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WASHINGTON (April 7, 1997)
-- Pope John Paul II has named Most Reverend Francis E. George,
Archbishop of Portland in Oregon, to be Archbishop of Chicago.
Archbishop George, 60, succeeds Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin, who
died last November 14.
The Pope appointed Auxiliary Bishop Edwin F. O'Brien of New York, 58,
as Coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services,
U.S.A.
Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan, Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United
States, announced the appointments.
Francis Eugene George was born in Chicago, January 16, 1937. He
entered the Novitiate of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1957, and
studied theology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He was ordained
a priest on December 21, 1963, in Chicago.
Archbishop George earned a Masters degree in Philosophy at the
Catholic University of America, in 1965, and a doctorate at Tulane
University, New Orleans, in 1970.
He taught Philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha and became
Chairman of the Philosophy Department. In 1973 he was elected
Provincial of the Central United States Province of the Oblates of
Mary Immaculate, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Appointed Vicar General of his Congregation, Archbishop George
pursued a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Urban University in
Rome.
After returning to the United States, he became coordinator of the
Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. He was serving in that post when he was named Bishop
of Yakima, Washington, on July 10, 1990.
Archbishop George was a delegate to the world Synod of Bishops, on
consecrated life, in 1994. He served as episcopal moderator of the
National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities, beginning in
1992.
He was appointed Archbishop of Portland in Oregon on April 30,
1996.
The Archdiocese of Chicago comprises 1,411 square miles in Cook and
Lake counties in the State of Illinois. Its Catholic population of
2,338,000 (in a total population of 5,700,608) is second only to the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is in excess of three
million.
Edwin Frederick O'Brien was born in New York City on April 8,
1939.
After completing elementary and secondary schools, he attended
Cathedral College, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, earning B.A.,
B.D., and M.A. degrees, and the Angelicum in Rome, where he earned
the S.T.D. in Moral Theology.
Archbishop-designate O'Brien was ordained a priest, May 29,
1965.
Following ordination, he was named assistant pastor, Most Holy
Trinity church, in West Point, New York. He became a military
chaplain in 1970.
From 1970 to 1973, Archbishop-designate O'Brien served as Army
chaplain with the rank of Captain at 82nd Airborne Division, Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, 173rd Airborne Brigade, 1st Cavalry Brigade,
Vietnam, and Post Chaplain, Fort Gordon, Georgia.
From 1973 to 1976, he pursued graduate studies at the Pontifical
University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
He was appointed Vice Chancellor of the New York Archdiocese and
assistant pastor, St. Patrick's Cathedral, in 1976.
Archbishop-designate O'Brien was named Archdiocesan Director of
Communications in 1980 and appointed Secretary to the Cardinal in
1983. In 1985 he was named Rector of St. Joseph's
Seminary.
He was Rector of the North American College in Rome from 1989 to 1994
when he again became Rector of St. Joseph's Seminary.
The Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A. was established as
the Military Vicariate of the United States, September 8, 1957. It
was created as the Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A., on
March 25, 1985. It serves more than one million U.S. Catholics of the
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Department of
Veterans Affairs and those in government service overseas, and their
dependents.
Most Reverend Joseph T. Dimino is Archbishop of the Archdiocese for
the Military Services, which is headquartered in Hyattsville,
Maryland.