Shirley Jean Radcliffe Dolan, 93, ‘Dear Mom’ of Cardinal Dolan

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Shirley Jean Radcliffe Dolan, the mother of Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and the matriarch of the Dolan family, “went home to the Lord” March 12, Cardinal Dolan said. Mrs. Dolan was 93.

The cardinal delivered the news of the death of his “dear mom” in a Flocknote message yesterday afternoon “to my spiritual family here” in the Archdiocese of New York. 

The cardinal said he and his family, including Mrs. Dolan’s five children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and her sister, Lois, “thank God for the gift she was, and for her long life…”

The cardinal said he planned to return home to St. Louis, Mo., after this morning’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to be with his family and to prepare his mother’s Funeral Mass in the parish where Mrs. Dolan and his “dad,” her late husband, Robert, were raised.

Cardinal Dolan said he would offer a Memorial Mass for his mother at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the feast of St. Joseph, Saturday, March 19, at 10 a.m. He said he “would be pleased to greet many of you following that Mass.”

“Your own prayers—of gratitude for her life, that her trust in life eternal is now satisfied, and for consolation among her family, would be appreciated,” the cardinal wrote.