Joseph Elmer Cardinal Ritter: His Life And Times

Monsignor Nicholas A. Schneider was born in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1930, was ordained on March 17, 1956 and named Monsignor by Pope Paul VI on February 24, 1977. He has served the Archdiocese of Saint Louis in many ways, including as a rural and city associate pastor; prison chaplain; executive secretary of the Archdiocesan Commissions on Sacred Liturgy, Music and Art; lecturer for the Pope Paul VI Catechetical Institute, and as pastor of All Saints-University City, Our Lady of Providence and St. Monica. He was a founding board member of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions and of the Missouri Liturgical Congress. Msgr. Schneider is a prolific writer and has authored six books and over thirty articles for ecclesiastical journals.

Justin Cardinal Rigali was born in Los Angeles on April 19, 1935 and was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of St. Vibiana in Los Angeles on April 25, 1961. He obtained a doctorate in Canon Law in 1964 and then served at the Apostolic Nunciature in Madagascar. In July 1967, he was named a Papal Chamberlain (Monsignor) to His Holiness Pope Paul VI. He also accompanied Pope John Paul II on a number of international pastoral visits, including the Holy Father's first two major journeys to the United States in 1979 and 1987. On January 25, 1994, Pope John Paul II appointed him the eighth Bishop and seventh Archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri. In January of 1999, he hosted the Pastoral Visit of Pope John Paul II to the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the only such visit to a single diocese in the United States during the pontificate. In 2003, Pope John Paul II appointed Archbishop Rigali as the twelfth Bishop and eighth Archbishop of Philadelphia and he was named a Cardinal on September 28, 2003.