LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA — His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida will receive an honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from Saint Vincent Seminary at the Seminary’s Alumni Day Mass at 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 1 at the Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica.
Cardinal Maida, the Archbishop of Detroit, is a native of East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He completed high school at Saint Mary’s Prep, Orchard Lake, Michigan, in 1948. He attended Saint Mary’s College in Orchard Lake for two years before transferring to Saint Vincent College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1952. In 1956, Cardinal Maida received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland.
Cardinal Maida was ordained a priest on May 26, 1956, by Bishop John Francis Dearden of Pittsburgh. Four years later, he received a Licentiate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, and in 1964 he was awarded a Doctorate in Civil Law from the Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh. He was admitted to practice law before the Bar of Pennsylvania and the United States Supreme Court.
Following his ordination, Cardinal Maida served in the Pittsburgh Diocese, as an associate pastor, Vice Chancellor and General Counsel.
On November 7, 1983, Cardinal Maida was appointed the ninth Bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and was ordained bishop on January 25, 1984. He was installed as Archbishop of Detroit on June 12, 1990, and elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II on November 26, 1994 at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Cardinal Maida has served as chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Canonical Affairs Committee; chairman of the Michigan Catholic Conference Board of Trustees; Episcopal Moderator and President of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Foundation; U.S. Consultor, Congregation of the Clergy at the Vatican; and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legal Texts at the Vatican. He has served as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education; United States Catholic Conference Ex Corde Ecclesiae Committee; of the Catholic University of America Board of Trustees; Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Board of Trustees; the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and the Education Center; and the Pope John Paul II Cultural Foundation in Rome.
As Archbishop of Detroit, Cardinal Maida has been instrumental in the founding of the Cornerstone Schools, which aim to build a model of excellence in urban education by providing centers of hope to the children of Detroit through a partnership of families, schools and community. In 1988, during a meeting with the Holy Father, the then Bishop Maida proposed the building of a Catholic Center that would help people address the challenges of faith and help inspire people in their faith. The concept developed into a cultural center inspired by the sentiment of the Holy Father that it must not focus on the Pope but on the message of faith, not only of this Pope, but also of his predecessors. In 2000 the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., was dedicated and officially opened. Cardinal Maida serves as President of the Executive Committee of the Center. As Archbishop of Detroit, he has also been involved with the creation of the Religious Leaders Forum, Partners in Service, Saint John Center for Youth and Family, Project Life, an archdiocesan endowment, and Jubilee 2000. Among his appointments at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Maida is a member of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
