Cookie Policy
The portal Osservatore Romano uses technical or similar cookies to make navigation easier and guarantee the use of the services. Furthermore, technical and analysis cookies from third parties may be used. If you want to know more click here. By closing this banner you consent to the use of cookies.
I AGREE
Remembering
16 April 2021
Australian Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, passed away on Saturday, 10 April, in Newcastle, Australia at the age of 96.
Born on 5 July 1924 in Sydney, Australia, to non-Catholic parents, Edward Idris Cassidy’s family split when he was just two years old. He was entrusted to the care of his paternal grandparents and, although he had been baptized into the Church of England, his grandmother brought him into the Catholic Church and he was baptized anew at Saint John the Baptist Church in Gulgong. As a boy, he attended both Catholic and public schools. He expressed his vocation to the priesthood at a very young age but, in 1939, after the death of his grandfather, he left his studies to work in the government job in New South Wales, and for about three months he worked at the Ministry of Transport and Traffic Control. Discouraged from his vocation due to his complex family situation, he later found a point of spiritual reference in then-Archbishop Norman Thomas Gilroy of Sydney. He began attending the seminary of Saint Colomba in Springwood in February 1943, and the following year entered Saint Patrick’s College in Manly, where he completed his studies.