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Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago from 1997 to 2014, died Friday at the age of 78 after a long battle with cancer, the Archdiocese of Chicago has confirmed.
George, who retired as Chicago archbishop in the fall of 2014, died Friday morning after a long fight with cancer. George's death was announced by his successor Archbishop Blase Cupich. George announced in December 2014 that doctors had determined their treatment for the cancer found on his kidney had failed.
Appointed to Chicago in 1997 by Pope John Paul II and elevated to the College of Cardinals in 1998, George became a leading figure of his era in many of the most important events in the American church.
He oversaw the contentious new English-language translation of the Roman Missal, one of the biggest changes in Catholic worship in generations. In 2002, at the height of the abuse crisis, he led a group of U.S. bishops who persuaded resistant Vatican officials they should more quickly oust guilty priests -- a policy at the core of reforms meant to restore trust in church leaders.
He was appointed president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2007, leading the bishops' opposition to ObamaCare, arguing the law would use taxpayer money for funding abortion. In 2012, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago joined dozens of dioceses and Catholic nonprofits in suing the Obama administration over the requirement that employers provide health insurance that covers contraception.
"I don't believe the bishops have been more politically active in recent years, but it is true that our political activity is more adversarial as the law no longer permits the exceptions that used to safeguard believers whose conscience will not permit them to approve of what has become lawful," George told the Jesuit magazine America, in an October 2014 interview.
The first Chicago native to become the city's archbishop, George grew up in a working class neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side. A five-month bout with polio at age 13 left him with a lifelong limp. He was initially rejected from a high school seminary because he was disabled, but went on to become an intellectual leader within the church. George earned two doctorates, spoke Italian, Spanish, French and other languages, and wrote several books. A member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, he eventually helped lead the religious order as vicar general based in Rome. In 1990, he was appointed Bishop of Yakima, Wash., then archbishop of Portland, Ore., before being assigned to Chicago.
George's appointment to the Archdiocese of Chicago, the third-largest diocese in the U.S. with 2.2 million parishioners, underscored the shift under John Paul toward upholding orthodoxy and drawing a more definitive line about what could be considered truly Catholic.
