The envelope arrived in my office mailbox on Monday - thick, creamy stationery with the embossed address of Cardinal Joseph Louis Bernardin on the back.
Inside was a note from the dying man, dated Nov. 5, thanking me for a recent story.
Dear Julie:
Thank you so much for the beautiful article in The Cincinnati Enquirer. I appreciated reading it and am grateful for all the work you and Michael Keating did while you were here to make it special.
We had gone to Chicago less than a month before, knowing that our readers wanted to learn more about the cardinal's struggle with
terminal pancreatic cancer. We also knew he had refused hundreds of interview requests, including ours, so the most we hoped for was to follow him around for a few days on his then still-grueling public schedule.
We introduced ourselves to him at the first event, and when he found out we were from Cincinnati, he agreed to a short one-on-one interview. So as several Chicago reporters looked on indignantly, Michael and I were ushered into a side room at the Catholic Charities' headquarters. He sat in the only chair, and we started what turned out to be one of his last interviews.
If anyone has a license to be impatient or testy with reporters, it is a man who has answered the same highly personal questions time and again.
Yet during our brief interview - and for the rest of the weekend - he was cordial, candid and thorough, knowing our conversation would get back to his thousands of well wishers in the Tristate. I tried to end the interview when an aide to the cardinal gave me the signal to wrap it up, but he patted my forearm and told me there was time for another question.
The next afternoon, we were in the sitting room of the cardinal's private residence when he descended the staircase from an afternoon nap. Groggy, he said he had overslept and told Michael he wasn't able to bound down the mansion's stairs like he used to.
But he greeted us warmly and invited us to stay for the beginning of the Mass he was preparing to celebrate with his staff. That night, at a banquet in his honor, he smiled as dozens of people leaned into his table to have their pictures taken with him. And though he often looked tired, Michael noticed that the cardinal brightened whenever he saw professional cameras trained on him.
On Sunday, he sat through two two-hour-long Masses in churches on opposite ends of the archdiocese, the last parish events he would attend.
At the first, in the northside neighborhood of Rogers Park, he was swarmed by well-wishers grabbing at him. Finally, he begged them to stop, saying he was losing his balance. At the second, in southwest suburban Palos Heights, the church had prepared a side entrance so he could be whisked inside with minimal fuss.
But as parishioners milled about, he walked in from a distant parking lot, using a cane and accompanied by one aide. As he neared the church, he cried out in recognition, and then the bows and homage began.
Despite the adulation, Cardinal Bernardin later punctuated the moment with flashes of humor. He was leaning into a mirror, combing his hair after the second ceremony, when he saw the flash and heard the click of a camera. He turned around to Michael.
''You'd best not,'' the cardinal said with a smile. Moments later, he was blessing a young mother, suffering from brain cancer, as she and her husband sobbed. And when we left the church, he thanked us for our time and asked us to send him a copy of our story.
It was not unusual for Cardinal Bernardin to accommodate reporters. Understanding the power of the media, he reached out to it and, after years of experience, reporters knew he would never lie to them. That's one reason why they gave him ovations after his news conferences, had their pictures taken with him, asked him to bless their babies.
A few even reluctantly admitted that they really liked the guy.
But with so little time left to live, there could have been few motives beyond human decency that prompted his graciousness with us. And that's why - even as I write about his legacy, his funeral or his successor - I will remember one thing: That nine days before he died, he took the time to write a note of thanks to a near stranger.
Perhaps he believed the recipient would treasure it. Perhaps he believed it was the polite thing to do. Perhaps he believed it was what his spiritual leader would do.
Published Nov. 16, 1996.
