New Challenge Cardinal’s Illness Leaves Some Wondering About Its Impact On Catholic Church In U.S.

It all had happened so fast. He had noticed that the color of his urine was tinted orange and thought he should see a doctor.

The appointment was set, and he carved time out of his 17-hour workday for it. The word from the doctors after that initial examination was not good; more tests were ordered immediately.

And so, on a morning in June, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a prince of the Roman Catholic Church, pastoral leader to 2.3 million of the faithful here, and one of America’s most prominent churchmen, was taken by car to a medical center.

The cardinal, 67, had risen above tribulation before. Before assuming leadership of the Chicago archdiocese 13 years ago, there had been a front-page scandal when priest-novelist Andrew Greeley’s private diaries became public. In them, the writer mused about launching a coup to oust then-Cardinal John Cody, widely disliked by Chicago’s priests, and installing the popular Bernardin as the archdiocese’s leader.

Bernardin, then archbishop of Cincinnati, endured the ensuing furor secure in the knowledge that there really was no conspiracy; both he and Greeley termed the diaries fantasies. The scandal could have stalled Bernardin’s career, but eventually, after Cody’s death, he was promoted to Chicago, then the nation’s largest archdiocese and the American church’s most prestigious post.

More recently, there had been the terrible allegations by Steven Cook, a former seminarian now living in Philadelphia. Two years ago, Cook alleged that Bernardin had sexually abused him years before in Cincinnati. Again, Bernardin weathered the storm, knowing the truth would be revealed, as it eventually was: Cook recanted, saying that his memory was faulty. There had been no molestation.

The cardinal forgave him, meeting with Cook, who has AIDS, and saying a private Mass with Cook and Cook’s longtime partner at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in December.

Now, on this June morning, the cardinal was facing his greatest test of faith yet. The silver Buick Park Avenue turned the corner, and up ahead the sign on the side of the building came into view: Loyola University Cancer Center.

Days later, Bernardin would be back at Loyola for surgery, a seven-hour operation to remove a cancerous kidney and a malignant mass on his pancreas.

And liberal Catholics could only wonder what impact his possibly terminal illness would have on the future of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

Bernardin, one of eight American cardinals, has long been a hero to progressives in the American church, not because he necessarily shares all their views, but because in a church in which the leadership has grown increasingly conservative, he has always offered a welcome ear to all.

“He’s a man who knows how to listen to people and how to respond to people,” said Peggy Steinfels, editor of Commonweal, a respected Catholic magazine. “In a church where that’s lacking, it’s a very welcome treat.”

Bernardin’s greatest strength, perhaps, is his ability to moderate differences. He straddles the lines, helping everyone talk.

Without him, said University of Notre Dame theologian Richard McBrien, “the progressives in the (bishops’) conference will be like the Democrats in Congress. They can squawk all they want, but they can’t do anything.”

Pope John Paul II has appointed 83 percent of the world’s current cardinals, who advise him on theological matters and who will pick his successor when he dies.

Most have been in his conservative mold, such as Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. Many church watchers have said Bernardin likely would not be appointed today to such a prominent position as the Chicago archdiocese, now the nation’s second-largest after Los Angeles.

The cardinal’s associates say he has acknowledged as much himself in private.

The cardinal has never challenged the pope’s authority, never publicly disagreed with him, nor taken a public stance counter to the church’s basic teachings. He has spoken forcefully, for example, against abortion.

On the church’s political spectrum he is in the middle, neither the conservative such as O’Connor nor the liberal such as retired Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, who at one time refused to pay his income taxes because of his opposition to nuclear war.

But Bernardin’s greatest strength, his ability to moderate differences, has made him unpopular among some conservatives who have gained increasing influence within the church and who have little interest in listening to more liberal views.

“After Vatican II (the historic worldwide church conference in the 1960s that produced increased roles for the laity and modernized the church), people were willing to talk,” Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, an unabashed liberal, said in an interview. “Now, the lines are drawn, and people are fighting for their causes and less willing to dialog and debate.”

The doctors say Bernardin has a 25 percent chance of surviving the next five years.

Half of Chicago is Catholic, but news of the cardinal’s diagnosis brought an outpouring of support from religious leaders of all faiths in the city.

While he, like many prelates in large cities, has been criticized for closing some schools and parishes in areas where Catholics are dwindling, he remains enormously popular in the city.

Since undergoing surgery for his cancer on June 12, he He has canceled his public schedule until September and plans to scale back on his usual 17-hour days when he resumes work in the fall. Earlier this month he began chemotherapy treatment, which will continue through August.

The daily business of the archdiocese is being handled by several assistants, and he has said that any discussion of appointing his successor is “premature.”

In the meantime, he is spending his days at his residence, reading and praying, attending Mass daily, and reflecting.

Meeting with reporters in early July, he had this to say about his illness:

“It has enabled me to see more clearly what is essential and what is not essential. It has enabled me to focus on the things that are really important … what really contributes to the well-being of people. Somehow when you experience an illness of this kind, you begin to see how frivolous some of the things that attract our attention are.”