CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Sep. 21, 2014
Challenges facing the Catholic church throughout the U.S. require leaders to be “real” and to not “get caught up in living in our own little bubble of an idea,” Chicago’s new archbishop told NCR in an exclusive interview Sunday.
“You cannot base your decisions on a past era where things were different,” said Archbishop-designate Blase Cupich, who was appointed by Pope Francis Saturday as Chicago’s new Catholic leader. “I think that’s where we’re going to get in trouble.”
Cupich, 65, bishop of Spokane, Wash., since 2010, will succeed Cardinal Francis George, 77, as Chicago archbishop at an installation Mass Nov. 18.
Describing himself primarily as the “son of my parents,” Cupich also said he is someone who is “going to work with the system” but is also going to “look for a way in which things have to move forward and especially when feeling strongly about something, be willing to move forward with it.”
The new posting will bring special prominence to the Omaha, Neb., native, as Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and historically one of the most important, playing a major role among the American episcopate as well as in Rome.
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