Cardinal bernardin biography
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Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who led the Archdiocese of Chicago for 14 years, died 25 years ago. Here’s a look back at his remarkable life.
This edited story originally ran in the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 15, 1996:
The son of an immigrant Italian stonecutter, Joseph Bernardin grew up in the South and described himself as twice an outsider because of his heritage and religion.
His family was so poor that his mother made his first priest’s suit out of a bolt of black cloth.
Yet from those humble beginnings, Bernardin rose to become one of the most influential leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in America and one who, fittingly, reached out to those of other faiths and creeds.
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who died of pancreatic cancer on Nov. 14, 1996, was known as a master mediator who worked to reconcile the increasingly fractious elements of the American church and spoke out on controversial issues such as the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.
Privately, he is remembered as a man with a gentle wit, who occasionally invited friends over to try out his pasta, bought a piano he rarely played and spoke of buying a vacation home but never got around to it because he worked so much.
During the 14 years he led Chicago’s Catholics, Bernardin revitalize
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Bernardin, Joseph Cardinal
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin was an American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cincinnati from 1972 until 1982, and as Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996 from pancreatic cancer. Bernardin was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983 by Pope John Paul II.
In 1966 Pope Paul VI appointed Monsignor Bernardin Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Only 38 years old, the became the youngest bishop in America.
In 1968, he resigned as auxiliary bishop of Atlanta to become the first General Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, a post he held until 1972. In 1969 Bishop Bernadin was instrumental in founding one of the conference’s most influential and successful programs, the anti-poverty Campaign for Human Development.
Bernardin was named to the Sacred Congregation of Bishops, elected to the permanent council of the Synod of Bishops and was elected president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. He worked to improve relations between Catholics and Jews, strove for better understanding between the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations, and made pastoral visits to Poland and Hungary.
In 1982, following the death of Cardinal John Cody of Chicago, Pope John Paul II c
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“Didn’t he guide us? Didn’t he fair us description way?”
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