Background
Terence James Cooke was born on March 1, 1921 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the youngest of three children of Michael and Margaret (née Gannon) Cooke.
Terence James Cooke was born on March 1, 1921 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the youngest of three children of Michael and Margaret (née Gannon) Cooke.
Cooke, after expressing an early interest in the priesthood, entered the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of New York in 1934. In 1940, he entered St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. In 1947 he began graduate study at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. , and received his master's degree in social work in 1949.
He was ordained a priest on December 1, 1945. He was assigned to parish work in the Bronx and then served at St. Agatha's Home for Children in Nanuet, N. Y. Cooke taught at the School of Social Service at Fordham University in New York City until 1957, when he became secretary to Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York. That same year he was granted the status of papal chamberlain by Pope Pius XII and raised to the rank of monsignor. In 1958 he was made vice-chancellor of the archdiocese. He became chancellor in 1961, and in 1965 he became vicar general of the archdiocese. Also in 1965 he became auxiliary bishop and accompanied Cardinal Spellman to Rome for the final session of the Second Vatican Council. Cardinal Spellman died in December 1967, and Bishop Cooke was appointed his successor in March 1968. In 1969 Archbishop Cooke was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. He died in New York City on October 6, 1983.
Cooke was widely regarded as a holy person by many New Yorkers during his episcopal ministry as Archbishop of New York and, soon after his death in 1983, a movement to canonize him as a saint began. In 1984, with the support of Cooke's successor, Archbishop (and future cardinal) John Joseph O'Connor, the Cardinal Cooke Guild was established. In 1992, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints officially designated Cooke as a Servant of God, a first step in the canonization process that leads to beatification and then canonization as a saint. On the 14 of April 2010, Pope Benedict XVI was presented with the positio, the documentation on the cardinal's life, work and virtues. The document was then given to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to be examined by theologians. If the document is approved, Cardinal Cooke, who is currently a Servant of God, will receive the title of Venerable, the second step leading to sainthood.
On April 5, 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Cooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1988, he was posthumously awarded the F. Sadlier Dinger Award by William H. Sadlier, Inc. for his outstanding contributions to the ministry of religious education in America.
Relations with the Soviet Union: An anti-Communist, he opposed the majority of his fellow bishops when he spoke out against nuclear disarmament in 1982. He once stated that deterrence was not satisfactory or safe, but could be considered morally "tolerable".
Cooke, opposed to the militant policies of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, remained inside St. Patrick's Cathedral during the 1983 St. Patrick's Day Parade, until the grand marshal, Michael Flannery, had passed by. Flannery was an outspoken supporter of the IRA.
He was an outspoken opponent of abortion, which he called the "slaughter of the innocent unborn", and once served as chairman of the Bishops' Pro-life Committee.
He was the founder of Courage International, a ministry that promotes chastity and support for gay and lesbian Catholics.
