استكشف المجموعة الواسعة من العناوين المتاحة.

T IS TRUE THAT, THROUGH THE centuries, one of the Roman Catholic Church's most effective methods for getting its message to its people has been through the inspirational life stories of the saints, the best and most visible exemplars of its teachings. But now, at a time when the church seems to many to resemble a multinational corporation, when its liberal and conservative thinkers clash on such contemporary issues as divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality, talk of sanctity seems like a throwback. It is a reminder of the church's ancient roots, the mysteries of religion that have, from the beginning, been the attraction for converts - ''Credo quia impossibile est,'' as the early Christian thinker Tertullian phrased his famous paradox. ''I believe because it is impossible.'' DURING HIS 38 YEARS AS A PRIEST, TER-ence Cooke seemed an unlikely candidate for sainthood. The son of an Irish immigrant who worked as a chauffeur and in the construction trades, the Cardinal always claimed he had ''never wanted to be anything but a simple priest.'' According to family members, he set out to become one while he was still in elementary school in the Bronx. Cooke was ordained in 1945, served briefly in a Bronx parish, took leave to earn a master's degree in social work and returned to the archdiocese intending to pursue a career of working with children. Instead, the humble priest with no political ambitions was soon boosted onto the fast track by Francis Cardinal Spellman, the legendary Archbishop of New York whose own power, and taste for it, had earned him the nickname ''the American pope.'' Cardinal Spellman was always on the lookout for clever young administrators among his priests, and in young Father Cooke he had hit upon a tireless manager with a phenomenal memory for figures, one who soon became, as some said, (Continued on Page 68) ''a cash register whose keys the Cardinal pushed.'' In his final meeting with Cardinal Cooke, [Bishop Patrick V. Ahern] expressed amazement at how the Archbishop had managed to maintain that pace. ''I never even saw you yawn,'' he recalls saying to Cardinal Cooke, and then asked if he had been in pain and exhausted. ''Always,'' he answered. ''How did you manage?'' asked Bishop Ahern. ''God did it,'' said Cardinal Cooke, simply and quietly, as he lay motionless in the Archbishop's residence. ''I had to keep going. If my illness had been divulged, I would have become a lame-duck archbishop and no one would have paid attention.'' A ND DO YOU, FA-ther, think he was a saint?'' [Benedict J. Groeschel] was slightly taken aback by the question. To find out more about the requirements of his new job as promoter of the cause of Cardinal Cooke, the Capuchin friar had traveled to Rome in 1984. At the Vatican, he conferred with a monsignor who has performed the role of the church's official skeptic, traditionally known as the ''devil's advocate.'' ''He was Cecil B. De Mille's idea of the devil's advocate,'' recalls Father Groeschel. ''Stern, bald, the heavy Germanic accent. Scared me to death.'' Father Groeschel informed the monsignor that he had known the Cardinal very well, and that in his opinion the Archbishop ''could be a saint.'' ''Good, because if you don't think he's a saint, you endanger your immortal soul by taking on this job,'' replied the monsignor. ''But if you're convinced he's a saint, you've taken away my job.'' The Vatican's man advised the American priest to ''show caution and care and let things follow the way of God.''