Word: bernardin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Although Bernardin has conscientiously tried to avoid the inevitable comparisons with his unpopular predecessor, the late John Cardinal Cody, Chicago's Catholics seem to delight in the obvious differences. A balding man with blue eyes that beam benevolently through thick glasses, the new archbishop may seem to be an unlikely object for a personality cult, but he is a folk hero compared with Cody. As one woman who pushed forward to shake his hand during a recent visit to a parish on the predominantly black West Side explained, "That man can feel. There is a lot of healing that...
...Bernardin has certainly moved with dispatch to ease the problems and stresses left by Cody, who was not only autocratic and aloof but was plagued by personal and financial scandal during the last year of his life. Barely an hour on the job, Bernardin made a luncheon date with a pastor from a struggling black church who had been trying for two years to get permission parishioners Chicago nuns from Mother Teresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity, to work among his parish poor. Bernardin not only gave the venture his enthusiastic endorsement but volunteered to write Mother Teresa...
Long demoralized by Cody's indifference, Chicago's 2,468 priests have suddenly found that their opinions matter on such issues as financial accountability and the church's social mission. In the new heady atmosphere of collegiality, there is talk that Bernardin plans to convene an archdiocesan synod (the last one took place...
...stonecutter immigrant from northern Italy, Bernardin was the only Catholic boy on the block in his home town of Columbia, S.C. Of necessity, childhood became a venture in grass-roots ecumenism. He recalls, "I used to go to the Bible school that the Baptist church sponsored, especially on the days when they gave out ice cream...
...father died when Bernardin was six, and the boy, his younger sister and their mother moved in with a series of aunts and uncles. Intent on becoming a doctor, he finished one year as a pre-med student at the University of South Carolina. Then Bernardin surprised his family by deciding to enter the priesthood. Says he: "I don't want to sound dramatic, but it must have been the Lord. I had a very definite feeling that I was being called to the priesthood...