Pope John Paul II accepted the resignation Tuesday of Philadelphia's 80-year-old archbishop, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, for age reasons. He'll be replaced in October by St. Louis Archbishop Justin F. Rigali, a cleric with close ties to the Vatican.
Bevilacqua led the Philadelphia archdiocese since 1988. He was the oldest cardinal in the United States to head a diocese.
Rigali, 68, had a long career working for the Vatican before being named St. Louis archbishop in 1994. He served as an English-language translator for Pope Paul VI and accompanied both that pontiff and John Paul on international trips.
Bevilacqua, with Rigali at his side during a morning news conference, called his successor "a dear friend of mine for many years."
"He is a man of piety, prayer and deep faith, known for his loyalty to the Holy Father and for his unwavering fidelity to the teachings of the church," the cardinal said
Rigali said he was "deeply honored" by the appointment as he greeted local Roman Catholics and "all the civic community of Philadelphia, which has meant so much to the history and development of this nation."
Rigali never ran a parish before taking the St. Louis post, and a leading advocate for victims of molestation by priests said Tuesday that he has been among the least compassionate American bishops in dealing with the clerical sex abuse crisis.
Rigali "has been consistently behind the curve" in implementing reforms meant to prevent abuse and punish guilty priests, said David Clohessy, national director of Survivors of Those Abused by Priests, who lives in St. Louis. Clohessy said Rigali consistently refused to meet with leaders of his group.
But in a March interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Rigali said he wanted to purify the church of the "tremendous evil" of sex abuse. "This must be eradicated, this must be stamped out now," he said.
Bevilacqua was the 11th man to serve as archbishop in the nation's seventh-largest diocese, which has 1.5 million Catholics. Rumors had circulated for months that the pope planned to name Bevilacqua's successor by the end of the year.
Rigali's appointment completes a series of recent major transfers in the Catholic church. On July 1, the pope named Bishop Sean Patrick O'Malley to lead the Boston Archdiocese, succeeding Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in December amid public outrage over the sex abuse scandal.
In 2002, as the abuse crisis reached its height, Bevilacqua called homosexuality an "aberration, a moral evil" and suggested gays were more likely to commit abuse. Under Bevilacqua, the Philadelphia Archdiocese tried to weed out gay candidates to the priesthood and expelled any seminarian found to be an active homosexual — a zero-tolerance policy experts called relatively rare.
Heeding the pope's call for a "new evangelization," Bevilacqua used novel methods such as a toll-free confession line to attract lapsed Catholics.
He was the first cardinal to host a live weekly radio call-in program. Other initiatives included a Web site that allowed people to e-mail questions to priests and door-to-door visits to parish homes.
As church rules required, Bevilacqua submitted his retirement to the pope when he turned 75 in 1998. But the pope did not accept it, and the cardinal kept up 16-hour days into his late 70s.
Bevilacqua turned 80 on June 17, making him no longer eligible to participate in the vote on the next pope, but he retains his rank as cardinal.
Rigali underwent surgery in March that involved removal of a cancerous prostate gland, discovered during a routine exam. Later tests found no evidence that the cancer had spread.
The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America, said Rigali's links to the Vatican were a major factor in his assignment, since the Philadelphia archbishop also eventually becomes a cardinal, charged with helping elect the next pope.
"Clearly Archbishop Rigali has friends in Rome who like him very much and trust him and want to make him a cardinal," Reese said. "And the pope knows Rigali very well."