c. 2007 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Of the 23 men whom Pope Benedict XVI will make cardinals on Nov. 24, probably none has waited longer for a cardinal’s red hat than Philadelphia’s John Patrick Foley.

Since becoming an archbishop in 1984, Foley, 71, has attended eight consistories (as the ceremonies for creating cardinals are called), watching as 214 others received the red hat.

For years he was on a lot of short lists but never made the final cut.

Once it was clear a few months ago that this year would finally be Foley’s turn, his many friends did not hide their joy. According to the Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo, priests in Philadelphia held numerous parties over the summer in anticipatory celebration; as many as 2,500 members of the archdiocese are expected to attend next month’s consistory in Rome.

Both the lateness of Foley’s elevation, and the widespread pleasure it has generated, might be attributed to the humility which admirers cite as his signature virtue.

As head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications for more than three decades, Foley served as the Holy See’s lead liaison with the electronic press, the advertising industry, and the world of information technology. He has also been a fervent advocate within the Vatican of greater openness and sophistication in dealing with journalists.

Most famously, for the last 23 Christmases, his voice has provided on-air commentary during telecasts of midnight Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica.

Last June, Benedict appointed Foley head of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem _ a job aimed at “sensitizing people to the needs of Christians in the Holy Land and getting people to help Christians in the Holy Land,” Foley said. The position traditionally comes with a cardinal’s hat.

Part of what makes Foley unique is his ability to spend so long in a prominent Vatican position and make so few apparent enemies, and accumulating a flock of well-wishers.

The Rev. Paul Quinter, a fellow Philadelphian who lives with Foley at Villa Stitch, a residence for American priests working at the Vatican, says Foley routinely offers rides to acquaintances without cars, or stops to pick them up when he sees them walking on the street.

Hardly standard behavior from a high official of the Roman Curia.

Which raises the question: Why was so well-liked and respected a figure passed over so often?

“In part because he got caught in a double whammy, in that many people feel there are already too many Vatican cardinals and too many American cardinals, so adding a new one who’s both would be tough,” said John L. Allen Jr., senior correspondent for National Catholic Reporter.

Another reason may be the very unassuming nature that has won Foley so much affection and loyalty on both sides of the Atlantic.

“There’s probably nothing political about John,” says William McGarvey, a Philadelphia businessman and friend of the archbishop from high school and college. “He’d be happy being just a simple parish priest.”

Foley’s religious devotion and his enthusiasm for the news media both date back to his youth in suburban Darby, Pa., where at the age of 14 he wrote plays about the lives of the saints that were broadcast on local radio.

After his ordination as a priest, Foley earned a master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and later ran the official newspaper of the archdiocese of Philadelphia.

It was the media-savvy Pope John Paul II who brought Foley to Rome to run Social Communications. As the Vatican’s think tank on media issues, the council under Foley’s tenure produced papers on the ethical aspects of advertising, pornography and the Internet, among other topics.

The council also manages access to the Vatican for television journalists and photographers. Though the print press is officially run by the Holy See Press Office, the unusually accessible Foley became a major contact for those reporters too.

“Many of my colleagues in the secular press feel an enormous affection for Foley, who would take calls when no one else would, and who always gives straight answers to tough questions,” said Allen.

No service earned Foley more gratitude from the Fourth Estate than the “guerrilla Web site” set up by Foley’s office during the period between the death of John Paul II and Benedict’s election in 2005. The site provided an alternative source of information, including event schedules and the official texts of speeches, in many cases earlier than the press office could make them available.

Foley had a receptive audience for his media-friendly message in John Paul, who called for the church to be a “house of glass,” and who established the Vatican Television Center and several foreign language editions of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.

In an institution traditionally suspicious of reporters, Foley has consistently pushed for greater openness. In 2002, at the height of the sex abuse crisis in the U.S. church, he told a gathering of seminarians in Philadelphia that the “best defense against the crisis is virtue, and in the absence of virtue, candor.”

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Photos of John Foley are available via https://religionnews.com. Search by “Foley.”

Eds: see related story, RNS-POPE-CARDINALS, transmitted Oct. 17