Roman Catholic Cardinal. The son of a janitor, Chicago born Francis Eugene George contracted polio at the age of thirteen and due to a developed limp was rejected by Chicago's archdiocesan seminary, leading him to join the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1957. Making his solemn profession the following year, he underwent studies at at St. Henry's Preparatory Seminary of Belleville; Pine Hills Scholasticate in Ottawa, Canada; the University of Ottawa; the Catholic University of America of Washington; Tulane University in New Orleans and at the Pontifical Urbanian University in Rome. Ordained priest on December 21, 1963 in Chicago, he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Creighton University of Omaha, serving as chairman of the philosophy department between 1970 an 1973. Provincial of the United States Western region of his Order from 1973 until 1974, Goerge served as vicar general of his institute in Rome between 1974 and 1986 and as member and coordinator of the Circle of Associates of Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture of Boston from 1986 till 1990. Elected bishop of Yakima by Pope John Paul II, he received his episcopal consecration on September 21, 1990 from Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan. Promoted to the metropolitan see of Portland in Oregon on April 30, 1996 and to that of Chicago on April 8, 1997 following Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's death, he became thus the first Chicagoan to occupy the see of his native city and moreover, head of the archdiocese that once turned him away. The named Pope John Paul II created him cardinal priest in the consistory of February 21, 1998 with the title of San Bartolomeo all'Isola. Chair of the USCCB Commission for Bishops and Scholars from 1992 to 1994 and of the USCCB Committee on Liturgy from 2001 until 2004, Cardinal George acted as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2007 until 2010. Diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2006, which illness returned to his kidney and liver in 2012, he resigned from the pastoral government of the archdiocese of Chicago in conformity to canon 401, § 1, of the Code of Canon Law on September 20, 2014, leading on the archdiocese until the installation of his successor, Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Spokane on November 18 of that year. George succumbed to cancer just a few months later at his residence shortly after being dropped from the clinical drug trial when scans proved that the treatment was not working on him. An intellectual leader and a man of peace, George was a vigorous defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who played a key role in the church's response to the clergy sex abuse scandal and oversaw the contentious new English language translation of the Roman Missal, one of the biggest changes in Catholic worship in generations.