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Cardinal Baum, longest serving U.S. cardinal, witnessed and made history

Mark Zimmermann | Catholic News Service

Pope John Paul II greets Cardinal William W. Baum of Washington at the Vatican in 1997. Cardinal Baum, the archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980, died July 23 at age 88 after a long illness. He was a cardinal for 39 years, the longest such tenure in U.S. church history.

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U.S. Cardinal William W. Baum, who died July 23 at age 88 after a long illness, is pictured in a 2008. He was archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980 and a cardinal for 39 years, the longest such tenure in U.S. church history.

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U.S. Cardinal William W. Baum, died July 23 at age 88 after a long illness, is pictured in 2005. Archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980, he was a cardinal for 39 years, the longest such tenure in U.S. church history.

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WASHINGTON – 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 will include a vigil from 3
p.m.-6:30 p.m., July 30, at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in
Washington, a vigil Mass the same day at 7 p.m. and a funeral
Mass at the cathedral at 2 p.m. July 31. Interment will be 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.”

“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 as it undertook
studies of every U.S. seminary and oversaw the drafting of
new guidelines for Catholic colleges and universities. In
that capacity he oversaw, at the request of St. John Paul,
the apostolic visitation of all of the seminaries and houses
of formation in the United States.

While at the education congregation, he also served on the
commission that developed the Catechism of the Catholic
Church.

“It (the catechism) is a great achievement. Every home should
have it, and it should be read,” he said. “We live in a world
of flux. We’re buffeted by winds (of change) in doctrines and
ideologies. We need very much a sure Catholic guide to what
the church believes, teaches and transmits.”

William Wakefield Baum was born Nov. 21, 1926 in Dallas, but
his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, when he was young.
He wanted to be a priest from a young age, inspired by the
faith of his family and by the example of his parish priest
and the Sisters of Mercy from Alma, Michigan, who taught him.

On May 12, 1951, he was ordained a priest of his home Diocese
of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The cardinal’s work in reaching out to people of other faiths
made a lasting impression on his priests, including Father
Tom Kalita, the pastor of St. Peter Parish in Olney,
Maryland, who was ordained by then-Archbishop Baum in 1974.
He praised the cardinal as a man whose dialogue with people
of other Christian denominations was rooted in respect. “You
build bridges by having a respect for individual persons. …
He always sees people as children of God, as brothers and
sisters in Jesus,” Father Kalita said.

As the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Baum issued
pastoral letters on spiritual issues such as the Eucharist
and Mary, and on social questions such as racism and capital
punishment. In his pastoral on racism, he called it a “heresy
and sin,” and said racism was “one of the most serious
violations of justice in our community and even in our
church.”

In 1995, Cardinal Baum returned to Washington to celebrate a
Mass marking his 25th anniversary as a bishop. He described
his service in the church as “a pilgrimage of faith and
thanksgiving.”

He died in Washington at a residence run by the Little
Sisters of the Poor.

Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of
the Archdiocese of Washington.

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