Timing Was Odd, but Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's Death Wasn't

By David Zucchino
Chicago Tribune
March 8, 2012

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-nn-cardinal-anthony-bevilacqua-died-of-natural-causes-20120308,0,6121385.story

Conspiracy theories worthy of a Dan Brown novel arose in Philadelphia last month after a local prosecutor said she considered the Jan. 31 death of the city’s 88-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal "peculiar."

Relax.

A suburban Philadelphia coroner announced Thursday that there was nothing peculiar, or even suspicious, about the death of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

"Elderly people often die suddenly," Montgomery County Coroner Walter I. Hofman told a news conference. "This is a natural death."

Montgomery County Dist. Atty. Risa Vetri Ferman had asked the coroner to review the cardinal’s death, though she said she had no particular reason to suspect foul play.

However, Bevilacqua died a day after a Philadelphia judge ruled him competent to testify at an upcoming sexual abuse trial of three former or current priests. That left some people wondering how a man ruled mentally competent one day could die the next.

The coroner agreed to delay his ruling on the cause of death until he received results of a toxicology exam on fluids taken from the cardinal’s body. He also reviewed medications taken by Bevilacqua.

Hofman said the decision to delay his ruling prompted hate mail.

Church officials and the cardinal’s lawyers had said Bevilacqua suffered from dementia and cancer, and was largely confined to his residence.

Hofman said the cardinal had heart disease, prostate cancer and "fairly advanced" dementia.

But he stressed that he found no relationship between the judge’s competency ruling and the cardinal’s death the next day.

"These things do occur," he said.