Canons Regular Salute Cardinal George

Part of the Cardinal's Major Legacy Thrives in Chicago

Cardinal George poses with the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in 2013; embedded photo also courtesy of the Canons Regular
Cardinal George poses with the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in 2013; embedded photo also courtesy of the Canons Regular (photo: Courtesy St. John Cantius Church)

Cardinal Francis George holds a special place in the hearts of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius.

This community of priests and brothers dedicated to the “Restoration of the Sacred” grew from a small group — at the once-flourishing church that become by the 1990s a place well-worn down, falling apart and in need of serious repairs and restoration  (and with few parishioners) — to today’s St. John Cantius Church, a jewel of sacred liturgies and music, glorious liturgical art and an ever-growing and thriving congregation (see video of this here).

Cardinal George surely envisioned what would one day come to be.

“Here are the beginnings of an order founded to make available to the people of God the heritage and gifts of the universal Church in all their forms and all their splendor,” Cardinal George declared when he ordained the first priest of the Canons Regular.

The good cardinal’s vision reached back to the very start.  In 1999, it was Cardinal George who approved of the Canons Regular to be formally established as a public association of the faithful and Chicago’s first religious community of men.

“I want you to grow; I want this to succeed. Live your constitutions. Be men of prayer,” he would repeat often to Father Phillips.

One of the first priests the cardinal ordained for the community was Father Dennis Kolinski, who said that Cardinal George recognized the authentic charism of the Canons Regular and added that the community exists because of the cardinal.

It was Cardinal George who always ordained the new priests for the community. Father Kolinski said, “The priests of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius are especially united to the cardinal because he ordained all of our priests thus far.”

In fact, the last priests he would ordain in the Chicago Archdiocese, on May 27, 2014 — Father Joshua Caswell and his brother, Father Nathan Caswell, along with Father Kevin Mann — were for the Canons Regular. And he ordained them at St. John Cantius Church.

“I had the sense he really knew us individually — that he knew us personally,” said Father Joshua Caswell. (See many photos and remembrances of Cardinal George with the Canons Regular here.)

From the regular visits Cardinal George made to the community, he displayed a special place in his heart for them. They became ever stronger under his guidance.

Founder Father C. Frank Phillips captured this relationship in a brief sentence upon the death of Cardinal George: “We are a living legacy of this shepherd of souls.”