With rosary beads clutched in their hands, Catholics concerned about Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s health flocked Saturday to Holy Name Cathedral on the Near North Side and churches across the region to pray for his strength.
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“It gives me a lot of hope,” said Elaine Sampson of Chicago, who made a special trip to Holy Name, 735 N. State St., where Bernardin often delivers sermons, to pray for him. “When you see someone like him handle the situation as he is, they are individuals who are truly courageous.”
Well-wishers filled the cathedral’s noon mass after the announcement Friday that the 67-year-old cardinal, the leader of 2.3 million Catholics in his archdiocese and a popular figure across the country, likely has pancreatic cancer and a tumor on his right kidney.
Sunday evening, Bernardin will enter Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. He is scheduled to undergo exploratory surgery about 7:30 a.m. Monday.
A special mass for Bernardin will be said at 12:10 p.m. Monday in the cathedral.
Saturday, the cardinal spent the day at home resting, said Rev. Robert E. McLaughlin, a priest at Holy Name.
Bernardin has earned the respect of people in the community during the 13 years he has served as the Catholic archbishop of Chicago, fellow priests and parishioners said.
Ed Heisinger, who sang in the Holy Name choir for 34 years, said he will wait anxiously for news on the cardinal.
“He’s very well-liked here,” Heisinger said. “The whole congregation is praying for him. I tend to say the rosary for him.”
Rev. Joseph Wilk, of St. Matthew Catholic Church in Schaumburg, got to know Bernardin in the early 1980s, when Wilk was newly ordained and thrust into leading the congregation at Queen of All Saint’s Church in Chicago.
“I was just a young priest put in charge, and he would call me just to see how I was doing,” Wilk said. “He is just such a pastoral, wonderful man.”
While parishioners and priests praised the cardinal, they were concerned about the seriousness of his illness.
Heisinger said he had a relative die of pancreatic cancer and knows it to be a quick but painful way to die.
“It sounds very serious,” Heisinger said.
About 5 percent of all cancer deaths are from pancreatic cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Patients have a 14 percent chance of surviving the first year, 5.1 percent chance of surviving the second year and 2.8 percent chance of surviving the third year.
Doctors could perform surgery on Bernardin to remove the cancerous portion of the pancreas if the cancer is limited to that gland. But the procedure is difficult and risky, medical experts said.
The seriousness of Bernardin’s illness brought one church member to tears at the end of Saturday’s service at Holy Name Cathedral, given by Rev. Timothy Mitchell.
“I leave it to God. His will, will be done,” said Peregrina C. Sucaldito, a parishioner for 20 years. “His job is not finished here.”
Mitchell asked people at the service to have strength and faith.
“The first thing we do in times of sorrow and difficulty is thank God,” he said.
“We give him gratitude for what he has done for us. God will work through us for the betterment of the kingdom.”
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