Baltimore, USA - The cardinal elected Tuesday to lead the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops' conference was already one of the most influential men in the American church.
Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago for a decade, earned two doctorates in philosophy and theology, knows six languages and has deep ties within the Vatican.
As the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he will host Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Washington and New York in April and guide church leaders through a presidential election season in which religion will once again figure prominently.
George received 85 percent of the vote out of a field of 10 candidates at the bishops' fall meeting. He had served the last three years as the conference vice president. The prelate holding that job customarily is elected to the top post.
George succeeds Bishop William Skylstad, of Spokane, Wash., who is ending his term. Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., was elected as the new vice president on the third ballot.
Public policy issues, from war to politics, are part of the agenda of this week's event.
Skylstad released a statement Tuesday calling conditions in Iraq "unacceptable." He stressed the need for a bipartisan "responsible transition" out of the country.
Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, vehemently opposed the military strike, and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, has condemned the "continual slaughter" in the country. Benedict expressed his concerns directly to President Bush in their first meeting in June at the Vatican.
Skylstad said some policy makers have failed to recognize American failures in the invasion and occupation, while other U.S. lawmakers haven't acknowledged "the potential human consequences of very rapid withdrawal."
"Our country needs a new direction to reduce the war's deadly toll and to bring our people together to deal with the conflict's moral and human dimensions," Skylstad said.
On Wednesday, the bishops are expected to adopt a document urging Catholics to use church teaching as a guide in choosing which candidates to support.
The document does not address whether priests should deny Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who dissent from the church. But George said the issue would likely be discussed in the closed-door sessions scheduled over the next two days.
Only a tiny minority of American bishops have said that the sacrament should be withheld. George isn't among them. "We come together at Mass to worship God," George said. He said he's "primarily concerned that worship remains worship and isn't manipulated" for other means.
George, 70, is taking over at a time of diminishing influence for the conference. The group has cut jobs and committees to streamline its work and save money. Bishops have said that the funds they turn over for conference work are badly needed in their home dioceses.
The cardinal is a member of the religious order Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He served for more than a decade in Rome as the Oblate's vicar general and learned the workings of the Vatican.
In Chicago, George succeeded the beloved Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1996. In George's first year as archbishop, disgruntled priests dubbed him "Francis the Corrector." But he soon became a leader in the American church, defending Catholic orthodoxy and working with Vatican agencies reforming how the church responds to clergy sex abuse.
However, the lay reform group Voice of the Faithful and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have protested his election.
The archdiocese waited months to remove an accused parish priest in Chicago, the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing five boys ages 8 to 12. George has acknowledged that he failed to act soon enough in McCormack's case.
One of George's deputies, Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki, a civil and canon lawyer, recently told a Mass for lawyers that "none other than the devil" was behind the abuse claims against U.S. dioceses that have cost the church more than $2 billion since 1950.
George said Tuesday that he only learned about Paprocki's homily three days ago, but noted that advocacy groups were campaigning in statehouses nationwide to eliminate statutes of limitations for civil abuse claims.
The cardinal defended the archdiocese's record on responding to victims.
"We have taken every single allegation of abuse and have dealt with it," he said.