Chicago, Ill., Aug 28, 2012 / 01:53 am (CNA).- Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is encouraging others to use his recent cancer diagnosis as a time to “reflect upon God’s goodness and grow closer to Christ.”
If people use his diagnosis for spiritual growth, he said, “then even my sickness and, at some point at a still unknown time and way, my death will be an answer to what I prayed many years ago: that I and all those God has given me to know and love here might live in such a way that God’s will for the salvation of the world will be realized.”
The cardinal said in his Aug. 26 column for the Catholic New World archdiocesan paper that he plans to say “little” about his cancer and his treatment even though it will “probably be a trying time for me in the next several months.”
“How can we know what to say when our knowledge is so limited?” he asked.
Cardinal George, 75, underwent a medical procedure Aug. 15 that discovered cancerous cells in his kidney and in a nodule that was removed from his liver.
In July 2006, at the age of 69, the cardinal underwent a five-hour operation to remove his bladder, prostate gland and sections of his ureters, the tubes which connect the kidneys to the bladder. (Read more here.)
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