Cardinal Dulles was born in New York, the son of John Foster Dulles and served as Secretary of State under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Dulles family had a long-standing Presbyterian background. While studying history at Harvard, Cardinal Dulles studied his way into the Catholic Church. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1946 and was ordained a priest in 1956. He was created a Cardinal, in 2001, by St. John Paul II. Cardinal Dulles went to his eternal reward on December 12, 2008.