A memorial | ZOOM |

• Joseph Louis Bernardin was born April 2, 1928, in Columbia, S.C., to Joseph and Maria Bernardin, recent immigrants from northern Italy's Tonadico di Primiero in the Dolomite mountains.
• His stonecutter father died of cancer in 1934, and the cardinal's mother returned to her trade as a seamstress, supporting her son and his younger sister, Elaine.
• Ordained a priest in Columbia, in April 1952, Father Bernardin spent two years as an assistant pastor for the Diocese of Charleston before moving into the corridors of power for the next 12 years. Eventually, he ran the diocese after the bishop was transferred and until a new bishop was installed.
• Ordained an auxiliary bishop for Atlanta in April 1966, he again filled senior pastoral and administrative posts, including diocesan administrator when Archbishop Paul Hallinan died.
• In April 1968, Bishop Bernardin was appointed general secretary -- chief of staff -- to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) in Washington, D.C.
• He was installed as archbishop of Cincinnati in December 1972, at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral.
• Fellow bishops elected the archbishop to a three-year term as president of the NCCB/USCC in 1974, and they chose him to represent them at worldwide Vatican synods of bishops from 1974 to 1994.
• He was installed as archbishop of Chicago in August 1982, and became a cardinal in early 1983.
• Cardinal Bernardin chaired the committee that prepared the U.S. bishops' policy statement on peace and war in the early 1980s and the follow-up assessment of the moral status of nuclear deterrence. He also headed the bishops' committees on NCCB/USCC structure and function, marriage and family life, anti-abortion activities, canonical affairs and communication. He served on sacred congregations (Vatican departments) for bishops, evangelization, sacraments and divine worship, on papal commissions on social communications and canon law revision, and on the pope's Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He also was a consultant to the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education and chairman of the board of the National Catholic Educational Association.
• In the 1970s, Archbishop Bernardin was on the President's Advisory Committee for (Vietnamese) Refugees and the President's American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council.
• Cardinal Bernardin was a founder and vice chairman of the Religious Alliance Against Pornography, and he served on or led numerous boards related to church institutions.
• In late 1993, Steven Cook accused Cardinal Bernardin of sodomy when Mr. Cook was an Elder High School student in a pre-seminary program. A year later, Mr. Cook recanted and accepted Cardinal Bernardin's unflinching denial of any wrongdoing.
• On June 14, 1995, physicians said that Cardinal Bernardin's pancreas was cancerous and that the disease had spread. Pancreatic cancer treatment began.
• A cancerous kidney was removed July 12, 1995, during surgery for a benign tumor on his liver.
• In mid-1996, pancreatic cancer returned and spread to his liver, and Cardinal Bernardin announced he might have a year to live.
• On Sept. 9, President Clinton gave Cardinal Bernardin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor for individuals' contributions to their communities.
• Cardinal Bernardin abandoned chemotherapy in mid-October and handed off daily duties to auxiliary bishops at the end of the month.

Published Nov. 15, 1996.