A tenure of faith and crisis

A version of this obituary appeared in some editions of Wednesday's Inquirer.

Cardinal Anthony Joseph Bevilacqua, 88, whose 15 years as shepherd of the 1.5 million-member Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia were marked by both celebration and crisis, died in his sleep Tuesday night in his apartment at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood.

Cardinal Bevilacqua was emblematic of the church to which he had devoted himself since age 14: progressive on some social-justice issues, staunchly orthodox on matters of doctrine and sexuality, and unfailingly deferential to the will of Rome.

After retiring in 2003, he left the cardinal's residence on City Avenue for the apartment at the seminary and rarely appeared in public. He was always a private man, given to dining alone. Yet during his time at the archdiocesan helm he delighted in public appearances and was known for his personal touch with the faithful.

He paid official daylong visits to all 302 parishes in the five-county archdiocese, typically saying Mass, touring schools, visiting nursing homes, and posing for photos. He sometimes flung his zucchetto, or skullcap, Frisbee-style into a crowd, and planted his bishop's hat on youngsters' heads.

His most agonizing period was surely the clergy sex-abuse crisis that erupted in 2002 and led three years later to a searing indictment of his leadership by a Philadelphia grand jury. It was followed in early 2011 by yet another grand-jury report that even more severely took the cardinal to task for allegedly turning a deaf ear to molestation complaints and the attendant suffering of children.

The scandal would pursue him until the very end of his life.

On the day before he died, a Common Pleas Court judge reiterated her earlier ruling that Cardinal Bevilacqua was competent to testify in the felony trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn, his former secretary for clergy. Lynn is charged with child endangerment for recommending the assignments of priests he allegedly knew were sexually abusive.

The cardinal's lawyers argued he was not fit to testify because he had cancer and suffered from dementia.

On Wednesday, several friends said privately they were relieved his death spared him from taking the witness stand.