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As a priest, archbishop, and president of the US bishops’ conference, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin lived a ministry marked by thoughtfulness, compassion, and conviction. Relying on interviews with the cardinal’s assistants, friends, and family members, as well as on some previously unavailable archival material, Steven P. Millies explores Bernardin’s controversial “seamless garment” approach to life issues, his founding of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, the disturbing abuse allegations against him that were later recanted, and his experience of cancer that prompted him to write the bestselling book The Gift of Peace and that ultimately took his life. Millies offers a fresh new portrait of one of the most remarkable Catholic leaders of the twentieth century.
Steven P. Millies is associate professor of political science at the University of South Carolina Aiken in Aiken, SC. His articles about the Catholic Church’s relationship with American politics have appeared in America, the National Catholic Reporter, and Commonweal. He was born and raised in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
