OAKBROOK TERRACE – Facing a second battle with cancer in six years, Cardinal Francis George said Friday he intends to keep up with his duties, but that the diagnosis was hard to take after believing he had beaten the disease.

The 75-year-old spoke to reporters during a gala celebrating his 15th anniversary as leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago, one week after it was announced that he had cancerous cells in his kidney. George survived bladder cancer six years ago, and doctors don’t yet know whether the current cancer is linked to the earlier one.

“I felt I had licked something and I didn’t, and so that isn’t a good feeling,” he said.