Cardinal William Wakefield Baum, the archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980 who served as a cardinal for 39 years – the longest such tenure in U.S. Church history – died July 23 after a long illness. He was 88 years old.

The vigil for Cardinal Baum will be July 30, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, where the Vigil Mass will be celebrated that evening at 7 p.m. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington will celebrate the Funeral Mass for Cardinal Baum on July 31 at 2 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Matthew, and interment will be in the crypt of the cathedral.

As the longest serving U.S. cardinal ever, Cardinal Baum witnessed history and made history. In the spring of 2011, he had been a cardinal for nearly 35 years and surpassed the record of legendary Baltimore Cardinal James Gibbons, who had been a cardinal from 1886 until his death in 1921. The soft-spoken Cardinal Baum, whom some of the Vatican’s Swiss guards used to call “the gentle cardinal,” said he found no merit in his longevity. “It’s a gift from God,” he said.

Cardinal Baum, who served as the archbishop of Washington from 1973 to 1980, had in 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial, been named a cardinal at the age of 49, and became one of the world’s youngest cardinals at that time.

In 1979, Cardinal Baum as the archbishop of Washington hosted Pope John Paul II on his first pastoral visit to the nation’s capital, joining the pontiff for a large public Mass for 175,000 people at the National Mall and for a visit to the White House with President Jimmy Carter and his family. The cardinal once summarized that visit as “a moment of grace,” when the charismatic pontiff electrified large crowds but also made a surprise stop to personally greet and bless people with disabilities who were waiting outside Trinity College to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father. “He reached out to people, and they were reaching out to him,” Cardinal Baum said.

One year earlier, the cardinal had participated in the conclaves that elected Pope John Paul I and later Pope John Paul II. While the world was surprised when the new Polish pontiff appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Baum said the world’s cardinals were not surprised by his election – they knew him well as a man of great faith, intellect and courage. The cardinal said St. John Paul II proved to be the right man at the right time to serve as pope, a man of boundless energy who gave himself completely to Christ in his service to people around the world, offering a witness of holiness that was magnified as the pope became old and frail.

In 2005 following the death of John Paul II, Cardinal Baum, by then a retired Vatican official, acted as the senior cardinal priest in the conclave that elected German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope, who took the name Benedict XVI. Only Cardinal Baum and Cardinal Ratzinger participated in the conclaves of 1978 and the one in 2005. The cardinal said later that the new pope was a man of deep faith and profound intellect, and a man of great kindness and simplicity. They had gotten to know each other as priests serving as theological experts at the Second Vatican Council and later as cardinals worked together many times, including on the new catechism.

A pioneer in ecumenism, Cardinal Baum as a priest helped draft the Vatican II document on relations with other faiths, and he headed that new office for the U.S. bishops’ conference. As a bishop in Missouri and Washington, he made ecumenical and interfaith dialogue a key priority, and in the nation’s capital, he supported the work of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington.

A noted teacher of the faith, Cardinal Baum served on the commission that developed the Catechism of the Catholic Church. As the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education from 1980-90, he led the congregation as it undertook detailed studies of every U.S. seminary and oversaw the drafting of new guidelines for Catholic colleges and universities. It was in this capacity that Cardinal Baum oversaw, at the request of St. John Paul II, the apostolic visitation of all of the seminaries and houses of formation in the United States. 

Later, he headed the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican office that deals with matters of conscience. The cardinal’s motto – “Ministry of Reconciliation” – expressed a special goal of his life as a bishop, to promote the healing power of Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

William Wakefield Baum was born on Nov. 21, 1926 in Dallas, but his family moved to Kansas City, Mo., when he was young, and he grew up there. Inspired by the devout faith of his family and by the example of his parish priest and by the Sisters of Mercy who taught him, he wanted to be a priest from a young age.

On May 12, 1951, he was ordained as a priest of his home Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. On that very day 60 years later, he marked the anniversary of his ordination as he had marked every day of his priesthood, by celebrating Mass, which he said was the source of the greatest joy in his daily life.

“That’s the love of my life, the priesthood,” Cardinal Baum said in an interview before his anniversary Mass in 2011 at the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, that was concelebrated by cardinals, bishops and priests from across the country. At the Mass, he offered special words of thanks to priests for bringing Christ’s love and hope to their people through the sacraments.

At the anniversary Mass, Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl honored his predecessor with a chalice that was to be presented to the archdiocese’s St. John Paul II Seminary for use in the daily Masses there. He said that Cardinal Baum had carried out all his assignments “with the vision of priesthood as Jesus Christ at work in His Church.”

During the Second Vatican Council, then-Msgr. Baum had served as a theological expert and worked with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Christian Unity, and he participated in drafting the Second Vatican Council’s landmark Decree on Ecumenism that was approved in 1964. That same year, the U.S. bishops formed their Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, choosing Msgr. Baum as the committee’s first executive director.

After serving in that role for five years and as chancellor in his home diocese of Kansas City, Msgr. Baum was appointed by Pope Paul VI to be the bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo., in 1970. Three years later, the pope named him as the new archbishop of Washington. From 1972-75, the future cardinal served as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Later speaking of the Church’s ecumenical work, Cardinal Baum said, “I’m very happy with the progress that has been made. Our Lord Jesus Christ wills that all who believe in Him be one.”

The cardinal’s work in reaching out to people of other faiths made a lasting impression on his priests, including Father Tom Kalita, the pastor of St. Peter Parish in Olney who was ordained by then-Archbishop Baum in 1974. He later praised the cardinal as a man whose dialogue with people of other Christian denominations was rooted in respect. “You build bridges by having a respect for individual persons… He always sees people as children of God, as brothers and sisters in Jesus,” Father Kalita said.

As the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Baum issued pastoral letters on spiritual issues like the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on social questions like racism and capital punishment. In his pastoral on racism, he called it a “heresy and sin,” and said racism was “one of the most serious violations of justice in our community and even in our church.”

Also as archbishop of Washington, the cardinal established Secretariats for Black Catholics and for Spanish-speaking Catholics.

When asked in an interview about his accomplishments as archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Baum did not speak of any particular programs, but of his role as a teacher encouraging local Catholics to love and serve Jesus.

Later when Cardinal Baum headed the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, he was honored to serve on the commission that drafted the new Catechism for the Catholic Church.

“It (the catechism) is a great achievement. Every home should have it, and it should be read,” he said. “We live in a world of flux. We’re buffeted by winds (of change) in doctrines and ideologies. We need very much a sure Catholic guide to what the Church believes, teaches and transmits.”

The catechism, he said, is “for everyone. (It is a book) every Catholic should read, study and pray.”

In 1995, Cardinal Baum returned to Washington to celebrate a Mass marking his 25th anniversary as a bishop. From 1980-90, he led the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, before then heading the Vatican office dealing with matters of conscience, a post from which he retired in 2001 on the day after his 75th birthday. As Cardinal Baum prepared to mark his 25th anniversary as a bishop, he described his service in the Church as “a pilgrimage of faith and thanksgiving.”

The cardinal said that every day since he had come to Rome after serving as Washington’s archbishop, he had prayed for the archbishop and the people of Washington. His Vatican apartment overlooked St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Basilica, and his living room walls had prints of the Ark and the Dove, the two ships that had brought Maryland’s first settlers to the colony in 1634, a reminder of his affection for the Archdiocese of Washington that he had served as archbishop.

“I’ve always kept my love for Washington alive in my prayer,” said Cardinal Baum, who in his retirement eventually moved back to the nation’s capital, back home to be with the family of faith whom he had served as an archbishop and for whom he prayed every day since.