WASHINGTON
Seattle PI
Posted on September 19, 2014 | By Joel Connelly
Spokane Bishop Blase Cupich has been tapped to succeed Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago in the most important ecclesiastical appointment facing Pope Francis, according to the Associated Press.
Cupich, 65, would succeed the cancer-stricken, 77-year-old George, a conservative disciplinarian in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. A Saturday morning news conference is scheduled in Chicago.
Cupich will be heading his third diocese, having served as bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota — Lakota Indians gave him the nickname “White Thunder” — and since 2010 as bishop of the troubled Spokane diocese. In 2004, Spokane was one of the first American dioceses to file for bankruptcy due to lawsuits over sexual abuse by its clergy.
The authoritative website “Whispers in the Loggia” has described Cupich as “one of the most competent and effective (and, indeed tech savvy) members of the Stateside bench.” It described his role as “lead man” in dealing with fallout from the sex abuse scandal that hit America’s Catholic Church in the last decade.
But Cupich was a strong opponent of Washington’s marriage equality referendum in 2012. He will be going to Illinois, which recently legalized same-sex marriage.
In a 2012 letter to parishoners, called “Some Reflections on Referendum 74,” Cupich argued:
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