CHICAGO (CBS) — Francis Cardinal George is not slowing down, despite looming treatments for recurrent cancer in his right kidney.
Saturday morning, he presided over confirmation at St. Clement’s Church in Wicker Park and Saturday night he is attending the Presence Health Ball at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. On Thursday night, he spoke at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., on the emphasis by Pope Francis on mercy and its implications for the church’s teaching and engagement with the world.
Spokesperson Colleen Dolan said Cardinal George is upbeat, and will continue to maintain his schedule until doctors tell him to cut back, most likely because of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities to infection caused by chemotherapy.
The disease is known formally as urothelial cancer. He was diagnosed in August 2012.
Dolan said his attitude about the recurrent cancer is to let the public know and let them pray, but to let him do his job. She said there is no sign that the cancer has spread beyond his right kidney. And although he wrote in the Archdiocesan newspaper “Catholic New World” that the cancer is what will probably kill him, he does not expect that soon.
The Vatican apparently agrees. It has been two years since Cardinal George submitted his resignation, as required by church law when a bishop turns 75; neither Pope Francis nor his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, accepted it. And Dolan said there has been no move to begin the period of consultation leading to a replacement, which lasts at least six months and will include the Cardinal so long as he is physically able.
