Biography shows how providence guided Cardinal George to Church leadership
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago confirms Alisha Webber, a member of Holy Family Parish in Oldenburg, during a May 3, 2009, Mass at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis that celebrated the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Vincennes, Ind., which later became the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. (Criterion file photo by Sean Gallagher)
By Sean Gallagher
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago traveled to Indianapolis in 2009 for the celebration of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Vincennes, Ind., which later became the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
At the time of its founding in 1834, the Diocese of Vincennes included the eastern third of Illinois in which was located a village on the shores of Lake Michigan called Chicago.
In an interview with The Criterion at the time of the anniversary, Cardinal George reflected on the work of providence in the life of the Church, noting that “every once in a while the curtain of ordinary living is drawn back to reveal the greater significance of what our lives are about,” adding that such moments show “how God’s providence guides the Church through the centuries.”
Cardinal George knew the mysterious reality of divine providence well in his own life.
His story, shot through with providence, is ably told in a new biography about him, Glorifying Christ: The Life of Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I. by Michael Heinlein (Our Sunday Visitor 2023).
Born in Chicago in 1937, Cardinal George felt a call to the priesthood while a young student at St. Pascal School. His dream of serving as a priest in the Chicago Archdiocese came to an end, though, when he contracted polio as an eighth-grade student and lost some of the use of his right leg as a result.
Leaders at the archdiocese’s high school seminary made it clear to young Francis George that he could never expect to be ordained.
Providence, it seemed, had turned him away from serving the Church in Chicago. So, Cardinal George enrolled instead at a high school seminary operated in southern Illinois by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate religious order.
Discerning a call to serve the Church in the worldwide missionary congregation, Cardinal George was ordained a priest in 1963. Soon showing his worth, intellect and leadership abilities, Cardinal George rose within a decade to serve as second in authority in the order.
In 1990, he was appointed bishop of Yakima, Wash. Seven years later, providence turned the journey of Cardinal George back to Chicago when St. John Paul II appointed him to serve as the shepherd of the Church there.
Heinlein included a quip by Cardinal George upon his return to St. Pascal Parish to celebrate Mass there shortly after he was installed as archbishop: “I never expected, as one going to Mass here, to stand here as archbishop. So it better be God’s will or else we’re all in trouble.”
Cardinal George could take lightly such a momentous turn in his life because he knew in humility that it wasn’t himself in control of his life, but the loving providence of God.
Heinlein highlights well throughout his book Cardinal George’s humor, intelligence and insight into the persisting relevance of faith in an increasingly secular society.
But Heinlein’s exploration of the role of suffering in Cardinal George’s life and how it helped him minister to others in their own darkness and pain was truly compelling.
He lived with physical hardships most of his life through the ongoing effects of polio and in later bouts with cancer, which eventually led to his death.
The tensions in the Church through the past half century in the implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and in the effects of contemporary culture on the faithful were other ongoing sources of suffering for Cardinal George.
He helped lead the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the 1970s and early 1980s when many of its members left the order. Heinlein describes well the difficulties Cardinal George faced in leading the frequently fractious presbyterate of the Chicago Archdiocese.
Perhaps the most challenging suffering of all that Cardinal George faced—but one that he never tried to avoid—was the heartrending effect of clergy sexual abuse on victims and the broader Church.
Heinlein documented in detail how Cardinal George, as archbishop of Chicago and later president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was a leading voice of reform in the Church in the U.S. and at the Holy See in response to revelations of clergy sexual abuse.
Constantly bearing many crosses didn’t embitter Cardinal George, however. Instead, it made him more sympathetic to others whose lives were marked by pain.
Heinlein poignantly recalls how Cardinal George always took time from his weighty responsibilities as the pastoral leader of one of the nation’s largest archdioceses to spend time ministering to the sick, those in need, victims of clergy sexual abuse and priests struggling to live out their calling.
God’s providence may have led Cardinal George to positions of high leadership in the Church, but he never lost sight of his vocation in ordained ministry to show forth the mercy and compassion of Christ to others in personal encounters.
Heinlein emphasized how Cardinal George, ordained a priest in the midst of Vatican II, sought to embody the fullness of the council’s teachings in his ordained ministry by keeping Christ at the center of his life and seeking to share the Gospel in ways fit for the culture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Cardinal George was determined to keep to this course when many around him in the Church retreated to different competing camps of interpretations of the council, putting on themselves any number of labels—conservative, liberal, traditional, progressive—to mark themselves off from others.
Cardinal George strongly rejected this divisive trend and dedicated himself to fostering unity in the Church.
This work was left undone at his death in 2015. In the years that have followed, its importance has arguably only increased.
So, Heinlein’s biography of a leader of the Church in America who sought, as noted in his episcopal motto, to glorify Christ in the Church, has come at an important time, perhaps a providential time.
If reading this detailed and sensitive biography can in some small way advance the work of building up unity in the Church, then the power of providence will be shown by God’s ability to work today through the life of Cardinal George, eight years after God called him to himself. †
