Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

 

 

 

 

 

His Eminence Francis Eugene Cardinal George, O.M.I., eighth Archbishop of Chicago. He is the first native Chicagoan to serve as Archbishop of Chicago. He entered the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate on August 14, 1957. After which, he studied theology at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and was ordained a priest on December 21, 1963.
Cardinal George earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1965 and a doctorate in American philosophy at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1970. In 1971, he received a master’s degree in theology from the University of Ottawa in Canada. During those years, he also taught philosophy at the Oblate Seminary, Pass Christian, Mississippi (1964-69), Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (1968) and at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska (1969-1973).

He became coordinator of the Circle of Fellows for the Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1987-1990). During that time, he obtained a Doctorate of Sacred Theology in ecclesiology from the Pontifical Urban University, Rome, Italy (1989).

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Yakima on July 10, 1990. He served there for five and a half years before being appointed Archbishop of Portland in Oregon by Pope John Paul II on April 30, 1996. Less than a year later, on April 8, 1997, Pope John Paul II named him the eighth Archbishop of Chicago.

On January 18, 1998, Pope John Paul II announced Archbishop George’s elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals. After the Consistory of February 21, 1998, Cardinal George was also appointed a member of the Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.” In 1999, Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal George to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. In 2001, the Pope appointed him to the Congregation for Oriental Churches and, in 2004, he appointed Cardinal George to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

He was a papal appointee to the 1994 World Synod of Bishops on Consecrated Life and a delegate and one of two special secretaries at the Synod of Bishops for America in 1997.  He was a delegate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the 2001 World Synod of Bishops and was also elected to the Council for the World Synod of Bishops in 2001.  He will serve as a delegate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the 2008 World Synod of Bishops on    “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

He is President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and a member of the USCCB Committee on Liturgy and the ad hoc Committee on Shrines. He also serves as consultant to the USCCB Committees on Doctrine and Pro-Life Activities and the Subcommittee on Lay Ministry. He was Vice-President of the USCCB from 2004-2007. He has also served on USCCB Committees on Doctrine, on Latin America, on Missions, on Religious Life, the American Board of Catholic Missions, and on World Missions; on the ad hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism and the Subcommittee on Campus Ministry.

He is publisher of The Catholic New World,Chicago Catolico, and Katolik, the official newspapers of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and writes a column for these newspapers. He is also interviewed monthly on “Catholic Community of Faith,” a radio program sponsored by the Archdiocese on WSCN 820-AM, and he is on the Chicago Loop Cable Ch. 25 program “The Church, The Cardinal and You.”

As Archbishop of Chicago, he has issued two pastoral letters: on evangelization, “Becoming an Evangelizing People,” (November 21, 1997) and on racism, “Dwell in My Love” (April 4, 2001).

He is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Society of Missiologists and the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs. In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, Spanish and some German.