Philadelphia cardinal’s death investigated

PHILADELPHIA – The child-molestation scandal in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has taken a mysterious new turn, with prosecutors asking a coroner to examine the body of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua to establish whether he died of natural causes.

Risa Vetri Ferman, district attorney in suburban Montgomery County, said Friday she wants to lay to rest speculation about Bevilacqua’s end, given the “peculiar” timing of the 88-year-old cardinal’s death just a day after a judge ruled him competent to testify at the trial of his longtime aide.

Bevilacqua, spiritual leader of the archdiocese’s 1.5 million Roman Catholics from 1988-2003, died Jan. 31 at a seminary and was laid to rest without an autopsy. He suffered from dementia and cancer, according to church officials and his lawyers, and his death was widely assumed to be from natural causes.

Montgomery County Coroner Walter Hofman told The Philadelphia Inquirer that prosecutors want to “make sure there were no intervening events that could have speeded up that demise.”

Neither Hofman nor the district attorney would comment on whether they are looking into the possibility of suicide or euthanasia – both of which are considered grave sins by the Catholic Church.

Hofman said he is conducting toxicology tests on fluid and tissue that his office took from Bevilacqua’s body after it had already been embalmed but before it was entombed.

He said he believes he has enough material for an examination despite the embalming and hopes to issue a cause of death by the end of the month.

“The most likely cause of death is death due to natural causes,” the coroner said. “Those illnesses were very well-documented by his private physician.”