| abstract
| - John Cody was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Thomas Joseph and Mary (née Begley) Cody. His father was an Irish immigrant who became deputy chief of the St Louis Fire Department. After attending Holy Rosary Parochial School, he entered St. Louis Preparatory Seminary at age 13. He remained at St. Louis until 1926, when he was sent to continue his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree (1928) and a Doctor of Sacred Theology (1932) from the College of the Propaganda. Cody was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani on December 8, 1931. He remained in Rome for the next six years as a staff member of the North American College and an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State. In 1938, he earned a Doctor of Canon Law from the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare, and was awarded the Benemerenti medal for his services to the Secretariat of State. Upon his return to the United States, Cody served as private secretary to Archbishop John J. Glennon until 1940, when he became chancellor of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. He was named a Privy Chamberlain in 1939 and a Domestic Prelate in 1946. He accompanied Archbishop Glennon to Rome when the latter was named a cardinal, and was on hand when Glennon died on the return trip. On May 10, 1947, Cody was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis and Titular Bishop of Apollonia by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following July 2 from Archbishop Joseph Ritter, with Bishops George Joseph Donnelly and Vincent Stanislaus Waters serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of St. Louis. He was appointed Coadjutor to the Bishop of Saint Joseph, Missouri on January 27, 1954. He was appointed Bishop of Kansas City-Saint Joseph, Missouri on August 29, 1956 and installed October 11, 1956. In 1961, he was transferred to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was appointed Coadjutor to the Archbishop on August 14, 1961, appointed Apostolic Administrator on June 1, 1962 and acceded to the See of New Orleans on November 8, 1964. He became an object of national attention as archbishop, due to his predecessor's efforts to desegregate the Catholic schools in his jurisdiction. Cody was appointed Archbishop of Chicago, on June 16, 1965 and installed August 24, 1965. He was elevated to Cardinal on June 26, 1967. Cody's time in Chicago was marked by strife and controversy, including federal investigations of financial improprieties and an ambiguous relationship with Mrs. Helen Dolan Wilson, who was alleged to be his mistress. Mrs. Wilson, who "followed (Cody's) every move about the diocese" for a period of some 25 years, was alleged to have received large sums of money diverted by Cardinal Cody, some of which purchased her a "house in Boca Raton...a luxury car, expensive clothes and furs, and holiday cash presents." Despite the fact that approximately one million dollars of church funds went missing under Cody's tenure, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops lost more than four million dollars in a single year while Cody was treasurer of that organization, all investigations were suspended upon Cody's death. Roy Larsen, the Religion Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Legally, the investigations by the paper and the federal prosecutors ended inconclusively. In that sense, the legal tactics followed by Cody and his lawyers—chiefly a strategy of delays and stalling—succeeded in preventing any indictments. Eight months before the first story was published, the U.S. Attorney’s office issued subpoenas to Cody and the archdiocese, but the information that was sought was never turned over to the government. Even after the series was published, the stonewalling continued. A new U.S. Attorney, Dan Webb, had taken over the government’s investigation and issued new subpoenas, but Frank McGarr, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, did nothing to move the case along. Finally, the Cardinal’s health became an issue. On April 25, 1982, he died. In July 1982, Webb terminated the investigation, stating: “Once the cardinal passed on, the investigation as to the allegations against the cardinal became moot.”" Cody found his traditional view of episcopal authority often in conflict with a number of priests of his diocese. He was opposed to some of the decisions of Apostolic Delegate Jean Jadot and led a protest campaign against what he felt was excessive progressivism and radicalism on the part of the delegate. The opposition waned as the Cardinal's health declined in the early 1980s, when he was succeeded in the summer of 1982 by Joseph Bernardin at the time of his death. Andrew Greeley's book The Cardinal Sins is based on the affairs.
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