Cardinal John Foley, a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Philadelphia who spent nearly 37 years at the Vatican, has retired six
months after being diagnosed with leukemia and has returned to
Philadelphia.
On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI formally accepted
Foley's resignation as grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy
Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a position he had held since 2007, the year
Benedict made him a cardinal.
Foley, 75, learned in September that
he has leukemia and anemia and had been developing blood clots during
long air flights.
"I'm not in any pain or discomfort," he said Friday,
"just very tired."
Popular in Rome and Philadelphia for his informality and good humor,
Foley joked that he was not faking his illness just to return home, but
acknowledged it was always his wish to come back to Philadelphia.
He
returned Feb. 12 and took up residence at St. Joseph's Villa, the
retirement home for archdiocesan priests in Darby, where he was born.
Foley
remains a member of the College of Cardinals for life and will be
eligible to elect a new pope until he turns 80 on Nov. 11, 2015.
He
said he had submitted his retirement request to the Vatican secretary
of state about two weeks ago and met with Benedict on Feb. 10 to say
goodbye.
After kneeling for a papal blessing, he said, he had such
difficulty rising that the pontiff, 84 and diminutive, had to help him
to his feet.
Lately, Foley said, "I was finding it difficult to
stand for Mass" and to execute his many duties as grand master of the
Equestrian Order, which cares for Catholic sites in the Holy Land.
His
travel plans for this year had included fund-raising trips to Poland,
Finland, and Houston, but they looked to be too much, he said.
Since
Christmas he had been able to work only two days a week, he said, adding
that his poor health made it unlikely he could say Mass or conduct
confirmations around the archdiocese.
Before his appointment to
the Equestrian Order, Foley had served 23 years as president of the
Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
The council seeks to use
modern media to communicate the church's message of salvation and its
social teachings.
He appeared often on English-speaking television
news programs, and for 25 years hosted and narrated NBC-TV's national
broadcast of the papal Christmas Mass.
At the time of his departure from the council, he was the longest-serving head of a dicastery, or major bureau, at the Vatican.
He said Friday that both his Vatican assignments had been very satisfying.
"As
I said to the pope - how's that for name-dropping? - I very much
appreciated his appointing me" to the Equestrian Order because "it was
like a retreat at the end of my life as a bishop."
His duties often took
him to Jerusalem, where he met with people eager to help the order
preserve the shrines associated with Jesus' life.
Before leaving
Philadelphia for Rome in 1984, he had been editor since 1970 of the
archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Standard & Times.
At the
urging of Cardinal John Krol, who as Philadelphia's archbishop had
ordained Foley a priest in 1962, he earned a master's degree in
journalism from Columbia University.
It was Krol who in 1984 recommended Foley to Pope John Paul II as Pontifical Council president.
Not
sure how long the assignment might last, Foley on Friday recalled that
he approached the cardinal before departing Philadelphia 37 years ago.
"I said, 'I hope I can retire to Villa St. Joseph someday.' "
"Yes, you can," Krol replied. "But don't expect me to be there to greet you."