On the first Sunday since his appointment was announced, Catholics in Oregon lamented their fleeting glimpse of someone who soon will become quite visible to their Chicago counterparts.
Francis E. George, announced Tuesday as the new archbishop of Chicago, is leaving one archdiocese that had been warming to him for another that appears ready to do the same.
“I’m extremely sad he’s going to Chicago,” said Connie Smith, a Catholic leader in Oregon. “I guess Chicago needs him, but we do too.”
In Chicago, Catholics appeared eager to claim George and find out more about him as he assumes leadership of the nationally important archdiocese.
“We can’t wait to get him. Chicago’s going to take care of him,” said Eleanor Mars, as she was leaving St. Jerome Church in Rogers Park. “Chicago’s going to give him a welcome.”
For now, George is occupying himself with farewells.
Saying mass this weekend at a quaint Catholic chapel in Wilsonville, Ore., he met with parishioners saddened by his departure as archbishop of Western Portland to succeed the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Chicago.
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While interviews here indicated he remains an unknown, George’s mere 10 months as archbishop of Western Portland left a favorable impression.
At the end of his homily at St. Cyril’s Catholic Church in Wilsonville and in a speech to the Portland Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women afterward, George said he was shocked to learn he had been selected to lead Chicago Catholics, and he asked those in attendance to pray for him.
“When there is surprise, you know God is near,” said George. “If that’s true, God is very near.”
Parishioners said Portland’s loss would be Chicago’s gain.
“He would have been a marvelous benefit to us,” said Gail Sullivan, a retired Catholic school teacher from Noti, Ore. “He has given us a glimmer of the Good Shepherd. It was so fleeting.
Sullivan praised George for his outspokenness on issues such as the sanctity of confessions and euthanasia.
“He gave us the courage of our convictions,” Sullivan said. “Now, we’re in dire straits.”
George said he discovered last week that Chicago “is a different league” when the media bombarded him at O’Hare International Airport during his visit, and bombarded him again upon his return to Portland.
“They had to sneak me out a back door,” he said, laughing. “I thought, `Is this how I’m going to have to live?’ “
Many Portland-area Catholics said Chicago could expect a strong-willed, tough-talking supporter of doctrine.
From the moment George arrived in Portland 10 months ago, he began fighting an Oregon law allowing for assisted suicide, and he waged a successful court battle to stop a prisoner’s confession to a priest from being entered into evidence at the prisoner’s trial.
Above all, he told Catholics to unite around “life issues” and not get bogged down in small differences of opinion.
“From the moment he walked in the door, he said, `This is what I expect (from Catholics): To work together to protect the Church’s position on life issues, religious freedom and religious education,’ ” said Holly Denman, the host of a talk show for a Portland Catholic radio station.
Connie Smith, a Native American who lives in Beaverton, Ore., asked to meet with George shortly after he arrived in Portland.
George not only met with Smith, but made a commitment to reach out to an estimated 6,000 Native Americans in the Portland area who are Catholic, Smith said.
“We told him we needed visible support,” said Smith, president of a 4-year-old Native American Catholic organization. “He said, `Yes, you are a recognized entity,’ and he agreed to visit reservations with us.”
Meanwhile, though George will arrive as a virtual unknown, it appeared that Catholics in Chicago were painting onto this blank slate their very personal hopes for the church here.
Leaving St. Jerome’s in Rogers Park with his two sons, Dwayne Hightower said George’s meeting with 13-year-old beating victim Lenard Clark resonated with him.
“I like the fact that he’s going to come in and attack racism right away,” Hightower said of George’s visit to Clark last Tuesday.
Referring to the fact that the three young men charged in the allegedly racially motived attack had ties to De La Salle Institute, a Catholic high school, Hightower said, “George will show that they’re not teaching that in Catholic schools.”
Outside of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in the Lakeview neighborhood, David McCourt said he hoped George would rein in Chicago’s famously rambunctious clergy.
“I hope he’s as conservative as they make him out to be,” McCourt said.
Diane Piszczor, a 22-year-old college student from Hickory Hills, said she hoped George would take a more open view of prayer as he integrates more young people into parish life.
“You can pray a lot of different ways, and I don’t think they’re taught that in Catholic schools and church,” said Piszczor, a eucharistic minister at St. Fabian Catholic Church in Bridgeview. “Alternative prayer helps you to find your inner peace and spread that around.”
Tom Bosworth, a St. Fabian parishioner, said he expects George’s experience with diverse ethnic and social groups to help deal with gangs and racial tension.
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“If the churches don’t get involved with it, it’s going to get worse,” Bosworth said.
Jerry Ornelas, 57, also said he hoped George would pursue initiatives aimed at uniting Chicago’s diverse ethnic population.
“I think he’ll bring all the nationalities together in a way that leads to an enrichment of our Christianity,” Ornelas said. “We are all created equal, and we need to learn to work together with respect. We all work for the same boss, Jesus Christ.”