OBITUARY                               CLERIC DEAD AT 68DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996         By Charlise Lyles DAYTON DAILY NEWS                              DAYTON DAILY NEWS                   Copyright (c) 1996, Dayton Newspapers Inc.* Cardinal Joseph Bernardin succumbed to cancer Thursday morning.   Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the son of an immigrant stonecutter who became one of the most powerful guiding forces in the U.S. Catholic Church, died early Thursday. He was 68.   The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago suffered from pancreatic cancer.   From 1972 to 1982, he served as bishop to the 550,500 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which includes Dayton.   His body will lie in state beginning Monday at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago before being entombed at Bishop's Mausoleum just outside the city. Hislast hours were spent with his sister, Elain Addison of South Carolina, and several long-time aides.   The Most Rev. Bernardin died as he had lived, publicly. In August, he called a press conference to announce that cancer surgery had failed and the disease was raging.   He called death his friend.   Priests and an adoring public marveled at his magnanimous sharing of the most private and final fate, death. In life, he earned a reputation as a greatreconciler and mediator, presiding over the radical reforms of the Vatican II Council and speaking out on moral and social issues from abortion to nuclear war.   In the act of dying, Bernardin appeared to reconcile life with inevitable death. "He made us less afraid of what we all fear," said his biographer, Eugene Kennedy.   "Even in dying he continues to teach us," said Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati.   Up till a few weeks before his death, Bernardin continued to run the archdiocese, planning to implement his "Catholic Common Ground Project," a controversial initiative he designed to unify factions within the church.   He visited the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton remarked he appeared "luminous" in the face of death.   And in priestly robes, the slight, gently smiling man moved among the sick and unfortunate, visiting terminally ill cancer patients, celebrating Mass andusing his personal confrontation with death to comfort others.   As he weakened, he wrote for an hour, rested, then wrote more, hoping to finish a book for others facing death. And he prayed daily over an updated prayer list compiled from thousands of letters that poured in from a public who felt his genuine affection for people.   A man who kept up with his friends far and near, Bernardin beckoned to those in Cincinnati to pay him a visit. Until the last two weeks before his death, he wrote and telephoned, even his old barber.   "We talk about the old country," the Mediterranean and the mountains, said Fausto Ferrari from his shop a block from St. Louis Church where Bernardin lived in Cincinnati. "He was a joy every time I give him haircut. I feel terrible that we lost such a great man."<    E A R L Y   L I F E   Joseph Louis Bernardin was born on April 2, 1928, in Columbia, S.C., the son of an Italian immigrant stonecutter.   He grew up in a Prostestant neighborhood, his family so poor that Bernardinonce remarked they never noticed a Great Depression.   Bernardin was 6 and his sister a toddler when his father died of cancer. Tosupport the family, Maria Bernardin worked for the Works Project Administration and as a seamstress. Little Joseph did the cooking, often Spaghetti Carbonara.   Years later as archbishop of Cincinnati, Bernardin would cook that dish forfriends. "He had an amazing affection for people and always wanted to share it," said Father Jim Bramlage, rector of St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in Cincinnati.   At 16, Bernardin graduated public high school, a straight A student. He gave no thought to the priesthood until entering a premed course on scholarship at the University of South Carolina.   Kennedy, the biographer, wrote that though Bernardin  had not been raised in a particularly pious household,  cherished friendships with parish priests might have sparked the notion that clerical life could be fulfilling.   He graduated summa cum laude from St.  Mary's Seminary in Baltimore in 1948. He attended Theological College in Washington, D.C., and Catholic University for advanced studies.   In 1952, at age 24, Bernardin was ordained a priest in a Catholic Church where authority was accepted without question. He was assigned as curate to St. Joseph's Church in Charleston, and taught history at a high school.   Soon hard work and a personable manner moved him up the administrative ladder where he juggled practically every job in a chancery office, including cemetery superintendent. He also served as chaplain at The Citadel military academy.   Bishop Paul Hallinan  of Atlanta, more interested in cooperation than asserting authority, deeply influenced Bernardin's attitudes toward church leadership and the role of authority.   Bernardin served in Charleston 14 years. In 1966, he was ordained a bishop,the youngest in U.S. history. When Hallinan was named bishop in Atlanta, he appointed Bernardin auxiliary.   Beginning in 1968, he served four years as the general secretary of the National Conference of Bishops and the United States Catholic conference. His skills of mediation became increasingly valued by the Holy See.T I M E   I N   C I N C I N N A T I   In 1972, Pope Paul VI named Bernardin as Archbishop of Cincinnati, succeeding Paul F. Leibold, who had died. Bernardin was the eighth bishop to serve the archdiocese, now 175 years old. Locals awaited a man with a reputation for being "progressive-minded."   In his new post, Bernardin would call on all the skills of mediation practiced so far to begin implementing the radical reforms of Vatican II, which sought to curb church authority.   Wrestling with factions that clung to tradition or embraced change, Bernardin earned a reputation for understanding, patience and grace under fire.   "He was consultive almost to a fault," said auxiliary Bishop Carl Moeddel of Cincinnati. "He checked with everybody about everything. He made sure that he never acted alone.   "There were times when those of us who worked with him were more impatient than he was with the process," Moeddel said. "When our attitude was, 'Let's make a decision and move on,' his attitude was, 'Wait, I need to listen more. ' He was right and we were wrong."   He was a deeply prayerful man, remembered Father James Heft, University of Dayton chancellor.   Each morning after coffee, he took a chair to his room and prayed for an hour, reading Scripture and meditating in silence.   "He kept a phenomenally busy schedule," said Father David Brinkmoeller  , Church of the Ascension in Kettering.  "But he came to know that none of this business would be fruitful unless rooted in a deep prayer life."   Perhaps a willingness to listen to God made him more willing to listen to his fellow man.   "He had a genuine talent for listening,"  said Father Ted Kosse of St. Peter's Church in New Richmond. "He took us from the days when the pastor did it all to the days of 'we the people' of God."   When tensions and pressures peaked, slipping away to a local greenhouse to buy a plant seemed to refresh him, Father Bramlage recalled.   In 1974, Bernardin was elected to a three-year term as president of the National Conference, the official voice of the church hierarchy.   Archbishop Bernardin also delved into ecumenical and community affairs withMetropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati. When Procter & Gamble Co.'s logo came under attack as satanic, Bernardin offered clarification.   "Working with him as part of the business community or as a Catholic lay person, he was the same guy, an efficient, effective administrator, very friendly, very capable in putting himself in the other person's position," said Bob Fitzpatrick, retired vice president of the Procter & Gamble Fund.   "He helped establish the Catholic Inner City Education Fund and the business community helped him raise money to continue to operate the big old parish schools in the  center of the city because they were very successful ateducating at-risk youth, mostly African-American kids."   Bernardin met criticism as he sought to recognize and reward the work of women within the church, appointing them to key roles.   In 1982, Bernardin was named Archbishop of Chicago, with its 2.3 million Catholics. He succeeded authoritarian Cardinal John Cody, who died amid financial scandal that rocked the nation's second largest archdiocese.   Barely more than 100 days later, Pope John Paul II named Bernardin to the College of Cardinals, the group of churchmen who advise the pope. It was an unprecedented achievement in the American Catholic Church.   In a 1984 pastoral letter, Bernardin declared nuclear war unjustifiable, shocking a Reagan administration that had come to expect traditional American patriotism from Catholics.   And Bernardin continued to champion women, appointing Sister Mary Costello as chief of staff.   In 1993, the prelate faced the most painful juncture in his career. Steven J. Cook filed a  multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging that Bernardin and the Rev. Ellis Harsham of Beavercreek had sexually abused Cook when he was a high school student at St. Gregory Seminary in Cincinnati.   Cook later recanted the charges against Bernardin, saying his memory was unreliable. Charges against Harsham were settled out of court.   In 1994, Bernardin, the great reconciler, publicly forgave Cook after meeting with him as he lay dying of AIDS in a Philadelphia Hospital.   "He is ready to forgive the sinner," said Kennedy, the biographer. "He was nonjudgmental, very understanding of the human condition, leading others to Jesus by his own example."   Six months later, Bernardin learned of his own illness.   "Both these were unprecedented callings to display his courage and faith," Kennedy said. "He has been himself through it all."   In his final work, Bernardin asked the church to employ the skills of mediation upon which he had built his career. His Catholic Common Ground Project calls for dialogue about issues such as abortion that the Vatican had ordered closed.   "It should be clear that our focus is pastoral, not doctrinal. We are not trying to control the church's teachings by some method of consensus of polling," Cardinal Bernardin said.   Some knocked the initiative as an invitation to endless drivel. Others hailed the call for dialogue as a major move toward healing deep divisions between liberals and traditionalists.   "Two weeks before his death, he made his last public appearance, clutching the podium for support, to pass the torch of this project to the diverse colleagues he leaves behind," said Terrence Tilley, UD chair of religious studies.   "We shall all deeply miss the spirit of reconciliation which he incarnated."BOX:      ---------------------------------------------------------------------                   SERVICES FOR CARDINAL JOSEPH BERNARDIN     ---------------------------------------------------------------------        Cardinal Joseph Bernardin will lie in state at Holy Name Cathedral in      Chicago beginning Monday Memorials:        * Chicago: Wednesday, Holy Name Cathedral        * Cincinnati: Thursday, 5:30 p.m., St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, 8th      and Plum streets downtown.     LENGTH: Long  :  221 LINESILLUSTRATION: PHOTOS:          1. Joseph Bernardin          2. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1972, when he was named Archbishop           of Cincinnati at age 44.             CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS          3. Four nuns from the Daughters of St. Paul reflect and pray during           Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago Joseph Bernardin died early           Thursday.             CREDIT: BETH A. KAISER/ASSOCIATED PRESS          4. Cardinal Joseph Bernardinm, who died Thursday, was the senior           Roman Catholic prelate in the United States and a leader of           Chicago's 2.3 million Catholics.             CREDIT: MICHAEL S. GREEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS          SUBJ: PRIESTS NA: JOSEPH BERNARDIN GEOG: CHICAGO AT: ARCHBISHOP    CARDINAL ENHANCER: REF3