Cardinal Bernardin

* We often ask if it is possible for a person to exercise high religious office and still retain the essential human qualities of compassion, humor and self-effacing dignity. Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin’s life and death provide us with an answer. Indeed, he seems to have been an exemplar of the highly touted (but perhaps too rarely seen) “Christian” life.

The Times is to be commended for its coverage of Cardinal Bernardin’s last days on earth. Judy Pasternak’s and Larry B. Stammer’s Nov. 14 and 16 articles provided rich insight into the cardinal’s personality and the effect that his death had on the American Catholic bishops at their annual fall meeting.

STEPHEN M. BYARS