US cardinal embroiled in sex scandal dies Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who was accused of aiding a cover-up while heading the Philadelphia archdiocese during a child sex scandal, has died, a spokeswoman said Wednesday. "The cardinal died last night at the seminary in Wynnewood," a spokeswoman for the 1.5-million strong archdiocese said, referring to a suburb of Philadelphia. Bevilacqua was 88. The cardinal, who had retired in 2003, was a prominent campaigner against the death penalty and abortion and presided over a difficult era of steadily falling numbers of parishioners and shrinking finances. From 2002 the archdiocese was caught in a horrific clerical sex abuse scandal and Bevilacqua, although not charged, was accused of having failed utterly to confront the problem. A September 2005 report from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, based on a grand jury investigation, said Bevilacqua had allowed priests involved in abuse to avoid justice. In many cases they were moved to other parishes where their reputation was not known, the report found. The Vatican made no mention of the controversy Wednesday. In a letter of condolence sent to Bevilacqua's successor, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Pope Benedict XVI praised the late cardinal's "long-standing commitment to social justice and the pastoral care of immigrants, and his expert contribution to the revision of the church's law."