Welcome to Chicago Bishop Blase Cupich!
His Holiness Pope Francis has appointed the Bishop of Spokane, Washington, Most Reverend Blase J. Cupich, (pronounced "sue-pitch"), as the ninth Archbishop of Chicago. Archbishop Cupich will be installed as Archbishop of Chicago on November 18, 2014, at Holy Name Cathedral. Francis Cardinal George, OMI, retains the office of Archbishop until November 18th, when Archbishop Cupich is installed.
Archbishop Cupich said, “The Holy Father’s appointment of me to Chicago humbles but also encourages me. I am grateful to God for giving me this blessed opportunity to be his servant in this great city and this great local Church. As Pope Francis began his new pastoral ministry in Rome by asking the people to pray for him, so too now I bow my head in the hope that everyone in Chicago will pray for me in the days ahead.”
Cardinal George remarked, “I am deeply grateful to our Holy Father, Pope Francis, for appointing Bishop Blase Cupich as the ninth Archbishop of Chicago. Bishop Cupich is well prepared for his new responsibilities and brings to them a deep faith, a quick intelligence, personal commitment and varied pastoral experiences.”
Archbishop Cupich was born on March 19, 1949, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Blase and Mary (Mayhan) Cupich. He is one of nine children, five sisters and three brothers.
Archbishop Cupich was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Omaha on August 16, 1975, and was ordained and installed as Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, on September 21, 1998. He was officially installed as Bishop of Spokane on September 3, 2010.
Archbishop Cupich obtained his B.A. in Philosophy from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1971. He attended seminary at the North American College and Gregorian University in Rome where he received his Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology in 1974, and his M.A. in Theology in 1975. Archbishop Cupich is a graduate of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he received his License of Sacred Theology in 1979. He also holds a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree in Sacramental Theology from the Catholic University of America awarded in 1987, with his dissertation entitled: ADVENT IN THE ROMAN TRADITION: An Examination and Comparison of the Lectionary Readings as Hermeneutical Units in Three Periods.
Additionally, Archbishop Cupich was the Secretary at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C. He was pastor of two parishes in Omaha, Nebraska and also served as the Chair for the USCCB Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People from 2008 until 2011.
A hint of the pastoral sensibilities Cupich will bring to Chicago could be found in a pastoral letter he released last month in Spokane, “Joy Made Complete.” You can read his pastoral letter in its entirety by clicking on this link: Joy Made Complete
The letter spells out a four-year pastoral plan for the Spokane diocese. The basis for the plan is a list of priorities established by the Know Love and Serve (KLS) Leadership Summit, a weekend conference for 50 Catholic leaders, lay and clerical, from the Spokane diocese that Cupich hosted last spring.
To prepare for the summit, Cupich had participants read Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” which he said “beautifully articulates a vision for the Church in our time.” You can read the entire text of Pope Francis' "The Joy of the Gospel" by clicking on this link: The Joy of the Gospel
Cupich’s pastoral letter begins with a Scripture quote:
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands…we proclaim to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, a fellowship which is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. (I John 1:1-3)
The letter then goes on to say:
“The brave souls who wrote these stirring words nearly 2,000 years ago were facing dark threats from within and without. Divisions were tearing at community life. Public persecution throughout the Roman Empire threatened their very survival. Yet, these first disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did not fix their attention on the crisis of the present moment, nor on their own personal interests or impulses of self-preservation.
“As daunting as these concerns were, the life-transforming experience of encountering the Risen Lord compelled them to set their sights higher. Jesus spoke to them in a way that left their hearts burning for more, and that “more” was sharing Him with others. Nothing else mattered."
Cupich offers this challenge in his letter: “Are you ready to join me and your fellow parishioners and take personal responsibility for the work of renewing the Church? Simply put, this is about making sure that Know Love Serve are not just three words on a page or a catchy slogan, but that they are the distinguishing actions which define each of our lives as believers, as intentional disciples of Christ.”
Citing the change in hearts of church leaders following the Second Vatican Council, he said that ordained leaders must take seriously the "joys, sorrows, heartaches, and challenges of laypeople."
In the winter of 2013, when the U.S. bishops conference and the Obama administration had locked horns over the contraception mandate in the health care reform law, Cupich wrote a letter to church employees who might have become worried that their ministries would be shut down or their health insurance cut-off. He wrote:
"In visiting with many of you about the issue of insurance coverage, I know you have been concerned by calls for the Church to shut down her organizations or withdraw health coverage to those who serve in our various institutions as a protest to regulations that may infringe on our religious freedoms. These kinds of scare tactics and worse-case scenario predictions are uncalled for and only unnecessarily disturb the hardworking and dedicated people who are employed by the Church. I am confident that we can find a way forward, and this latest response of the government appears to provide some new openings, which we need to explore and for which we should express appreciation."
Cupich’s homily for a Prolife Mass in January 2013, seemed to have echoes of another Chicago archbishop, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who spoke of a “seamless garment” or consistent ethic for life that embraced equally anti-abortion, anti-poverty and anti-war strains of Catholic social teaching. In the 2013 homily, which fell on President Obama’s second inauguration and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and came a month after 20 schoolchildren where shot to death in Newton, Conn., Cupich seemed to stitch together the prolife, anti-violence and anti-poverty themes in a similar way:
"The Gospel today gives us the image of the futility of trying to patch a torn old cloak with new unshrunken cloth, for “the fullness of the new eventually will pull away.” That is an apt image for what we want to say to our fellow citizens on this day, a day that offers so much promise. The tear in the fabric of our nation wrought by no defense of the children of the future cannot be fixed with a patchwork of defending only those fortunate to see the light of day, permitted to take that first breath or enjoy the work of their own hands. No, we are saying that we need a new cloak that covers all."
He then adds:
"We should not be disheartened or bitter if many of our fellow citizens do not heed us at this moment, nor should we pull back on our efforts to join hands with others to improve the lot of suffering people in need just because they don’t fully agree with us on everything. The truth will win out and we have to believe that a nation whose collective heart can break and grieve for babies slaughtered in Newtown has the capacity and God’s grace to one day grieve for the babies killed in the womb."
I hope this gives you all at least an initial glimpse into the mind and heart of our new Archbishop. Please pray for him that God's Most Holy Spirit will give him the strength and the courage that he needs to bring his loving vision to the Archdiocese of Chicago, and continue to pray for Cardinal George during the important days of transition ahead.
In God's Love,
