Niagara Peace & Dialogue Awards 2008

Peace Award

His Eminence,

FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE, O.M.I.

ARCHBISHOP OF CHICAGO

His Eminence Francis Eugene Cardinal George, O.M.I., eighth Archbishop of Chicago, was born in Chicago to Francis J. and Julia R. McCarthy George on January 16, 1937. He is the first native Chicagoan to serve as Archbishop of Chicago.

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Yakima on July 10, 1990. He was ordained and installed as the fifth bishop of Yakima on September 21, 1990 in St. Paul Cathedral, Yakima.

On April 8, 1997, Pope John Paul II named him the eighth Archbishop of Chicago, to the See left vacant by the death of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin on November 14, 1996.

He is President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As Archbishop of Chicago, he has issued two pastoral letters: on evangelization, “Becoming an Evangelizing People,” (November 21, 1997) and on racism, “Dwell in My Love” (April 4, 2001).

He is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Society of Missiologists and the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs. In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, Spanish and some German.