30 Facts About James Stafford

James Francis Stafford was born on July 26,1932 and is an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

James Stafford served as major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary from 2003 to 2009.

James Stafford was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

James Stafford was born on July 26,1932, in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of Francis Emmett and Mary Dorothy Stafford.

Francis James Stafford was the owner of a furniture store, opened by his grandfather in 1902.

James Stafford was raised in Irvington, a Baltimore neighborhood, and graduated from Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland, in 1950.

James Stafford then entered Loyola College Maryland in Baltimore, planning a career in medicine.

However, in 1952, the death of a close friend in a car crash caused James Stafford to rethink his future and to enter St Mary's Seminary in Baltimore.

James Stafford earned a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the Gregorian University in 1958.

James Stafford then entered the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he earned a Master of Social Work degree in 1964 with a thesis on the foster care of children.

From 1964 to 1966, James Stafford served as assistant director of the archdiocesan Catholic Charities and assistant pastor of St Ann Parish in Baltimore.

James Stafford was named in 1966 as director of the archdiocesan branch of Catholic Charities by Cardinal Lawrence Shehan, serving in that position for ten years.

James Stafford was elected president of the presbyteral senate for the archdiocese the following year.

James Stafford helped reorganize the central services of the archdiocese and create its collegial structures.

James Stafford was consecrated on February 29,1976, by Archbishop William Borders, with Shehan and Bishop Thomas Murphy serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore.

James Stafford selected as his episcopal motto: In principium erat Verbum, which is Latin for: "In the beginning was the Word".

James Stafford attended the Fifth Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Vatican City from September to October 1980.

James Stafford was installed at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado, on July 30,1986.

James Stafford decided to buy the seminary property and plan a brand new institution, St John Vianney Theological Seminary.

James Stafford was appointed by John Paul II as president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity on August 20,1996.

James Stafford was created cardinal-deacon of Gesu Buon Pastore alla Montagnola Parish in Rome in the consistory of 1998.

In 2003, James Stafford was appointed major penitentiary, overseeing matters pertaining to indulgences and the internal forum of the Catholic Church.

James Stafford was one the highest ranking American members of the Roman Curia and the second one in that role.

James Stafford participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.

James Stafford submitted his letter of resignation to Benedict XVI on his 75th birthday in 2007.

On March 1,2008, James Stafford took the option, after ten years as a cardinal deacon, for promotion to the rank of cardinal-priest, and was assigned the titular church of San Pietro in Montorio.

The National Catholic Reporter reported on November 19,2008, that James Stafford had criticized President-elect Barack Obama, saying he has "an agenda and vision that are aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic".

The story was first reported by The Tower, the student newspaper of the Catholic University of America, where James Stafford made those remarks.

James Stafford then predicted that the Obama administration would compare to "Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane".

Stafford attributed America's so-called decline to US Supreme Court decisions such as the 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, which Stafford claims imposed "permissive abortion laws nationwide".