ALBANY, N.Y. - Sr. Mary Rose McGeady, who took over Covenant House for homeless youth after its founder was accused of financial and sexual improprieties, died of respiratory failure in Albany Sept. 13. She was 84.

Arrangements for her funeral Mass in Albany and a memorial service in New York City were incomplete.

A member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, Sr. McGeady served as president of Covenant House from 1990 until her retirement in 2003, doubling the number of homeless young people served by the international network annually.

Covenant House was at its lowest point when she took over because of accusations against its founder, Franciscan Father Bruce Ritter, who later left the Franciscan order and died in 1999.

"Fr. Ritter had done a wonderful job of creating Covenant House, and then he was disgraced," she said in a 2004 interview with The Evangelist, Albany diocesan newspaper. "But the place was still there. (The work) he had started still needed to be done. I looked upon myself as a healer. I said, 'God, if you want this place to go on, you do it.' ”

Then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said when she was appointed, "We confidently predict that not many years from now, we will all look back at the moment of Covenant House's greatest pain and see that it was also a moment of birth of a new, stronger, even more effective instrument of goodness. I believe this will happen because of their superb new leader, Sr. Mary Rose McGeady."

Kevin Ryan, the current head of Covenant House, who was among those present at her bedside when she died, called Sr. McGeady "the Mother Teresa of street children" and "a holy tornado of determination and compassion."

"She had a huge soft spot for kids, but she was no one's fool," Ryan said. "Come hell or high water, she was determined to clean up Covenant House. From ashes, really, she pulled Covenant House forward and saved hundreds of thousands of kids."

During her tenure, Covenant House expanded its reach dramatically, with new crisis shelters, street outreach and long-term residential programs for homeless youth in Canada — it operates in Toronto and Vancouver — the United States and Nicaragua. Covenant House now reaches more than 57,000 children and youth in six countries each year.

Born June 28, 1928, in Hazelton, Pa., Sr. McGeady worked with children for more than 40 years before joining Covenant House.

Among the posts she held were executive director of the Nazareth Child Care Centre for Homeless Children in Boston, executive director of the Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and associate director of Catholic Charities for the diocese of Brooklyn.

She said in the 2004 interview that transitions were never easy for her.

"I would get word that I was transferred, and I cried my eyes out," she said. "I thought this was terrible. And yet, every time I was transferred, I would move into a new position where I learned more about what I was supposed to do and be."

Sr. McGeady said one of the "great blessings God has given me on this Earth" was watching children "survive, prosper and grow."

"There is no greater joy than to see a kid come in homeless, cold, hungry, dirty and then that same kid a few weeks later — cleaned up, smiling and hopeful," she said. "I believe that is what Covenant House is all about ... one child and one miracle at a time."

Ryan said Sr. McGeady "lived and died every day with the successes and failures of our kids ... and she saw God in the tired faces of the kids who walked through the open doors of Covenant House."

She is survived by her sister Catherine Pendleton and eight nephews.

VATICAN CITY - Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a renowned biblical scholar and former archbishop of Milan, died Aug. 31 at the age of 85 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.

In a telegram to Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, Pope Benedict praised Cardinal Martini's generous service to the Gospel and the Church and his "intense apostolic work" as a Jesuit, a professor and "authoritative biblicist." As archbishop of Milan, the Pope said, Cardinal Martini helped open for the Church community "the treasures of the sacred Scriptures." The Pope prayed that God would welcome the cardinal into "the heavenly Jerusalem."

The cardinal was a prolific author whose books were best-sellers in Italy and included everything from scholarly biblical exegesis to poetry and prayer guides.

He retired as archbishop of Milan in 2002, where he was known as a strong pastor and administrator, and as a very careful, thoughtful advocate of wider discussion and dialogue on some delicate and controversial Church positions. At various times, he expressed openness to the possibility of allowing married Latin-rite priests under certain circumstances, ordaining women as deacons and allowing Communion for some divorced Catholics in subsequent marriages not approved by the Church.

During a special Synod of Bishops for Europe in 1999, he made waves when he proposed a new Church-wide council or assembly to unravel "doctrinal and disciplinary knots" such as the shortage of priests, the role of women, the role of laity and the discipline of marriage. His carefully worded remarks reflected his belief that the Church would benefit from a wider exercise of collegiality, or the shared responsibility of bishops for the governance of the Church. The idea of a new council was not taken up formally by the synod.

Following his retirement, his interests focused on biblical studies, Catholic-Jewish dialogue and praying for peace in the Middle East.

Even in retirement, the cardinal kept up with issues of importance in the life of the Church. He was sought after for interviews and frequently published opinion pieces in Italian newspapers. After Pope Benedict eased restrictions on the celebration of the pre-Vatican II liturgy in 2007, Cardinal Martini wrote a newspaper column explaining why, even though he loved the Latin language and could even preach in Latin, he would not celebrate the old Mass. He said he admired Pope Benedict "benevolence" in allowing Catholics "to praise God with ancient and new forms" by permitting wider use of the 1962 form of the Mass, but his experience as a bishop had convinced him of the importance of a common liturgical prayer to express Catholics' unity of belief.

The cardinal also said the reformed liturgy that came out of the Second Vatican Council marked "a real step forward" in nourishing Catholics "with the word of God, offered in a much more abundant way than before," with a much larger selection of Scripture readings.

In a 2008 book-length interview titled Nighttime Conversations in Jerusalem, Cardinal Martini said Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), which taught that artificial birth control was morally wrong, led many Catholics to distance themselves from the Church and from listening to and being challenged by the Catholic vision of human sexuality. While not specifically addressing the morality of contraception, the cardinal said the Church needed to take a more pastoral approach to questions of sexuality.

"The Church should always treat questions of sexuality and the family in such a way that a leading and decisive role is up to the responsibility of the person who loves," he said.

Born in Orbassano, near Turin, Italy, Feb. 15, 1927, Carlo Maria Martini entered the Society of Jesus in 1944, was ordained a priest July 13, 1952, and took his final vows as a Jesuit in 1962.

The cardinal, a biblical scholar, never held a parish post. With doctorates in theology and biblical studies, he was a seminary professor in Chieri, Italy, 1958-1961; professor and later rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, 1969-1978; and rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University from July 1978 until his December 1979 appointment to Milan.

After his retirement in 2002, he moved to Jerusalem and purchased a burial plot there but returned to Milan after his health worsened in 2008. He died in a Jesuit retirement home near Milan, surrounded by his Jesuit confreres and members of his family.

When he was named archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Martini was the first Jesuit in 35 years to head an Italian archdiocese. Pope John Paul II ordained him an archbishop Jan. 6, 1980, in St. Peter's Basilica and named him a cardinal in 1983.

Cardinal Martini's death leaves the College of Cardinals with 206 members, 118 of whom are under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.