Edmund Casimir Szoka was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was President Emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and President Emeritus of the Governatorate of Vatican City State, having previously served as Bishop of Gaylord from 1971 to 1981 and Archbishop of Detroit from 1981 to 1990. Szoka was elevated to the cardinalate in 1988. Edmund Casimir Szoka was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Casimir and Mary Szoka, Polish immigrants. He has an older sister, Irene, and moved with his family in the early 1930s to Muskegon, where he did his primary studies at St. Michael School. Attracted to life as a priest at an early age, Szoka attended St. Joseph's Seminary in Grand Rapids, Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit for his junior and senior years, and then St. John's Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan to study theology. [More at Wikipedia]

September 14th, 1927 in Grand Rapids  /  Died:   Aug 20th, 2014