| His Eminence John Patrick Foley |
|
|---|---|
Coat of arms of Cardinal Foley, with his personal arms quartered with those of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre |
|
| See | Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem |
| Enthroned | December 22, 2007 |
| Reign ended | February 12, 2011 (3 years, 52 days) |
| Predecessor | Carlo Furno |
| Successor | Edwin Frederick O'Brien |
| Other posts | President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications (1984-2007) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | May 19, 1962 |
| Consecration | May 8, 1984 |
| Created Cardinal | November 24, 2007 |
| Rank | Cardinal-Deacon of S. Sebastiano al Palatino |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 11, 1935 Darby, Pennsylvania |
| Died | December 11, 2011 (aged 76) Darby, Pennsylvania |
| Styles of John Foley |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | none |
John Patrick Foley (November 11, 1935 – December 11, 2011[1][2]) was an American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. From 2007 until 2011, he was Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, an order of knighthood under papal protection, having previously served as President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications from 1984 to 2007. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007. He provided the commentary for the American television viewers of the Christmas Midnight Mass from St Peter's Basilica, Rome. However, in 2009, he retired from that role after 25 years. The commentary has been taken over by Monsignor Thomas Powers of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, an official in the Congregation for Bishops.
Pope Benedict XVI, accepted Cardinal Foley's resignation as Grand Master on Thursday, February 24, 2011, due to age (on November 11, 2010, the Cardinal had turned 75, the age at which all bishops must write a letter to the Pope formally offering to resign) and because of ill health (the Cardinal was diagnosed in September 2009 with leukemia and anemia). He had led the Pontifical Council for Social Communications for 23 years, from 1984 to June 2007, when he was appointed Grand Master, and had been a consultor or member of many Curial departments. At one time he was editor of The Catholic Standard and Times, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He had met with Pope Benedict XVI on February 10, two days after submitting his resignation letter to the Vatican Secretary of State.
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An only child, Foley was born at Fitzgerald-Mercy Hospital[2] in Darby, Pennsylvania, to John and Regina (née Vogt) Foley. He was raised in Sharon Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia, and was a member of Holy Spirit Parish.[3] After graduating from the local parochial school, he attended St. Joseph's Preparatory School from 1949 to 1953, and briefly considered a Jesuit vocation.[4] He later attended St. Joseph's College, where he was elected student-body president in 1956 and obtained a Bachelor's degree summa cum laude in history in 1957. He then studied at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, earning a Bachelor's in Philosophy in 1958. Foley was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by Archbishop John Krol on May 19, 1962.
He furthered his studies at Columbia University's School of Journalism, earning his master's degree in journalism. As a graduate student at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he received his Licentiate degree in Philosophy in 1964 and his Doctorate cum laude in 1965 from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum)[5] with a dissertation on Natural Law, Natural Right and the Warren Court. Setting the record by receiving his doctorate in philosophy from the University in one year. He served as assistant editor and Rome correspondent for the archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Standard & Times. From 1970 to 1984 he was the newspaper's editor, and in 1976 he received the honorific title of "monsignor."
On April 5, 1984, Foley was appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and Titular Archbishop of Neapolis in Proconsulari by the late Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following May 8 from Cardinal Krol, with Bishops Martin Nicholas Lohmuller and Thomas Welsh serving as co-consecrators.
Foley, as the Council's president, was the longest-serving head of a Curial dicastery until receiving this appointment; Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, former Secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, was appointed as his successor. In 1989, he published a document on Pornography and Violence in the Media.[6]
Cardinal Foley sat on various organizations, including the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission and National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope Benedict XVI named him as Pro-Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre on June 27, 2007.
On October 17, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would make Foley a Cardinal. Foley was elevated to the College of Cardinals in the consistory at St. Peter's Basilica on November 24, 2007.[7] Foley was named the Cardinal-Deacon of San Sebastiano al Palatino.[8] He is the seventh priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to be elevated to the College of Cardinals.[4] He became full Grand Master on December 22, 2007.
On June 12, 2008, in addition to his other duties he was appointed by Benedict as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples[9] until he was weakened by illness.
On February 12, 2011 he returned to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where he resided at Villa St. Joseph, Darby, Pennsylvania, a home for infirm, retired, or convalescent priests of the Archdiocese, until his death on December 11, 2011, from leukemia.[10][11] His funeral will take place at 2pm on Friday 16 December in the Philadelphia Cathedral-Basilica where he was ordained a priest and bishop, culminating with his burial in its crypt. In keeping with preferences expressed by Cardinal Foley during his final weeks, Foley's successor as head of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, is to celebrate the liturgy. The USCCB president, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, will be the homilist. Both presider and preacher are friends of the cardinal, dating to the duo's respective stints in Rome at the helm of the Pontifical North American College.
The two days of funeral rites begin Thursday with a 9am Reception of the Body at St Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook, from which Foley was ordained just shy of a half-century ago. A daylong viewing in St Martin's Chapel will end with a 7pm Mass celebrated by the senior auxiliary of Philadelphia, Bishop Daniel Thomas, another close friend.
During his tenure, the Archbishop once sparked outrage in the homosexual community by describing the AIDS pandemic as a "natural sanction for certain types of activities."[12]
He also defended the Church's exclusively male priesthood, once saying, "Jesus clearly did not ordain women to the priesthood, nor did he authorize the Church to do so."[13] Upon the death of John Paul II on April 2, 2005, Foley and all major Vatican officials, in accord with custom, automatically lost their positions during the sede vacante. He was confirmed as the Council's president by Pope Benedict XVI several weeks later, on April 21.
Foley reportedly would rise every day at 6:00 a.m. to watch CNN, in order to "know what to pray about."[14] Foley was the English liaison for Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit to the United States.[15] He was a teetotaler and self-described "chocoholic".[16]
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Andrzej Maria Deskur |
President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications 1984–2007 |
Succeeded by Claudio Maria Celli |
| Preceded by Carlo Furno |
Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem 2007–2011 |
Succeeded by Edwin Frederick O'Brien |