Later Life
Somewhat frail in recent years, Cardinal Baum has suffered from deteriorating eyesight. His resignation as Penitentiary was accepted the day after his 75th birthday in 2001, but he has remained active in Rome to the extent that his health permits, and attended the meeting of American cardinals called to deal with the sex abuse scandal in 2003.
With the election of Ratzinger as pope on April 19, 2005, followed by the death of Cardinal Jaime Sin on June 21, 2005, Baum became the last cardinal elevated by Pope Paul VI to maintain voting rights in a papal conclave. Since Baum reached the age of 80 on November 21, 2006, all cardinals who may vote in a conclave have been elevated by Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI.
On March 8, 2011, Baum surpassed James Gibbons of Baltimore to become the longest-serving American cardinal of all time.
Read more about this topic: William Wakefield Baum
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“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
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