John Wright (cardinal)

In 1998, Wright's namesake was given to Cardinal Wright Elementary School, a Catholic elementary school formed through the merger of St. Aloysious School in Reserve Township, Most Holy Name of Jesus School in Troy Hill, and St. Peter School in the Central North Side. The school was in existence until its closure in 2011, when it was merged with Northside Catholic School.

Wright did not participate in the August 1978 conclave because he was recovering from surgery, but he was one of the cardinal electors in the conclave of the following October, which selected Pope John Paul II.

Pope Paul VI appointed Wright as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and thus the highest-ranking American in the Roman Curia, on April 23, 1969.

He was created Cardinal Priest of Gesù Divin Maestro alla Pineta Sacchetti by Pope Paul in the consistory of April 28, 1969. Wright was one of the four cardinals who travelled to Auschwitz in 1972 for a memorial of Maximilian Kolbe; besides John Krol, he was the only other American cardinal to visit Poland.

Wright became the eighth Bishop of Pittsburgh on January 23, 1959, and then attended the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), during which he was a decisive force behind several of its documents. Following the Council's advancements in ecumenism, he believed that an "immediate unity in good works and charity" would arise between Catholics and Protestants. In 1961, Wright opened the Bishop's Latin School as the pre-seminary high school of the diocese. It operated through 1973.

On May 10, 1947, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Boston and Titular Bishop of Aegeae. Wright received his episcopal consecration on the following June 30 from Archbishop Cushing, with Bishops Ralph Hayes and James Connelly serving as co-consecrators, in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Wright was later named the first Bishop of Worcester on January 28, 1950. In this position, he criticized both Utopians and doom-sayers, and said that an exemplary Christian "[recognizes] the vast errors of which human nature is capable... but [knows] that grace is stronger than sin". A member of the Mariological Society of America, he hosted at Worcester the group's 1950 convention

After his ordination he did graduate work at the Gregorian, earning his Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1936 and his Doctorate of Sacred Theology in 1939. Wright taught philosophy and theology at his alma mater of St. John's Seminary until 1943, when he was appointed private secretary to the Cardinal William Henry O'Connell of Boston. Wright continued in this position under O'Connell's successor, future Cardinal Richard Cushing, and was raised to the rank of Monsignor on December 17, 1944.

Wright graduated from Boston College in 1931, and then entered St. John's Seminary in Brighton. At the end of his first year at St. John's, he was sent to Rome to study at the Pontifical North American College and the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani on December 8, 1935, in the chapel of the North American College.

John Joseph Wright (July 18, 1909 – August 10, 1979) was an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1969 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1969.