(December 12, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday expressed his sadness on the death
of United States Cardinal John Foley, who for many years headed the Vatican’s communications
office. The 76-year old cardinal died in Philadelphia on Sunday after a battle with
leukemia. In a condolence message to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia Pope
Benedict gratefully recalled Cardinal Foley’s years of priestly ministry in his Archdiocese
of Philadephia, his distinguished service to the Holy See as President of the Pontifical
Council for Social Communications, and most recently his labours on behalf of the
Christian communities of the Holy Land. The Holy Father prayed that that late cardinal’s
lifelong commitment to the Church’s presence in the media will inspire others to take
up this apostolate so essential to the proclamation of the Gospel and the progress
of the new evangelization. It was Pope John Paul II who called Cardinal Foley, then
a priest, to Rome in 1984 making him the president of what was then called the Pontifical
Commission of Social Communications, which in 1988 became the Pontifical Council for
Social Communications. He was also in charge of Vatican’s Pontifical Council for
Social Communications, the Vatican Television Centre CTV and the Vatican Film Library.
Pope Benedict XVI made him cardinal in 2007, nominating him the Grand Master of the
Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a responsibility he relinquished
on retirement in August this year. Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi described
Cardinal Foley as a man “truly of great spiritual level." "He incarnated, in the
best way, the friendly, open, attentive relationship, of the Church in the world of
social communications, not so much as an 'impersonal' world, but as a world of persons,"
said the Jesuit priest who also directs Vatican Radio and CTV.