Winter is a hard time on Cardinals

From my previous life as Chief Usher at St. Patrick's Cathedral in the 1980s I had the opportunity to several nice clergy members who were to become movers and shakers in recent years. Sadly, now they are passing on.

In mid December 2006, Jesuit Thelogian Avery Cardinal Dulles died at the Jesuit hospice at Fordham University. He was probably one of the most approachable and modest Cardinal I've ever met.

This week Pio Laghi died. His photo by A. di Meo (E.P.A.) has him wearing the collar badge as Patron Cardinal of Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. He was at St. Patrick's Cathedral often, as the Papal Nuncio to the United States. In 1983 during the celebration mass for the 175th anniversary of the creation of the Diocese of New York, he presented to Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of NY at the time, the papal document which created the diocese. I also got to see him at a Boy Scout Jamboree where he said the Sunday Mass and received an award for Pope John Paul II.

As far as I know, neither men had a portrait medal done.

George