The travails of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia continue.
Yesterday the church was hit with the fourth lawsuit in recent weeks by a man claiming abuse at the hands of a parish priest.
It is not an easy topic to approach, here in overwhelmingly Catholic Delaware County.
That is why I was delighted at a phone call I got yesterday afternoon.
It was from Cardinal John Foley, the Sharon Hill native who rose to the right hand of the pope during his illustrious career, and who is now back in Darby Borough, retired at Villa St. Joseph.
Foley did not call to discuss the troubles of the church. He simply called to offer a thank-you.
We had profiled him a couple of Sundays ago. He wanted to be sure to thank us for our kind words, saying he had been getting calls from around the globe on his return to Delaware County.
You can read staff writer Patti Mengers' story here.
In the midst of the storm of controversy swirling around the church, it’s easy to overlook stories like Foley’s. There are lots of them.
When he was a kid, Foley was a paperboy, delivering this newspaper’s predecessor, The Chester Times.
His eminence told me a great story about his days as a paperboy, one that struck a chord with me.
The man who would rise to the highest echelons of the church was dealing with something I have dealt with any number of times. The cost of the newspaper was going up.
From 3 cents to a nickel.
His manager from the newspaper decided to take his delivery kids out for ice cream sodas to break the news of the price hike. He asked the kids if they had any ideas about how to ease the increase for customers.
Foley was not shy about speaking up.
“I told him to go back to three cents, it’s not worth a nickel,” Foley quipped.
Today that same newspaper costs 75 cents. There are very few kids still working delivering newspapers.
And there are very few people quite like Cardinal John Foley.
Welcome home, your eminence.
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