Chicago meets its new archbishop as the ‘Pope Francis effect’ sets in
c. 2014 Religion News Service
(RNS) When Spokane Bishop Blase Cupich got a call 10 days ago with the news that Pope Francis had chosen him to be the next archbishop of Chicago—the pontiff’s most important U.S. appointment to date—he was so taken aback that he couldn’t speak for a few moments.
“To say that I was surprised doesn’t come close to the word I would use,” Cupich said Saturday (September 20) at a news conference in Chicago introducing him as the successor to Cardinal Francis George, who is 77 and battling cancer.
