Cardinal Joseph Louis Bernardin, the former Cincinnati archbishop who inspired trust and affection from the pews to the papacy, died at 1:33 a.m. Thursday at his Chicago residence.
He was 68 and had been archbishop of Chicago since leaving Cincinnati in 1982.
It was a public death that began last August with Cardinal Bernardin's announcement that he was terminally ill and his affirmation that ''as a person of faith, I see death as a friend, as the transition from earthly life to life eternal.''
Since then, his vulnerability and faith have evoked awe and underlined the gap between believers and secular American society.
Cardinal Bernardin went about his job with minimal concessions to the pancreatic cancer that killed him. In late October, however, he ended his chemotherapy and handed over daily duties to auxiliary bishops, leaving him free to concentrate on people and projects closest to his heart.
By early November, he was restricting his trips away from his residence and had to skip the meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops -- a group he helped shape as chief of staff, president and its foremost consensus builder.
He died with his only sister, his oncologist, his closest aides and some friends -- such as Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles -- at his side.
''It was a grace,'' said Monsignor Kenneth Velo, a close friend and aide, remembering the scene when the cardinal died. ''He took a little bit of us with us.''
All through his health's decline, Cardinal Bernardin remained in touch with hundreds of cancer victims who reached out to him, offering or seeking comfort. These included patients who shared a cancer ward with him and to whom he gave his private telephone number.
The cardinal was a major force in the wider Catholic Church for a quarter-century, ending up the senior prelate among America's 60 million Catholics.
During that quarter-century, Cardinal Bernardin won a credibility and stature that few American religious leaders earn and retain. Not even a former Elder High School student's accusation of sodomy -- later recanted -- tarnished his reputation or status.
From the time he reached Cincinnati and began to draw wider attention, Cardinal Bernardin was bedeviled by liberal hopes that he would be the first American pope.
Instead, a Polish priest from Krakow, whom he befriended at Vatican gatherings and entertained in Cincinnati, was elected.
Pope John Paul II, who called the cardinal on his deathbed on Wednesday, said Thursday that Cardinal Bernardin's service to the Church and the Vatican ''as well as his witness of dignity and hope in the face of the mystery of suffering and death will inspire all who knew him to ever greater fidelity to Christ and to the gospel of our redemption.''
President Clinton said Cardinal Bernardin ''in life and in death, he taught us the important lessons of community, caring and common ground.''
Detractors and allies argued whether the cardinal was truly humble or subtly ambitious, but there was no question about his unapologetic striving for a stronger, more pastoral church.
His final act as conciliator was a call for a series of conferences, the Catholic Common Ground Project, to ease infighting over abortion, women's ordination, contraception and priestly celibacy.
The son of Italian immigrants was unequaled when it came to helping Vatican officials understand evolving American Catholicism, observers said.
''I'm told my father was a great reconciler, that he didn't like conflicts and always tried to bring people together,'' the cardinal told biographer Eugene Kennedy in the new book This Man Bernardin. ''When people tell me I have similar traits, I know it is because of my father.''
In the 1940s, Cardinal Bernardin's widowed mother hoped her only son would become a physician, but young priests from his parish steered him from the University of South Carolina and to a seminary. He never looked back.
He became the first Italian-American archbishop in this country's Roman Catholic Church and the youngest American archbishop at the time.
By the time he reached Cincinnati in 1972 -- his first home where Catholics were not a tiny minority -- he already was known as a ''priest's priest'' for whom clergy liked to work. He also had dropped the Southern accent that mentors warned would hinder his career.
A power in Rome
Archbishop Bernardin was elected in 1974 to be president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, a job that sent him commuting between Cincinnati, Washington and Rome.
''Bernardin has had a tremendous amount of clout in Rome,'' and that was the problem, complained Al Matt Jr., editor/publisher of the Wanderer, a conservative national Catholic weekly from St. Paul, Minn. He said Cardinal Bernardin led bishops who represented ''an American Catholic Church,'' something ''uniquely American and characteristic of an American political and social mind-set... and that's a bad thing.''
In that role, Mr. Matt said, the cardinal urged Vatican officials to understand that American culture affected how Catholics accepted and viewed their faith, and ''how we practice the faith.'' For instance, Mr. Matt said, Cardinal Bernardin helped ease annulment rules so divorced American Catholics could remarry in the church.
An admired leader
Mr. Matt's grievance was not unique, yet Archbishop Bernardin's admirers were legion in Cincinnati and Chicago. They enjoyed what biographer Kennedy described as their archbishop's most prominent traits: consistency, reliability and trustworthiness.
Mr. Kennedy said the archbishop's life also reflected his mother's example: ''faith grounded in reality, an earthy and forgiving spirituality, gravity of purpose suffused with good humor, a modest sense of himself.''
He was ''such a sensitive and feeling and welcoming person'' that he seemed too good to be true, said the cardinal's Cincinnati successor, Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk.
''It was no facade, said Sister Mary Ann Barnhorn, long a leader among the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who worked closely with the archbishop in Cincinnati and the cardinal in Chicago. ''He really likes people.''
Or, as Archie Bruun, who became head of Cincinnati archdiocesan social action programs under Archbishop Bernardin, put it, ''People were attracted to him. You felt very secure with him. You felt he understood you.''
Role model for others
The cardinal ''also was one of the greatest teachers of the 20th century Catholic Church in our country,'' Archbishop Pilarczyk said. He was a role model for other bishops; he demonstrated how to bear wrongs patiently and forgive those who caused him pain; he taught others how to die; ''and how to maintain your composure when everyone around you seems to be shouting at you.''
Ursuline Sister Pat Brockman knew Archbishop Bernardin both as man of faith and cautious churchman.
In the early 1970s, she was on the pastoral team at the New Jerusalem Community, with its Pentecostal roots and strong peace and justice inclinations. New Jerusalem drew controversy as well as hundreds to its charismatic worship and scores to communal and sometimes-coed living in Winton Place.
Archbishop Bernardin listened to Sister Pat and her co-workers. He drew the community under his protection and authority without stifling its spirit. He regularly celebrated Mass with its members, giving them an unused convent and school in Winton Place.
''He was not threatened,'' Sister Pat said. ''He fathered us.''
Unafraid of controversy
Archbishop Bernardin's 1980 decision to promote outspoken Judy Ball as the first woman to edit his official weekly paper, the Catholic Telegraph, also showed what kind of man he was.
''I'm sure he knew he was going to get some heat,'' Miss Ball said.
The archbishop never interferred with her news or editorial decisions, Miss Ball said, although that mutual confidence was tested when some Chicagoans claimed there was a plot to affect the next papal election by replacing conservative Cardinal John Cody with the more liberal Archbishop Bernardin.
Archbishop Bernardin asked Miss Ball how she was going to handle that emerging national story. His face showed he was ''bracing for bad news,'' Miss Ball said. Confident that ''it was my decision,'' she told him it would be in the next edition. It was.
In many ways, the churchman was ascetic and humble, and his mother, Maria, helped keep him that way. At his 1972 installation in Cincinnati's St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, he recalled his mother's words from his 1966 ordination as the nation's youngest bishop:
''Now, Joe, when the ceremony begins, walk straight and don't look too pleased.''
''He was so pleased about being in Cincinnati. He really loved that appointment,'' recalled Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly of Louisville, a close friend of Cardinal Bernardin's for 25 years. ''And he liked the German background in Cincinnati. He spoke very affectionately of 'Me and my Germans.'''
A 'priest's priest'
Despite his titles and his influence, Cardinal Bernardin was above all a priest. On a September trip to Rome, to discuss his successor with the pope, the cardinal and his aide, Monsignor Kenneth Velo, made a visit to the birthplace of St. Francis of Assisi.
The pair went to one chapel, presenting themselves as priests who wanted to celebrate Mass. An Italian monk shooed them away, saying it was not a good time. They went to a nearby chapel, where an English-speaking German priest gave them permission.
Cardinal Bernardin donned his scarlet hat and other vestments, then ducked outside for a moment to fetch something. The German priest looked at Msgr. Velo with wide eyes.
''A bishop?'' he asked.
''More,'' the monsignor said, shaking his head. ''A cardinal.''
Word quickly spread throughout the monastery that the famous Cardinal Bernardin from Chicago was present. An invitation to lunch followed -- along with an offer from the newly contrite Italian monk to have Mass at his chapel anytime.
An accusation recanted
His brush with scandal was as ironic as it was incredible.
Cardinal Bernardin was a pioneer among Catholic bishops trying to deal more compassionately with victims of sexually predatory priests and with priests accused of abusive behavior.
In 1993, a gay man dying of AIDS, Steven Cook, accused him of sodomy at the archbishop's Cincinnati residence in the mid-1970s when Mr. Cook was in a pre-seminary program.
The cardinal 's responses were characteristic. He invited reporters in and told them, ''The allegations are totally false. I am 65 years old, and I can tell you that all my life I have lived a chaste and celibate life.'' Then he offered to pray for and with Mr. Cook.
Months later, Mr. Cook recanted, saying hypnosis-prodded memories were untrustworthy. The priest and his accuser finally met and prayed together.
''It was a manifestation of God's love, forgiveness and healing which I will never forget,'' the cardinal said.
Mr. Cook, who died in September 1995, also counseled the cardinal on living with cancer. ''He told me he was praying for me,'' Cardinal Bernardin said. ''He had some idea of the suffering I was experiencing,'' the cardinal said.
Key to his success
Archbishop Bernardin ''was politically astute,'' Father Seher said, ''but he wasn't motivated by politics.''
During his time in Cincinnati and as head of the bishops' conference, he wanted good ideas, and he wanted to know how to make them work and what opposition he would have to disarm, Father Seher continued. ''He always knew where the bumps would take place.''
On the other hand, such painstaking polling of what people thought could be ''maddening,'' recalled the Most Rev. Carl Moeddel -- especially when, as the archbishop's director of finances, he wanted a prompt decision.
While consultation and consensus-building were slow and tedious, the current auxiliary bishop of Cincinnati learned from Archbishop Bernardin that it is ''eventually more effective.''
Few who dealt with the cardinal mistook this process for weakness or vacillation. He was at ease with authority, comfortable with power and never lost sight of the fact he was the boss.
Yet, this openness could cause problems with natural, if prickly, allies. For instance, some hard-line Ohio anti-abortion activists turned on the archbishop when he refused to bless their single-issue test for political candidates.
While he always spoke with clarity, Cardinal Bernardin became an increasingly eloquent apostle during 25 years of public scrutiny.
He attributed his initial hesitancy to the natural caution that he learned as a Catholic growing up in Protestant Columbia, S.C., and to the speed with which responsibility and rank came to him.
He was unafaid of addressing sensitive issues. Closing the Norwood seminary and various schools riled some Catholics and, in one case, brought the archbishop into conflict with the Cincinnati board of education.
The archbishop's apparent inaction frustrated women seeking greater church roles, said feminist educator Janet Kalven, a member of the Grail in Loveland. ''He was very receptive and sympathetic, and then he backed away.''
On the other hand, Sister Barnhorn said, ''We knew that we had a friend in high places who believed in us as women religious, and he cared about us, and he was always approachable.''
The tiny Black Catholic Caucus found him receptive and supportive, activist Bob Davis said. ''He was very politically astute, so he paid attention to concerns and rumblings in the church.''
The archbishop found a niche in the church bureaucracy for the caucus, but candidly warned caucus members that this new financial support would cost them their independence and much of their freedom to speak publicly and to lobby for change.
''Bernardin was honest about that kind of thing,'' recalled the Rev. Clarence Rivers, the first African-American priest ordained by the archdiocese.
A cooperative man
The Rev. Duane Holm, a Presbyterian and director of the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati, said Archbishop Bernardin's willingness to cooperate with other religious leaders and to share the spotlight with them ''really made it possible for us (the coalition) to operate.''
On the other hand, the Rev. Mr. Holm quickly learned not to mistake Archbishop Bernardin's famously sympathetic listening for agreement. ''He didn't give much away'' in a discussion, and it was easy to leave thinking the archbishop had given more than he had.
A fellow coalition leader, the Rev. Paul Long, said the new archbishop was everything a mutual friend promised: ''a man of high integrity, a very liberal man, but he operates within the doctrine of the church.''
All of this and more has been recounted since Cardinal Bernardin confirmed that he had pancreatic cancer, that it had spread to his liver, that he had abandoned chemotherapy and that his death was imminent.
While there has been a national fascination with this public process, there is a deeper lesson in Cardinal Bernardin's example, Archbishop Pilarczyk said.
''He taught us that the art of dying means living well.''
Julie Irwin, Kathleen Hillenmeyer and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Published Nov. 15, 1996.
