Cardinal Baum Becomes Our Honorary Chaplain
The Paulus Institute for the Propagation of Sacred Liturgy is pleased to announce that His Eminence William Wakefield Cardinal Baum, S.T.D., Major Penitentiary Emeritus, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Catholic Education, and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, has accepted our invitation to serve as our Honorary Chaplain. We are further privileged to receive from His Eminence the gift of his cappa magna for use in our continuing efforts to bring the pontifical Traditional Latin Mass widely to all the Catholic Faithful.
His Eminence is no stranger to The Paulus Institute. He participated in choro in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the traditional form honoring His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on April 24, 2010, celebrated by His Excellency the Most Reverend Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa. He had planned on joining us again for the pontifical traditional Mass we were arranging for honoring Pope Benedict on April 9, 2011.
In his youth Cardinal Baum exemplified the importance to vocations of boys serving at Mass, now assured by Universae Ecclesiae for any Mass said in any church according to the 1962 Missal. As an altar boy at age 10 at St. Peter’s in Kansas City and by 12 attending daily Holy Mass, the young William Baum had already thought of being a priest.
We are inspired by the Cardinal’s reputation as a scholarly, devout, and gentle man of God. Not long after his incardination in the Diocese of Kansas City in 1951, he was a peritus during the Second Vatican Council. He was named by Pope Paul VI in quick succession as Bishop of Springfield-Cape Giradeau in 1970 and as Archbishop of Washington in 1973, and then at age 49 elevated in 1976 to the College of Cardinals. He participated in both papal conclaves in 1978. In 1980, Pope John Paul II, with whom His Eminence was close, brought His Eminence to Rome first as Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and then in 1990 as Major Penitentiary, which he held until 2006. In the conclave of 2005, he and Cardinal Ratzinger were the only cardinal-electors appointed by Pope Paul VI and the only remaining electors from the conclaves of 1978 (a third, Jaime Cardinal Sin of Manila, eligible, but absent because of illness). Cardinal Baum was appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the 1970s while still the resident archbishop of Washington. He has known Pope Benedict since that time and from their conciliar days as periti and then their work together on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. His Eminence has served widely in Vatican affairs and is held in high regard, having been a member of not only Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but also the Congregations for Bishops, for Eastern Churches, for Evangelization, and for Religious.
Please join us in our prayers for His Eminence and in welcoming him to The Paulus Institute.