Joseph Louis Bernardin was an American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cincinnati from 1972 until 1982, and as Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996 from pancreatic cancer. Bernardin was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983 by Pope John Paul II.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or archdiocese, of the Roman Catholic Church that covers many dioceses throughout the State of Ohio in the United States.