CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

The day after Cardinal Francis George stepped down as leader of Chicago’s 2.3 million Catholics was a Sunday and Eleanor Franczak, a parishioner at St. Michael’s Church in Orland Park, summed the cardinal’s tenure this way: “He was one of us. He wasn’t any better or worse, just a normal person.”

It was an assessment that Cardinal George, who died Friday morning at home after a nine-year struggle with cancer, would have wholeheartedly endorsed. When he learned that Pope John Paul II had named him as the successor to Chicago’s popular Cardinal Bernardin, the unassuming priest asked in surprise, “Are you sure the Holy Father has considered all the options?”

But that modesty concealed a man who was an accomplished scholar, a skilled writer, and an unyielding defender of the faith. …

George presided over the archdiocese during a difficult period for the church, marked…