James Knox - Cardinal

Cardinal

On 5 March 1973 Paul VI named Knox Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Vallicella. In early 1974, Knox was appointed Prefect of both the Congregations for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and took up his appointment in March of that year in Rome. On 1 July 1974 his resignation of the pastoral episcopacy of Melbourne was accepted. By 1975 Knox had merged both congregations. He was appointed in 1973 as President of the Permanent Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. In 1978, he took part in the August and October conclaves which elected both John Paul I and John Paul II respectively. In 1981 John Paul II appointed Knox as the inaugural President of the reconstituted Pontifical Council for the Family, replacing the Pontifical Committee for the Family.

In 1982 his health declined and in May 1983 he became seriously ill with a circulatory problem. He died, aged 69, on 26 June that year in Rome and was buried in the crypt of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. A 1974 portrait of Knox by Melbourne artist Paul Fitzgerald is held by the cathedral.