Rome
(National Catholic Reporter, 23 Oct 2003) George said that he had not seen the pope in six or seven months, and was "startled" by the deterioration he found.
I asked if there was a danger that the focus on his health was eclipsing the pope's message.
"But in many ways his condition is the message," George said. "Think of the last days of Cardinal [Joseph] Bernardin, in which the focus was entirely on his health. It was a tremendous witness, the way he chose to share it with the world."
I asked about how the pope's health plays in the American context. Given the recent sexual abuse crisis, and the perception of the need for energetic leadership, is this a bad time to have an elderly pope at the helm?
George didn't think so.
"Rome has given us the means, but the solutions have to come from the bishops and dioceses of the United States," George said. "As long as the moral support is there, the lead agents have to be the bishops who supervise the priests. The action is all local."
George suggested that the Vatican needs to appreciate the American cultural situation.
"Rome is always very good on the facts, but not necessarily good on the context," he said. "This can be a weakness, especially when judging public reaction is part of the equation."
On the subject of a future conclave, while stressing that "God is the primary actor," George said that doesn't take cardinals off the hook for exercising the best personal and political judgment possible.
"We can't be indifferent to our own concerns," George said. "This is an act of discernment."
George said that to prepare for the conclave, he will talk to bishops around the world, both those who come through Chicago and those he meets in Rome, about the challenges in the various local contexts.
Would he be open to a pope from the Third World?
"The pope is the bishop of Rome, so you look first for a Roman or Italian, out of courtesy if nothing else," George said. "Then you look to places where the church's mission is strong, where it has something to tell us. From that point of view, the developing world would make sense."
Asked to list the mega-challenges that will face the next pope, George identified secularization, religiously insurgent Islam, and the campaign for universal justice.
George said that one traditional criterion used to assess potential popes, age, didn't mean much to him.
"It's not a primary concern," he said. "We need somebody who can meet the challenges."
George also said that he was impatient with questions about papal resignation or incapacitation.
"I trust this pope's relationship with God," he said. "If God wants him to resign, he'll know that and he will."
Cardinal George says pope must be man of deep faith, multilingual
Apr 08, 2005
The next pope, like every pope, "must be a man of deep faith, a man striving to be holy, a man faithful to Christ and his teachings and a man who will bring them into our times," said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago.
ROME (CNS, Apr-6-2005) -- "Pope John Paul was a genius at this," the cardinal told reporters April 5.
The cardinal also said the next pope, as bishop of Rome, must speak Italian and, as pastor of the universal church, should be multilingual.
The issues the next pope will be called to deal with, he said, include "aggressive secularism" and the "scandal of the continuing gap between rich and poor."
The next pope must find new ways to dialogue with Muslims to help the world find peace and will have to face the continuing moral challenges raised by biotechnology and by changing sexual mores.
Cardinal George said the period before the conclave starts April 18 is the time the cardinals use to get to know each other better. Once the conclave begins, he said, the cardinals are dedicated to actual voting.
The cardinal later told reporters that the cardinals agreed that after the pope's April 8 funeral, they would not be giving press interviews but would begin a "very intense time of preparation" for the conclave.
Asked about the possibility that sophisticated listening devices could break the secrecy of the conclave, he said the cardinals were assured the Vatican had access to equally sophisticated technology to thwart efforts to eavesdrop.
In addition, he said, "They are not going to let us take anything in with us: no radios, no laptops, no telephones, no nothing."
With only three eligible cardinal-voters who have participated in a previous conclave, he said, "we are all learning" how the process works. "It is not confusing; it is just new."
Asked if he thought a cardinal who was anti-American could be elected, he replied: "We do not want a pope who is anti-anything. The pope must be able to empathize with every person and be a universal pastor."
A reporter asked Cardinal George if he thought the U.S. cardinals would look for a pope who might consider changing the church's ban against artificial birth control, especially to stem population growth as part of the battle against poverty.
The cardinal responded, "So your solution is to exterminate the poor in order to take care of poverty?
"The doctrine of the church is not going to change," he said, although the pope and bishops try to find pastoral ways to lead people to a full acceptance of the truth.
Finding one person with all the qualities needed in a pope will be difficult, he said. But "the one person should be able to call on people and understand ... by talking and listening to the experience of others."
Asked how the cardinals, coming from so many countries and backgrounds, can find consensus on one person, he said: "The great unifier for all of us is faith. Faith is the same everywhere," although personalities and social situations are different.
The unity of faith "creates an enormous community, with compassion and empathy. Pope John Paul II had that. He was not Asian, but when he went to Asia he was an Asian. When he went to Latin America, he became Latin American. Not because he was an actor, but because he was a man of faith, and God is everywhere," he said.
The next pope "will have to have something of that, given his own background and his own talents," Cardinal George said.
Asked point-blank which cardinal he would choose, the cardinal answered, "I do not have a specific person in mind."
The cardinal said he would be spending the next two weeks or so trying to get to know the other cardinals better.
The U.S. cardinals, he said, are unlikely to form any kind of united group behind one candidate.
"I don't think we're going to act as a group," he said. "We bring ourselves and our backgrounds, and we know the concerns of our people.
"We try to think about who will be a pope who will truly strengthen the faith," Cardinal George said. "I don't think there's anything more specific than that.
"I think any bloc would be resented. ... The most important things are the church and the faith," he said. "This is an exercise in unity, in community. To introduce a nation-state into that dynamic would be unfaithful to it."
The cardinal said he did not expect a bloc to be formed by the cardinals who worked in the Vatican, either.
"Most of the cardinals in the curia were once local bishops," but their experience at the Vatican has given them a broader understanding of issues facing the church around the world, he said.
"There may be divergences of opinion, but I don't think it will be curial cardinals versus others," he said.
Cardinal George also was asked about rumors that the cause for the canonization of Pope John Paul would open much sooner than the five years foreseen by church norms.
"I have not heard that yet, but I suspect that would be so because I think he lived with the Lord; it was very clear," the cardinal said. "He prayed constantly. He was a man who was at home with God and lived with God. So if that is sanctity, and that is what it means, union with God, then he is obviously a holy man. Whether the church formally makes him a saint is another question."
Interview with Cardinal Francis George on Liturgical Translations
Mar 21, 2005
I sat down March 10 with Cardinal Francis George of Chicago at the North American College. George was in Rome for a meeting of the Vox Clara Commission, which advises the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on liturgical translation.
(The National Catholic Reporter, March 11, 2005) We spoke about liturgical questions, the pope's health, and the norms in the American church governing sexual abuse of minors by priests.
Probably the newsiest bit was George's confirmation that when the Vatican re-approves the norms, the American "one-strike" policy will remain intact. That policy decrees that any priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor is either to be removed from the priesthood, or permanently removed from priestly ministry. George said he expects that re-approval by the end of March; the norms were approved for two years in 2003, and expire this month.
My story, " 'One-strike' policy to be retained, says cardinal," is in the March 19 issue of NCR.
On liturgical matters, George said that English-speaking Catholics will indeed one day be saying "and with your Spirit" rather than "and also with you" when the celebrant says "The Lord be with you" during Mass. While there's room to discuss other proposed changes, he said, that one was specifically requested in the 2001 Vatican document Liturgiam Authenticam, and hence it's a foregone conclusion.
He conceded it may be tough for some Catholics to swallow.
"People possess the English texts in a way they never possessed the Latin," he said. "For some, it will be a difficult habit to break."
For precisely that reason, George said, the preference among most bishops is to leave the rest of the "people's parts," meaning those phrases spoken aloud by the faithful, alone.
In addition to Vox Clara, George also serves as the American representative to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), a body that prepares translations of liturgical texts for the English-speaking bishops' conferences. ICEL was on the front lines of the "liturgy wars" in recent years, which culminated in a shift toward a more traditional style of liturgical translation, closer to the Latin.
George said things today in ICEL are "more relaxed."
"There are real differences of opinion, but there's trust," he said.
George argued that since concerns about the doctrinal fidelity of liturgical texts seem largely resolved, the bishops can return to some traditional issues associated with ICEL: a text's suitability for public proclamation, its beauty as English prose, and its comprehensibility.
Still, George predicted it will be at least another three years before work is completed on the new Roman Missal, the book containing the prayers for the Mass. He said roughly 40 percent of the work is done, and that the rest could be completed within that time "with a lot of hard work by a lot of people."
I pressed George on the "collateral damage" from the liturgy wars. Many professional liturgists in the English-speaking world, I observed, range from skepticism to hostility regarding recent changes in direction. As a pastor, what does he make of that, I asked.
George said that the liturgical community is not monolithic, but conceded that probably "a majority" of liturgists is suspicious.
That's not all bad, he said, since critical reactions to some early drafts of the new order of Mass have helped the bishops weigh important questions, such as how different the language of worship should be from ordinary speech. George said the word "deign," for example, which figured in early ICEL translations of the Mass, "probably won't be used."
Some liturgists, I noted, feel that what's happened is not so much about content as about power, specifically Rome's desire to take control of liturgical translation away from local churches.
"The challenge Rome put to the local bishops was to take possession of the process itself, to have bishops involved in every step," George said. "Maybe it's more accurate to say that control has been taken away from the experts and given back to the bishops."
"Canonically, I don't believe it's any more centralized than before," George said. "The structures are intact, but with a different cast of characters."
George did not minimize the fact that there are "deep wounds among people, very faithful people, who worked on liturgical issues over the years."
In the end, George said, the proof is in the pudding. "They have to be convinced by the texts," he said.
On the pope's health, we discussed the lacuna in canon law concerning incapacitation of a pope. There is no procedure for removing a pope if he should slip into a coma, or otherwise be alive but unable to communicate his will.
George said that, perhaps surprisingly, he's not worried about it.
"I ask myself, why am I not concerned?" he said. "I just don't think it will happen, and I don't really know why. I suppose it has something to do with the providence of God. This is a holy man, and somehow if God keeps his promises regarding the good of the church, it won't come to that."
At the same time, George conceded, "we can't second-guess God."
"It could be foolish, but I'm just not concerned," he said.
George said he can't imagine John Paul II resigning, but at the same time it's clearly "thinkable."
"I have great confidence in the prayer of the pope," he said. "Who can say what the Holy Spirit will or won't do? I truly believe that the Holy Spirit is an actor in all this, not just a vague term for our own desires."
Loyola University Chicago Ignore Cardinal and US Bishops, Grant Award to Avowed Pro-abortionist
Oct 18, 2004
Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit institution, have ignored a request by Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, that they cancel this year’s granting of the Saint Robert Bellarmine award to avowed pro-abortionist Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
(CNA, Sep. 16, 2004) CHICAGO, USA - In a statement issued on September 15 the university affirmed that the award will go to Attorney General Madigan who “has indeed distinguished herself as a public servant.”
The statement then goes on to insist on the university’s Catholic identity and emphasises it’s “many efforts to nurture our students’ faith.”
The university’s decision, however, ignores not only Cardinal George’s request but also the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ July 2004 statement on Catholics in Political Life which states that: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Perte de l’autorité morale de l’Eglise
Oct 04, 2004
Pour le cardinal Francis E. George, archevêque de Chicago, la voix morale de l’Eglise qui s’est toujours exprimée dans la société moderne sur des thèmes comme l’avortement ou la guerre, a perdu beaucoup de sa force.
(DICI, 7/2/2004) Pour le cardinal Francis E. George, archevêque de Chicago, la voix morale de l’Eglise qui s’est toujours exprimée dans la société moderne sur des thèmes comme l’avortement ou la guerre, a perdu beaucoup de sa force. "Même si le message reste le même, la voix de l’Eglise est peut-être devenue davantage un murmure que le cri d’autrefois", déplore-t-il.
Lors d’une rencontre avec des prêtres au "Cardinal Bernardin Early Childhood Center" de Chicago, l’archevêque de la métropole américaine a relevé que l’autorité de l’Eglise a perdu du terrain quand la société a commencé à faire passer la liberté personnelle des individus avant l’autorité morale objective.
Le scandale des abus sexuels a éclaté au milieu de ce scepticisme concernant la religion, constate le prélat américain, ce qui a eu pour effet de mettre encore davantage en question le droit de l’Eglise catholique à réclamer pour elle une quelconque autorité morale.
En faveur de la messe de saint Pie V
Oct 04, 2004
Le cardinal Francis Eugene George, archevêque de Chicago, se prononce en faveur de la liturgie traditionnelle.
(DICI, 25/10/2003) Le cardinal Francis Eugene George, archevêque de Chicago, se prononce en faveur de la liturgie traditionnelle. Dans une préface rédigée pour les actes du congrès du Comité international d’études liturgiques (C.I.E.L.), et publiée en avant-première dans La Nef de septembre 2003, il souligne que ce rite est "une source précieuse de compréhension liturgique pour tous les autres rites" et qu’il doit être "mieux accepté".
Le cardinal George affirme : "Nous sommes à un moment d’une importance considérable pour la liturgie de 1962." Il ajoute que "le Saint-Père a lui-même, il y a quelque temps, attiré notre attention sur la beauté et la profondeur du missel de saint Pie V".
Selon lui, "un usage plus large du missel romain de 1962, dans le cadre qui a été autorisé, doit être plus que le renouveau nostalgique d’un rite vénérable". Et de préciser : "Cette liturgie appartient à l’Église tout entière comme le riche véhicule de l’esprit qui doit rayonner aussi dans la célébration selon la troisième édition typique du missel romain actuel".
Blessing a New Porsche Showroom
Sept 18, 2004
At least it was Tuesday morning when Cardinal Francis George blessed the new Lynch Porsche showroom at Irving Park and Laramie.
(27 January 2001) "Bless all those who will use this building, either as buyers or sellers, so that by respecting justice and charity, they will see themselves as working for the common good and find joy in contributing to the progress of the earthly city," George prayed. "May God the father of goodness, who commended us to help each other as brothers and sisters, bless this new building with his presence and look kindly on all who enter here, Amen."
The cardinal lifted his hand to make the sign of the cross and then grabbed a small vial of holy water, flinging droplets across the spotless hood of a $63,000 arctic silver Boxster. "You can't sell that car once it's been blessed," the archbishop quipped.
"I hope you like silver," retorted Porsche dealership owner Rick Lynch.
"Father, can you drive stick shift?" Lynch asked the Rev. John "JJ" McDonnell, George's driver.
"He can't," George said, throwing his head back to laugh.
After blessing the showroom, George took a moment to deliver a personal blessing for Julie Lindahl, a Lynch employee who is expecting her second child in March.
"Lynch is very kind to me," the cardinal said, explaining that the car dealership near St. Pascal's parish where he grew up lends him a Buick LeSabre each year for his official use. "That way the archdiocese doesn't have to buy me a car and I don't have to buy a car." A new LeSabre runs about $24,000, according to the Kelley Blue Book.
The cardinal looked a little uncomfortable when he walked into the glassed-in showroom, lined with 21 shiny new Porsches, ranging in price from about $50,000 to more than $100,000.
When asked if the fact that it was a Porsche dealership gave him pause, the cardinal was a little flummoxed. "Well, I mean, it's all part of the landscape," he said, laughing.
As the cardinal left the showroom and walked toward his far-less-snazzy car, he wondered aloud, "Where's Father JJ?" McDonnell was standing a few yards away eyeing a $115,000 convertible.
"You can't have one," George shouted, as Father McDonnell hustled past to start the archbishop's forest green LeSabre parked at the curb.
More Discussion on General Absolution
Sept 18, 2004
A long festering controversy over the practice of general absolution in Chicago-area parishes may be moving toward a resolution. During a two-hour meeting in mid-June between Cardinal Francis George and some 100 pastors, tentative steps were taken toward rapprochement, though the two sides are still far apart.
(28 July 2001) Many Chicago pastors favor general absolution -- one of three forms for the sacrament of penance prescribed in the Roman Ritual -- as a way of attracting more people to the sacrament and responding to a growing shortage of priests. Pastors say the tradition is firmly established in the archdiocese and should be respected.
George, however, says the Chicago practice does not meet criteria established in canon law.
According to canon law, the rite of general absolution is reserved for situations in which people are in danger of death or when the number penitents is so large that there aren’t enough confessors to hear confessions in a timely manner.
George said he would be willing to “bring a report on our experience with the rite directly to the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship.” But he immediately added, “This does not mean I personally believe that the conditions for the ordinary use of general absolution are met here at this time; they are not.”
For more than 25 years a sizable number of Chicago archdiocesan parishes, especially large ones (and most often during Advent and Lent), have followed the church’s rite for general absolution as an alternative to individual confession to a priest. Some of the parishes using general absolution in the Chicago area have more than 3,500 families. The rite consists of a communal service involving prayer, scripture reading, an extended examination of conscience, a joint statement of contrition, a silent imposing of hands on each penitent by a priest, followed by a statement general absolution for participants.
Though all present are absolved through this rite, the law states that those conscious of mortal sin must intend to confess individually at a later time.
The diocesan bishop is to determine if circumstances justify use of general absolution.
In a letter to pastors after the meeting, George wrote, “The reasons for making use of general absolution are not unpersuasive, and those talking to the question were some of our most effective pastors, all of whom are also giving time to hearing individual confessions.” He added, “If we are to work toward change we have to work together, with mutual trust and in obedience to the Church, which gives us the only authority we possess.”
“Though the misuse of authority weakens the Church,” he wrote, the pastoral question is “how can we together come to some alternative for general absolution which will still bring the forgiveness of God into our people’s lives. This demands more discussion.” He called for another meeting with the priests in three months.
Cardinal George Backs Traditional Liturgy
Sept 15, 2004
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has given his clear support for the use of the Tridentine-rite liturgy.
(Versailles, Oct. 14, 2003, CWNews.com) - In a preface written for a collection produced by the International Committee for Liturgical Studies (CIEL), Cardinal George has referred to the Missal of St. Pius V as "a precious source of liturgical understanding for all other rites," and said that the pre-conciliar liturgy should be "better accepted." The work by CIEL, a Versailles-based organization faithful to the traditional liturgy, was published in France.
Statement Re: Protests of those Supporting Gay Marriage
Sept 11, 2004
Today’s demonstration attempts to take the Catholic Church’s support for marriage as a lifelong union between a man and woman for the sake of family and falsely characterize it as an attack on gay people. That is inflammatory and untrue.
(14 February, 2004) Marriage is a natural institution. It is the invention of neither the Church nor of the State, and neither has the authority to change its nature. In pointing out this rather obvious truth, the Church concludes that there is no legal parity between marriage and homosexual unions, because there is no biological or moral parity between them.
The Church’s resolute opposition to State institution of a completely new sense of marriage unfortunately causes tension between the Church and some of the gay community. Some actually find opposition to so-called “gay marriage” as a species of attack against homosexuals themselves.
The Catholic Church opposes anyone who would punish, demean or attack any person because of his or her homosexual orientation. However, it is a very great leap to move from respect for and acceptance of homosexual individuals to a demand that sexual relations between persons of the same sex be treated as the equivalent of marriage, morally and legally. The nature of life itself, of marriage and of faith cannot be simply subsumed into the language of individual rights.
What the Church sees at issue here and in other legal matters is her own right to exist as a community of faith, free to teach and live as she believes Christ demands, and do so without harassment and hostility. As the gay community demands the same, I would hope that the Church’s stance on marriage is no longer misrepresented as a hostile attack on gays and that the Church and the gay community could find a language other than that of individual rights to address adequately their differences.
Finally, since the Catholic Church is only one of many groups and communities that stand in defense of marriage, the protest seems as motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry as by any concern for rights.
The Archdiocese of Chicago's Ministry to Homosexual Catholics is Expanding
Sept 11, 2004
The Archdiocese of Chicago's ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics is expanding to the suburbs. Cardinal Francis George has given the go-ahead for the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach program -- known as AGLO -- to set up its first suburban outpost at St. Emeric's Church in Country Club Hills.
(www.rcf.org, 2004) In the September 20, 2000 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times there appeared an article titled: STEPPING INTO THE LIGHT-Group for gay Catholics expands to south suburbs, By Cathleen Falsani, Suburban Reporter in which the Sun Times announced:
The Archdiocese of Chicago's ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics is expanding to the suburbs. Cardinal Francis George has given the go-ahead for the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach program -- known as AGLO -- to set up its first suburban outpost at St. Emeric's Church in Country Club Hills.
The Times went on to speak of Gary Pate, co-director of the Cardinal’s AGLO ministry:
Gary Pate remembers the first time he attended an AGLO mass, six years ago. ‘I know when I first went, there was a sense of coming home, a sense of belonging,’ said Pate, a social worker who once studied for the priesthood. While he disagrees with some church teaching about homosexuality and other issues, at AGLO Pate said he has been able to wrestle with questions of faith, sexuality and church teaching without being pressured to change. ‘AGLO is an outreach ministry,’ said Pate, who is now an AGLO board member and co-director of the ministry. ‘Let them get settled, feel at home and then begin to struggle with whatever they need to struggle with.’
And there is more. An article in the December 4, 2000 issue of Daily Southtown (By Allison Hantschel) reported on the “gay” Mass held at St. Emeric’s Catholic Church. Fr, Seaman, pastor of St. Emeric’s, was reported to have said, according to the paper:
he would be reluctant to order a loving [homosexual] couple to end their relationship. ‘I am not sure I see the sense in trying to halt a long-term committed relationship…’
So we have the co-director of the Archdiocese’s ministry to homosexuals publicly stating he does not accept Church teaching regarding homosexuality and that AGLO does not pressure anyone to change. And the pastor, Fr. Seaman, sees no sense in attempting to pull a homosexual couple out of their sinful lifestyle. What a scandal. Father refers to a homosexual relationship as “loving”. Is Father a Catholic Priest? Is it love to sodomize someone? To allow this to go unanswered is cruel to the homosexual and shows a complete lack of charity. No misinterpretation is possible. But there is more regarding AGLO and the danger it represents to the spiritual well-being of the homosexual as well as the general public under Cardinal George’s care.
On July 11, 1999 RCF issued a press release regarding an obituary that appeared in the August 8, 1998 Tribune that listed Robert Boyle as the “Life Partner” of the deceased. At the time of the press release Mr. Robert Boyle was the “Education Commissioner” at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, home to AGLO.
In addition, on July 27, 1999 RCF interviewed a “recovering” homosexual who had been part of the AGLO community at OLMC parish. He told us of homosexual activity being promoted in the confessional. He also told us of a priest he knew personally who hung out with the AGLO crowd and was a very active homosexual. AGLO advertises its “Ministry” on a Gay Web site called QCOMMUNITY ( http://www.qcommunity.com/local/illinois/042601il.htm ). On the same page as AGLO’s mission statement is an advertisement for “buyitgay.com” where a Catholic shopper can buy anything from sex toys to gay porno.
Now let’s address Communication Ministry, Inc. (CMI), a group for gay priests, nuns and religious operating out of Chicago in violation of Illinois law. RCF has made this information available to the Cardinal George in the past. CMI’s September 2000 newsletter contains a letter from a “gay priest” on page 7. The priest thanks CMI for its members’ support for him and his male partner of 6 years. This is one example of many regarding CMI’s danger to all concerned. CMI operates out of the Christian Brothers’ property with the help of Franciscans and other religious in Chicago.
These are but a few examples of the administrative actions Cardinal George has permitted that lead RCF to wonder just what he believes. Regrettably we must conclude that His Eminence is not competent to lead the archdiocese of Chicago.
Cardinal George Gives Cold Shoulder to the Rainbow Sash Movement
Sept 10, 2004
The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) is deeply saddened by the response of Francis Cardinal George to the presence of gay and lesbian Catholics at the Cathedral for Pentecost Sunday, May 30, 2004 at 12:30PM.
(PRNewswire, 26 May 2004) The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) is deeply saddened by the response of Francis Cardinal George to the presence of gay and lesbian Catholics at the Cathedral for Pentecost Sunday, May 30, 2004 at 12:30PM.
In wearing the Rainbow Sash we call Cardinal George to honor our experience, we continue to call on him to honor his commitment to Rainbow Sash Movement for ongoing public dialogue, and to work with us for justice and understanding.
Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has notified the Rainbow Sash Movement that his Cathedral will welcome Rainbow Sash Members as part of the Catholic Family to his Cathedral, and when RSM members present themselves for Communion they will receive It.
It saddens us to have to say Cardinal George no more understands us, than he does the gay and lesbian Catholic Community, as is exampled by his letter to all his pastors to promote Discrimination of Gay and Lesbian Catholics at the Eucharistic table.
To instruct his parish pastors to judge people at the alter rail, and deny them Communion lacks pastoral awareness, as is emphasized by the Church's Teaching on the "Primacy of Conscience."
Going to church and receiving Communion is a personal act of faith and we don't think it is good judgment to turn it into a tool of confrontation at the altar rail.
Cardinals George and Mahony both support the Teaching of the Catholic Church, however, one promotes discrimination at the Eucharistic table, and the other does not.
The Rainbow Sash Movement will be entering Churches and Cathedrals around the country on Pentecost as a sign of the universality of the Church. This universality includes gays and lesbians, and gay and lesbian families. We thank Cardinal Mahony for welcoming us.
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