CHICAGO (IL)
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
APRIL 17, 2015
Cardinal Francis E. George, who was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago for 17 years and helped shape the American Catholic bishops’ response to the child sexual abuse scandal and their resistance to the Obama health plan’s contraception coverage, died on Friday at his residence in Chicago. He was 78.
The cause was cancer, the archdiocese said. Discovered in 2006, the cancer originated in his bladder and spread. But Cardinal George continued to work until November, when he stepped down. In December he announced that experimental treatments he had received had failed.
A quiet, cerebral man, Cardinal George was appointed to lead the Chicago archdiocese by Pope John Paul II. He was the first Chicago native to hold the seat.
It was his prominent role in responding to the sexual abuse scandal in 2002 that first made Cardinal George a national figure. Although it would be five years before he was named president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, he helped persuade his brother bishops to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy, barring priests who had been credibly accused of abuse from serving in ministry.
He was credited with then shepherding the policy change through an initially resistant Vatican.
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