Obituary: Cardinal Anthony Joseph Bevilacqua / Left Pittsburgh diocese for Philadelphia
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One of his flock kisses the cheek of newly installed Bishop Anthony Bevilacqua outside St. Paul's Cathedral. -
Bevilacqua answers questions from students during the Youth Forum on Violence at Cardinal O'Hara H.S. -
Pope John Paul II receives Cardinal Anthony Joseph Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philiadelphia, right, and Card. Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles in this 1991 .
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PHILADELPHIA -- Cardinal Anthony Joseph Bevilacqua, whose 15 years as shepherd of the 1.5 million-member Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia was marked by both celebration and crisis, died in his sleep Tuesday night in his apartment at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood. He was 88.
After retiring in 2003, he left the cardinal's residence on City Avenue for the apartment at the seminary and rarely appeared in public.
Cardinal Bevilacqua, who was bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese from 1983-87, was emblematic of the church to which he had devoted himself since age 14: progressive on some social-justice issues, staunchly orthodox on matters of doctrine and sexuality, and unfailingly deferential to the will of Rome.
He was a private man, yet he delighted in public appearances and was known for his personal touch.
His tenure, though, was also a time of unprecedented contraction for the archdiocese.
After five years at the helm, he took up a thankless task that his predecessor, Cardinal John Krol, had put off: deciding the fate of many underused parishes and schools. He wound up closing 20 parishes, six high schools and 28 elementary schools, largely in poor city neighborhoods.
In decline since the 1970s, Mass attendance and priestly vocations continued slipping during his era -- a trend afflicting many other dioceses.
His most agonizing period was surely the clergy sex-abuse crisis that erupted in 2002 and culminated three years later in a searing indictment of his leadership.
In September 2005, following a 40-month grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese, the Philadelphia district attorney's office issued a report excoriating Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol for systematically allowing hundreds of abuser priests to go unpunished and ignoring the victims.
Cardinal Bevilacqua did not respond publicly to the charges. His successor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, called the report "very unfair" for not addressing abuse in other religious denominations and public institutions.
Acquaintances described Cardinal Bevilacqua, already suffering from depression after his retirement, was devastated by the report. He rarely appeared in public afterward.
First Published February 1, 2012 1:24 am
