By Mark Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Cardinal William W. Baum, the archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980, died July 23 at the age of 88 after a long illness. He was a cardinal for 39 years – the longest such tenure in U.S. Church history.
Cardinal Baum witnessed history from the Second Vatican Council through the election of the first Latin American pope, and he made history himself.
By the spring of 2011, he had worn the red cardinal’s hat for nearly 35 years and surpassed the record of Baltimore Cardinal James Gibbons, who had been a cardinal from 1886 until his death in 1921. The soft-spoken Cardinal Baum, whom some of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards called “the gentle cardinal,” found no merit in his longevity. “It’s a gift from God,” he said.
Services for Cardinal Baum included a funeral Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral at 2 p.m. July 31. Interment was in the crypt of the cathedral.
Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, the current archbishop of Washington, said in a statement that Cardinal Baum would be “remembered for his kindness and dedication to the ministry to which God called him.”
‘Joy-Filled Priest’
“Cardinal Baum was a joy-filled priest with a firm personal commitment to serve the Lord, which he did faithfully for 64 years of ordained life,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “With his death I have lost a longtime friend.”
Then-Archbishop Baum in 1976 was named a cardinal, becoming at 49 one of the world’s youngest cardinals. Beginning in 1980, he served at the Vatican, first as prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and then as major penitentiary, or head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the Vatican’s three tribunals, until his retirement in 2001.
In 1979, as the archbishop of Washington he hosted St. John Paul II on his first pastoral visit to the U.S., joining him for a Mass for 175,000 people at the National Mall and for a visit to the White House with President Jimmy Carter.
One year earlier, the cardinal had participated in the conclaves that elected Pope John Paul I and later Pope John Paul II. While the public was surprised when the new Polish pope appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Baum said the world’s cardinals were not surprised by his election – they knew him well as a man of great faith, intellect and courage.
In 2005 following the death of St. John Paul II, Cardinal Baum acted as the senior cardinal priest in the conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI. Only Cardinal Baum and Cardinal Ratzinger participated in the conclaves of 1978 and 2005, choosing three popes.
A pioneer in ecumenism, then-Msgr. Baum served during Vatican II as a theological expert, working with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Christian Unity. He participated in drafting the council’s landmark Decree on Ecumenism that was approved in 1964. That same year, the U.S. bishops formed their Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, choosing Msgr. Baum as the committee’s first executive director.
After serving in that role for five years and as chancellor in his home diocese, Msgr. Baum was appointed by Pope Paul VI to be the bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1970. Three years later, the pope named him archbishop of Washington. From 1972 to 1975, he served as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
As bishop in Missouri and Washington, he made ecumenical and interfaith dialogue a priority, including for instance, supporting the work of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington.
On a larger stage, Cardinal Baum led the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education from 1980 to 1990.