TORONTO - As archbishop of Toronto for 16 years, Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic oversaw the transformation of Canada's largest diocese into a multicultural, multi-racial home to 1.6 million Catholics. But while acknowledging the challenges implicit in change, Cardinal Ambrozic once said his main challenge was simply to be true to the Catholic Church.

That is how the cardinal is being remembered today, as a man unwavering in his beliefs and unfailingly true to the Church he served with faith, grace and distinction through 56 years of priesthood.

After a lengthy illness Cardinal Ambrozic died peacefully at Providence Healthcare Toronto on Aug. 26 shortly after receiving the sacramental anointing from Archbishop Thomas Collins, the cardinal's successor as archbishop. The cardinal was 81.

The body of Cardinal Ambrozic will arrive at St. Michael's Cathedral on Tuesday, August 30 at 1:30 p.m. At that time the Rite of Reception will be held.

His Eminence will lie in state for visitation at the cathedral Tuesday afternoon from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. with the Office for the Dead being celebrated at 8:30p.m. All Tuesday events are open to the public.

The funeral Mass for Cardinal Ambrozic be held on Wednesday, August 31 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Michael's Cathedral. Due to renovations currently underway at the cathedral and expected articipation by up to 500 priests, family, friends, etc. There will be extremely limited public seating available.

In lieu of flowers, those who wish to pay tribute to the Cardinal are invited to donate to one of His Eminence's favourite charities, the Shepherds' Trust.

"Cardinal Ambrozic's tremendous contributions to the spiritual life of the faithful of our archdiocese and the heritage of his wisdom, his knowledge and his love of the priesthood will remain with us all," Collins said in a statement.

Collins praised Cardinal Ambrozic as a dedicated priest and brilliant scriptural scholar. He called him "a man who loved to learn, to teach and to spread the Gospel message in so many ways."

"Cardinal Ambrozic was a spiritual shepherd who cared deeply for all who were entrusted to his pastoral care, and we commend him in our prayers to our heavenly Father," Collins said.

Cardinal Ambrozic served as archbishop of Toronto from March 1990 until his retirement was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI and he stepped down in December 2006. He was named in 1976 by Pope Paul VI as auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Philip Pocock. His initial role included overseeing the expanding ethnic communities in the archdiocese. He was also a fervent advocate of Catholic education and had a particular interest in St. Augustine's Seminary, where he taught Scripture for several years and served as Dean of Studies from 1971 until his appointment as bishop.

On May 22, 1986, he was appointed coadjutor archbishop, meaning he had been selected to succeed Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter on his retirement. On March 17, 1990, he was made archbishop. In 2002, Pope John Paul paid the cardinal a visit in Toronto, along with hundreds of thousands of young people who attended the World Youth Day in July of that year.

During Cardinal Ambrozic’s time, the face of the Church in Toronto changed dramatically. Fuelled by a flood of immigrants from countries around the world, it grew from a Catholic population of 1.1 million in 1986, when he was coadjutor archbishop, to more than 1.8 million today. To respond to the rising demand for spiritual nourishment and religious services, he oversaw the construction of 25 new churches, most in the rapidly expanding suburbs around the city.

During his time as bishop and archbishop, lay movements and groups, many ethnically based, flourished and some of the ethnic (often called national) parishes became some of the most lively parishes in the diocese.

Cardinal Ambrozic was a private person who had a reserved personality that the secular media sometimes interpreted as aloofness. He was a fierce defender of the faith and was unafraid to combat cultural trends that threatened the underpinnings of family and Church. His views were often fiercely criticized in the media, which painted him as unwilling to yield to change. But in his position as one of Canada’s leading authority figures in the Church, he was unyielding in professing the truth of the Church and was undaunted by his critics.

He once attributed his durability to “simple natural stubbornness,” a clear sense of his own identity, daily prayer and “wonderful friendships with priests."

The priestly life that placed Cardinal Ambrozic at the top of Canada’s largest Catholic diocese began in a small, rural Eastern European settlement at a time when the Great Depression was ravaging most of the world.

He was born on Jan. 27, 1930 to Aloysius, Sr. and his wife, Helen, near Gaberje, Slovenia. The elder Ambrozic was a small farmer and grocer, an independent and outspoken man who took his religion as seriously as everyone did in those days in what was then Yugoslavia.

More than piety, however, Cardinal Ambrozic was shaped by his father’s sense of leadership, one that stemmed from the man’s abiding faith. He was the second of seven children, the eldest of five boys. As such, he felt an obligation to help the family survive in the leaner times in Slovenia that followed the Second World War.

The war brought strife, violence and destruction. It was a time of terror that made its mark on the future cardinal. His father, being an opinionated Christian Democrat, was hated by both the Communists and the fascist collaborators of Nazi Germany. Once the Nazis were defeated, the Communists won the peace in Yugoslavia, violently and systematically cleansing the country of all those who didn’t fit their plans.

In May 1945, the entire Ambrozic family fled to Austria. For the next three years, life was a series of displaced persons camps in Vetrinj, Peggez and Spittal an der Drau. Somehow the young man completed his high school education.

Canada beckoned, however, thanks to an uncle who was a Franciscan priest, a friendly bishop in Toronto and some Carmelite nuns. The sisters were asked to sponsor the Ambrozic family and readily accepted. On arrival in Canada, the elder Ambrozic got a caretaker job with a summer camp and the family moved to the spot near Markham, Ont.

Young Ambrozic, as the oldest son, fully expected his help would be needed to support the family. But it wasn’t necessary, so he began to consider his future. At the back of his mind was the priesthood.

“Certainly it wasn’t any kind of divine revelation. You go to the seminary because you want to try it out,” he once said.

Though he originally saw himself as a scholarly priest, parish life began to grow on him. But he was called back to Toronto to teach Latin at St. Augustine’s. The official language of the Church is only one of four ancient languages he could speak.

Then studies called. He was off to Rome for postgraduate work at the Angelicum, where he received a licentiate in theology, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where he obtained a licentiate in sacred Scripture.

While in Rome, he lived at the College Capranica, whose origins go back to the 15th century, the first residence for diocesan priests studying at Rome’s various universities.

Life in the birthplace of Europe in the 1950s was wonderful. When he wasn’t studying, there was a cozy coffee shop around the corner that “served the best coffee in Rome.” Then all around him was inspiration in the form of ancient churches and the ruins of the Roman Empire.

When his studies ended, Fr. Ambrozic returned to Toronto to teach Scripture at St. Augustine’s from 1960 to 1967. He would later teach New Testament from 1970 to 1976 at the Toronto School of Theology, which combines the religion faculties of numerous institutions, including St. Augustine’s. Besides teaching, he found time for academic writing, publishing The Hidden Kingdom: A Redaction-Critical Study of the References to the Kingdom of God in Mark’s Gospel (Washington, D.C., 1972) and Remarks on the Canadian Catechism (Toronto, 1974), along with other academic articles.

In May 1976, Pope Paul VI called and Fr. Ambrozic became Bishop Ambrozic, auxiliary to Archbishop Pocock. Though it was an unexpected honour, he took to his new job dutifully and energetically. In 1984-85, he made pastoral visits to all 43 Catholic high schools in the archdiocese to strengthen and support religious education. He was also a member of the Christian Education Commission of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and helped revise the Canadian catechism.

Shortly after he was made archbishop of Toronto on March 17, 1990, he was one of four bishops chosen to represent Canada at the 1990 Synod on the Formation of Priests in Rome. More appointments quickly followed, including in 2005 when he was appointed to an advisory body on the financial matters of the Holy See.

Cardinal Ambrozic once said that, throughout his career, he never doubted that he answered the right call. “I went into it with a very clear idea of what I was into,” he once said. “I never felt I made a mistake.”

The Cardinal’s legacy is commemorated in several places throughout the GTA, including Cardinal Ambrozic Catholic Secondary School in Brampton as well as the Cardinal Ambrozic Houses of Providence, the long-term care facility in Scarborough, where the cardinal spent his final months.

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