With Cardinal Etchegaray's death, an era has ended

With the passing last week of Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, we have taken a step closer to the end of an era in the life of the Church: of clear-eyed, practical idealists who worked to conform the world to our fleeting vision of celestial Jerusalem, with the full knowledge that the work could never be perfect.

A priest who served as a peritus (theological expert) at Vatican II, later Archbishop of Marseilles, and a Vatican official who led both the Pontifical Council Cor Unum – the pope’s charitable arm – and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Etchegaray was also a diplomat of great accomplishment.