It has been said that Pope Benedict XVI saw the Catholic Church as an embattled fortress for true believers facing a threatening world while Pope Francis conceived of the church as a field hospital with its doors flung open to the poor and vulnerable.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is of the field hospital persuasion and has emerged as one of America’s most consequential moral leaders. His compassionate voice and strong public positions are grounded in deep faith, nuanced understanding of Scripture and passionate commitment to social justice. He exemplifies — and demonstrates — moral statesmanship.

A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Cupich grew up in a family of nine children and has been a Catholic priest for more than a half century. He began as a parish priest in Nebraska and has risen steadily through the ranks.

He is frequently lauded for his kindness, intellect, diplomacy, administrative acumen and dry sense of humor. Unfailingly civil and sensitive to the needs of others, he urges people to see the presence of God in everyone they encounter. “Becoming authentically human and becoming holy are one in the same,” he wrote in March.

Three popes gauged his professional skills and personal qualities and gave him senior assignments in the church. Pope John Paul II selected Cupich as bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, a position he held from 1998 to 2010. Benedict named him bishop of Spokane, Washington, where he served from 2010 to 2014. Pope Francis appointed him archbishop of Chicago in 2014 and then elevated him to cardinal in 2016.

Cupich........

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