... the manager.

On the day I read Peter Feuerherd's assessment of Cardinal Francis George, I received an article about George's archdiocese from a recent Chicago Tribune: "Catholics See Drop in Attendance; Donations Also Are on the Decline." That cannot of course be pinned on Francis George, any more than the ever-falling participation in national elections can be blamed on any one administration. Still, more and more people--administration after administration, bishop after bishop--feel they are neither needed nor nourished. It is ironic that this decline continues after George has had six years to put in place that evangelization he sees "as the solution to perennial problems." Perhaps, though, he and others see this decline as a weeding out?

Feuerherd casts me as "George's strong opponent." I'm flattered but not worthy. I don't even live in that archdiocese any longer. Yet my two paragraphs of fame--as well as the rest of the article--miss a few important things. Put Feuerherd in that cohort who consider George "cerebral," a great disservice to those who are. George has degrees. Has Feuerherd read anything that George wrote himself? One notices that George tends to chew more than he can bite off. Even if George were "cerebral," that would be only one vital qualification to lead the archdiocese. Why is nothing said about the difficulty George has had in keeping or hiring the kind of people who for five decades or more made Chicago a center of vital Catholicism? It wasn't Stritch or Meyer or Cody or even Bernardin who did that--it was the people they had sense enough to trust.

I believe that Cardinal George came to town in 1997 with sights set on getting me out and gutting Liturgy Training Publications (LTP). The first I heard from him was that he wanted to know if I was an ex-priest, if I was divorced, or if I was remarried--apparently believing any combination thereof put me on shaky ground. I objected to such questions but did not resign, trying for the next four years to continue the work of two decades. George continued to challenge various books ("Why is LTP publishing the cardinal of Los Angeles?"). It seemed to take a push from those who were helping him dismantle the International Committee on English in the Liturgy before he announced I was fired (and would I sign this paper never to talk about anything that ever happened?). Now two years later, six of LTP's eight editors are gone. My own books are being withdrawn one by one.

LTP was one of many events/entities that made Chicago of service to Catholics and parishes all over the United States and beyond. To write of George's agenda without some notice of this growing absence seems to miss an essential part of the story.

GABE HUCK 

New York, N.Y.