Francis George - Extra-diocesan Posts

Extra-diocesan Posts

Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal George to several offices of the Roman Curia:

• Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
• Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
• Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church
• Congregation for Oriental Churches
• Pontifical Council for Culture
• Pontifical Council Cor Unum

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him to the Pontifical Council for the Study of the Organizational and Economic Problems of the Holy See.

He was appointed by Pope John Paul II to the 1994 World Synod of Bishops on Consecrated Life and a delegate and one of two special secretaries at the Synod of Bishops for America in 1997. He was a delegate of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to the 2001 World Synod of Bishops, and was also elected to the Council for the World Synod of Bishops in 2001. He served as a delegate of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for the 2008 World Synod of Bishops on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.

He served as Vice President (2004–2007) and President (2007–2010) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is a member of its Committee on Divine Worship and its Ad Hoc Committee on Shrines. He also serves as a consultant to the Committee on Doctrine and Pro-Life Activities and the Subcommittee on Lay Ministry.

He has also served on Conference of Bishops Committees on Doctrine, on Latin America, on Missions, on Religious Life, the American Board of Catholic Missions, and on World Missions; on the Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism and the Subcommittee on Campus Ministry.

He was Chair of the Committee for Bishops and Scholars from 1992–1994, and of the Committee on Liturgy from 2001–2004, and a consultant to the Committees on Evangelization (1991–1993), Hispanic Affairs (1994–1997), Science and Values (1994–1997), and African American Catholics (1999–2002). He was the Representative to the International Commission on English and the Liturgy from 1997–2006.

Because of his position as Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, since 1997, when he assumed the office, he has been the de facto Chancellor of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary (the Archdiocesan Seminary in the suburb of Mundelein, Illinois; both the seminary and the town are named after Cardinal George Mundelein, a deceased former Archbishop of Chicago).

He is the Chancellor, since 1997, of the Catholic Church Extension Society. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Washington, D.C.-based Catholic University of America since 1993. From 1997, he has been a Trustee of the Papal Foundation. In 1994, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since 1997, he has been a member of the Board of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

He has been the Episcopal Liaison to the Catholic Campus Ministry Association Executive Board since 1998 and is now also the Episcopal Moderator for the Ministry of Transportation Chaplains, serving since 2003. He also served as Episcopal Advisor to the Cursillo Movement, Region XII, from 1990 to 1997.

From 1990 to 2008, he was Episcopal Moderator and member of the board of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities (now known as the National Catholic Partnership on Disability). He brought personal experience to his role after a five-month bout with poliomyelitis at age 13 left him with permanent damage to his legs.

Cardinal George is Conventual Chaplain ad honorem of the Federal Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Grand Prior of the North Central Lieutenancy of the United States for the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and a member of the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards Advisory Board. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Oblate Media, Belleville, Illinois, since 1988.

He is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Society of Missiologists, and the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs.